Chapter 8
After interviewing three more clients, I went back to Bel Air Apartments to rest and do my homework before the inevitable debriefing later that evening. A quick look at my watch told me I had half an hour before Wheel of Fortune started, and I wanted to make sure Mrs. Quattlebaum was okay.
I jogged up the stairs and knocked on her door.
“Come in, come in!” Her face lit up as though she’d never expected in a million years that I would take her up on her offer of lemon pound cake.
“I know your show is about to come on, but I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Fit as a fiddle,” she said, stepping aside and again gesturing for me to come inside. “Well, other than this one nasty bruise. See?”
Before I could politely decline, she pulled down the elastic waistband of her slacks to show me a gnarly purple-and-brown bruise at the top of her hip.
“Oh. That has to hurt,” was all I could think of to say.
She pulled up the waistband and smoothed down her shirt. “While you’re here, why don’t you join me for supper? It’s tiresome eating alone.”
I hesitated, but I hadn’t yet done a full grocery run, so a free meal wouldn’t be unwelcome. “If you’re sure I wouldn’t be imposing on you.”
“I insist!”
And how I wished she hadn’t. Not only was supper a spiceless Midwestern casserole made with cream of mushroom and Tater Tots, but Mrs. Q talked my ear off. She gave me a complete history of the Bel Air Apartments as well as an unabridged biography of her now-deceased husband, Harold.
The lemon pound cake almost made up for it.
Well, that and when she said, “You know, I used to always make one of these casseroles when someone new moved into the complex. I should make you one.”
“No,” I said a little too quickly. “I mean, you already have. Even better, you invited me to eat with you, and I’d hate for you to go to the trouble of cooking another one just for me.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” she said, launching into a detailed description of the ingredients, the community cookbook where she’d found the recipe, and why the store-brand Tater Tots were just as good as the name brand but the frozen mixed veggies really should be Green Giant.
“Maybe you could make one for the guy across the breezeway from me,” I suggested. “I don’t know how long he’s been living here, but, uh, bachelors, you know?”
“Oh, good idea! No, he hasn’t been here that long,” she said. “Funny, that apartment usually sits vacant. Back when we first moved in, I think some guy was using it to have affairs, but he has to be my age now.”
I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but from the television in the living room came three words that let me know I’d been dismissed: “Wheel. Of. Fortune.”
Mrs. Q stood.
“At least let me help with dishes?”
She shook her head and patted my hand before gesturing toward the door with her head. “Gives me something to do later.”
I thanked her for supper and made my retreat.
“How’d your first set of meetings go?” Havisham asked later, at our Waffle House confab.
“Great,” I said as I stirred my coffee. “At least, I think it went great. These are uncharted waters.”
“Did our biggest fish at least put down a deposit?” asked Salcedo, who’d opted for a burger rather than breakfast this time. Jasper had refused to drop fries, though, so she was having hashbrowns with her burger.
“Half down now, and half upon completion of three ‘petty’ tasks, complete with photo and video evidence. I’m working on a few ideas, and I installed a doorbell camera outside my apartment in some spare time I had between meeting the client and coming here.
I even bought a spy camera that’s hidden in a shirt button.
All that and got my paralegal online homework done, too. ”
“Look at you! Next glass of Malbec is on me,” Havisham said.
“That shirt button camera should be a good investment because I have more potential clients for you,” Salcedo added.
“I hope so because I spent a chunk of the deposit money on the camera. I used to have one, but . . .”
I left the sentence unfinished because that camera, along with so many other things, was still with Ken.
“No need to dwell on such things,” Havisham said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find you enough clients to make the money you need to get back afloat.”
“I got another gig serving papers and doing a few other odd jobs for a law firm this weekend, too,” I said as I lifted my coffee mug.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, eventually pushing away our plates and bowls.
Betty shuffled over to take our dishes. “Y’all gonna make a habit of coming in here like this?”
“Maybe.”
“Fine with me. At least y’all tip,” she said. “But seems to me you’d want to be at home in bed.”
“That’s where I’m headed next,” Havisham said. “But running a bar means keeping late hours.”
“College student,” said Salcedo, complete with a yawn to undercut her argument.
