Patricia Rockwell - Essie Cobb 04 - Ghosted (2 page)

After a pause of a few seconds
, needed by all four women to recuperate from the excitement, they gazed at the receding form of Felix Federico. Opal was the first to break the trance when she spoke.

“Essie!” she whispered.  “He hugged you!”

“I’m jealous,” added Marjorie.  “Maybe I should declare that I’ll never go on a field trip and Felix will come encourage me.”  She sighed and leaned back in her chair with a dreamy look in her eyes.

Essie shook her head and looked around at her friends.

“Oh, you’re all being ridiculous,” she said.  “He’s just doing what any good general manager would do.  He’s being friendly to all the residents.”

“Violet never hugged anyone,” suggested Opal.

“No one would let her if she tried; they’d get some communicable disease,” added Marjorie.  “If this is a sample of our new director, I can definitely say I’m glad we’ve got him.”

“He’s a definite improvement over Violet,” agreed Essie.

“Now, we know how to convince Essie of anything,” said Opal.  “Just have our new director hug her.” 

“But the big question is,” whispered Marjorie, leaning in to the table, “how is your bladder, Essie?”

“What?” cried Essie.  “It’s fine.”

“Then you have perfectly good bladder control!” declared Marjorie.  “If that man kissed my hand and hugged me like that, there’d be nothing that would
hold back the tide, if you get my meaning!”

She laughed and
Opal joined her.  Essie joined in, despite herself, and finally as the three women looked over at their typically silent companion Fay, they noticed that she was laughing also.

CHAPTER TWO

“For me, when you ask (a ghost) a question and get an intelligent response, it just blows my mind.”

              ––Marty Seibel

As Essie rolled her walker into her small apartment, her mind was still focused on Happy Haven’s new director.  She could still feel his big arms around her and his strong hands enveloping hers.  Essie scooted her walker through the door and pushed it over to her favorite recliner directly across from her only outside window and her tiny television set.  Parking her walker beside the chair, she settled herself down into the cushions and pulled the lever to lift her feet into the air.  She sighed.

“Stop
it, Essie,” she muttered.  “You sound like a school girl mooning over some movie idol.  You’re an old lady, a very old lady, and you have no business drooling over some handsome young man.” 

She reached over to her end table and picked up the remote for her television set and pressed the power button.  Every time she used this device to turn on her small TV, she couldn’t help but think about how lazy such items made people.  Of course, it was convenient not to have to get up out of her comfy chair now that she was situated
, and traipse over to her television set to turn it on, but it seemed to Essie sometimes that there was a button for everything.  Nowadays, people could just sit in a chair and never move—just running their lives with all sorts of little boxes with on-off switches.  Not Essie!  She might have been over ninety, but she intended to keep moving as long as she could.  She remembered rebelling when she had to start using her walker, but once she saw how much faster she could move with it and how much easier it made it to get around, she was an instant convert.  Her walker was now just like an extension of her legs.  It sort of made her one of those “bionic” women, Essie thought.  She smiled as the television screen popped into action.   Essie fiddled with the volume—not too loud so that it was painful to her ears, but not so soft that she couldn’t hear anything.  Just enough to provide a nice sort of background hum so she could work on her puzzles.  Once the television was producing the appropriate level of sound, Essie reached back over to her end table and picked up a clipboard which contained a ream of printed puzzles—some completed, some partially completed.  She thumbed through the batch and selected one that she’d neglected from a few days ago and began reading the clues and attempting to fill in the remaining spaces.  Happy Haven provided residents with a new puzzle every morning and Essie collected all of them.  Whenever she had a free moment, she worked on filling in the blank spaces.  Essie liked puzzles—on paper and in real life.

The phone rang, jarring her concentration.  Essie reached over to her simple landline phone with the large numbers (a foolish stipulation from her daughters; she had no trouble reading small numbers as was evidenced by her ability to complete the tiny spaces in the puzzles). 

“Mom!” her youngest daughter’s voice rang out through the receiver.  “You’re there!  Finally!  I’ve been calling for hours!”

“That’s ridiculous, Claudia,” replied Essie, slightly annoyed.  “You haven’t been calling for hours.  I’ve just been out in the family room playing cards with
—”

“Okay, Mom,” said Claudia, somewhat breathless.  “Okay.  I forgot that you have a doctor appointment later today
at three.  Dr.  Graves.  You need to be ready at 2:30.”

“Oh, dear!” said Essie.  “Today?  What time is it now?”

