Good Grief (29 page)
“Uh,” she stammers, “he’s not here right now.” She thrusts the receiver at me.
“Hello?” I cradle the phone between my shoulder and ear as I open the mail.
“I’m trying to locate a Mr. Ethan Stanton?” a man says. Telemarketers. Rude slime.
“He died.” I drop the envelopes. “A
year
ago. Who’s calling, please?”
There’s a scratchy silence at the other end.
“I’m sorry,” the man says tentatively.
“He died,” I repeat, pressing guilt.
“Are you sure?” the man shouts over wind that rumbles into the receiver, and I realize he must be outdoors.
“Of course I’m sure. I’m his widow. Who
is
this, please?”
“
Who
died?” Marion asks.
“I’ve found some of his belongings.” The man’s hoarse voice struggles through the crackly connection. “Coats? On I-5 at a rest stop. I pulled off to use the rest room and when I got back to the parking lot a suitcase was dumped beside my car. I thought someone might have stolen Mr. Stanton’s belongings, or that something might have happened to him. A tag in one of the coats had his name on it. I got your number from information. There was another Stanton, but they weren’t home.”
The Marlboro Man coat. I tried to cut out the tag with Ethan’s name, but Marion had sewn it deep into the silk lining years ago when we were at her house for dinner.
“You don’t want someone stealing this beautiful coat,” she fretted, dragging her needle and thread through the slick lining. I was annoyed with Ethan for letting his mother be so meddlesome, treating him as though he were a kid headed for camp. But her bossy behavior never fazed him.
“There are several boxes, too,” the man shouts. “They’ve been opened and clothes are everywhere. I’m sorry, I have to get going to make it to Spokane to see my son.”
Someone must have stolen the boxes, decided they weren’t worth anything, and dumped the contents. Suddenly I’m offended by these low-life thieves. Why did they dump the coats? What were they expecting from the Goodwill parking lot? That was a $300 suede coat!
“You go on,” I tell the man. “I’ll be there soon. Thank you,” I add. I can’t imagine that very many people would have bothered to call.
“Exit forty-seven,” he says before I hear the ghostly hum of the dial tone.
I drop Marion off at Ruth’s house for dinner, borrow her truck again, and pick up Crystal en route to the rest stop. As Crystal braces an arm against the dashboard, I realize I’m driving eighty-five on the freeway.
“Sorry.” But if I drive fast enough, maybe I can undo the terrible mistake of abandoning Ethan’s possessions.
DUMPING
,
the Goodwill sign said.
ILLEGAL
.
There are a few hours of daylight left, but a storm is brewing, grayish green mashed-potato clouds roiling along the horizon.
“There.” Crystal points to the sign for the exit, which I’m about to pass.
I don’t think we can make it, but I swerve off the road anyway. We jerk across two double white lines, lurch over the curb onto a median strip, and squeal through the grass, gravel and mud shooting up behind the truck.
“Shit!” Crystal shouts. “They’re only clothes!”
A rock pops loudly under the truck, as though it’s ruptured something.
Don’t worry, I’ll fix it,
I’ll tell Ruth.
I’ll fix everything.
We bump over the curb onto the other side of the median strip and speed into the rest stop parking lot. Clothes,
Ethan’s
clothes, are strewn everywhere—the only streaks of color in an otherwise gray landscape. I stomp on the brake. Crystal lurches forward. The engine stalls and stutters.
A sudden gust of wind makes the trees twist and strain toward the heavens. Ethan’s Christmas necktie spirals in the air like a red streamer. The arm of his navy windbreaker flaps over the top of a box, waving at us.
Across the lawn there’s a low, sand-colored building as bleak as a prison with a row of vending machines out front. I shove open the truck door, but the wind is stubborn, slamming the door shut against my calf. Pain sears my leg.
We finally push our way out of the truck, bending our heads into the wind. Something bangs loudly inside the rest stop building. Crystal jumps and grabs my arm.
“This place is creepy,” she says.
It’s odd how many things don’t frighten her—blowing up M-80s, starting fires, cutting herself—while other scenarios freak her out.
“We’ll be out of here soon,” I tell her. “Let’s just gather the clothes.”
Children’s screams from a nearby field curl through the wind.
“I don’t think we
can
get rid of these clothes.” Crystal shudders and shoves her hands inside her sleeves, hopping up and down to keep warm. She bends over, plucks a soggy sock out of a puddle, shakes it, and drops it into a box.
A pair of Ethan’s khakis are strewn in the grass beside a metal garbage can that’s chained to a pole. Wind tunnels through the legs of the pants, making them dance a little jig. Maybe a person never really leaves this world. You can pack up their belongings, deliver their clothes to Goodwill, put their letters away in shoeboxes. But they will always inhabit the landscape in some way. If not in a rest stop parking lot, then in the first smell of cut grass in the spring.
I try to refold Ethan’s T-shirts. This proves futile as the wind yanks everything apart. I give up, balling and stuffing the clothes into the boxes. As I turn over the suitcase, I find that it’s been sliced open with a knife. A black nylon wound flaps open, a slash all the way through the soft suede arm of the Marlboro Man coat. I collapse, sitting cross-legged beside the suitcase, and begin to sob, choking on the wind.
