Read Every Waking Moment Online
Authors: Chris Fabry
Every Waking Moment (10 page)
Streams from Desert Gardens
scene 3
Music up.
Fade in from black to sign of Desert Gardens, Catalina Mountains in background.
Switch to unstable camera shot panning from security guard window through entrance, showing reception area.
Cut to hallway shot.
Cut to dining hall and people seated/talking.
Music swells, then goes under voice-over by Elsie Pratt.
I came here
—what was it? Twenty-five years ago now. It’s the most beautiful place in the country, as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve been a few places. My husband said something about Tucson being a good place to retire, and my first reaction was “It’s too hot. It’s too close to the Mexican border. Too many cowboys. I don’t want to live in the desert.” I had all these excuses.
Still shot of Elsie and Harold wedding photo.
So he let it go and then I saw this brochure on the kitchen table one day. It looked like the most
beautiful place in the world with mountains all around and lemon trees and soaring palm trees.
Cut to Elsie speaking/gesturing.
I said, “Harold, what’s this?” And he said, “It’s a brochure.” And I said, “I know it’s a brochure, but where is this place?” Do you know what? He had put that brochure where I could see it but he didn’t say a word about it because he knew moving to a place like this would have to be my idea. So that’s what he did. He let it be my idea. Just waited for me. Isn’t that something?
Fade to black.
CHAPTER 13
ELSIE PRATT
sat at the empty table, her food untouched, watching the parking lot for Miriam. No one had said anything about Dr. Crenshaw. The workers Elsie questioned shook their heads. If anyone would know, it was Miriam. She cared.
Elsie hadn’t slept well and couldn’t get the memory of the emergency workers wheeling her friend away out of her mind. She couldn’t bear to think of them ending this way.
Perpetually jovial, outgoing, loquacious even, Elsie had fallen into the abyss of silence. She kept the television off in her room, unable to endure the noise and laughter and commercials. She couldn’t even bring herself to turn on the local Christian radio station. At breakfast she stared out the window at birds flitting from branches of a lemon tree, heat radiating from the east-facing window. She took her Bible with her each morning, but today it lay closed before her, next to the cold oatmeal.
When she saw Miriam pull into the parking lot, she hurried, as much as a woman of her age could, to the lobby.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything, Elsie?” one of the workers said as she passed.
Elsie waved the Bible at her. “Not hungry today.”
She waited until Miriam walked inside, followed by Treha in
wrinkled scrubs. Miriam kept moving toward the office. Treha, however, came to Elsie, calm and subdued.
“Have you heard anything of Dr. Crenshaw?” Elsie said.
“I saw him in the hospital. He didn’t respond.”
Elsie looked at her hands, wrinkled and worn, knuckles swollen and fingers pointing in directions they weren’t designed to go. She felt the ravages of age in every inch of her body. “What do the doctors say? Was it a stroke?”
“I heard something about tests. He’s in intensive care.”
Tears came to Elsie’s eyes and she thought they were as much for Treha as Dr. Crenshaw. The girl would be just as affected by his death but would never show it. And then the tears flowed, like a stream leaking through her mind. The waters had backed up with debris and now they came with force over her, an emotional tide.
“He was so taken with you,” Elsie choked.
Treha watched, coaxing her, willing the overflow.
“I didn’t expect it. I think that’s what’s killing me. With others, you know it’s coming. You treasure every moment. Then people get sick and go downhill and don’t make it back from a fall or a long illness. A life deteriorates and comes to a slow end. But it was so fast with Jim. I didn’t get to say good-bye.”
Elsie shook with emotion, and Treha leaned forward and clasped her hands, not too tightly, just enough. A warmth spread through the old woman.
“There are so many changes,” she continued. “And old fogies like me don’t do very well with change.”
“You don’t know what will happen. And you’re not an old fogy. Whatever that means.”
“You know what it means. You probably know the etymology of it.”
Treha stared. She did, Elsie could tell.
“It describes everybody in here,” Elsie said. “Everybody whose life is not their own because they have to depend on others. I can’t make my own breakfast. I can’t have hot coffee because I might burn myself. My food is tepid. The oatmeal is cold. I take medicine that’s given to me to make me go to the bathroom and medicine to stop me from going to the bathroom. I take medicine to regulate my blood pressure and other pills to regulate other medicine.”
“But you are a fighter. You are a survivor.”
“Longevity is not a fruit of the Spirit. I don’t want to survive; I want to live. I want to stop feeling like a baby someone has to care for.” She waved a hand. “How can I make someone so young understand?”
Treha’s eyes shifted and she stepped back.
Elsie looked away. “Listen to me, all wrapped up in myself. That’s where the grief leads you, back to yourself and your problems. There’s a whole lot more suffering out in the world than the temperature of my coffee and oatmeal, isn’t there?”
“I don’t blame you. Tepid coffee is the worst. Maybe you should put ice in it.”
