Mourning Glory (19 page)

When Grace did not show up the next day either, or the day
after that, he began to speculate on possibilities. Had he insulted her in some
way? He continued to recycle their conversations in his memory, but nothing he
said seemed untoward or offensive.

On the other hand, he was also annoyed. She had made a
commitment to him to dispose of Anne's clothes. A deal was a deal, and he had
turned down other offers. Such thoughts gave his concern another dimension,
anger. At himself, for not sensing her unreliability. At her, for not having
the courtesy to call and give him the status of her situation. She owed him
that.

By the fourth day of her absence he worked up a full head
of steam. She had not kept her word. She had let him down. She had betrayed
him. In his business dealings he would write off anyone who behaved in that
manner. He was especially put out by his own lack of insight into her
personality. A sixth sense was at the heart of his business acumen, his one
great talent. Was he losing it?

He tried to analyze why something about this woman engaged
him. He eschewed any idea of a sexual motive. He hadn't even thought in those
terms, as if such ideas would be a betrayal of Anne's memory. Not that his life
with Anne would have provided anything that could induce a sexual memory. The
fact was, her interest in sex was, to be kind, tepid. Yet never had he blamed
her for his own transgressions.

By the evening of the fourth day he had decided that he had
better call someone else in to dispose of Anne's clothing. But before he could
reach for the phone, he decided that he owed her one last opportunity to
explain herself. Perhaps she was ill, or worse.

It was a simple matter to find her telephone number. She
had told him that she lived in West Palm Beach and that her name was Grace
Sorentino. He dialed. A voice answered that seemed much younger. He assumed it
was Grace's daughter.

"This is Mr. Goodwin," he said. "May I speak
to your mother?"

"I'm sorry," the voice said. "She's not home
from work yet."

"Work?" She hadn't mentioned work to Sam. But
then, he had not asked her directly. Besides, it could mean charity work.

"Is this her daughter?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Would you give her a message that Sam Goodwin
called?"

"Can I tell her what's it's about?" the girl
asked.

"Just tell her it's Mr. Goodwin and to please call me
back."

He hung up, wondering if he should have probed more. In his
business dealings he would have done just that.

When she didn't return his call that evening he was
beginning to feel that he had, indeed, said or done something that had been
offensive to her, but he couldn't remember what that was. When he awoke the
next morning he began to dwell on the idea that he had wronged her in some way.
He felt pummeled by a terrible wave of contrition. He called her number again.
It was a little after eight; too early, but he wanted to be sure to catch her
in.

"Yes?" a sleepy voice said hoarsely.

"Grace?"

He heard a sigh and a long silence.

"Don't hang up please. It's Sam."

Again a long silence.

"Yes, Sam?"

"Did I wake you?"

"Sort of."

"I'm sorry. But I felt obliged to call."

"Obliged?"

"I just wanted to be sure you got my message."

"You left a message?"

"With a woman. I think it was your daughter. She must
have forgotten. Children are like that."

"You can say that again."

There was a moment of silence.

"It's been five days," Sam said hesitantly.
"I was going to call someone else to do the job. Should I? I mean, have
you abandoned it?"

"I guess you might call it that," Grace said
hesitantly.

"Was there something ... something I might have done
or said that...?"

"Oh, no," Grace said hurriedly. She seemed awake
now, more alert to the conversation. "My fault ... really." She
seemed suddenly flustered.

"Your fault?"

"I guess I let you down, Sam," Grace sighed.
"It hadn't been my intention to do that."

"I'm relieved, Grace," Sam said. "It was
really giving me a fit ... the thought that I had inadvertently said
something..."

"I'm sorry that such a thought jumped into your head."

"So am I."

There was a long pause. Finally Sam spoke. "I guess it
was your daughter I spoke with last night. She said you were at work..."

"Oh, yes. I had made this commitment..."

"Are you still ... committed?"

"Actually, no. Not anymore."

She was emphatic, which surprised him. As if she was glad
that this commitment was over.

"Well, then..." Sam said. "There shouldn't
be any reason why you can't come on over and finish the job. I'm ... I'm about
to go on my walk. I can wait if..." For some reason he was stumbling. He
cleared his throat. Now, why did he mention that?

"Well, I..."