Crystal looks up from a box, her face flushed. “What’re ya doing? Let’s get out of here!”
“Buh!” My eyes and nose and mouth gush as though I’ve sprung a leak. A strand of drool hangs from my mouth, but I don’t care. I double over my legs and pound the pavement with my fists, tiny rocks piercing the skin.
“Hey, it’s all right.” Crystal’s thin arms circle my middle, the goose bumps on her skin as rough as a cat’s tongue. She crouches and grunts, trying to lift me. “We’re almost done.” Her breath is warm in my ear.
“Everything’s ruined!”
“Nah,
look.
” She points to Ethan’s ski sweater, which lies folded neatly at the top of a nearby box. She manages to get us both standing, bending her knees into the backs of mine to right me. My arms flop at my sides, and my hair whips and stings my cheeks.
“Okay,” I tell her, tell myself. I concentrate on taking deep breaths, wiping away hair and tears and drool with the sleeve of my corduroy jacket. “Okay.” I want to be strong for Crystal. Strong for Marion and Ruth and Dad. For Ethan. Strong for people I haven’t even met yet, for prospective customers, future grandchildren. Strong for me. Person to contact in case of emergency? Put my name down: Sophie Stanton.
I brush dirt off my jeans. After I open the bakery tomorrow morning, I’ll leave Crystal in charge and deliver the boxes to the Goodwill when they’re actually open.
As Crystal and I wedge the suitcase between the last of the boxes, the rain blows in sheets, soaking our clothes and drumming the car roof.
Soon we’re back on the freeway, windshield wipers squeaking, the cab of the truck smelling like mealy wet cardboard, the whole Oregon sky turning inside out.
It’s still dark as I trudge up East Main Street to work, orange light tingeing the sky, the asphalt glistening black like the still surface of a lake. I’m groggy from lack of sleep. Last night Drew and I slept together for the first time since our breakup. After dinner and a bottle of Chianti at an Italian restaurant, followed by a furtive make-out session in the car outside Colonel Cranson’s, Drew tried to persuade me to stay at his house. I didn’t want to leave Marion home alone, though. “May I come in, then?” he asked, rubbing his arms to keep warm.
“Come in. Meaning sleep
over,
” I said, not as a question, but as a statement.
He looked down, searching for the right words. As he opened his mouth to speak, I leaned across the seat and bit into the soft flesh of his lower lip and tried to tell myself not to worry so much.
Now I anticipate drinking my first cup of coffee at the bakery kitchen table, eager to inhale the rich, roasted steam as the ovens preheat and the sweet-roll dough rises. I walk faster, working out the day in my head: bake sweet rolls, muffins, and scones; serve morning rush of coffee-and-muffin customers; unpack supplies. Fill birthday cake orders, bake cookies, prepare and chill pie dough, balance books, schedule employee interviews.
As I reach the gallery beside my shop, I glance down to step over a puddle. When I look up, a car accident jolt of adrenaline shoots through my body because I think I see
Ethan
standing in front of the bakery. His back is toward me as he bends over the trash can on the corner. The three thick stripes of red, yellow, and navy on his ski sweater stand out like a flag.
My bowels rumble and my legs wobble. I almost kneel on the sidewalk involuntarily.
Ethan plucks a Coke can out of the trash and turns, looking at me. I realize it’s not Ethan, but an elderly gentleman I’ve often seen in town sitting on a bench in front of the post office, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. He’s short and stout, with a long Santa Claus beard that hangs in a V shape over his chest. His belly swells under the sweater, round and hard like a basketball.
When I finally left the sweater at the Goodwill, handed it over to the woman behind the counter as though it were the Holy Grail, she pointed out that winter items aren’t big sellers in August. Yet this gentleman certainly snatched it up in a hurry.
“Good morning,” I say, trying to smile. The man wears too-big khakis slung low around his hips, fastened with a woman’s shiny faux crocodile belt. He shuffles his feet a little on the sidewalk. His sneakers have one white and one yellow shoelace. Ethan’s ski sweater looks rumpled, slept in, one sleeve caked with something brown. The man looks like Colonel Sanders’s black sheep brother. Clearly not a skier. He smiles and cocks his head. I’m surprised at how straight and glossy his teeth are. Dentures, maybe.
“Ma’am.” He brings his hand to his forehead, as though tipping a hat, then pops the soda can into a bulging garbage bag resting at his feet.
I wonder what Ethan would have looked like as an old man. Even when he was sick he never developed wrinkles or a single gray hair. He just lost his vibrancy, as though cancer had rendered him in black and white while the rest of the world remained in color.
“Would you like to come in for coffee?” I pull my keys out of my purse and nod toward the bakery door.
The man cocks his head the other way.
