THE NEXT EVENING Charlie and Pam and the kids were taking me to dinner. I was in the lobby, waiting for them to pick me up, when someone thumped down onto the bench next to me.
Evan.
He smiled. “Finally. If I had to put money down, I would bet you’ve been avoiding me.”
A spark of anxiety prickled my neck, but I answered blandly. “It has been awhile. But you’d lose your bet.”
“If you say so.” He lifted a knowing eyebrow. “So, how are things? Why do I never seem to run into you?”
So he’d been on the lookout for me. I shrugged. “You just don’t travel in the right circles, I guess.”
He laughed at that, leaning back. Then he rubbed the top of his cane and turned toward me. “Maybe we could have lunch together again sometime.”
“Maybe. Sometime.” I glanced past him and saw Charlie’s car enter the far end of the parking lot. I leaned forward and got ready to push myself up.
Evan said, “How about Monday?”
I frowned with irritation. Didn’t he understand when he was being put off politely? He added, “I promise, not to talk about … anything you don’t want to discuss.”
The car was not Charlie’s after all. Darn. For once it would be really nice if my son were early. I slumped back against the cushion.
Evan persisted. “Frannie, come on. Don’t you just wish you had someone to gossip about this place with?”
“Is that what you think? That I’m a gossipy old woman?”
“No! That’s not what I meant.” He held up his free hand. “Maybe ‘gossip’ was the wrong word. I just …” He shrugged. “You know what I mean. You see things. Like me. You know who’s flirting with whom, whose kids are resentful or greedy, which couples are arguing. Who’s pocketing the silverware. You notice things about the staff and wonder about their stories. But you don’t have anyone to chew it over with. If your kids are like mine, they aren’t interested.”
When I didn’t answer, he waved his hand, gesturing around the lobby. “And what else are we going to do—go jogging?”
This made me chuckle. “Well, no. But we could play shuffleboard.”
“I’d beat you. I’m good at shuffleboard.”
The exchange was almost flirtatious. I thought that had been settled, but I wanted to make sure. I asked, “Evan, this isn’t some backhanded way of asking for a date, is it?”
“No!” He blanched. “I-I-I wasn’t thinking of it like that.” He looked panicked. “Not that you aren’t— But I, well, if you want to think of it that way, um, well. I-I …”
His discomfort was answer enough. And though it was fun to watch him twist in the wind, I lifted my hand to quiet him. “Good. I am not interested in romance.”
But I was tempted to accept the invite. I realized I’d been foolish when I made him leave my apartment without forcing him to tell me exactly what he thought about Katherine’s death. I’d let my fear and anger and panic get the best of me when I should have found out what his suspicions were and how he came to them. And now, with Thomas’s increased scrutiny of Graciela and Jannah … Evan was so observant. Having the chance to get his take on things might be helpful. In his letter he’d said he was an ally. Very well, I would at least for the moment treat him that way. Not that I would let my guard down or reveal anything. Allies aren’t necessarily friends.
I still didn’t trust him, but it had been more weeks since Katherine’s death—enough time that it seemed clear he wasn’t going to act on any suspicions or make them public. It also occurred to me that if I gave him something else to chew over, he would leave off thinking about Katherine and her passing. He really was, as he said, a noticer. So maybe I could give him something else to notice.
I turned to him, suddenly decisive. “Okay. Monday it is. But you’re buying.”
Beyond the lobby doors I spotted another silver Toyota, and this time it really was Charlie’s. I didn’t want my son and Evan to have another annoying male-bonding conversation like they did when they both invaded my apartment and negotiated over who would clean up the spilled cookies. So I hurried—if you could call my progress with a cane hurrying—toward the exit. I hit the “Door Open” button, and as I waited for the glass doors to slide apart, I said, “See you Monday.”
I was more animated with Danny and Adam than I had been in a long time. Halfway through dinner, Danny nudged me. “You’re in a good mood, Grandma.” I realized it was the feeling that at least I was taking some action, not just stewing in misery.
I reached over and pulled my grandson’s ear. “It’s just so good to be with you.”