"If you decided against it, then that's all right,
too. I'd just like to have the matter settled."

"Yes. I imagine you would."

"Well, then..."

He heard her suck in a deep breath.

"It doesn't have to be today. I just would like to
know something definitive. If you're not going to do it, then perhaps I should
get someone else."

"I ... I don't know what to say."

"Perhaps you can call me back later. Or, if you decide
that you want to start again, then ... just show up when you can. If I'm out on
my walk, Carmen will be there. In any event, call me before the day is out so I
know where I stand. Okay, Grace?"

"Okay, Sam..."

He sensed her hesitation. More like an awkwardness, which
was the way he actually felt.

Then he heard the click of the phone as she hung up. It
left him confused.

At first she thought he had called to tell her that he had
found out about Anne's clothes. She had lived in dread of that phone call. How could
she possibly explain the truth about what had happened? If he discovered the
truth she would not have the courage to face him.

Jackie had, despite her prohibition, given the clothes to
one of those new, upscale secondhand stores in North Miami. Grace had waited
all day for her to return, and when Jackie had finally come back in the
afternoon and admitted the circumstances of the transaction she had gone
through the roof.

She was too ashamed to call Sam. Of course she would have
liked to join him for a swim and a walk on the beach, and to continue the
"project" of disposing of Anne's clothes. Obviously he enjoyed her
company, which had encouraged her. Now this! Instead she spent the day staring
at the door, simmering with anger, waiting for Jackie to return.

She heard a car come to a stop outside their apartment
door. Then she heard the key turn in the lock and Jackie came in, smiling and
excited

"The lady flipped over them," Jackie said, as if
the confrontation of the night before had never taken place.

Grace came closer and slapped her daughter across the face.

"How dare you?" she cried, feeling instant
remorse when she saw the outline of her fingers on her daughter's cheek. But
Jackie stood her ground, unflinching.

"I dare. So what?" Jackie said, rubbing her
cheek. "That hurt, Mom."

"You left me no choice," Grace said, the fires
inside of her banking. She had slapped her daughter before, but usually on the
posterior. This was the first time she had ever slapped her across her face,
and it bothered her.

"Feel better now?" Jackie muttered.

"I feel like shit," Grace said. "Is there no
controlling you? And since when do you take my car without permission?"

"How the hell was I going to move the clothes?"

"You had no right."

"Dead people have no right either."

"I made it perfectly clear what I intended to do with
those clothes. You disobeyed me."

"You should be glad I did," Jackie said.
"They flipped over the clothes. Absolutely flipped."

"You're evading the issue here."

Grace felt totally impotent. Worse, she felt that she had
broken a pact with Sam Goodwin. It had been the only shred of integrity that
she could hang on to. Everything else concerning her strange relationship with
Sam had been a tissue of lies. How could she possibly face him now?

"They wanted to know the source, so I made up some
story about their being yours and because of certain problems you needed cash,
and they paid up immediately."

She held up a pile of twenties and started to count them
out on the Formica counter.

"I don't believe this," Grace said.

"Five hundred dollars," Jackie said. "Mom, I
was right. These clothes are valuable. The lady wanted to know where I could
get more. She said that she could turn this stuff over in a minute. That's why
she paid up in advance. Just as I told you."

Grace felt sick to her stomach.

"How could you do this, Jackie?" she asked.

"How? Easy. And you were going to give them away to
charity. Mom, charity begins at home. We need it here."

She smiled at her mother and kissed her on both cheeks,
then told her to hold out her palm, which she did. Jackie picked up the pile of
bills and put them in Grace's palm. Grace looked at the money, then flung it
across the room.

"Are you crazy, Mom?" Jackie shouted.

"I gave my word," Grace said, shuddering.

"Who to?"

Grace shook her head in despair.

"The point is that you had no right to do this. In
fact, I forbade it. There's a principle here."

"What principle is that, Mom?" Jackie said,
defiant, hands on her hips.

Again she felt the sting of her own hypocrisy. It was better,
she decided, to drop the subject, drop the whole thing. Her instincts told her
it would end in disaster.

She watched as her daughter knelt on the floor and began to
pick up the twenties. Seeing her do this made Grace think of herself. Stooping
for dollars. That was exactly what she was doing with Sam Goodwin.