“I own the bakery,” I tell him. Once I get him inside, I’ll ask for the sweater. I’ll offer to pay three times what he paid for it at Goodwill or ask if I can buy him another. Maybe he’d like a coat. A tuxedo. Whatever. I’ll explain there’s been a mistake.
“Don’t mind if I do.” The man claps his hands clean. As he shuffles in behind me, he sets his bag of cans in the doorway, looking back to make sure he can keep an eye on it. I seat him at one of the tables in the front window, start the coffee, and turn on the ovens. Then I slice open a blackberry muffin from yesterday, toast it in the oven, spread it with butter, and pour him a cup of coffee.
While he eats, I pull on a chef’s jacket and apron. I slide the sweet-roll dough out of the refrigerator, throw a moist dish towel over the bowl, and leave it beside the ovens to rise. Sitting next to the man, I cradle a cup of coffee in my hands.
He takes big bites of the muffin, looking up at me shyly. I notice he has the same sour fabric smell as the Goodwill. He’s not as old as I originally thought, maybe only in his early sixties. More weathered than elderly. Deep grooves line his forehead, and red leathery skin hangs from his chin.
“Where do you live?” I ask, and immediately regret the question. Maybe he doesn’t have a home.
“At a boardinghouse,” he says through a mouthful. His nose is purplish and vein riddled, like a plum. “They serve dinner, but not breakfast.” He holds up the muffin. “Delicious.”
“Would you like another?”
“No, thank you. I have to be going.” But he sits back in his chair, relaxing.
I think that’s my sweater,
I could explain.
I donated it to the Goodwill, but it has great sentimental value and I’d like to have it back. May I buy it from you?
Instead of saying anything, I drum my fingers on the table and gulp my coffee, skipping the slow, pleasure-filled sips.
The man rests his bearded chin on his chest, peering down over his belly. He runs a thick finger along the line between the red and yellow stripes. My fingertips flutter as I imagine the sensation of the bristly wool. It always felt good to bunch the sweater in a ball against my stomach as I slept. For some reason, I like to have something against my belly when I sleep. It used to be the curve of Ethan’s spine, his lungs expanding and contracting. After he died, I tried several different pillows. Somehow the lumped-up sweater fit just right.
“You won’t need that in an hour,” I tell the man, nodding at the sweater. “It’s going to be a scorcher.”
The man thrusts back his shoulders and puffs up his chest, modeling. “I rather like the stripes, though, don’t you?”
“Yes.” The red is as lustrous as a fire engine, the yellow as bright as lemons, the navy as rich as midnight. I know it’s a ten-year-old sweater with a tea stain, but I envisioned someone more . . .
appealing
inheriting it from Ethan. Maybe Brad Pitt or Mel Gibson. Why can’t
they
shop at the Goodwill in Ashland?
The man squeezes his chin in one hand and looks up at the ceiling. Ethan always did this when he was thinking. As if there were answers on the ceiling. This is an
Ethan
gesture. I remember a TV news story about a heart transplant patient who insisted that her new heart made her more artistic. Suddenly she could paint watercolors and throw pots. Could Ethan’s sweater carry similar powers? Will the man start writing software code?
Of course not. But if you can donate a heart or kidney, why not a ski sweater? How lame to renege on this small gift of charity. I tighten my grip around my coffee mug, even though it’s empty now.
“My wife was a good baker.” The man picks crumbs from the muffin wrapper. “She made the best pie crust.” He pauses and gazes up at the ceiling again, thinking. “With lard.”
“Did you lose your wife?” At least I’ll see the sweater on occasion, when I run into the man in town.
“Divorced me.” He glances out across the street as the owner of the bookstore unlocks her shop.
“I’m sorry.” The buzzer in the kitchen goes off. I get up to punch down the dough, then return to the table.
“It was my fault.”
I’m not sure what to say. “I’m sorry,” I repeat.
We sit and listen to the ovens tick.
“By the way, my name’s Sophie Stanton,” I finally tell him.
He smiles, tips his head toward me. “Jasper Jenkins.”
“Let me pack you something to go, Jasper.” I get up and fold one of the pink boxes into a square, then line it with waxed paper. I choose a miniature jalapeño cheesecake, ham-and-chive croissant, and two egg brioches. Savory items that seem filling and meal-like. I want to pack the box until it’s bursting, but I worry the food will go stale and that sometimes charity can be overbearing, even condescending.
“You ski?” I ask Jasper, hovering near the sweater as I hand him the box of goodies.
“Never learned how.” He uses his napkin to wipe the crumbs from the table into his cupped palm, then shakes them into his empty coffee cup. “My wife knew how to ski.” Jasper cradles the bakery box in his lap.
“Maybe you could get back together,” I offer. “There’s always hope, as long as someone’s alive.”
“It’s too late. She married someone else.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I feel as though I’ve ruined the guy’s day, interviewing him like a nosy talk show host. “You mustn’t worry too much about the past,” I tell him, knowing this is impossible.
“You ski?,” Jasper asks.
“Not anymore. Want to, though.” Maybe next winter Crystal and I will go skiing. Ruth and Simone could join us. But I’ll wear my own ski sweater.
