Cast Me Gently (11 page)

“What have you been up to?” Teresa asked, taking a sip of her Coke.

Ellie’s expression darkened. It was so fleeting, Teresa wondered if she’d imagined it. “Tell me about your Thanksgiving,” Ellie said rather than answering Teresa’s question. “What does your family do?”

Teresa studied her face for a moment, but the thing she thought she’d seen was gone. “Well, the women are all up early, starting the cooking while the men get to sleep in.” Ellie laughed and Teresa thought it was the nicest sound she’d heard all day. She continued talking, describing the mountains of food and all the people milling around the aunts’ house. Ellie smiled as she listened.

“That sounds really nice,” Ellie said wistfully. The oven timer went off, and she pulled the hot pie tin out, setting it on top of the stove. “Oh, everything smells wonderful.” She dished out a little of everything onto one plate.

“Just give me a little stuffing,” Teresa said.

Ellie pinched off a bite of turkey breast for KC, mixing it into her dry food, and then came to join Teresa at the table again.

“Oh, this is so good,” Ellie said at her first bite. “Your family knows how to cook.”

Teresa lifted her hands. “Cooking and eating. The things we’re best at.” She realized she was staring at Ellie and forced herself to look down at her plate. “You don’t have any other family?”

Ellie shook her head. “No one.”

“What were Thanksgivings like when you were growing up?”

Ellie was quiet for several seconds, and Teresa kicked herself for asking.

“Nothing special, I guess,” Ellie said, tearing a bit of a roll off and putting it in her mouth. “My mom always made the regular things—turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie. She did have a really good recipe for a homemade cranberry sauce with orange and a little clove. It was delicious.”

Teresa felt a sudden impulse to reach out and take Ellie’s hand. She clamped her hand between her knees.

“Do they know where you are?” Ellie asked unexpectedly.

“No. I kind of snuck away without saying anything.”

“Why?”

Teresa’s eyes met Ellie’s and
I was trapped
, she would realize when she thought back. She felt helpless, snared like a bird by Ellie’s gaze. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out at first. Ellie waited, watching her. “I had to see you,” Teresa heard herself say. “I… I wanted to see you.”

Ellie’s eyes hardened suddenly. “Because you feel sorry for me?”

Startled, Teresa said, “No!” She leaned toward Ellie.
Because every day I don’t see you feels like a day of my life that I’ve wasted.
Only she didn’t say that. Instead, she said, “Because you’re my friend.”

Ellie’s eyes glistened with sudden tears, and she looked down at her plate.

“What’s wrong?” Teresa asked.

Ellie didn’t answer immediately. She ate a bit and Teresa did likewise as she waited. At last, Ellie said, “I’m sorry. It doesn’t very often get to me.”

“I think,” Teresa said softly, “that it would get to me all the time. I don’t know how you get by as well as you do.”

Ellie smiled. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked up, the tears gone, her usual bright expression on her face. “I get by because I have to.”

“I might survive because I had to,” Teresa mused, trying to imagine being all alone—but with the household full of people she’d left behind, she knew that would never happen, not like it had to Ellie. “But surviving is different from living, isn’t it?” She looked at Ellie with new respect. “You do more than get by. And I think you’re allowed to have moments when it gets to you.”

Ellie looked at her gratefully and the air between them was suddenly tense again like it had been in the car on the way home from Robbie’s, only this time it wasn’t dark and Teresa had nowhere else to look except into Ellie’s eyes. She didn’t know how long they sat there, but the tension was broken by a little meow as KC stretched up on her hind feet, reaching to Ellie’s thigh. Ellie blinked down at her and picked her up.

“I’m glad you’re my friend,” Ellie said, half-glancing at Teresa but not quite meeting her eyes again.

“Me too.” With a pang of regret, Teresa saw the clock. “I have to be getting back.”

“Will they be upset?”

Teresa laughed. “Probably. But they’ll get over it. That’s what we do. We yell and argue, and we get over it.”

“That sounds nice. KC never argues back.”

Teresa laughed again as she got up and took her coat down from the peg. Ellie was at the counter, writing something on a slip of paper.