“It’s not quite two,” said her daughter.  “We’ll be there in about a half hour.”

“We?” asked Essie.  “Who’s we?  A half hour?  That doesn’t give me
—”

“Pru’s here and we’re both coming,” said Claudia, sounding rushed.  “What do you need to do, Mom?  Do you need us to come over now to help you get dressed?”

“What?” replied Essie, aghast.  “No!  I don’t need help getting dressed.  I’m already dressed.  Why is Pru coming along?  It takes two daughters to get me to the doctor now?”

“It’s not that, Mom,” said Claudia.  “
She was here visiting and so we just thought it would be nice if we both joined you—”

“Oh,
Bob’s bibs!” declared Essie. “I hardly think a doctor appointment is cause for a big celebration.  What doctor is it anyway?”

“Graves,” replied Claudia.  “
Your internist.  I wrote it on your appointment calendar.”

“Hmm,” noted Essie, “let me go over and check
my appointment calendar…”   She pulled the lever on her chair and pushed down the footrest.  She dragged the receiver with her as she wheeled her walker to her nearby desk.

“No, Mom!” said Claudia, “It’s today!  I promise you.  I have it on my iPhone.”

“On your phone?” Essie asked, confused, as she opened an appointment calendar on top of her desk.  Many of the small squares were filled with handwritten notations indicating beauty parlor trips, birthdays she needed to remember, and various other obligations.  She ran her finger down the dates looking for today’s.   

“Never mind,” continued Claudia, “just make sure you’re ready and you’re there!  Don’t run off to the beauty parlor or the exercise room or something!”
  The tone of her daughter’s voice caused Essie to remain frozen at her desk, staring down at the jumble of notations on her calendar.

“Right,” said Essie
, sheepishly.  “It’s not like I can get lost at Happy Haven.”

“I know, Mom,” said Claudia, “but I don’t want to have to chase around looking for you.  Just be in your apartment
.”

“
Should I wait outside for you?” asked Essie helpfully.

“No!” said Claudia
. “It’s too cold.  I’ll come inside and get you.”

“Oh, a little cold
weather won’t stop me,” said Essie with a huff.  “I can wait for you in front on the bench.”

“Oh, all right,” said Claudia.  “If you want.”
  Essie detected exasperation in her daughter’s voice. 

“I’ll be there,” said Essie.  There was a long pause.

“Really, Mom,” said Claudia finally, “it would help so much if you had an answering machine.  Then I could leave you a message and I wouldn’t have to spend so much time calling you over and over again when I need to contact you.”

Essie had had this discussion
—argument—with her daughter, actually both daughters, before.  It seemed to her that every day brought new demands from her children to add new types of technology to her life.  An answering machine—whatever that was—was just the latest.  Both girls had claimed that such a machine would simplify Essie’s life dramatically, but all Essie saw from their explanations was that an answering machine would simplify
her daughters’
lives dramatically. 

It would no doubt have a lot of buttons
—and Essie hated buttons.  Her television had buttons—and they were all on that remote device.  Her telephone had buttons.  Every time she got some new machine, it seemed to have more buttons than the previous version.  She’d seen all the buttons on those cell phones her daughters used all the time. She didn’t even want to think about computers.  Her grandson Ned was a computer genius, she knew.  And Fay seemed to be an expert computer person too—how, Essie wasn’t quite sure.  But Essie was simply not into all this newfangled technology.  She liked things simple—the simpler, the better.  She could think better when the world around her was simple.

“Claudia, I told you I don’t like those machines!” snorted Essie.

“It would help you—”

“It would help
you
!”

The voices of the two women
—mother and daughter—rose to a crescendo and then froze.  A silence glistened across the telephone wires.  Eventually Claudia spoke.

“Just be ready.  We’ll be there,” she said and then hung up.
  Essie rolled back to her recliner, fell back and collapsed into its soft cushions.

Oh, no
, thought Essie. 
I’ve upset her.  That’s the last thing I wanted to do
.  Essie was torn.  She loved her daughter; she loved both of them, and she knew that their demands were made out of concern for her.  Of course, her daughters needed to be able to reach her.   But with every device they attached to her, it felt more and more as if her independence was being sucked away.  An answering machine was just one more such device.  And being forced to use these devices always made Essie feel intimidated.  She knew she was smart—just look at her completion rate on her daily puzzles.  Just look at all the mysteries she’d solved here at Happy Haven.  No one could say that Essie Cobb wasn’t a very clever lady.  It’s just that she used her little grey cells, as one of her favorite detectives was known to say, to do her thinking.  She didn’t rely on modern technology.  She didn’t want to rely on modern technology.

