Everyday People (5 page)

It wasn't a hard job, and it wasn't dull. There was always someone who needed help, and you were there to help them, to put them in touch with someone they loved, someone they had to talk to. “Please wait for your number,” you said when you found it on-screen, and then waited on the line, silent, while the computer spliced together the ten prerecorded digits. In case they missed it or had a question. It was a strange time then, Sister Marita thought, waiting for them to hang up. Your mind wandered all over the place, and then the line clicked and the dial tone came on, and you went on to the next call. Otherwise the job kept you busy enough so you didn't think about yourself. Not like the bus.

In the morning when she got home, the newspapers in the kitchen were wrinkled and tinted pink.

“What's this?” she asked Nickels.

He peered back at her.

“You feeling all right?”

She took him outside and watched as he went against the street-cleaning sign. His pee was the color of iced tea.

It was blood, the vet said. Internal bleeding. It would be best if they took a look. As soon as possible.

“Right now's fine,” Sister Marita said, not even worrying about what it would cost yet.

“We're a little backed up, I'm afraid.” Dr. Thomas walked them out front and had the receptionist pull a schedule up. “I can give you Friday, and I'll need him overnight tomorrow.”

“Why can't we do it today?”

He had to calm her down, tell her it was probably minor, that this happened with older dogs—and cats. It was probably just an inflammation or infection of the bladder. They just needed to be sure. If she was still worried, he could do an emergency procedure right now, but at this point, in his opinion, it would be better to wait for Friday when they had the full surgical staff there.

“In the meantime what am I supposed to do?”

“Do what you normally do. Keep him comfortable, make sure he doesn't overexert himself.”

“All right,” she said doubtfully, and led Nickels out onto Penn Avenue, where traffic whizzed by, ignoring her. She picked him up to cross the street, and when she reached the other side she didn't set him down again but kept him in her arms. She walked him all the way home like that.

He didn't act sick. The minute she put him down, he scooted into the kitchen, lobbying for a treat. She gave him one and watched him crunch it up and swallow it down. She never knew where he put all that food.

“How you feeling? You feeling all right?”

He just looked at her like he always did. Why did she always expect more from him?

She got to bed late, but there was no choir practice today, and she slept till six, getting up just as night settled outside. It was windy. She took a flashlight from her nightstand to see what color his pee was.

It was hard to tell.

She was reaching for the paper towels to lay some down on top of the newspaper when suddenly her one hand went numb. The whole thing.

“Mercy,” she said, and bent over, squeezing it with her other hand. She opened and closed it, and the feeling slowly drained back. Tingly, like spiders, or when you came inside after being out in the snow and held your hands over the radiator. She should see Dr. Williams. She'd call him tomorrow.

Her and Nickels. “Falling apart, we are.”

She heard Mr. Andre thump upstairs, then his door close, his footsteps moving across the ceiling. Another late night. And then, before she could say good-bye to Nickels, Mr. Andre came rushing down the stairs and out again. Well, a young man, she thought. How unlike Carl he was. But pretty the same way, those big eyes. She was surprised there weren't women hanging around, ringing her doorbell at night by mistake.

She knelt down and held Nickels in her arms. “You be good now. You go on the paper.”

The bus filled up, and Sister Marita wondered what she'd say to Jackie tomorrow. They were practicing for the dedication of the busway next month, a whole program.
Martin Robinson was flying in from Harrisburg. She'd heard so many stories about him and how he grew up on Spofford, right next door to Miss Fisk. She'd always wanted to meet him, just to shake his hand and tell him how proud he made them all feel. It wasn't fair that it was just a busway they were naming after him, everybody knew that.

But what could she say to Jackie? Maybe everything was fine now between them. Still, a false alarm on that account was almost as bad as a real one. With Carl she didn't know when it started, the feeling that something was wrong. She didn't know what exactly, but that feeling was there, and while she knew what it meant, she never told him or anybody. She just let things go along, hoping it wasn't so. But it was.