“Here’s my phone number,” Ellie said, handing the slip to Teresa. “Could I have yours?”

Teresa quickly wrote down the numbers for both the house and the store. “I’m often alone in the evenings. Give me a call.”

“I will.”

Ellie fingered the piece of paper Teresa handed her. “Thank you.” She waved toward the table. “For the feast, and… for being my friend.”

I want to be so much more than that.
The words nearly spilled from Teresa’s mouth, but she couldn’t let herself say them. “I am,” she said simply. “I always will be.”

She opened the kitchen door and started down the stairs. On the landing, she paused and looked back up at Ellie standing there. Impulsively, Teresa rushed back up the stairs and threw her arms around her, giving her a quick hug. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon.”

Teresa felt as if she floated down the stairs, buoyed by the rush of emotions Ellie stirred within her. Never had anyone moved her the way Ellie did.
The things I almost said.
She shivered at her own boldness.

Except you weren’t bold enough to say them, were you?
said a voice inside her head.

I will,
she countered.
When the time is right.

CHAPTER 11

The diner was packed,
even for a Saturday evening. Ellie took a seat at the counter, watching Louise rush around, pouring coffee, taking orders, checking customers out at the cash register. She had other waitresses and three cooks back at the grill, but “I started this diner because I love talking to people,” she always said. “Why would I want to give that up?”

“You be sure and tell your wife I said Merry Christmas,” she said to one man as she handed him his change.

“I will, Louise,” he said with a smile. “And Merry Christmas to you, if I don’t see you before.” He went back to his booth and left a bigger tip.

Ellie sighed. Her feet ached and her back was stiff from standing for the past five hours.

“What can I get you, Missy?” Louise beamed at her.

“Grilled cheese—”

“—and tomato soup,” Louise finished for her with a shake of her head. “Be right up.” She scribbled the order on her pad and clipped it to the carousel hanging between the counter and the kitchen.

Ellie twirled on her counter stool, listening to the noises—plates clattering, customers’ conversations, the cooks’ yells from the kitchen when orders were up. She spun around to the counter to find a Coke waiting for her, and next to the glass was a saucer with a dill pickle spear.

She laughed, picking the pickle up to take a bite.

The diner had been busy that day, like this, only it had been late summer—her first summer after graduating high school. It was lunchtime, and Ellie and everyone else had to eat quickly and get back to work. She’d worked four hours early that morning at another store, unloading a truck, before changing clothes to come and work her shift at Kaufman’s. She ordered a burger, no fries, just water to drink—it was one of those in between times, when she only had three dollars to get her through to her next paycheck tomorrow afternoon. At least she had enough food for KC. She’d eaten nothing but peanut butter and jelly, twice a day, for weeks and had used the last of the peanut butter that morning. She knew if she had a burger, there would be no dinner that night and nothing but buttered toast in the morning. That burger and the pickle that came with it would have to get her through until she could get her check cashed tomorrow. Louise had already saved her a few times, giving her all of her money back when she made change, but “you can’t expect her to keep doing that,” Ellie told herself sternly. Her stomach growled as she waited for her order, but the diner was so noisy no one noticed. When the plate was slapped down in front of her, there was no pickle. She stared at her hamburger for a moment and then burst into tears. Louise stopped mid-stride on her way to the cash register.

“Come with me.”

She practically picked Ellie up off her stool—“well, you didn’t weigh any more than a bird,” she would say to Ellie later—and took her back to the diner’s office. “You sit here.” Ellie sat, crying as if her heart was breaking. “I’ll be right back,” Louise said. She left, returning a couple of minutes later with Ellie’s burger and another plate heaping with French fries—“and your pickle.” Louise chuckled. “You eat and then we’ll talk.” She left Ellie alone, sniffling and hiccupping her way through her lunch.

Ellie emerged from the office about fifteen minutes later. “I have to get back to work,” she said, her eyes red and still watery. She fumbled in her pocket for her money.

“What time do you get off?” Louise asked as she rang up another customer.

“I work until closing.” Ellie held out her three dollars.