Moment of truth, she told herself. Destiny was sending
another message. She declared the Goodwin venture over.

Instead, she had decided, she would seriously pursue a job,
a real job. There were plenty of stores in the area who could use a good
cosmetician who knew makeup. Get real, Jackie had said. She was right. Reality
demanded that she get a job and support herself and her daughter. Mrs. Burns
had sent her on a wild journey for which she was not equipped. She wasn't tough
enough, smart enough, duplicitous enough.

"Where are you going, Mom?" Jackie asked when she
came out of the bedroom dressed in her secondhand designer blouse-and-skirt
outfit.

"To get a job," she said, taking the car keys
from the Formica counter where Jackie had left them.

"What shall I do with the money?"

"Keep it, Jackie. It's yours."

"Come on, Mom, don't play with me."

"I'm not. Besides, you don't play by the rules."

"M-o-m."

"See you, little girl."

It was midafternoon, still time to look for a job. By now
Sam would be very confused by her nonappearance. She shrugged it off.
Get
real,
she thought again.
You, too, Sam. Don't be so vulnerable a target
for any little hustler come off the street looking for your bucks.

Again destiny intruded, and she got a job at the first
place she applied. It was a swank beauty parlor two blocks north of Worth Avenue. She simply walked in the door, asked for the owner and made her pitch. Funny,
she thought, how determination and singleness of purpose drowns your shyness.
Like with Sam. She had better push that little caper out of her mind, she
thought in tough-guy talk.

She introduced herself and outlined her experience with
cosmetics to the owner, a glossy lady named Mary, dressed in a pink jumper.

"Just the person I'm looking for," Mary said.
"We're putting in a line of our own cosmetics. We need someone to sell it
for us."

"Right up my alley," Grace said, overjoyed, more
convinced than ever that destiny wanted her to take this turn.

"Maybe you got a following from Saks you can bring in
here," Mary said.

"I can try," she said hopefully, doubting the
prospect and adding, "I haven't signed a noncompete with Saks."

She was hired on the spot, only the catch was that she was
to get commissions only and no advance. She looked over the product line. The
products were named for the owner, Mary Jones.

"Not very original, but it's my real name, what can I
tell you?" the woman said. "It's pretty good stuff."

Grace looked over the line and tested the products on
herself. They were inferior to what she sold at Saks, although in this
business, marketing and illusion were the watchwords, not necessarily quality.

"Good stuff, huh?" Mary Jones said. "You
look like a million."

"Great," Grace acknowledged, wondering if there
would ever come a time in her life when she could call it as it was and not
suffer the consequences. She doubted it.

The first day on the job she sold four-hundred-dollars'
worth of cosmetics and made sixty dollars. Grace calculated that she might gross
about twenty-five to thirty thousand a year, although there were no health
insurance benefits, which meant she would have to pay for that herself.

It was back to the working poor again, although it seemed a
pleasant place to work, with Mary Jones making a gossipy running commentary on
her customers. She had bought the business from a woman who had founded the
shop forty years earlier. As a consequence, most of her clientele were
connected with the old rich elite of Palm Beach.

Mary herself specialized in doing the hair of the older
women, who insisted that their styles be done in the fashions of another era.
But there were plenty of younger customers: daughters, granddaughters,
mistresses of the moneyed members of the posh Everglades Club, which still maintained
the antiquated restrictions of the old WASP culture.

"They think they piss blue and shit gold," Mary
Jones whispered as she finished the hair of a woman whose last name was a
national product. "And they still tip in small change." She held out
her palm, showing two quarters. "So I just figure in twenty percent."

After her third day, Grace felt more relaxed about Sam
Goodwin. So far there hadn't been any repercussions about the clothes, and Sam
had probably found someone else to get rid of Anne's wardrobe, probably the
woman with the bun.

But she did have mixed feelings about what might have been
her missed opportunity, although she dismissed the entire venture as an act of
foolishness. In her mind she called it her ghoulish period. Sam, she knew, would
eventually stop grieving for his beloved Anne and would begin dating the
available women introduced by her friends, upscale ladies with similar
credentials.

Thinking about this gave her an odd sensation. She wasn't
sure whether it was resentment or jealousy.

