Cast Me Gently (2 page)

With a sigh, she began counting pills. It was boring, but there was some comfort in the routine nature of her work. Occasionally, she glanced up to the street beyond the store. She liked to watch people going by, wondering where they were going and what it would be like to go somewhere different.

“Where would you go? What would you do?” Sylvia used to ask indignantly when Teresa wondered aloud what it would be like to be going somewhere. “This is somewhere. Our store, our home. Be glad you have somewhere to belong.”

Teresa never had a response to that. As much as she loved Pittsburgh, lately there had been a kind of restlessness stirring in her, as if the hills of the city were closing in on her. But when she tried to think of where else she’d like to be, she couldn’t think of anyplace. Still, she felt as if she was stuck in between.

“In between what?” her friend Bernie had asked when Teresa voiced this feeling, but, “just in between” was all Teresa could say. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, but aside from her own siblings and cousins and now their families, it felt as if all the young people were fleeing Pittsburgh. She knew it wasn’t actually so. The city’s handful of colleges and universities were full of young people. “You’re not that young anymore,” Teresa reminded herself whenever she got nostalgic for the social life she used to have when she was attending Pitt for undergrad and then pharmacy school. Thirty-four in a couple of weeks, she was too old for the college crowd, too young for her parents’ generation, too single to want to hang around with the married people in her family with their demanding children.

She poured the counted pills into a bottle and affixed a label. “You’re not going anywhere. Just do your job.”

CHAPTER 2

Ellie Ryan turned to
Suzanne, the head teller. “I’m leaving for my lunch break,” she said.

The bank closed from noon to one—half an hour for lunch and then half an hour to reconcile the drawers from the morning. She went back to the staff room to retrieve her backpack from her locker. A middle-aged man in an expensive-looking suit was pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“You’re new here,” he said with a smile.

“Yes,” said Ellie, backing toward the outside door.

“What’s your—?”

“Sorry,” she said, cutting him off. “I have to run an errand on my lunch break.”

She pushed through the door without waiting for a reply. It was always the same. The guys who took two-hour lunches over drinks with clients wanted to chat away the tellers’ precious thirty minutes.

The day had warmed, so that by the time she found a small park near the bank, she no longer needed her sweater. She carefully folded it and placed it next to her on the bench before unzipping her backpack and pulling out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

As she ate, she scanned the people around her. There were a few old men seated at chess boards on one side of the park, two of them arguing about the folly of a move one of them had made. A trio of young women sat on another bench, each with a hand on a baby carriage, pushing them forward and back, rocking the babies Ellie guessed were lying in each. People walked through and around the park, most of them busily going somewhere. She finished her sandwich and folded the wax paper into a neat square to use again tomorrow. Reaching back into her bag, her fingers closed on an apple. She munched on it, her face tilted toward the sun, enjoying the warmth. She was startled by a rustling next to her and turned to see an elderly woman wearing what appeared to be at least two coats and an old-fashioned bomber hat preparing to sit next to her on the bench. Ellie snatched her sweater up just in time as the woman landed with a grunt, falling the last several inches as if her knees had given out.

“Hello,” Ellie said as the woman took off the bomber hat, her flyaway gray hair forming a frizzy cloud around her head.

She didn’t return Ellie’s greeting, though she mumbled to herself as she unbuttoned her outer coat and pawed at the pockets of the next one underneath. A potent mix of smells—body odor, sweat and dirt—enveloped the woman, spreading over to Ellie so strongly that she had to resist the urge to clap a hand over her nose and mouth.

She was about to grab up her backpack and go to find another bench, but
“Everybody is somebody to someone.”
How many times had her mom said that? She forced a smile onto her face and said, “It’s a nice day.”

The woman grunted again, but Ellie thought it might have been a different kind of grunt, for there was suddenly a new, even more unpleasant smell. The woman evidently had found what she was looking for. She produced from one of her many pockets a battered McDonald’s apple pie box. She wiggled her grimy fingers into the box and pulled out the squashed remnants of a half-eaten pie. Ellie saw several ants scurry out as well, crawling along the woman’s fingers.

“Stop!” Ellie said.

The woman recoiled, clutching the pie to her as if afraid that Ellie might try to take it.

“Here,” said Ellie quickly, plunging her hand into her backpack and holding out a plastic baggie of chocolate chip cookies. “I’ll trade you.”