Then, on Sunday afternoon, what had been a vague concern, perhaps born of nosiness, became more urgent.
The construction was finished. I once again sat at my regular table, tucked in the corner by the coffee station and staff area outside the kitchen. I heard whispering and looked around.
Graciela was murmuring urgently into her phone. This in itself was a violation of the rules, and something I’d never seen her do. Her back was to me, so I couldn’t see her face. But her voice was frantic, and it sounded like she was crying. I moved my head to listen and strained to follow her words as she switched between Spanish and English.
“Please Ramon. Pide a tu tia. Por favor. Puede hablar con Thomas.” She was desperately upset. “Mi acusó … he say I make un error con la medicina.” Her voice broke. She swallowed and then she whispered with urgency “Y si llama ICE o la policia …?” The brewing coffee gurgled and hissed, drowning out her voice.
My stomach dropped. She turned and I quickly leaned my head on my hand so she wouldn’t see I’d been eavesdropping. She rushed out of the dining room, a Kleenex pressed against her mouth. I had studied Spanish years ago when we had an exchange student from Bolivia stay with us. I was far from fluent, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that the words un error con la medicina or la policia, spoken with such trepidation, did not bode well. My stomach tightened.
“How are you tonight, Mrs. Greene?”
I jumped. The young man who had materialized at my elbow was Lucas, one of the part-time aides.
“Oh! Hello.” I blinked. “Hello. Nice to see you.”
He smiled. “Great to see you too, looking as bright as ever.” Lucas was a university student with a friendly disposition.
I turned to address him. “Come to think of it, you haven’t been around much lately. Studying for exams?”
“Not exactly.” He shrugged. “He’s only giving me a few shifts a week.”
I lifted my eyebrow, questioning.
“You know.” He glanced around. “Thomas.”
I lowered my voice. “Is he difficult to work for?”
Lucas shrugged and offered a knowing smirk. “I can’t complain. He’s not too hard on me.” He indicated the staff area behind me with a movement of his head. “He’s tougher on some of the others, who depend on this place more. You know—who have fewer options.” The look he gave me was freighted.
After he brought my lunch, I lingered as long as I could over my wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese crumbled on top and my beef barley soup, keeping watch for Graciela. I even asked for dessert, which I almost never do. But she didn’t return to the coffee station behind the door, and I waited until my ice cream melted before I finally gave up and made my way back to my apartment.
All afternoon the implications of Graciela’s phone call churned in my stomach. Until now it had seemed that everyone assumed Katherine had died of natural causes. Evan had indicated an intuition, born of knowing my family’s history with Nathaniel and the fact that he’d seen me by the med cart. But even he had said he had no idea what really happened.
But now, all these weeks later, questions seemed to be emerging.
I stood at my window, fear gnawing at me. I spent the rest of the day formulating some seemingly innocent but revealing questions for when Graciela came with the meds that evening.
When the knock came, I flung open my door. But it wasn’t Graciela.
“Oh!” My voice betrayed my surprise “Um. Hello.”
The young woman blinked at me and swung her gaze from me to the apartment number above my door and then down to her clipboard. She had mousy overgrown bangs and dark lipstick. Though reason told me she was an adult, she looked like she was about fifteen. She said, “Francine Greene?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
She lifted the pleated cup that held my blood pressure medication. Then she looked at her clipboard and checked my apartment number again. Finally she offered it to me tentatively, like it was an explosive.
I smiled as I took the offering. “You’re new, aren’t you? What’s your name?”
“Dorrie.” She pulled her lips upward like a kid whose mom had reminded her to smile. “Nice to meet you.” Her mouth again fell into a flat line. Then she just stood there looking at me, her left foot bobbing.
“Nice to meet you too.” I added, “Is Graciela out sick today? I hope everything’s okay?”
Dorrie flushed. “Graciela is here. But she can’t do meds anymore.”
“Oh …” I decided to attempt to prompt her. “Do you know why?” I hurried to add, “Not that it isn’t a pleasure to meet you.”
