A frantic Golden Horizons volunteer wearing a wedding-mint-green frock comes rushing up to our main station. “I have a report! An attempted suicide…I don’t know…” Her frizzy hair is Medusa-like and her blue eyes are tiny in the white of shock.
My coworkers spring into action. Lysa picks up the phone to dial 911 and has a thin leg up, ready to jump over the counter. Chad stands between the volunteer and us. First response man. “Who? Who?” He wildly reaches for her lapel like a detective asking for a rookie cop’s badge number. It takes him a moment to read the tag. I watch him sound it out in his head before speaking the odd name. “Petulia. Who? Where?”
“Miss Tess…she is threatening suicide.”
I laugh. I played the lead in this scene five years ago. My coworkers pause to look at me as though I am the wicked witch of the west.
“Let me guess…she threatened to take herself to the pearly gates if you refused to slip her a Gibson drink and sneak her out at midnight.”
“Yes!” Petulia is incredulous.
My peers are in awe.
“Pearly Gates.” I pause to savor the power of the moment. “It’s a retirement home on Fifth and Martin.” It takes a moment for this to sink in. When it does, Petulia’s face melts with relief. Her pale skin reddens with embarrassment.
“She does this to all the new staff people.” I turn to Lysa and motion for her to put the phone down. “Although Petulia here might need that ambulance.”
They laugh heartily and I stand front and center willing to take any affirmation I can get these days.
While Petulia goes to take a much-needed Sprite break, I offer to address Miss Tess and her behavior.
I take a long route to Tess’ room, allowing me time to work up an attitude of disappointment. I further stall by reaching my hand into the south wing suggestion box—an idea I implemented last year to help ease the direct verbal complaints from residents and funnel them in a more orderly, constructive system. So far, the boxes have served as waste baskets, ash trays, and collection receptacles for humorous and often feisty observations of the facility, its people, and this culture.
The one I found yesterday was written by Myrna Frederickson. It was not signed, but I knew her chicken scratch from too many games of hangman. “We should all gather our money and see if there is any way to buy back the fine services of Beau. He never threw people out of games and was a most delightful young fellow. And cute. Our staff now is mostly ugly. Ugly and decidedly mean.” For once she used the collective “staff” instead of my name directly.
Today I’m afraid to reach into the pine square with a grinning slit at the top. Only one crumpled piece of paper lies in wait for my retrieval. At first I assume it is someone’s fast-food burger wrapper, but I see my full name written in big, loopy letters and smooth it out to read the mysterious note. “Mari Hamilton walks on by and doesn’t even notice that the scenery has changed. She had better pay attention.”
I reread it at least three times. Did the insightful writer have something specific in mind, or is he or she intuitive enough to know I also have just stumbled upon this truth for myself? My thoughts sift through my phobias until my feet bring me to stand before room 312. I’ll assess my own problems later. For now, I anticipate the smile of my favorite resident as I slowly push the door open with the toe of my sturdy shoes.
Tess sits in an already muggy room wrapped in a luxurious mink stole that forty years ago fit strong, perfectly toned shoulders. Now it dwarfs the eighty-year-old into a little girl wearing her mother’s clothes. She looks down with false guilt and readies herself for my equally false reprimand.
“Tess Childers, you cannot scare off the new volunteers like this. One day we will all stop believing anything you say. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sorry, Mari.” Her favorite line of all time. “We would both be better off at Pearly Gates. I hear they have great benefits for their employees.”
“Benefits? What are benefits?” I tease her. Neither of us would go there. She, because Pearly Gates is where her second husband lived for years. Their divorce settlement actually stated they could not reside in the same retirement home. Me, because I would never work somewhere called Pearly Gates. Out of principle.
“You do know what this means,” I say, trying to sound stern.
“You’ll be the one to read to me.” From beneath her wrap she pulls a delicate pink envelope heavily scented with Chanel No. 5 perfume and filled with sweet details of her friend Gisele’s life in New York. These two were inseparable from debutante years to their lives as young, affluent, married women. They shared a charmed existence until Tess lost her first and only great love to cancer.
In the irrational state of grief, Tess married a man who did not deserve or truly have her love. His awareness of this made him all the more eager to remove her from the things she did love.