“You keep that until tonight,” Louise said. “I expect you back here at nine o’clock. We’ll settle up then.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Ellie got back later that night, Louise had a hot bowl of vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich waiting for her. The diner still had customers, but she sat down at a booth with Ellie and made her eat. The soup was delicious. Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten her fill.

“Now,” Louise said, sliding the empty dishes aside, “tell me what’s going on.”

For the first time ever, Ellie had talked. She told Louise everything—not the part about Katie—but everything else had come spilling out. She started crying again—“I cried for three days over a pickle,” she would always recall with an embarrassed laugh.

“Well,” said Louise when she’d heard Ellie’s tale. “What are you going to do about it?”

Ellie blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are you going to do about it?” repeated Louise. “You say you’re working three jobs, and still not getting a steady forty hours a week. You have got to find something else.”

“Doing what?” Ellie shook her head. “I thought I was going to go to college, but…”

Louise slid a business card across the table. “One of my customers is a bank manager. He mentioned that they’re looking for tellers. You tell him Louise Baker gave you his name.”

“Oh, no,” Ellie protested. “I can’t—”

She stopped abruptly at the stern look on Louise’s face. “Ellie Ryan, you are a hard worker. You are intelligent. You can learn anything you set your mind to. I’m not saying you have to make a career out of this, but if you get hired, it’ll be full-time with benefits. You call him.”

Ellie’s eyes filled again as she reached for the card. “Yes, ma’am.”

She munched on her pickle now, watching Louise affectionately.

“Any extras today?” Louise asked as she laid Ellie’s order in front of her.

In Ellie’s pocket was her Kaufman’s paycheck that she would cash tomorrow. “Fifteen.”

Louise’s eyebrows shot up. “Fifteen? Well, aren’t you Miss Moneybags.”

Ellie laughed and picked up her grilled cheese sandwich.

When she left the diner a short while later, she carried a paper sack filled with fifteen grilled cheese sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. A biting winter wind blew between the buildings, so cold it made her face hurt. She wandered the side streets and alleys, offering a sandwich to any street person she encountered, asking each if he or she knew a man named Daniel. She didn’t expect to get a “yes”, not after all this time, but she had to ask. Sometimes, it was hard not to give up hope. It felt as if Daniel had dropped off the face of the earth. When the sandwiches had all been given out, she trudged back out to Fifth Avenue to catch a bus.

She yawned as she sank onto one of the hard plastic seats.
This is only Thanksgiving weekend,
she reminded herself.
If you’re this tired now, what are you going to be like by Christmas?

Christmas. It gaped before her like a black hole. She had good memories of Christmas when she was a kid, but the last few before her mom died had been tough. Her mom had been sick more often than not, and there hadn’t been any extra money for presents.

“I wish I could do more,” her mother had said that last Christmas, handing Ellie a box containing a hand-knitted sweater.

“No, this is perfect,” Ellie had insisted. “My favorite colors. Thank you so much.”

Ellie’s gift to her mom that year was also hand-made—a simply framed version of part of the 46th Psalm—
Be still and know that I am God
. “You made this?” her mother asked, admiring the calligraphy and the intricate Celtic knots scrolled around the border.

The bus lurched to a stop to let someone off. Ellie had to reach out to steady herself. A moment later, the bus roared off again while she stared out the window into the darkness.

Some years were just like this. Ellie knew that by now. Knew it would always be so. Lonelier. Sadder. Thanksgiving had felt the same—until Teresa showed up. Ellie smiled as she remembered the unexpected happiness she’d felt at finding Teresa on her doorstep—happiness that had nothing to do with the food she’d brought.
She thought of me. She left her family to come see me.

But
don’t read too much into it,
warned a more cynical part of her.
She only felt sorry for you.

Maybe,
Ellie admitted.
But she said she had to see me. That must mean something.

It doesn’t matter,
insisted that cautious voice.
You said it yourself—she had to leave her family to come see you. Because you wouldn’t have been welcome.