On the fourth day a youngish woman came into the shop
wearing tight black tights and a man's shirt with the tails out. Under it she
wore a T-shirt two sizes too small, which displayed the awesome outline of a
pair of mammoth breasts.

"Silicone before it was banned," Mary whispered.
It was still early, and the older customers hadn't shown up yet. Only one
younger woman was having her hair done.

"I'm free, free at last," the woman announced as
she sat in the chair, where another operator, Maggie, a Japanese girl, worked.
A squeal of well-wishing came from the customers and operators.

"That's Millicent Farmer," Mary whispered to
Grace. "Married to George Farmer, former chairman of the board of General
Marathon."

"Ten mil, ladies," Millicent Farmer said, crossing
her legs and smiling broadly. "I broke his prenup. Got me a mean ball
cutter for a lawyer. Held the blade to the scrotum and nailed the bastard to
the wall. I'm here for the works, girls—hands, face, hair. Send me out in the
world to look for new fish to fry."

"You're something, Mrs. Farmer," Maggie said as
the operators moved their equipment into place around the loquacious woman.
Grace figured her for about forty, with a well-tended face and body. Mary
whispered her own running commentary.

"She's had a tuck here, there and everywhere."

"Ten million," Maggie squealed.
"Fantastic."

"I put in three years with that alky. That figures out
at three million, three hundred odd thousand a year. Not bad for a kid from West Virginia whose old man made moonshine and who never even graduated high school."

"Hell," the woman who was having her hair done in
an adjacent chair said, "I've got a masters in psychology and all I could
get was a dentist."

"Come on, Barb," Mary Jones said. "Tell it
like it is. He's a dental surgeon who does implants in Palm Beach, the land of
the implants."

"That's what old Georgo needed, only not his
teeth."

The women screamed with laughter.

"Tell you the secret, ladies," Millicent said.
She really loved the attention. She looked around the shop, as if to be sure
there wasn't anyone around who might be offended by what she had to say. Her
eyes rested for a moment on Grace.

"That's Grace Sorentino. She's the makeup lady,"
Mary Jones said, vouching for Grace as a safe member of the group.

Millicent Farmer lowered her voice.

"Free advice for all you greedy pussies."
Millicent laughed. "Find yourself a very rich, divorced golfing drunk.
George Farmer, case in point. Distinguished career, captain of industry. Good
looks, power, charisma. Living on his laurels. A golden parachutist who made a
soft landing on the nineteenth hole of the Everglades Club."

"There are only eighteen, Mrs. Farmer," Maggie
said.

"Ah, you're forgetting the watering hole. Think
strategically, ladies. He's off to the club before the heat sets in. Eighteen
holes, then three martinis, maybe four with his buddies for lunch. Then he
comes back for a siesta. You're gone by then, doing your daily dozen, whatever
turns you on. When the sun's over the yardarm, the bastard's up for a batch of
homemade cocktails, then we're both out to cocktails and dinner. My job,
ladies, lookin' good. Lookin' good. Always lookin' good. He sucks his bottle.
You keep lookin' good. Day's end, he comes home for a little nightcap and
stumbles off to beddy-bye."

"Who could keep up with that?" Maggie said.

"That's the point. Four, five glasses of Dom is all
you need to get you through the day and night. He takes his snoot full to
bed..." She lowered her voice. "...along with his limp dick. Doctor
keeps him off Viagra. Too much booze for that. Besides, all you have to do is
cuddle his face between your tits for a few minutes, make a few weird noises
and he thinks he's made the earth vibrate for you, then he slips away into the
drunken fog. That's half the secret, ladies. The other half is picking
right." She tapped her temple. "Keep your eye out for the double
dippers."

"Double dippers?" Maggie asked.

"Been through it. Knows the ropes. Number one is
usually a twenty-year-old airhead he met in high school, the mother of his
children, whose fucking is one note, the missionary position performed with
frozen pelvis. No class. No social graces. He makes money and tosses her into
the sewer. Number two is a cry for respectability. She's used to the upscale
life. Country Club Connie. Has her regular foursome with the ladies, thinks her
shit is perfume, works the charity circuit, never says fuck, likes to be on top
in the dark, but really gets off on her finger in the tub."