“Would that it would be hot or cold,” Elsie said, chuckling. A bright girl in a dim package. Jim had tried to loosen her with his games and riddles. He had tried to pull her out, to bring her into the open like she was able to do with others. Treha’s gift was to help flowers bloom, to free chained minds. But the girl herself remained closed tight like a desert rose in the winter.
“He always believed you were special,” Elsie said. “When he talked about you, his eyes lit up like Christmas.”
“Dr. Crenshaw?”
She nodded. “He knew a lot about people. How to treat each patient with dignity. You knew he was an ob-gyn?”
“He never talked about his career. At least not with me.”
“He worked with pregnant women. How many babies that man delivered, God only knows. He was a real success. You wouldn’t know that from seeing him here. I’m not saying anything negative about this place
—but I think his family wanted rid of him.”
“I miss his word games.”
Elsie smiled. “He loved to find new ways to challenge you. It challenged him as well. He said you were so fast that it was incredible to watch, the way your mind worked. He said he could see your neural pathway opening up. There was something about you he had never seen. He thought your linguistic power would one day help you conquer the world.”
Treha looked away as Elsie continued.
“He said you could do anything you wanted. You could be more than what you are here. Perhaps a writer. Did you know he thought that about you, Treha?”
“I’m going to miss Mrs. Howard.”
“Yes, today’s her last day, isn’t it?” Elsie said. “But you’re not listening to me. Jim
—Dr. Crenshaw
—he told me that you have great potential. You have the ability to become
—”
“He sent a letter before he became ill.”
“A letter? To you?”
Treha shook her head. “To a Mr. Davidson. He said things about me, I think.”
Elsie leaned forward. “In the letter? What are you talking about, child?”
Before she could answer, there were footsteps on the freshly waxed floor. A
squeak-squeak
of pressed rubber. Elsie looked up,
thinking it might be Miriam, but saw Ms. Millstone staring at Treha as if Elsie didn’t exist.
“I need to see you right away,” the woman said. No emotion, no feeling.
Treha kept her eyes on Elsie as if looking for some kind of permission.
“Come back when you’re finished,” Elsie said. “I want to hear more about that letter.”
“Ms. Langsam, I said I need to see you,” Ms. Millstone said firmly.
The girl nodded. Elsie smiled at her and reached for her hand, but she was gone.
Streams from Desert Gardens
scene 11
Fade in from black to shot of Gaylen Reynolds, aka Hemingway, standing at his writing desk.
Close-up of ceramic cats on the desk, the windowsill, the bed behind him.
Tight shot of his hands as he gestures over the manual typewriter.
People don’t understand. How hard this is. They think anyone can write. Anyone with an idea in their head and a computer. Or a pen. Or that you put your fingers over the typewriter and the music starts and you follow it. That’s the belief, but it’s not like that at all. Writing is work. It’s like digging a trench on a hot day with the sun beating down on you and everything inside screaming to get to the shade and get to a drink of water.
Cut to the books lining the shelves, all copies of Hemingway novels.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days without taking a fish. Do you remember that one? Do you know what it took to get that from the well? To drag that up from the waters?
It’s harder than warfare. In war, a man dies like a dog. With writing, your critics tear you to pieces and treat you less than a dog. It’s insane that anyone would put themselves through such a thing. But if it’s in there, if you truly have something to say, if you truly have a story to tell, you have to keep going, you see? You have to show up each day and do the work you were called to and then stop while there’s still fuel in the tank. I’ve always said that. Never empty the well
—you have to stop when there is still water left to pull.
They won’t let you have the drink here, you know? They said I could keep my cats but not the Scotch, and to be honest with you, I’d rather have the Scotch. Just a glass of wine would loosen things up. Do you think you could sneak something in to me? Just a small bottle, it wouldn’t . . .
Cut to the ceramic cat by the coffee mug.
Mary should have been back by now. She knows how worried I get when she’s gone this long. You never know who’s listening in on your conversations
—the IRS or the FBI or some other government agency that wants more taxes. They’ll bleed you dry.
Close-up of Hemingway typing, showing the nearly blank page in front of him.
The biggest fear of a writer is running dry, you know. Of getting to the point where the words are all jumbled and locked away and you can see them right there, almost hold them in your hand, but you can’t
reach them, can’t get them out, and when you do, they don’t come in the right order.
That’s why I need to get back to Finca Vigía. There are manuscripts waiting for me, in a bank vault. But I’m here. Trapped like a rat. Waiting for the end. Waiting for destruction.
Extreme close-up of Hemingway, just the eyes.
I’ve always believed you can destroy a man but you cannot defeat him. Defeat happens in here, deep within, a place you can’t touch from the outside. God’s little garden, as someone said. The heart . . .
Now if you won’t promise to bring that bottle, you’ll have to excuse me.
Camera moves out of the room, into the hall, and Hemingway closes the door.