“I don’t know.” Still, she made no move to continue on her way, and peered at me, scraping her lower lip with her teeth. She offered nothing more.
“Well …” I nodded at her, giving up on getting any information. “Have a good evening,” I said, and began to close the door as she stared at me.
“Wait.” Her arm shot out to stop me. “I’m supposed to watch you swallow it.”
“Swallow what?”
She looked at the pill cup in my hand.
What was this? In the past I would sometimes take the cup of water Graciela offered just to chat a bit longer. But it had never been required. I said, “Are you saying you have to watch me take my medicine? Really? Since when?”
The poor thing blushed. “I don’t know. That’s just what they told me. They said that a few weeks back somebody didn’t get the right medication. Thomas said I need to be certain.”
All moisture drained from my mouth. I didn’t trust myself to speak. She poured a few sips of water into a Dixie cup and watched as I choked down my pills. Then she leaned over the cart to make a note on the clipboard.
I thought of Thomas’s attention to Graciela when she was on med duty.
What—exactly—was Graciela being accused of?
I was unable to sleep that night and stared into the dark until the wee hours. I was glad I’d be talking to Evan. If only I could figure out how to frame it without revealing anything.
The next day Evan and I went back to the country club. This time when we ordered, I included a glass of sauvignon blanc. His eyebrows shot up at that. “That’s a good sign. Last time we were here, you were as guarded as a nun in a saloon.”
“Ah …” I let my voice trail away before pursing my lips. “Let’s just say I didn’t know you so well then.”
After our drinks arrived and we ordered our sandwiches, he lifted his beer in a toast. “To lunches without anxiety.” He clinked my wineglass with his beer bottle.
“That would be good.”
I sipped the pale, green-tasting wine. It had been a long time since I’d indulged in alcohol at lunch.
He tilted his head. “So? What’s new, Frannie?” He adopted a slightly ironic, “what shall we talk about now?” tone. “What are you doing these days, since you have abandoned the book club?”
I decided I might as well just jump in. I leaned forward. “What do you know about Thomas?”
“Who?”
“You know. The manager.”
He looked puzzled. “The one with the stick up his you-know-what? What about him?”
“What do you think of him?”
“Like I said. He acts like he has something stuck firmly in his behind. Tightly wound. He’s nice enough to me, of course, but he has to be. Why?”
“I think he is semi-abusive to the staff. They all seem afraid of him.”
“Semi-abusive?” He tilted his head. “What does that mean?”
I exhaled and pressed lines into the tablecloth with the tines of my fork. “I’m not sure. But the staff seems really apprehensive. Like, frightened.”
“You mean physically?”
“Noooo. I mean, I think he manipulates them. Lords things over them.”
He shrugged. “So the guy is a petty tyrant. He likes power, but doesn’t really have much. So he pushes around folks with even less power than him.”
The waiter appeared and set down our plates. I took a sip of wine as he walked away. Suddenly I could hardly breathe. The trepidation was overwhelming, like a band around my chest. I blinked to keep tears away.
“Frannie? What is it?”
I bit my lip and inhaled to calm myself. After a moment I slowly said, “I overheard something. I think he’s up to worse than merely making his underlings miserable. It might even have some—legal aspects.”
“Legal aspects?” He picked up his fork.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Do you know Graciela?”
“Of course. The nurse’s aide. Short, kind, long dark braids?”
“She’s the person I first noticed it with. In fact, it was the day you …” I paused. “The day you stopped by my apartment and met my son.”
“Oh sure. The day with the cookie spill.” He cleared his throat. “When we had the coffee klatch with Ida.”
He was honoring the fiction he’d created about that day. I gave a quick smile in recognition, but I couldn’t maintain the eye contact. I resumed scraping the linen with my fork. “That was when I first picked up on it. She brought me my lunch after you left. She was super-nervous. She kept glancing around, and seemed panicked that I might complain because it took so long and the lunch was cold. I figured he was just a run-of-the-mill asshole boss. But I decided to keep an eye out and intervene if I could, because I hate bullies. So I started watching him. And he is, as you say, a petty tyrant. It seems like the entire staff gets nervous and flustered and fearful when he is around. Marta, Jannah, even that student—Lucas, I think his name is. All of them.”
