Authors: Ad Hudler
All that was left was cilantro. As Donna placed bunches of it
around the perimeter of the tomatoes, she continued the mental game she’d invented her first week in Kroger—comparing humans to varieties of produce.
In the past, Donna would assign to each person a fruit or vegetable based solely on appearance, yet sometime in the past few months she’d decided that the person no longer had to look like a pear or cucumber but rather had to represent the very essence of that fruit or vegetable. To increase the accuracy of her comparison, Donna would talk with the customer, thus revealing a personality with the sweetness of strawberries or astringent bitterness of rhubarb stalks or the watery, stringy emptiness of celery. A confident walk could denote yucca root. A disheveled, messy person would be a head of garlic. The supreme comparison was the pumpkin—the subject of fantasy and imagination (Cinderella’s coach and Peter’s prison for his wife) … a heavy, substantial, thick-skinned gourd who had no need or desire to be a climber … confident in its choice of color that audaciously clashed with most every other … a longevity that other produce could only dream of … interesting, rippling ridges that were pleasing to run one’s hand over.
“Nice display. Very nice.”
Mr. Tom’s voice caught Donna by surprise. Since their confrontation in his office, he had not been making his hourly swings through Donna’s department. The only time he’d spoken with her in the last two days was to confirm the hours on her time card. “You’ve got to write more legibly, Donna” was all he said.
“Did you get the sprayer heads cleaned?” he asked now.
“Yes, sir. I sure did. I used the pipe cleaner just like you taught me.”
“Where’s Adrian?” he asked.
“He’s corin’ pineapples in the back.”
“Can you please get him out here to cover for you? I need to see you in my office.”
“I’m not still hoppin’ mad if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’m mad, but I’m not hoppin’ mad.”
“Just get Adrian. Please.”
Donna summoned Adrian and followed Mr. Tom to his office. He shut the door and took the chair on his side of the desk, opposite Donna.
“I don’t really wanna talk about it anymore,” Donna said. “Do you think your father would let you move out of Selby?” he asked.
Donna furrowed her brow. “What are you sayin’, Mr. Tom?”
Tom Green stood up, picked up his brown briefcase from the floor, set it on the desk, opened it, and retrieved a manila folder. He handed it to Donna.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Just look.”
Donna opened the folder and began to read. There were two letters, one from Mr. Tom and the other from Sarilyn Potter, the district manager in Atlanta, both of them suggesting that she be promoted to a new regional merchandising and training position.
“Mr. Tom!”
“It would involve a lot of travel,” he said. “And you’d probably have to move to Atlanta.”
Donna looked up from the letters, a solemn expression on her face.
“You’re supposed to be ecstatic, Donna,” he said.
“Did you do this because of what Gary Scalamandre was sayin’ about you and me? Are we in trouble here, Mr. Tom?”
He smiled. “They’ve asked for you specifically. No, Donna. We’re not in trouble, though maybe we might get me in trouble if you stuck around any longer.”
Donna smiled as the compliment washed over her. She remembered how Mr. Tom complimented Kathy’s bleached teeth when all her hair fell out after chemo, and how he took pains to remind
seventy-two-year-old Emmett how well he organized groceries in the bags when he suddenly felt old and vulnerable after falling in the parking lot, breaking three dozen eggs and a watermelon. Donna knew that Tom Green was good at telling people what he thought they needed to hear—it’s what made him a good boss.
Her throat tightened. “You’ve taught me everything I know, Mr. Tom. You’re really, truly, one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
“The pleasure’s been mine.”
“You really think I could do that job?”
“With your eyes closed.”
She scanned the plaques on the wall behind him, five that chronicled Tom Green’s tenure as perishables manager of the year in the Midwest region.
“I think I’d like somethin’ new,” she said. “It would be fun livin’ in Atlanta. If I go, will you promote Adrian to produce manager?”
“I’m not so sure, Donna. You need two hands for that job.”
“But he knows produce better than anybody, Mr. Tom. It wouldn’t be fair for anyone else to get that job.”
“I don’t know.”
