Chapter 8 #2
That day I was in the community room, the place where residents hung out doing puzzles, playing poker, holding movie nights.
There was even a piano in there. Gloria had been doing none of those things.
She was sitting at one of the tables, drinking from a fancy porcelain teacup and residing over her minions.
Kathy, the social worker, introduced us and Gloria looked me dead in the eye and said, “Darling, why are you wearing such dreadful clothes?” She followed that with a lecture of what I should be wearing instead.
(Hint: It involved skirts and high heels.)
The next time, she asked me what my natural hair color was because it was not “that ghastly black.” Every time I saw her, she harangued me about my makeup, my shoe choice, and the fake nose piercing.
She didn’t hold back or tiptoe around me like everyone else in my life. Her honesty made me like her more.
When I discovered she had no one left to visit her, having outlived her husband, only sister, and never having had children of her own, it sealed the deal. She had wormed her way into my heart. For all the insults and the grand dame attitude, there was a sadness lurking behind her eyes.
Sadness was something I understood.
“So, tell me all about your exciting escapades this week,” she said as we made our way to her room. “Please tell me you’re doing someone.”
Halting, I dropped her arm and turned to her. “You did not just ask me that.”
“You’re young and beautiful. Seems like such a waste that all you do is work and visit us old people. You need a life, an adventure, a great love.” She waved her arms around dramatically.
Gloria liked to make a scene. At nineteen, she’d left Two Harts and gone to New York City to follow her dreams of fame.
For a time, she even found it. First, as a Rockette, and then in a few plays.
She eventually moved on to what she called her “second act,” which involved marriage to a much older (very rich) man.
“I’ll work on that.” We began inching down the hallway again.
“This town needs a tall, handsome stranger to show up and set his sights on you,” Gloria mused. Immediately, my brain conjured up a picture of Abe. He wasn’t a stranger or all that tall, but he was handsome. Objectively speaking. “Do you think I could hire one?”
“Gloria Hayes, did you just offer to hire”—I lowered my voice—“an escort?”
She shrugged. “Or an actor. Whichever is cheaper, I suppose.”
“Absolutely a bad influence.”
We paused to let the community cat, a big, tuxedo fellow named Bruce, slither through our legs in greeting.
The cat was a stray that had adopted Shady Cove years earlier.
He made his own rules, coming in and out of the facility whenever he wanted, although he did require regular feedings from the staff.
While he looked like an unassuming furball, Bruce had a superpower.
Or a sixth sense, maybe? He predicted death.
No, really. When he settled into a resident’s room for a few days in a row, within a few weeks, that resident was gone.
Off to their final resting place. Waiting at the pearly gates.
D. E. A. D. Honestly, he kind of freaked me out.
When we began walking again, I said, “Aidan showed up to my birthday party. It was a surprise.”
Gloria let out a very unladylike curse word. “Oh. Him.”
“He’s a great guy.” Why did I always rush to defend him?
“No, he is not. That boy has been careless with your heart for far too long. I don’t like him.”
“You’ve never met him,” I pointed out. That was mostly my fault, though.
I’d never told Aidan about Gloria or that I’d continued coming to Shady Cove long after I graduated high school.
It had been nice to have a place where people looked forward to seeing me.
Aidan always had a way of outshining me.
Not on purpose. Or at least, I didn’t think it was on purpose.
“You can thank the good Lord for that. Only He knows what I would have done if I were in the same room with that boy.” Her hand curled into a fist.
I snorted, picturing Gloria punching Aidan in his face. I bet she had a pretty good right hook. “Thank you for your willingness to defend my honor.”
“What did he have to say for himself?”
I blew out a breath and said the next part quickly. “Missy was with him. They moved the wedding date up to next month and he asked me to be his best woman.”
“What in the world is a best woman?”
“It’s like a best man, except… a woman.”
Gloria remained in fuming silence for several seconds. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I hope you told him no.”
I sighed. “I said yes.”
“You have the self-preservation instincts of a dodo bird.”
“Tweet. Tweet.”
“Well, obviously you must have a date, darling. He needs to be amazing. Someone totally unexpected.” Abe Ramos and his dimple and the tattoos and his long hair popped into my head once again.
He was so different from Aidan, they weren’t even from the same planet.
Aidan would have a few things to say about him being my plus one.
Aidan had a lot of opinions when it came to my life.
Gloria paused at the opened door of the room before hers. She knocked gently. “George?”
The sound of an evening gameshow mingled with wheezing snores was the only reply.
George hadn’t been at Shady Cove long, less than a year.
He was quiet, kept to himself, but Gloria had made it her business to seek him out.
“Everyone needs a friend. Especially the people who think they don’t,” she said.
While Gloria did most of the talking in this friendship, George seemed content to let her.
We peeked inside the doorway to see the long, thin frame of a sleeping man stretched out in a recliner, his mouth hanging open and glasses askew.
Gloria tsked and waltzed into the room like she owned it. “George, what have I told you about falling asleep in this chair?”
I leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “You sure you should go in while he’s sleeping?”
“Someone has to watch out for him.” She pulled a throw blanket from the bed and arranged it over George. Then she found the remote and turned the volume on the television down and removed his glasses. George didn’t budge. “There. Better.”
Someone tapped my shoulder and I turned to find Kathy Baumgarter.
The social worker was tiny, her head barely reaching my shoulder.
She was a bit older than my mom and had been at Shady Cove “forever and a day.” I liked her a lot and often found myself asking her questions about the residents and how I could help.
“She’s really been good for him,” Kathy said quietly, watching Gloria. “Makes sure he’s not holed up in his room all day.”
I smiled as I watched her fuss over him. For all her bluster, Gloria was one of the kindest people I knew. She just kept her heart of gold wrapped in judge-y looks and bluntness. “I imagine the poor guy didn’t have a chance to say no.”
“That, too.” She laughed softly.
“Any luck with his family?” As a social worker, part of her job was working with the residents and their families. Unfortunately, she saw the sad side of those relationships far too often.
Kathy sighed. “No one’s come to see him in the entire ten months he’s been here. His son dropped him off and seems to have fallen off the earth.”
Someone called Kathy’s name. She gave me a one-armed hug and rushed off just as something whispered past my ankle and scurried into the room.
Bruce jumped onto George’s lap. After turning in few circles, he settled down and stared at Gloria with large yellow-green eyes. The Death Cat blinked slowly.
Gloria snapped her fingers. “Bruce, get out of here.”
Bruce hefted one of his back legs in the air and proceeded to groom himself.
Gloria put her hands on her hips. “You need to get on out of here. Go on.”
Bruce put his leg down and nestled into George’s lap. Leisurely, he arranged himself into a ball, put a paw over his face, and promptly fell asleep.
“That cat,” Gloria said as she gently closed George’s door, “won’t leave George alone this week.”
“Um…”
“Don’t say it,” she snapped. “It’s ridiculous. He is a cat; not a harbinger of death.”
“If you say so…”
“Well, I do.” Her nose in the air, she marched into her room, and I followed. “Now, we need to find you a plus one.”
“Actually, I already have one.”
Gloria settled into a large upholstered chair.
It was one of the few things she kept from the home she’d shared with her husband when she’d sold it.
It had been her husband’s favorite chair.
The tall back with the ornate golden scroll work and rich, deep purple fabric bore a striking resemblance to a throne.
“And you’re just telling me now?” She stabbed a finger at the other chair in the room. “Sit. Start talking.”