She was glad for her work; it kept her mind off things. It was only at break that she thought about Nickels in the apartment, probably on the couch, watching the TV she'd left on for him with the sound down.

In the morning the paper towels and the newspapers were completely dry, untouched. She searched through the apartment, inspecting the carpet until, in her bedroom, on the far side of the bed, she found a brown stain the size of a pie.

It was darker than coffee, and when she came back into the kitchen for some paper towels, Nickels slunk away, eyeing her sideways.

“It's all right,” she said. “Just try and hit the paper next time.”

He let her pick him up, and they watched TV, Sister Marita stroking him slowly. His fur was a dirty silver the
color of a nickel; that's how he got his name. Now his muzzle around the rubber nub of his nose was pure white.

“Listen,” she said, during a commercial. “Tonight I'm going to take you to Dr. Thomas's and you're going to stay there, okay?”

He looked up at her, his eyes dark and cloudy. It was always hard to tell just what he understood. “It'll be all right,” she promised him.

She thought of calling Dr. Williams about her hand. She would, as soon as this business was over.

They slept the day away, the alarm startling her. She had to get Nickels down there before Dr. Thomas closed, and she was short-tempered with him, and then, leaving him, regretted it.

“I'll be back tomorrow,” she said, squatting, and she knew it was wrong to just leave him. The doctor's assistant had him on a leash. Watching her go, he strained against it, his claws scrabbling on the hard floor.

Outside she had to stop for a minute on the sidewalk, a hand over her nose as the cars whistled past. I'm sorry, she wanted to say.

And then, getting ready for practice, she thought she was being silly. He'd be fine. If Dr. Thomas said he needed the operation, then he needed it, and that was that. It was stupid to cry.

She remembered the nights as a girl when she cried into her pillow, just then understanding the terrible loss of her parents, though they'd been dead seven, eight years. “You go ahead and cry, baby,” her grandmother said, rubbing her back through her flannel nightie. But that wasn't what Sister
Marita wanted. It was better when no one came and she could cry as much and as hard as she wanted, picturing the faces on her grandmother's mantel alive, riding in the big fifties Buick that would always crash, the police car coming through the intersection too fast, its lights on but not its siren, the two of them dressed for the movies. What were they talking about in that last minute? She wanted her father to laugh, appreciating the wit of her mother. To keep it hers, she waited till everyone was out of the house, and then indulged herself, or, at night, crushed the pillow to her face so it caught her sobs.

At practice she tried not to think of Nickels, letting her eyes wander across the stained-glass windows above the organ loft. She was a soprano with a deep reach, but had trouble hitting some of the higher notes, and for several measures she merely stood there next to Jackie, listening to the solid, perfect wall of voices around her, then, when the melody fell back into her range, joined in again.

Jackie said everything was fine and thanked her for listening the other day. “It's work, I think,” she said. “And the boys. Chris mostly.”

“Eugene seems to be doing fine for himself,” Sister Marita said, because she'd seen him in church and not on the street the way he used to be.

“Yeah, he's going to be fine. It's Chris we're a little worried about right now.”

She seemed sure. She didn't want to talk, didn't need to, and Sister Marita thought that was a bad sign. Things didn't change that fast, especially big things, if she was any judge. Maybe it was her job, or how good a listener Carl had
taught her to be, but she knew how people talked, and at home she didn't hurt for her, not even the littlest twinge.

The apartment was quiet, and she turned on the TV, heated up some chicken from the other night. Taking it from the microwave, wouldn't you know she slopped some sauce on the floor and he wasn't there to clean it up. There was water in his water bowl, his Porky Pig chew toy in the middle of the rug. It was only tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow night he'd be back, all better. She'd do something special for him, and they'd spend the weekend together, maybe go to the park. She wondered if he'd have to rest. Probably.