He opened his napkin. “So where does the legal aspect come in?”
“You notice how many of the staff are immigrants?”
He nodded. “Yeah. That might make people more vulnerable.” He sipped his beer.
“You know where I sit in the dining room?”
He chuckled. “Of course. You hide yourself away in that corner. Makes it very hard to observe you, I have to say.”
I smirked. “Well, it also makes it easy for me to observe everyone else. And to listen in on what the staff are talking about.” I paused. “And I’ve heard a few conversations that … made me worry.”
“Like what?”
“Well, to begin with, a while back I heard Graciela and Jannah talking, and Graciela was really upset. She was talking about her son, and it became clear he is not living with her and that she is sending money back to her family. Then Jannah tried to comfort her, pointing out she’d get a raise soon.”
“And?” He slipped the pepper shaker out of the holder and lifted the top off his burger.
“And then Graciela whispered something about Thomas having to approve the raise, and she was almost crying. And from the way she said it, and from Jannah’s reaction, it wasn’t just about the money. Like they were really frightened of what he might do. And then she whispered something about ‘ICE’ and Ramon—I think that’s her husband—and Jannah said, “But isn’t Thomas Ramon’s cousin?’ and Graciela, who was in tears by this time, said, ‘Yes, that’s how he knows.’”
I took a bite of my patty melt. Evan watched me and didn’t say anything.
“Well?” I finally asked.
“You think he’s somehow using her immigration status against her.”
I nodded.
He wiped his mouth. “So, you mentioned legal aspects?”
“I just told you …”
He opened his hands. “Look, this kind of thing pisses me off too. And I’m as sympathetic as you for Graciela, and Jannah and everyone who works to take care of us. It’s what makes Ridgewood a nice place. But without knowing anyone’s immigration status, there’s not much to go on. Do you know her status?”
I shook my head.
“Plus …” He exhaled. “I’m afraid there isn’t much protection people can claim if they don’t have a work visa. It’s the reason immigrants are so vulnerable to begin with.”
“There must be something we can do. It’s getting worse. Just a couple days ago, I overheard her talking on the phone. She was crying. She said he was accusing her. He can get her sent away. She mentioned the police …” I cut myself off. I didn’t dare say more—not yet. Maybe not ever.
I kept my face down, struggling for composure. I felt the weight of his eyes on me, but I had no idea what he was thinking. Neither of us spoke for a moment. I could see his left hand, twiddling the frilled toothpick that had speared his sandwich.
Finally he cleared his throat. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Why is this happening now?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t told him about the charged confrontation between Thomas and Graciela over the med cart. Or the fact that she wasn’t working the medication cart anymore. I couldn’t bring myself to.
He sipped his beer and exhaled. “Look at us, chewing over tidbits. I guess we have to take what excitement we can get.”
I flared at him. “It isn’t a game. These are the people who care for us. We should care about them.”
His eyes widened, and to my surprise he blushed. “You’re right. I didn’t mean to sound flippant. It’s just that trying to stop a bully isn’t quite the high stakes of a criminal investigation or life-changing surgery.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. Please God, I thought, please let it be as he says. A case of workplace bullying. Awful, but nothing to do with untimely death. Please don’t let anyone think Graciela messed up the medicines and killed Katherine.
There it was. The thought that I had been fighting off ever since I overheard her phone call. My real fear: that my meddling had caused Katherine’s death, and Graciela was being blamed.
The self-deception of my supposed concern for the staff hit me with full force. Thomas may be an asshole boss, and he might not be sympathetic to immigrants’ concerns, but the real crux of my worry was that Thomas suspected something had gone awry with the medication cart and that an investigation could result. Or that a blameless person would be blamed.
I could somehow, maybe, justify to myself taking revenge on people who had hurt my family. But ruining the life of an innocent bystander was something else entirely.
Oh God. Oh God.