Essie glanced down at her watch.  She had plenty of time before she had to amble outside to wait for her daughters to pick her up and take her to her doctor appointment.  Essie picked up her television remote and switched the channels.  Her movement wasn’t lost on her.  It was certainly nice to be able to change the channels on her television set without
dragging herself out of her favorite chair.  One of the channels was playing her favorite game show.  A large multi-colored wheel was spinning around.  A pointer landed on a number and the studio audience applauded.  The screen showed the face of the game show host—an attractive, smiling gentleman. 

“
Five hundred dollars!” announced the host.

“I’ll take a
T
,” said the contestant as the camera focused on the man’s face and then switched to a board that greatly resembled one of Essie’s puzzles, presently residing on the clipboard on her end table.  A slim, blonde woman standing beside the puzzle board pressed one of the empty spaces.

The screen
immediately showed several letter
T
s filling in certain spaces in the word puzzle. 

“It takes two to tango
!” yelled Essie at the screen.  The male contestant ignored Essie’s suggestion and spun the colorful wheel again.

This time, the wheel landed on a black space declaring BANKRUPT. 

“Dippy doofus!” Essie cried.  “You should have listened to me.”   She flipped the OFF switch on her TV remote and pushed herself up and out of her chair.  Grabbing her walker, she rolled into her bedroom where she changed her pullover top and then rolled into her small bathroom for a quick potty break.   

With that chore finished, she made a quick check of her hair, giving her shiny silver locks one last fluff and a final pinch to her already rosy cheeks.  Then she grabbed her
coat from her front closet, rolled her walker out her apartment door, down the hallway to the Happy Haven lobby, where she signed herself out, and headed through the main entrance to wait for her daughters.

CHAPTER THREE

“Until you experience something, it’s one of those things where you have to show me the proof.”

                                         
––Erich Breger

“Mom, you must be freezing!” exclaimed Pru, Essie’s oldest daughter, as Essie shivered noticeably on the high, leather table in Dr. Grave’s examining room.

“I’m fine,” replied Essie, rubbing her hands together in an attempt to warm her fingers.  She smiled sweetly at her daughters. 

“Why on earth are you wearing a sleeveless blouse?” demanded Claudia, pacing around the cramped quarters, glancing from her watch to Essie to the closed door and back at her sister who remained primly seated in a chair in the corner.  Essie often thought that she had named Prudence perfectly.

“They’ll probably weigh me,” responded Essie, her small
, shoeless legs dangling from the table.

“So?” asked Claudia, obviously puzzled.

“I may have gained a bit of weight,” said Essie looking down at her knees.  “Every little bit helps, you know.”  She glanced over to Pru as if looking for support.

“
I don’t think you’ve gained weight, Mom,” said Pru, reaching out and patting Essie’s knee. 

“Thank you, dear,” replied Essie, “but Dr. Graves’ scales always seem to think I’m fatter than I am.”

“And you think a sleeveless blouse will make a difference?” asked Claudia, chuckling and shaking her head.  She shot her sister a knowing gaze.

“It won’t hurt,” said Essie defensively.  She rubbed her arms.  “At least I didn’t have to put on one of those horrible gowns with the ugly blue print.”

“Not yet,” said Claudia, setting down her large purse next to a chair beside Pru and sitting down.  She sighed audibly.  “This doctor always takes forever.”

“That’s a sign he’s good,” suggested Pru calmly.  “It probably means he has lots of patients and that
—”

“I know, I know,” acknowledged Claudia, leaning back in the chair and drawing out her cell phone.  “It’s just, why schedule Mom for three if he can’t see her until 3:30?
  Oh, and Mom, when the doctor gets here, please don’t make a joke about his name.  I’m sure he’s heard them more than he cares too.  I mean, Dr. Graves.  What a name for a physician!  Gracious, we’ve been sitting here over twenty minutes.”

“It’s not that long,” replied Pru softly.

“I’m fine,” added Essie.  “Just a bit cold.”

“I can get you a blanket, Mom,” offered Claudia, rising and heading toward the door.

“No, dear,” said Essie quickly.  “I’m fine.  I’ll just shiver off a few more ounces before they weigh me.”  She beamed at her daughters who both laughed and smiled at each other.