This wrong man—she never uses his name—moved Tess from the opera houses, society columns, and Broadway premieres of New York to the rodeos, dusty bars, and jean-clad denizens of Arizona.
I take the note from its envelope and settle into the velvet-covered chaise. Tess’ single room has the grace and charm of a suite at the Plaza. I know because she tells me this. And despite our rough beginnings, I believe every word she tells me.
She closes her eyes and prepares to connect with her friend through my voice and her tender memories of a better time. I clear my throat, but the lump remains. Gisele describes snow-covered Central Park, which she can see from her parlor room. She laments how nobody knows how to make a Gibson cocktail anymore, and she states the tragic glut of pathetic and apathetic hired help in Manhattan. She has requested her fourth in-home nurse this month.
“You two sound like two onions in a martini glass.” I fold the letter and place it in Tess’ jewelry box with all the others.
Her large collection of precious stones and diamond jewelry is secured at a nearby bank; only a few sentimental pieces from her first love are kept beside her at all times: a gold watch, a pair of modest emerald earrings, and a wedding band. I check to make sure they are there every day.
“Not so fast.” Tess wants to continue with our routine. Her lids are heavy with sleep, but her hands are still nimble enough to remove her charm bracelet and hold it up by its small, brass key. “Choose something divine.”
I gave up protesting three years ago when we started this part of the ritual. I open the armoire and take in the gorgeous fabrics, styles, and colors that are mine for the choosing. My fingers return to the silk, the chintz, the satin. It is not difficult to imagine Tess dressed in these garments—young, vibrant, and the envy of every stranger at the jazz club, theater, or reserved tables at the Rainbow Room.
I pause over a light gray Christian Dior. It is my favorite. Tess knows it. I know it.
Too many childhood years of sharing…giving up…any item of importance or perceived significance prevent me from believing I deserve something so beautiful—and so meaningful to a person I adore. As my fingers glide forward, I know there is something else behind my unwillingness to remove the piece. I need not explain it to Tess. This item from a part of her life that she misses, that she loved…I want to save it for last.
I put off such a gift from my friend because I want her to be here forever.
“Skipping the finale?” She chuckles with understanding.
My sight lands on a color I have not noticed before. A faded apricot scarf? My hand disappears into the folds of the Burberry coat it hides behind. I can barely feel the silk; it is as smooth as polished glass and as light as air. I reach up for the satin-covered hanger and remove the most breathtaking dress I have ever seen. It is art. It is dance. With one look at Tess’ smile, I know, too, that it is mine.
“That, my friend, is a fine selection. Rudy Mangione, one of Broadway’s finest musical dancers, brought that back from Paris for me.” She looks off toward the hallway, but I know she is in her Fifth Avenue apartment, folding back silver tissue paper and taking in the first sight of this creation.
One glance takes in the deep curves, soft folds, and subtle peplum. “I couldn’t wear such a thing. Your life was made for splendor, Tess. But mine…” I look down at my sad uniform and can barely hold back the tears.
“Mari, you have not yet learned to recognize greatness, beauty, and purpose in your life. Please believe me. You might not prance around in all these pieces or attend a high tea at the Plaza, but there is still a reason you are the one who holds the brass key right now.” Her delight and belief lessen my self-consciousness.
“Oh, Tess…your gypsy talk is going to me head.”
Tess howls with one strong laugh. “Gypsy! Oh, Mari.” For a moment her smile turns to teacher-serious contemplation. “We don’t talk about it much, but I know we have the same faith leading us.” She pauses when she sees the apricot draping my shoulders. “Amazing. It is as if Rudy picked it out with you in mind…even if he didn’t know you.”
I hadn’t identified, or wanted to explore, the sense of loss in my life in recent months, but the hope and purpose behind her words reveal themselves as the missing ingredients.
I start an Ella Fitzgerald record and leave Tess to her afternoon nap. Out in the hallway I pause for a moment, lifting lush layers of silk to my face. And in front of the bulletin board listing “101 Things You Can Make with Jello,” I make the one thing I have been afraid of…a prayer request directly related to my own future.
I pray to be made worthy—not of the fine clothes—but of the kindness and the belief in my future. Because right now, I don’t feel it.