Cleaning up, she couldn't stop looking at the conch. Why had she kept it so long? It was like her grief over her mother and father, she thought, something she couldn't let go of. She turned off the water and dried her hands and lifted the shell. It was chalky on the outside and smooth within. She held it to her ear, and there was the distant swell of the ocean, a far-off trembling caught and echoed forever inside the spiral, like white noise, even though there was nothing there. It was like Carl that way. She should throw it away, she thought, even as she gently replaced it on the sill.

She was getting dressed for work when she heard Mr. Andre upstairs. He was yelling something, angry. She stopped, one arm half in a sleeve, and cocked her head, waiting for another voice.

“What?” Mr. Andre shouted. “What did you just say to me?”

There was a crash, something heavy falling over, and Sister Marita fitted her wrist through the cuff. She wished Nickels were there.

A door slammed. Thunder on the stairs. He was going out, or maybe it was the person he was arguing with. Maybe they'd fought and the one had knocked the other down, maybe hit him with something.

She hurried to the front door in time to see Mr. Andre walking to his car, a little sporty Japanese thing. He was wearing an undershirt and shorts, rubber beach thongs. He got in and flipped the lights on and peeled out like he was after someone.

“My gracious,” she said, and went back to buttoning. It wasn't like Mr. Andre at all, it was like someone else completely. She was glad she was going to work. She wouldn't have to be here alone, and the time would go quickly.

She had her bag on her shoulder and her key in her hand when she heard someone on the porch. Mr. Andre coming back, she figured. She flattened herself against the wall so he couldn't see her silhouette and peeked out from behind the blind.

It was Harold Tolbert with his cigar. He leaned close to the buzzers and thumbed one, and upstairs Mr. Andre's bell rang. Twice, three times. She waited for him to go away.

Maybe it was something about money. A loan maybe.

Harold opened the stair door and clumped up. She watched his progress as if she could see through the wall, then stood there frozen as he made the landing and rapped on Mr. Andre's door. She couldn't leave, and she waited for
him to come back down, watching the clock above the sink, blaming him in advance for making her late.

And then he came downstairs again and across the porch without a glance in her direction and off down Spofford, not looking back.

“Oh, Jackie,” she said. “Girl, we need to talk.”

On the bus, everything churned in her head. The Thrift Drug was still there in Brushton, boarded up, only holes where the neon had been, a huge mortar and pestle above the door. Had she really asked for that much? A mother, a father, someone to love her. You go ahead and cry, her grandmother said, and she did, but it wasn't the same. Mr. Andre and Harold doing who knows what. Why did he come? He knew she lived there. The only man she had any respect for was Reverend Skinner. Of course her grandfather when he was alive. Carl, yes. Did she really love him? It was too late for all of these questions, she thought. The tingling had gone away, that was a good thing. It could always come back though.

No. She believed in God. She had Nickels, and tomorrow she would bring him home. She had work tonight. Fine.

“Busy?” she asked Serena.

“Not too.”

She sat down and fit the headset on, smelled the menthol on it. She cleared the screen and punched up a caller.

“Oh, thank God,” a woman said, “a real, live person. I've been dealing with nothing but recordings.”

“What is the name of your party, ma'am?”

“Walter Clemmons, or Clements, I'm not sure how you spell it. I only met the man once, on a plane, and he just happened to mention that he lived in Pittsburgh, and I'm not even sure I know what I'm doing calling him. I'm an older woman as you can probably tell, but he seemed so nice and there are so few nice ones out there that I thought, well, you know.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You must think I'm crazy.”

“No, ma'am. You wouldn't have an address for this party?”

“Clemmons,” the woman said. “Walter Clemmons, that's all I have. I've never done anything like this before.”

“Please hold,” Sister Marita said.

She punched the name in. There was a gap while the machine processed it. In the silence she could hear the woman on the other end of the line, breathing, waiting. It seemed a perfect time to speak. But what could she say to her? And would the woman listen? She didn't dare. The procedure was clear, and in all the years she'd worked for the phone company she'd never broken the rules, not once. The name came up on her screen, and an address, a street she knew, a nice place in Shadyside. She listened to the hiss of her headset, waited for the prerecorded voice to kick in.