“Mom, that blouse has a hole on the side!” pronounced Pru suddenly as she stared at Essie’s outfit.

“What?” said Essie, looking down at her front and pulling it around so she could examine it.

“Right there!” said Pru, pointing out the offending hole on the side of the blouse.  “The seam has ripped completely out!”

“How long have you had this old thing, Mom?” added Claudia, rising and pulling on the blouse as she examined it as though Essie were not even wearing it.

“This?  I don’t know,” said Essie, sputtering and following Claudia’s perusal of her shirt.  “It’s fine.  I like it.  I wear it a lot.”

“Obviously, too much,” said Claudia, poking at the hole.

“We should get you some new clothes, Mom,” offered Pru. 

“Definitely,” agreed Claudia, returning to her chair.

“Oh, no,” replied
a flustered Essie.  “I have more than enough clothes.  I wouldn’t have any place to put any new things.  My closet is full now.”

“It is, Claudia,” said Pru, turning to her sister.

“We need to clear out her closet,” Claudia said to her sister, ignoring Essie.  “I bet there are things in that closet that have been there since she moved in to Happy Haven.”

“You’re probably right,” said Pru.  “It’s a junk yard in there.  I know she has boxes piled almost to the ceiling in the back.”

“We should go in there and clear out everything and organize it all,” said Claudia.  “Just keep the things she really needs and uses.”

“That’s a good idea!” agreed Pru, nodding.

Essie followed the sisters’ discussion in horror.

“Wait!” she cried.  “Please, girls, my closet is just fine!  You don’t need to do any cleaning in there!”

“But, Mom, we do!” said Claudia to Essie, and then turning back to her sister she said,  “In fact, once we clear it out, Pru, then we’ll have a much better idea of just what sort of clothes she has and doesn’t have so we’ll know what to get her.”

“You’re right,” agreed Pru.  “But it’s going to be a big job!”

“I know,” said Claudia.  “I took off work this afternoon for this appointment, but—we could do it tomorrow morning!  Saturday.  I can get Ned and Bo to help.  Keith would help once he gets back from basic training but that won’t be for a few more days.”

“I can definitely help you tomorrow
morning,” said Pru.  “Merv won’t miss me.”

“And we can take all of the things she doesn’t want or doesn’t need and give them to charity,” said Claudia.

“Wait a minute, girls!” cried Essie.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” said Pru softly, again patting Essie’s knee.  “We won’t take anything you want or still use.”

“Believe me, Mom,” added Claudia, “you’ll thank us!  Once we clear that place out, you’ll have a lot more room!  Then we’ll be able to get you some new clothes that you’ll like and wear.”

“And get rid of the clothes with holes in them,” added Pru
gently.

“I already like and wear the clothes I have,” argued Essie to no avail.  Before Essie could complain any more about her daughters’ plans to revamp her closet and her wardrobe, the door to the examining room opened
abruptly and a tall man in a medical coat entered, followed by a nurse.

“
Miss Essie!” announced the man grandly, glancing down at a chart and then up into Essie’s face.  The nurse remained at his side poised as if ready for action.  “So?” he pronounced and stared at her directly.

Essie laughed uncomfortably and shrugged.

“So?  Here I am, Dr. Graves,” she replied.  “Just like you ordered.”

“And how is everything with life over at
…”  He glanced down at his chart.  “Happy Haven!  You’ve been there quite some time now, haven’t you?”  He handed the chart to the nurse.

“I have
…so long, I guess my closets are filled to overflowing,” she muttered to herself.

“Hmm?” he asked, furrowing his brow as he pulled the stethoscope from around his neck and began to listen to Essie’s chest.  The nurse
raised a pencil attached to the chart and prepared to write.

“Nothing, Doctor,” said Claudia.  “We were just discussing cleaning out Mom’s closets.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” replied the doctor, now totally engrossed in taking Essie’s vitals.  “How’s your appetite?”

“Fine,” said Essie.  “I suppose you want to weigh me.”

“We can do that later,” replied the doctor.

“You couldn’t just take my word for it?” asked Essie.

“And what would that be?” he asked, leaning back and giving her that all-encompassing stare again.

“The same as last time?” she squeaked.

“Ah,” replied the doctor, nodding.  He glanced from Essie’s head to her feet.  “I’d say you look about the same too.  Jean, what did she weigh last time?”

“One hundred thirty five, Doctor,” replied the efficient nurse, glancing down at Essie’s chart.

