Did you feign cardiac arrest? Angina? Or did you stick with the clichéd broken rotator cuff excuse?” Lysa asks from her file cabinet corner. She is compiling a demographic study of the residents. Sadly, this institution often knows more about these people’s lives than their families do.
“I did not fake anything, including my hostile departure from the green. I ended up taking a cab home.”
“Uh-oh,” she says knowingly. Lysa had witnessed Angelica at her finest one day when the queen of blunt stopped in before a lunch date. The female cyclone kept ranting about the Golden Horizons’ color scheme “that would make the seventies gag itself with a spoon” and the “whole One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest creepy vibe.” Later, when Lysa politely asked what Angelica and I possibly had in common, the answer “God” didn’t seem like a great witness. I had said I was obliged by court order to spend time with her.
“It was not pretty. Probably rather humorous for our caddy, though. The good news…the court order might be canceled after my out of order behavior on the course.”
“That is good news.” She clasps her hands together in mock rejoicing.
Her fake, over-the-top smile reminds me of Wendy Skies, a former weather girl who is now a popular anchor on the local news station. “It is time for the news,” Frank says as he walks by with his push broom. He nods and he salutes with two fingers to his gray baseball cap, signaling that he will take care of it.
“What was that about?” Lysa asks raising her eyebrows. “Your club have a special handshake too?”
“Walter Simmons…the guy who carries the backpack and his checkers wherever he goes…”
“Yes. And smells like sandalwood. He’s sweet.”
“Very. But sadly he is the father of KTSN’s Miss Popularity—Wendy Skies. You know, the one who presses her palm to her heart and says ‘God bless ya’ as her sign-off.”
“So very fake. Does she come in all the time and act superior?”
“I wish she did for Walter’s sake. She doesn’t visit at all, but the poor man still religiously watches her show. He says her God bless you sign-off is their little way of communicating. It just breaks my heart.”
Lysa considers this. “Well, maybe it is something they used to say when she was growing up.”
“I understand wanting to give her some credit. Nobody wants to assume a gentle man like Walter is ignored by his only daughter. But I’ve looked into it. The woman lives about five miles that way.” I point in the direction of Paradise Properties, an elite development where each mini-mansion has its own pool, courtyard, tennis court, and the sure sign of money—an irrigated, lush lawn. “She has to go by here to get to the station, so she has no excuses.”
“I’d give anything to be able to visit my dad.” Lysa’s voice softens, and I remember that her dad passed away two years ago. Her catalyst moment to start nursing school.
Guilt conviction sets in. I quickly step off my soapbox and my mind replays Sadie’s inquiry about my avoidance of home. I may not drive by my parents’ house every day on the way to work, but am I really so different from Wendy? “Maybe she is busy and plans to visit, but…” I don’t let myself finish the pathetic remark meant to assuage my guilt rather than grant Wendy grace.
“Don’t forget that you have a meeting with Rae at 11:00. She asked me to block out quite a chunk of time for you to be with her in her royal chambers.”
This annual planning meeting is my life assessment marker. I preface it each year with a short prayer, “Lord, let this be my last planning session. Move me on to greener pastures. Amen.” This year I will add, “May I never have to pray this prayer again.”
I roll my creaky chair out into the hallway so that Lysa can see from her corner corral that my tongue is stuck out. Unfortunately my chair’s momentum forces a collision with Mr. Emil Shannon, who is storming toward the desk with the self-appointed authority his short and corpulent body betrays.
Just as Wendy was to be crowned worst spawn of the year, we are reminded of this poor excuse for a child. Cursing, Emil bends down to rub his shin while his other hand is waving madly in the air, pointing, accusing, searching for a target.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Shannon, but you will have to hail a cab outside.” I roll back behind the counter so there will be a sound-and-fury barrier between us.
He rises and glares over the faux-granite surface at me. “Once again I have had something of great value stolen in this unchecked crime ward.” He waits with nostrils flaring, his breath as shallow as his spirit.
I offer him the look of shock and outrage that he expects followed by an insincere frown of disappointment. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a place for stolen items. They don’t remain in the building, what with all the pawnshops in the area. But if you think you might have lost something that someone else found, then we do have a lost and found bin—”
“I haven’t got all day to spend in this—” He stops talking when he sees that I have stopped searching through the bin so I can listen for his insult. In a lower version of his angry voice he seethes, “Just look, please. It’s a gold watch.”
This runt of a man is the son of Pamela Shannon, a woman with only slight dementia who has picked up a bad habit in her old age. She picks pockets. At first the stack of hundred-dollar bills, Emil’s driver’s license, and a silver pen in her nightstand after visiting hours were a mystery. We finally caught on and confronted her. She laughed at our slow detective work. When she was told that stealing from a son sweet enough to visit regularly was abominable, she laughed even louder.
Pamela’s devilish, in-the-know grin later made sense. Frank heard the bridge room gossip that Emil was robbing Pamela blind and was probably responsible for placing the high-functioning woman here well before there were any signs of physical or emotional need. A quick search through a local real estate website confirmed that Emil was selling pieces of his mother’s property at top market prices.
Now when the metal doors are closed to visitors, we congratulate Pamela on whatever fine object she has acquired and then place the item directly in the lost-and-found bin. It doesn’t bother us at all when Emil shouts, spit building in the corners of his mouth, and reprimands whoever is on duty about the loose security. Important lawyer-man still doesn’t realize that his mother is only doing to him what he is doing to her.
I asked Pamela why she even allows him to return. It turns out he brings pints of butter pecan ice cream each trip as a guilt offering. She just loves butter pecan ice cream and watching him squirm when she refers to him as her “special tubby boy.”
Tubby’s small, bloated face is now hovering just inches from mine. “You do not run a resident community but a home for thieves and vagrants. I should take my mother out of here because of all the criminal activity that goes on.”
I hold out the orange container that has an assortment of books, eyeglasses, and as of last week, Mr. Shannon’s gold Rolex.
“When I get done with the high-profile case I am working on, this place will be my next investigation. You can be sure.” His stubby hands grab for the watch, reaching and retracting like a turtle’s head returns to its shell after an offense.
“How old are you, Mr. Shannon?” I give him a pensive, evaluative look.
“What on earth does that have to do with it?”
“Well, you are right about the lost items scenario happening too often.”
He looks as pleased as a gargoyle can look. Uncoordinated, nervous fingers replace the watch on his thick wrist.
“You know, dementia can set in early in a person’s life. And it can be hereditary…” I leave the deduction to this great lawyer working on a high-profile case.
With a shrug of his shoulders he straightens his suit on the top half. The middle of the jacket is wedged onto his extended belly. Nice suit, evil fit. He spins on his heel and storms toward the glass doors, which he tries to slam, until he realizes they are hinged to close slowly for thieving people with walkers. This really gets to him; he kicks the steel frame of the door and limps off.