“I’m just here for the hashbrowns,” I said.
“Well, I’ve worked the night shift now for ten years,” Betty said.
“Don’t ever be too good at a job, that’s what I’ll tell you.
That and don’t take the night shift because you figure you were waking up at oh dark thirty with night sweats anyway.
Those will eventually go away, but the night shift will haunt you for the rest of your life. ”
Salcedo’s eyes bugged out. When Betty turned her back on us to take the dishes away, she mouthed, “Night sweats?”
Havisham mouthed back, “Don’t ask.”
“It’s awfully late for you women to be out and about,” Betty yelled from her spot behind the counter. “Don’t you have any burly boyfriends? Someone to improve the scenery around here?”
“I’m here,” said Jasper.
“You’re a string bean of a man with spiderweb tattoos on your elbows. I want to improve the scenery.”
Naturally, Jasper took issue with Betty’s words, and the two began their nightly argument.
It had to get dull working the wee hours of the morning, so I could hardly begrudge them.
In two visits, I’d seen only two other customers in the Waffle House at the same time we were there.
Betty and Jasper had to amuse themselves somehow.
Havisham chuckled, but then it became a full laugh.
“What’s so funny?” asked Salcedo.
“Just the idea of asking the three of us to bring burly boyfriends.”
“Questions like that are why so few movies and books pass the Bechdel Test.” Salcedo shook her head while stirring her coffee.
“What in blue blazes are you talking about?”
I was glad Havisham asked, so I wouldn’t have to.
“You know, the Bechdel Test. Does a movie—or book—have at least two women characters? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk about something other than men?”
I opened my mouth to refute the need for such a test, but my brain scanned through all the movies I’d seen, and I had to close my mouth with a “huh.”
“I’m not saying I’m opposed to a romantic relationship,” she continued. “But even our petty project tends to focus on men.”
“Because the patriarchy is a helluva drug, and too many men are getting high on their own stash,” Havisham said.
“Well, I, for one, have no intention of dating anyone for another six months,” I said. “I declare myself on sabbatical.”
Even as the words left my lips, I thought of a certain man who looked good both in a suit and while doing burpees.
Both Havisham and Salcedo stared at me. The former finally said, “That seems like an arbitrary length of time.”
“I promised myself not to date for at least one year from the day I walked back into your bar,” I said.
“I’ve had a boyfriend or partner for almost my entire adult life, and I’m gonna do that cliché where I work on me.
I’d do the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing, but I don’t have the money to travel. Obviously.”
Salcedo whistled. “Except you said your intentions out loud. To the universe. You know what that means.”
“No, what does that matter?” I didn’t even hide the irritation in my voice. Salcedo wasn’t yet twenty. What the heck could she know about these things?
“It means the universe is going to plop the perfect person right in front of you and dare you to break the promise you made to yourself.”
“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “Maybe I’ll extend my sabbatical to a lifetime. Become a cat lady or something.”
“Fifty bucks says you get your freak on before a year’s out.” Havisham extended her hand.
“Deal,” I said before shaking her hand. I turned to Salcedo. “This is gonna be like taking candy from a baby.”
“Ha! That’s what you think. Now the idea is in your brain, tempting you like chocolate cake when you declare yourself on a diet,” Havisham said.
“I’ve been on a relationship recess for over forty years.
When needed, I scratch the occasional itch, but I’ve always been glad to kick him out once he’s done his job.
Let a man stick around too long, and he’s gonna want you to either make his breakfast or do his laundry. No thank you.”
Salcedo looked from me to her and back again. “Oh, you’re both in for it.”
“Say, Havisham, why did you swear off marriage?” I asked, both because I was curious and because I wanted all such conversations to avoid me.
She sighed deeply. “Back when I was nineteen—a stupid age, Salcedo, so you should find a padded room and stay there until your twentieth birthday—I got engaged. Planned a wedding. The groom didn’t show.”
My stomach roiled at the thought. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They’ll never find his body.”
Salcedo’s eyes went wide.
“I’m kidding. I’m way too pretty for prison and definitely too bougie for toilet wine. Last I heard he was living his best life in Peoria.”
“But what did you do when it became clear he wasn’t going to show?” I asked.