“Just hire some dumb strong boy to take his place. Adrian’s very organized, Mr. Tom. He’s been fillin’ out my order sheets for a month now.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise I’ll think about it.”
“I want one more thing,” she said.
“Of course you do.”
She hesitated, then said, “I’ve been wantin’ to kiss you for the longest time.”
Mr. Tom broke into a smile. “You have?”
“Yes.”
“You still work for me, Donna.”
“Okay,” she said. “I quit.”
Tom Green laughed. “You will never go hungry, Donna Kabel.”
“That’s what my momma always said.”
He walked around the side of the desk and stood before her, his arms self-consciously dangling at his side. Donna stood on her toes, resting her hands on his shoulder to steady herself, as if she were preparing to whisper something into his ear, and she leaned into his face and kissed him gently on the cheek.
Dear Chatter: I wish y’all would just stop it!
Yeah!—Editors
.
M
argaret returned from a long walk in Rosemont Cemetery and found a note taped to her front door:
Got a package for you from UPS. Mr. Ted
.
She walked next door and found her seventy-six-year-old neighbor rocking on the aluminum glider in the shade of his front porch, his gnarly, walnut cane resting between his legs.
“I saw you pull in,” he said. “I was waitin’ for you. I left a message on your anserin’ machine, too.”
She sat down beside him and they talked for ten minutes—about Reeva Standish, four houses down, who’d bit into a piece of glass that Sunday in the smothered pork chops she’d ordered at the G&F Cafeteria … about Rex, Mr. Ted’s terrier mix who treed someone’s cat that morning … about how the new mayor in Atlanta had changed the recorded warnings on the trains at the Atlanta airport from a Southern gentleman’s voice to a Northern male’s command.
Finally, as if Margaret had fulfilled her task and would now be rewarded, he reached beneath the glider and pulled out an overnight-letter package. Margaret read the label and saw it was
from Freid, Hamblin, Reed & Johnston, the law firm that represented her mother and settled her estate.
“Oh, and this, too,” he said, pulling out a square Rubbermaid container with
M. Pinaldi
written on the lid. “Your soups, girl … I could eat ’em every day. I poured it over a piece of toast and it made me a real good dinner for myself last night.”
Margaret took the container and got up to leave. “I hope I haven’t bothered you, Mr. Ted,” she said.
“Always a pleasure talkin’ with you, darlin. I haven’t seen Dewayne the past few days. Is he okay?”
“We’re just spendin’ some time apart.”
“Dewayne’s a nice boy. He fixed my ceiling fan, did you know that?”
“Thank you, Mr. Ted.”
“Enjoy the rest of this lovely day, young lady. I think it’s fixin’ to rain—I can smell the paper mill.”
Sitting on the front steps of her house, Margaret opened the package and pulled out a white letter from Sig Hamblin.
Margaret: As directed by your mother, I am forwarding this letter to you exactly one year after her death. Please call me when you want to follow up on this new matter. I hope this finds you in good health. I miss your mother. New York is a much quieter place without her.
Margaret looked into the darkness of the cardboard UPS packet again and this time pulled out what she had missed the first time—one of her mother’s trademark red envelopes, sealed and inscribed with
Margaret Pinaldi
in her handwriting. She opened it and began to read:
Margaret: If I were to give you a windfall of cash upon my death, you might have been numbed into a false sense of security
and done nothing with your life. You served me well at the clinic, and for that I am forever indebted, but it is my concern that you will hop off into the world, armed with your worthless, esoteric degrees, and fail to define yourself through your work and passions. I trust you are now self-sufficient and successful, and therefore I can leave you this money, which I strongly suggest you invest in an aggressive mixture of stocks (70 percent), bonds (20 percent), and the remainder in liquid cash reserves—at least through your fiftieth birthday, and then the allocations should be revisited.
I hope you’re happy, Margaret. Remember that I love you.
There will be no more red envelopes. I am finished.
Ruth
Margaret brought the second page to the top, a bank statement from First Federal Buffalo.
“Oh … my … Lord,” she whispered.
Toward the bottom of the page, Ruth had expressively circled the balance with a red felt-tip marker: $235,812.35.