Ellie knew that. Rob and Karen’s situation told her that she would never be welcomed—as what? She gave a tiny shake of her head. She couldn’t even let herself imagine what a life with someone could be like. In her dreams—the only time she couldn’t control her imaginings—she was never with a man. Usually, the women of her dreams were nobody she actually knew, sometimes just faces of women she’d seen, but lately, Teresa had been in those dreams. To Ellie, Teresa was like a Roman statue—classically beautiful, larger than life. “You got the larger than life part right,” she could hear Teresa scoff. But Ellie loved Teresa’s largeness. She flushed as she thought it. That was a word she never let herself use for anyone outside her family. She used to think, long ago, that she loved Katie, but any ability to love had been squashed that day in Father Patrick’s office.
Until now,
said a little voice, sniffing the air hopefully, no matter how many times Ellie cautioned herself.

“Oh no.”

With a start, she realized she’d missed her stop. She got off at the next stop and backtracked.

She could hear KC’s little meow before she even got the kitchen door unlocked. “Are you starving, little one?” she said, hugging the cat and carrying her to the counter, where she dished out some cat food. She hung her coat and scarf on a peg and went back to keep KC company while she ate. An unexpected knock on the living room door made her jump.

“Hey,” she said when she opened the door to find Sullivan standing there. “I didn’t think you were coming back until tomorrow.”

Sullivan came in and sank into the couch. “I had all the family togetherness I could take. Told them I had to get back to check on my research.”

“Well, this ruins my plans. I had my entire weekend laid out around feeding your fish.”

He looked askance at her. “If that was going to be the highlight of your weekend, you are pathetic.”

“More pathetic than the guy who keeps fish for pets? Besides, KC likes to watch them. It’s cat television.”

“You bring your cat over to traumatize my fish?”

Ellie laughed. “They like to tease her. They come over to the glass and make fish lips at her.”

“How was your Thanksgiving?”

“I had a surprise visitor,” Ellie said. “Teresa Benedetto came by. Brought some food.”

“That was nice of her,” Sullivan said. “I thought she might invite you over.”

Ellie shrugged. “I think she might have, but her family is huge and kind of insular from what I’ve seen.”

“What? Like Italians only?”

“Italians only. Family only.”

“That’s too bad.” Sullivan slouched lower on the couch, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles. “Have you ever thought about volunteering at a soup kitchen or something?”

Ellie recognized the signs of Sullivan’s getting ready to settle in for a long visit. More than once, she’d gone to bed with him snoring on her couch. With a resigned sigh, she settled back into the corner of the couch, her legs curled under her.

“I would,” she said. “But they’re all run by churches.”

“So?”

“So, I’m not going anywhere near any church,” she said flatly.

Sullivan looked at her sympathetically, and she knew he was thinking what everyone thought. Let him. It didn’t matter that people assumed she was angry with God over what had happened to her family—“in fact, it makes it easier,” she could have said. “Because then I don’t have to explain the real reason.”

Christmas carols played from tinny-sounding speakers and golden light spilled from the downtown store windows onto the sidewalks as a light snow fell.

“Just enough to make it feel like Christmas,” said Teresa.

“I feel like I’m in a goddamned Bing Crosby movie,” Bernie said, but she smiled as she watched a family of young children with their noses pressed to the Christmas display in the
Gimbels window.

They stood with other shoppers, watching an antique electric train chug around a track that ran under a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, winding its way among wrapped boxes and antique toys, little puffs of smoke coming from the engine.

“Makes you wish you were a kid again, doesn’t it?” Teresa asked.

“Want to go sit on Santa’s lap?” Bernie asked.

“I’d break Santa’s lap,” Teresa said dryly. “And don’t even say it,” she added as Bernie opened her mouth with a wicked gleam in her eye. “I don’t want to know what you’d do on Santa’s lap.”

Bernie laughed. “Come on. Let’s knock some of these presents off our lists.”

They went inside, stuffing their coats into a large shopping bag as they hunted for Christmas presents for their families.

Teresa bought new nightgowns and robes for the aunts.

“Didn’t you get them the same thing last year?” Bernie asked.

“It’s what they asked for,” Teresa said. “I don’t think they ever shop for themselves.”

Bernie checked her list. “Let’s head to the shoe department.”