35
Running the pass: The “pass”
is the long, flat surface where dishes are plated, then picked up by waitstaff.
The chef who “runs the pass”
is in charge of calling out orders as they come in, making sure the courses run smoothly and tickets are filled in a timely manner.
It’s also their responsibility to make sure dishes sent out to diners are properly plated.
2016
“I’m perfectly fine right where I am, young lady.
And I would appreciate it if you did not bring strange men into my home.”
Regina leveled an I-told-you-so glare at Marco.
“He’s not a stranger, Gladys.
That’s Marco.
You remember him. From the kitchen?”
The Burger Queen, in full regalia, looked down her nose, sniffing.
“It’s unseemly.”
“I’m just here to help carry your bags, ma’am.”
“Bags, what bags? Where am I going?”
“They have to fumigate your building and you’re going to stay with me for a few days.
Remember?”
Regina felt a little bad, lying, but Marco was right; inviting her to stay with her wasn’t illegal, as long as she went with them willingly.
The trickery made it a bit hazy, but she was willing to take the chance.
Gladys’s eyes darted back and forth, whispering, “Is it cockroaches?”
“Uh, yes. Roaches.”
Shuddering, the old woman put hands over her ears.
“I cannot abide cockroaches.
They crawl into your ears at night and lay eggs in your brain.”
“Then let’s get you out of here and over to Regina’s.”
Marco reached for the suitcase and overnight bag straight out of the 1950s that Regina had hastily packed, and in front of which the old woman immediately stepped.
Every stitch of clothing Gladys owned, all the creams and over-the-counter medications from her medicine cabinet—some equally as old as the cases—fit into them.
It was both sad and satisfying to know a life could be distilled down to so little, so quickly.
“Take her down to the car,”
Regina murmured to Marco.
“I’ll do one final sweep and be right behind you with her bags.”
“I can—”
“Don’t do the chivalry thing,”
she snapped.
“You’ll have your hands full with Her Highness.
Besides, I’d rather be the one seen with her bags.
Less suspicious.”
“No one’s going to notice, let alone bat an eye.”
“Just do it, will you?”
“This way, ma’am,”
Marco said a little more loudly than necessary, and before Gladys could balk added, “Is that a roach on the carpet?”
She was pretty spry in that moment, hightailing it out of the apartment with her hands over her ears, leaving Marco following in her wake.
He left the door open; Regina heard her scolding him the whole way down the hall.
Doing another quick sweep, she told herself they were doing the right thing.
It was for Gladys’s well-being, now and continued. The timing was tight, but it would all work out. It had to.
On her way out the door, Regina remembered to check the fridge.
Much as she hated to do it, she grabbed a plastic grocery bag from the caddy under the sink and tossed all the food, most of which was from Regina’s own kitchen.
There were also decade-old condiments, an ancient brown bottle of Geritol, and a tub of Country Crock.
If all went well, the Burger Queen would never rule over this domain again. Anything now left behind had come with the apartment and would be someone else’s problem in a month or two.
A flutter of paper stuck to the side of the refrigerator caught her eye as she swept past.
Regina paused, almost left without looking.
Freeing it from the Liberty Bank magnet, she swallowed down the lump rising to her throat.
Eleven digits, starting with a one, written in Gladys’s careful, beautiful hand.
And a name.
Troy.
Shouts from across the hall, from Troy’s old apartment, snatched her attention.
A door opened, letting loose the noise before slamming it off again.
Dammit.
Marco was wrong; all the neighbors would be watching from windows.
Stuffing the slip of paper into her pocket, Regina hurried out of Gladys’s apartment.
With any luck, neither of them would ever see the place again.
By the time she actually had a moment to call the number on the slip of paper, Regina had stopped believing it was the way to Troy she hoped for.
“You’ve got all you need here,”
Regina told the old woman now ensconced in the guest room, most recently and only used by Gale, of her apartment.
“If you want to come down to the kitchen, you just ask Abigay and she’ll bring you down, okay?”
Gladys suspiciously eyed the smiling caregiver Marco had hired.
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“I know.”
Regina resisted the urge to kiss the top of her head.
“She’s here to make me feel better.
Just until you know your way around, how to work the remote, that kind of thing.”
Tugging her down to her level, Gladys whispered, “Daddy hired a colored girl once.
Mother preferred hiring Irish, so we had to let her go.”
Regina glanced Abigay’s way, but the woman was all smiles and silent reassurances.
Abigay was set up in what had been Regina’s office.
Taking care of one mostly healthy old woman with a patchy memory in a luxurious apartment was a pretty sweet gig.
Once the chaos of Queenie B’s resurgence into the world settled down, Gladys would move into Regina’s bedroom, Abigay into the spare. Anything to make the old woman’s last years good ones, even if Regina wouldn’t be there to witness them.
Life hadn’t given her a grandmother when she was a child needing one so desperately, but it gave her Gladys.
The grandmother who vexed her, but who needed her.
Truly needed her.
There was something to that Regina would never have understood had the Burger Queen not shown up in her soup kitchen. Gladys had forgotten Troy; she’d forget Regina, too. But Regina would never forget the Burger Queen.
“Apple crisp today,”
she told her on her way out the door.
“Just like I promised.”
Deep in a cozy chair, her feet not even touching the ground, the Burger Queen reached for the remote control she had no idea how to use.
“I don’t like apples,”
she said, and to Abigay, “Can I get game shows with this contraption?”
Regina left her apartment as quietly as she could.
Downstairs, Marco and Lucy were laughing at something; she could hear them through the door.
Poised between here and there, between lives, she took a few of those deep, cleansing breaths.
It would all be fine. At least, okay. As long as she took it one day at a time, just as she’d preached to Gale.
Dropping onto the top step, she pulled the cell phone from her pocket.
The slip of paper from Gladys’s refrigerator was a little worse for wear, having spent several hours in Regina’s pocket, but the old woman’s pristine handwriting made that irrelevant.
Months of wondering where he was, what had become of him, and here the answer could be, right in her hand.
Gladys had, at some point and for too short a time, known enough to write down his name and a phone number.
If this was any such thing at all.
“Only one way to find out.”
Tapping in ten of the eleven numbers, her finger poised over the last one.
Worst-case scenario, it was nothing.
And maybe, by some miracle, Troy himself would pick up the phone.
Last digit. Tap.
“Northern State Prison, how may I direct your call?”
Regina nearly dropped the phone.
And yet, it made perfect sense.
His past.
His present. Apparently, his future. As the whole dreadful notion landed in her belly, relief mingled in there too. He wasn’t dead. Troy might have drunk himself into trouble, but not death.
“Northern State Prison,”
repeated the voice on the other line.
“How may I direct your call?”
Steadying her breath as best as she was able, she said, “I’m trying to reach an inmate I believe is incarcerated in your facility.”
Regina let go the words.
“Can you help me with that?”