Margaret set the papers in her lap and looked about her from the parapet of the front stoop. She wanted to share the news with someone, but whom? Dewayne’s presence right now made her anxious and confused. Donna was in Atlanta on her interview. There was a time Margaret would have shared such news with Randy, but she had crested that hill months ago. Suddenly, and for the first time since Christmas, Margaret felt acutely alone in this land with soil the color of Mars.
She went inside and returned to the porch with journal in hand. Margaret then uncapped a new, red felt-tip pen and began to write:
Dear Mother: Why did you have me? For the same reason I’m thinking of having mine? Was it because both your
parents had died and there was no longer an older generation standing between you and mortality?
Was the ticking of your biological clock so loud and relentless that you gave birth just to shut it up?
Was it because you were so inexperienced with men and love that when someone finally did get you pregnant you were so bewildered and pleased that you just let it happen?
Damn you, Mother—who was/is he? And why did you choose not to marry him? Did you love my father? Did you intentionally get pregnant? What could be so bad about a man that would make you hide him from me for forty years?
There is a man in my own life now, and though he is sweet and gentle I still hold him at arm’s length because it seems too easy and comfortable being with him. I think I watched and learned from you that struggle was best and that a state of satisfaction meant you weren’t trying and that you were lazy and destined to die ignorant and unfulfilled.
You would not approve of Dewayne—at least I don’t think you would. He has taught me to enjoy the light, easy things you scoffed at. (I read the funnies now.) We do not debate the issues as you and I used to do. We argue about the most superficial things. (Who makes the best barbecue sauce in town?)
I am thirty years old. I believe you told me cancer took grandmother when she was fifty-nine. I lost you at fifty-five, and I cannot help but feel a looming deadline here. As I write this I realize how precious life can be and how sweet it is to intertwine one’s emotions with another … something you never had the pleasure of doing. I think you had me because you did not want to be alone in the world. Yet I realize now you were the loneliest person I’ve ever known even though we lived in the same house.
Unlike you, I’m going to do it right, Mother. I am going to regard my own feelings and the feelings of others and lap up the love and delights that lie within reach, around me. If that is lazy and Southern, then I am lazy and Southern.
Thanks for the money. I have some plans for it. A new roof, for one. A bed. And then some bigger things.
The last red envelope? I highly doubt it.
Dear Chatter: Cheese straws are little finger cookies made from flour and cheese and just a little bit of red pepper. You can fry them in vegetable oil. They are just about the tastiest things in the world.
Dear Chatter: What is it with all the homeowners in north Selby who have a black man doing all their dirty work for them at pitiful wages? Maybe your history books left this part out, but there was this president named Abraham Lincoln? And there was this little war? And you guys lost? And the slaves were freed? Hello out there? Hello?
A
grease-spotted white bag of Krystal hamburgers sat open on the seat of Suzanne’s black Lexus between her and John David. On their way to Atlanta, at the Locust Grove exit, they’d decided they were hungry and pulled off I-75 long enough to make the drive-through purchase, along with one order of chili-cheese fries and two large Diet Cokes.
As John David drove, Suzanne looked into the bag. “There’s just one left, John David,” she said in a taunting tone. She reached in and grabbed the little square burger.
“It’s not ladylike to take the last of anything, Suzanne. You hand that over. You’ve eaten most of those anyway.”
“John David! I have not!”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m gonna tell …” he threatened in a childish singsong.
“You’re gonna hold that over me for the rest of my life, aren’t you?”
John David started shaking his head. “Who’d believe me, Suzanne? Who’s gonna believe you went around town wearin’ strap-on bellies. So what are we gonna do first when we get to Atlanta?” he asked. “I’ve never faked a miscarriage before.”
Knowing very well this most likely was her last sponsored trip to Atlanta, and that Boone would not be changing his mind about the divorce, Suzanne pulled out all the stops for these three days and asked John David to join her. The official line at Sugar Day was that Suzanne was visiting her great grandmother in Ashville, but instead she’d booked a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead and then massages for them both at a new spa up at Lake Lanier. Plus, there was a ring she wanted at Tiffany and a new handbag at the Louis Vuitton boutique in Lenox Square.