The woman squinted at her and then at the cookies. Ellie jiggled the bag. Quick as a flash, the woman grabbed for the baggie, but Ellie was ready for her. She jerked the cookies out of reach and held out her other hand. “A trade,” she said firmly.

Scowling, the woman looked from her pie to the cookies, and then reluctantly offered the gooey cardboard container as Ellie handed over the baggie.

Ellie tried not to grimace in disgust as she wrapped the pie box in her wax paper and put it in her backpack. “I’ll save it for later,” she said, shaking a couple of ants off her hand.

The woman had already crammed one whole cookie into her mouth.

Ellie unzipped another pocket of her backpack. The woman eyed her curiously, waiting to see what she was going to pull out this time.

“Have you seen this man?” Ellie asked, holding out a cracked and yellowed photograph.

The woman leaned closer and Ellie twitched, prepared for the woman to make a grab for the photo, but she only peered at it through her watery eyes and shook her head.

“Are you sure?” Ellie asked. “He probably looks different now. Older.”

The woman stuffed the remaining cookies into one of her coat pockets and jammed the bomber hat back onto her head. Mumbling unintelligibly, she heaved to her feet and shuffled away, leaving a lingering odor and a few ants behind. Ellie carefully zipped the photograph back into its pocket and pulled the wax-paper-wrapped pie out of her backpack, dropping it into the nearest trash can. She checked the interior of her backpack for any stray ants before zipping it closed and heading back to the bank.

“You are so weird.”

She could picture Daniel saying it, lying on his back under the tree in their yard, a piece of grass in his mouth.

Ellie lay down beside him. Copying him, she plucked a blade of grass and put it into her mouth. She could taste the greenness of it. “Am not,” she said with the grass clamped firmly between her teeth.

He laughed, that new deep, grown-up laugh he had that she wasn’t used to. “Yes. You are, Jellybean.” He said it as if it were a pronouncement. “Believe me. I know weird when I see it.”

She looked over at him. She could see patchy dark stubble on his chin and his jaw.

“What’s so weird?”

He shook his head. “You. Trying to talk to that crazy Mrs. Mallory.”

Ellie frowned. “She’s not crazy. She’s just lonely.”

Daniel laughed. “Sure. That’s why she tried to swat you with her broom.”

“She didn’t mean it,” Ellie said. “She’s just so used to all the kids making fun of her and doing stuff to her house. They shouldn’t tease her like that.”

He turned to look at her. Ellie reached over to hook her pinky with his. “Definitely weird,” he said, but he didn’t pull his hand away.

A car horn blared, and a pair of strong hands yanked Ellie back up onto the sidewalk as a delivery truck made a right-hand turn.

“Watch where you’re going, miss,” said the stranger who had pulled her back.

“Thanks,” said Ellie shakily. Cursing her carelessness, she hurried across the intersection to get back to the bank before her half-hour was up.

Later that evening, Ellie sat on the bus, lurching along with it as it braked and then accelerated at each stop. She stood as the bus approached her destination.

“Big plans tonight, Ellie?” asked the bus driver, pulling the hinged handle to open the doors.

“Yup. Going to a movie premiere and then to an all-night party,” Ellie said with a smile. “See you tomorrow, Larry.”

She could still hear him laughing as the door closed and the bus roared away in a cloud of diesel smoke. She walked the last six blocks to her apartment. The warmth of the day had gone as the sun sank low in the sky, and Ellie buttoned her sweater all the way up. Soon, she would be doing this walk in the dark. She looked around her as she walked. Even in this neighborhood, there were a few homeless people staking out places for the night—a couple of them daring to perch on the benches inside the bus stop shelters, knowing the cops would probably chase them off. Others headed down alleys where large sheets of cardboard were folded and stacked to offer a semblance of shelter. She quickened her pace as she passed the ornate façade of Our Lady of Fatima, the church windows dark at this time of evening.

When she got to her building, she climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment and unlocked the two deadbolts securing it. Once inside, she flipped the bolts again and engaged a third lock for good measure. She was greeted at once by a plaintive meow.

“Hello, there,” she crooned, bending over to pick up her cat, the white patches of her calico coat just visible in the gathering darkness.