CHAPTER 14
TREHA NOTICED
a darkness to Ms. Millstone’s office. It wasn’t just the closed blinds and the dark color the walls had been painted, nor the soft, green glow from the banker’s lamp on the desk. It was the deep-brown carpeting that enveloped her. Her head began the familiar spinning that signaled some reaction, perhaps to the glue used to adhere the carpet or the chemicals used to clean it. She tried to take a deep breath as she entered.
The familiar pictures and artwork she’d come to relate with Mrs. Howard were gone. Empty bookshelves were filled. Treha counted three clocks, all with precisely the same time. She noticed a single sheet of paper on the desk, like a to-do list. A framed motivational print hung across from the desk. It had the word
Excellence
above a quote that made managing the facility seem like a climb up Mt. Everest. The photo showed a snowcapped mountain and climbers. Treha wondered what defined the top of her mountain.
“Close the door, please,” Ms. Millstone said.
Treha obeyed, then sat in the fresh leather of an overstuffed chair and tried to calm her heartbeat and the spinning. Her fingers were typing, moving across the invisible keyboard on her lap.
“Well, this is not going to be easy for either of us, so I might as well get to the point. We’re letting you go.”
It took a moment for Treha to form the words. “Excuse me?”
“Your time at this institution has come to an end, Ms. Langsam. I’d like you to gather your things.”
“I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?”
Ms. Millstone picked up a file. “I don’t want to go through the accusations. I’m simply willing to move ahead.”
“What accusations?”
“In your file there are certain incidents that crop up.”
“What incidents?” Treha said.
The woman took a deep breath and glanced at one of the clocks. “You’re upsetting the residents.”
“The residents love me.”
“Yes, well, there are those who say you may have contributed to Dr. Crenshaw’s stroke.”
Treha sat still, eyes focused on Millstone’s desk, like she was at the Laundromat again.
“Is that a possibility? Did you do something to him? Other residents say he seemed distressed after seeing you the evening before last.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I visited him like I do every evening before I leave.”
“Correct, and others say he was agitated after that. If this got back to the family, that a staff member was upsetting him, they would ask questions.” She adjusted her glasses and opened the file. “If this were the only complaint, I might overlook it, but here’s one from Mr. Reynolds, saying you stole something from his room. From his desk.”
“That’s Hemingway. He filed a report that I stole his manuscript and the carbon copies and that I won’t give them back.”
“That sounds malicious to me.”
“He’s not malicious; he’s mixed up.” Treha ran her hands along the armrests of the leather chair and let her fingers sink deeply. “It’s easier for him to think he is someone else.”
“There are others who feel uncomfortable with you. Coworkers. I am concerned about how much free rein you have.”
“Mrs. Howard said I was a great asset.”
“Well, Mrs. Howard is leaving, isn’t she?” Millstone folded her hands on top of the page. “Ms. Langsam, it’s time for you to spread your wings instead of staying in this cage.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve helped everyone I could.”
“You’re unqualified. If you simply did your job, the janitorial work, I might have a different opinion, but this is not what you do.”
“I talk to them like they are real people. They feel safe with me.”
“Yes. And what about Elsie? Tell me about your conversation just now. What were you speaking about?”
“We were speaking of Dr. Crenshaw. They were close. She is hurting.”
The woman smiled. “We have counseling services available to the residents. You are not qualified.”
Treha’s eyes continued in a wider arc. “I am her friend.”
“Well, I can’t afford to hire
friends
. I need qualified workers.”
“Some of them are talking for the first time in years.”
Millstone closed her eyes. “I’m aware of your ‘gift.’ I’m sure you’ll be able to use it elsewhere.”
Treha looked at the carpet and thought of Mrs. Howard’s words. How she was supposed to make a connection with the woman, if that was possible. She locked eyes with Millstone.
“My bicycle was stolen this morning. This is the only job I have. Please. I’ll do whatever you ask. I won’t speak to anyone.”
The woman’s body grew tense and she leaned forward, elbows on her desk. “Would you please stop that movement? I’m getting dizzy watching you.”
Treha closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing it on purpose.”
“It’s unnerving.” She stood, came around the front of the desk, and leaned back, her feet almost touching Treha’s.
“If this is about money, you could lower my salary.”
“This is not about . . . This is about what’s best for the residents.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
A heavy sigh. “So you’ll stick to cleaning floors? You’ll do the janitorial work without interacting with anyone?”
Treha nodded. “If that’s what it takes to let me stay.” She looked up again, then saw the revulsion in the woman’s face and lowered her eyes.
Millstone crossed her arms. “All right. Here’s how it will work. You’ll be on probation. I’ll give you one more chance. But if I find you talking to the residents or interacting in any way, just one infraction and you’ll be asked to leave. Do you understand?”
Treha nodded and typed
thank you
on the unseen keyboard.
She glanced at
Excellence
as she exited, her head light from the glue and paint. She looked back at Millstone as the woman turned to her to-do list.
Without glancing up, she said, “I’ll be watching you, Treha.”