“Put down the same weight for today, Jean.  No need to weigh her,” he said, smiling at Essie and giving one of her shoulders a friendly squeeze.  “But, this time only!  Next time, you get the full weight and height treatment!”

“Yes, Doctor,” said Essie, beaming.  “Next time, full treatment!”

“Any new problems, Essie?” asked the doctor. 

“Oh, no,” she said.  “I feel fine.”

“You did get those blood tests last week like we ordered?”

“Yes, Doctor,” said Pru, interrupting.  “I took her over to the lab myself last Wednesday.”

“Good,” he said, taking the clipboard from the nurse and perusing it.  “Hmmmm.”  He stared at the chart which evidently included the results from the recent lab tests.

Claudia and Pru looked at each other surreptitiously and then focused intently on the doctor’s face as he studied the chart.

“Hmmm,” repeated the doctor.

“Is there anything wrong, Doctor?” asked Pru cautiously.

“No,” said the doctor slowly, nodding and biting his lower lip.  To Essie, this did not look like the face of a person who was declaring that there was nothing wrong.  Her stomach did a little flip.  “Some of her metabolic levels are not quite as high as I’d like to see.  It’s nothing life threatening, but it is something that I’d like to address.”

“Of course, Doctor,” said the sisters together.

“Will I be okay?” asked Essie.

“Yes, Essie,” replied Doctor Graves.  “
You’ll be fine.  What I’m going to do is start you on a vitamin supplement.  It’s actually a powder that you can add to juice or milk and take with your other meds in the morning and at night.”

“She can do that, Doctor,” agreed the sisters.

“Actually, it’s just an over-the-counter supplement,” he continued, pulling a prescription pad from his white jacket pocket and writing quickly on it.  He ripped the prescription from the pad and handed it to Claudia.  “You can get it at any pharmacy.”

“We’ll get it filled right away, Doctor,” said Claudia, putting the paper in her purse.

“And then we’ll run some labs on her when she comes in for her next scheduled appointment,” he said.   “I’m hoping that this supplement will boost your levels quite a bit, Essie.  It should make you feel a lot stronger.”

“I feel fine now, Doctor,” said Essie.

“That’s great,” he replied.  “But this should make you feel even better.”  With that, he put his stethoscope back around his neck, squeezed Essie’s hands, and motioned for the nurse to follow him.  “Take care, Essie.”   He smiled at her warmly and then headed quickly out of the exam room followed by efficient Jean.

“
Heavens to Huddlebert!” said Essie after the doctor had disappeared.  “I don’t know how to feel.”

“What do you mean, Mom?” asked Pru.

“I mean, I’m a little scared anytime I get new drugs prescribed to me.  I hate taking more medications.”

“I know, Mom,” said Claudia.  “I know how much you hate pills.”

“But…” said Essie with a beaming smile and a little fist pump, “I didn’t get weighed!”

“Mom, you’re too funny!” said Pru.

“I am not,” said Essie defensively.  “I’m just a woman who doesn’t want people knowing how fat she is!”

“Mom, you are so not fat,”
said Claudia, gathering her belongings as Pru carefully helped Essie down from the examining table.

“Look at that!” declared Essie once her small feet
hit the ground.  She lifted her sleeveless arm straight out to shoulder height and shook the skin underneath with the index finger of her other hand.  “It’s like jelly!”

“Believe me, Mom,” added Pru.  “You’re not the only one with flabby underarms.  That develops long before ninety!”

“Tell me about it,” added Claudia.  “No swimming suits for me! Why do you think Pru and I aren’t wearing sleeveless blouses?”  She rolled Essie’s walker back to the center of the room from the corner where it had remained folded up during the exam.

“Okay, girls!” said Pru to the other two.  “Since Mom has been given a clean bill of health
—well, at least a fairly clean bill of health—I say the three of us go celebrate by having dinner out! It’s after four!  That’s dinner time for you, Mom!”

“Oh, girls,” replied Essie, “I don’t know if
—”

“No arguing, Mom!” said Claudia firmly.  “Girls’ night out it is!  Husbands at home!”

“Yay!” added Pru.  “Where they belong!”

“How about Chicken Charlie’s?” suggested Claudia.

“That place is too cold!” retorted Essie.

“That’s what you get for wearing a sleeveless top in October!” chided Claudia.  “I know, Pru, let’s go shopping first and get her a
nice sweater!”

“Excellent plan,” agreed Pru as they escorted their mother out of the doctor’s office
, Essie
harrumphing
the entire way.