Ellie carried her into the kitchen where she flipped on a light and set her backpack down. The walls of the kitchen were papered nearly floor to ceiling with travel posters—Fiji, New York, Australia, Germany, Edinburgh—posters from cities and countries all around the world. Cuddling the cat, she went to the refrigerator and retrieved a can of cat food. She set cat and can on the counter where the cat sat politely, waiting for Ellie to spoon some of the food into a small bowl.

“Here you go, KC.” Ellie turned back to the refrigerator and stood there with the door open. With a sigh, she reached for a container of leftover stew and quickly warmed it in a pan. She glanced over and smiled as she saw that KC was still sitting there. “Are you waiting so we can eat together?” KC answered with a tiny meow.

A few minutes later, they were both seated at the small kitchen table, or rather Ellie was seated at the table; KC was sitting on the table as she ate daintily. Ellie looked out her window at the fading Pittsburgh rooftops, watching the sky as it went from indigo to a deepening purple.

When they were both done eating, Ellie washed up the dishes and went to her living room, where more posters papered the walls. There was a quiet knock on a closed door. She flipped the lock and opened the door onto a hallway where there was a shared bathroom for the two third-floor apartments. All she could see at first was an image of green fields demarcated by stone walls. Below the poster was a pair of hairy legs and feet in Birkenstocks.

“Ireland,” said a voice from behind the poster. It was lowered to reveal a man smiling through his scruffy beard.

Ellie took the poster and stepped back to let him in. “Oh, thank you, Sullivan. I’ve been wanting Ireland. I love it.” She pointed across the hall to his apartment door. “You okay leaving it open?”

He waved carelessly. “It’s not like my fish can wander off.” He took a seat on one end of her well-worn couch, the springs groaning as his heavy backside settled into the cushion. “Am I in time?”

“Just in time,” said Ellie. She went to the television and clicked it on, turning the channel dial to CBS. She adjusted the metal antennas until the picture was clear of snow and sat down on the other end of the couch as the theme music for
Magnum, P.I.
began. KC curled up in her lap.

“Higgins cracks me up,” Sullivan said as the Dobermans chased Magnum across the estate’s grounds.

“Shhh.”

They watched in silence until a commercial break.

“Someday, we’ll get to Hawaii,” Ellie said. “Someday, we’ll travel all over the world.”

“You and your cat,” said Sullivan, grinning.

“Yes,” Ellie said, laying an affectionate hand on KC’s back. “She’s a great little travel companion.”

Sullivan snorted. “How would you know? You’ve never actually travelled anywhere. The farthest KC has ever been is the bus ride from Duquesne Heights to Squirrel Hill.”

“What about you?” she shot back. “The closest you get is working part-time in a travel agency.” Ellie heard a distinct rumble from the direction of Sullivan’s portly belly. “Hungry?”

He looked over at her. “Got anything for a sandwich?”

“Jumbo,” she said. “Help yourself.”

“Tell me what I miss.” He pushed to his feet and went into the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a thick sandwich. As
Magnum
broke for the next commercial, he shoved the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth, saying, “You do know the rest of the world calls this bologna, right?”

Ellie laughed. “Well, no one in Pittsburgh would know what you’re talking about if you ask for bologna, so you’d better get used to calling it jumbo while you’re here.”

His expression darkened. “That might be forever.”

“What’s the matter?”

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, a few crumbs falling from his beard onto his shirt, where Ellie noticed there were also coffee and mustard stains. “My research advisor. He’s such a prick. He looked at my latest results and told me I had to start over. He said my results were off and I must have made an error. If he keeps doing this, I’ll never finish my PhD.”

“He’s just jealous,” Ellie said stoutly. “You’re more brilliant than he is, and he’s afraid of you.”

Sullivan shook his shaggy head. “You can’t know that.” But he smiled anyway.

“Shhh. Show’s back on.”

They finished watching
Magnum
in silence.

Ellie sighed as the closing credits ran. “I wish I lived someplace place like that,” she said wistfully.

“If you did, you’d just want to leave it to see other places,” said Sullivan, getting to his feet. “Thanks for the sandwich.”

“Thanks for the poster.”

He grinned. “See you.”

“Night.”

Ellie went to the bathroom to brush her teeth as he went across the hall to his apartment. When she was done, she locked her door and got changed for bed. Clicking the bedside lamp off, she slid under the covers. KC curled up, pressed against her side.

“Good night, Dad. Good night, Mom. Good night, Daniel,” she whispered before closing her eyes.