Goodbye To All That Page 10

  The lip of the porcelain sink dug into her belly as she leaned in toward the mirror to get a closer view of her face. Not bad, she decided. Foundation couldn’t hide the faint lines that laced the outer edges of her eyes and crimped her upper lip, but she wasn’t one of those women who got “work” done, as they euphemistically put it. Her friend Myrna had undergone an eye lift a few years ago, and Ruth hadn’t even noticed. All that pain, the expense, the exposure to possible infection, and the procedure had left Myrna looking like the sixty-year-old woman she was.

  And Lenore from the B’nai Torah Sisterhood received regular injections of Botox. The thought of injecting poison into her forehead made Ruth ill. Moisturizers, sure. A little foundation, why not? But work? Not for Ruth.

  Not even now, when she was practically single.

  She certainly felt single whenever she wandered through her apartment. Sure, it was small, but to her it was a palace. She’d lived there a week and hadn’t once felt claustrophobic. She hardly even noticed the rancid-taffy color of the carpet anymore. Her platform bed was like a private island when she lay in it—at the very center of the mattress, which would get rotated only if and when she decided to rotate it—and she’d managed to fit her sweaters and pajamas into the drawers underneath.

  She’d purchased a futon couch for the living room, in case she ever had an overnight guest, and it wasn’t the most comfortable seating in the universe, but no matter. She’d also bought a recliner so she didn’t have to sit on the futon if she didn’t want to. She’d taken the little TV from the kitchen at the house, and Doug’s old stereo system, which had been sitting on a shelf in his bedroom since he’d left home for college twenty years ago. The house he lived in now was wired for sound, with camouflaged speakers in most of the rooms and, hidden in a closet off the family room, a control panel that resembled the cockpit of a space shuttle. He didn’t need his old receiver and CD player and the three-inch speakers anymore.

  So she’d brought them with her when she moved to the apartment. And she’d brought her beloved Corelli CD’s and all her other classical music. Last night over dinner—a can of tuna and a sliced tomato, a meal Richard would never have considered a real dinner but she’d found perfectly adequate—she’d listened to Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in B-flat major. She’d written her senior thesis on Corelli’s use of suspended seconds, the tension of two adjacent notes sounding at the same time and the catharsis the listener felt when the suspended second resolved and the tension eased. Richard found Corelli boring and he didn’t understand what a suspended second was even after she’d explained it to him a million times, starting when they’d still been in college. Because he didn’t care for classical music, she’d listened to pathetically little Corelli for the past forty-two years.

  From here on in, she was going to listen to as much Corelli as she wanted. And all her other favorites: Handel, Bach, Vivaldi and Mendelsohn, who composed later than the Baroque period but was her favorite of the Classicals. Her breakfast that morning—a soft-boiled egg broken over a piece of toast so it was sort of like French toast, but not really—had been accompanied by a Scarlatti piano sonata. Scarlatti wasn’t big on suspended seconds, but his music still filled her with joy.

  She felt as excited today as she used to feel as a child on the first day of school. Back then, her mother would have prepared her egg and toast for her, and smoothed the collar of an outfit that was brand-new because it had been purchased in August just for school. Her mother would have scrutinized the weather through the window above the deep-basin sink—“overcast but not raining,” she’d announce, “maybe you should wear galoshes, just in case”—and remind Ruth to brush her teeth. She would have braided Ruth’s hair tight enough to stretch her scalp, and packed a sandwich, an apple, a chocolate chip cookie and a nickel for milk into a crisp brown paper bag for her. Isaac always got two cookies in his lunch bag, but Ruth was given only one. “He’s a boy, he needs to eat more,” her mother would say. “You’re a girl, you’ve got to watch your figure.” When Ruth was eight years old, she didn’t have a figure, but her mother had ordered her to watch it, anyway.

  Into her sixties, Ruth’s figure had started to resemble that non-figure she’d had at eight. Her waistline had thickened, diminishing her curves, and her breasts, never big to begin with, had shrunken and grown wrinkly like deflated balloons. Thank you, menopause.

  But if she wanted to eat two cookies, she would. She was single. She was free. She could eat as many damned cookies as she liked.

  She left the bathroom, checked to make sure the laces of her sneakers were double-knotted, grabbed her purse and paused in the entry to don her fall-weight jacket. Her apron hung below the jacket’s bottom hem, but she wasn’t going to wear a long coat just to hide it. Maybe tomorrow she’d wait until she’d crossed the street and entered the First-Rate store before putting on the apron.

  Having lived only a week in the new apartment, she still felt strange when she left it. The hallway smelled of lemon. Her apartment door clanked when she shut it; unlike the pretty oak front door with the leaded glass window in it at home, this door was metal. And it felt weird to exit her home and still find herself inside. She’d bought an inexpensive rubber welcome mat and laid it in front of her door. If anyone visited her here—and she was sure she’d have visitors eventually—she wanted them to feel welcome. Wiping off their feet before they entered her apartment wouldn’t be such a bad idea, either.

  In time this place would feel like home, she promised herself. If it didn’t, she’d move somewhere else. She could do that. She was free. She could do whatever she wanted.

  Amazing to think that what she wanted right now was to leave the building, stroll across the parking lot and down the sidewalk to the corner, wait for a red light to halt the flow of traffic, cross to the other side and march through the mini-mall’s parking lot to the First-Rate store. She could think of nothing, not even spending time with her grandchildren, that she wanted to do as much as that.

  Francine Thorpe, the First-Rate manager who’d hired Ruth, had told her to show up fifteen minutes early for her shift, which would begin at 8:30 a.m. She entered the store twenty-five minutes early. Years, decades, might have passed since she last had a paying job, but she knew nobody ever lost points by showing up early for work.

  She was used to shopping at a First-Rate closer to the house, but this First-Rate appeared almost identical to the First-Rate she knew. It had bluish fluorescent ceiling lights and a dry, almost minty smell. Cosmetics, hair products, “feminine products” and the like to the right. Books, wrapping paper, stationery and greeting cards toward the back. Seasonal wares at the center of the store—as Ruth surveyed the store from the doorway, she saw it was set up for Halloween, the center shelves filled with jumbo bags of miniature candies, stacks of cone-shaped black witches’ hats and orange plastic trick-or-treat buckets that were obviously supposed to resemble pumpkins but didn’t really. Further left, small housewares. Along the far left wall, snack foods and refrigerator cases filled with milk, orange juice and ice-cream novelties. Way in the rear, the prescriptions counter. Anyone who came into the store to get a prescription filled would have to walk past shelves filled with all kinds of merchandise, tempting the customer to pick up, to buy.

  Ruth crossed to the staff door at the rear of the store and pressed the buzzer to be admitted. Francine Thorpe’s office was located behind that door. Ruth had seen it the day she’d been hired.

  The staff door was opened by a skinny young man with hair twisted into thick strands—what was that style called? She was sure she’d heard Abbie call it…what? Deadlocks? Deadbolts? The style looked better on black boys than white boys, and this boy was white. His head looked like the business end of a dry mop. A metal rivet adorned his left eyebrow, and his cheeks bore faint traces of acne scarring.

  He greeted her with a squinty scowl, but his face relaxed a little when he noticed her red apron. He was wearing a red First-Rate apron himself. />
  “I’m new here,” she said, struggling not to stare at that piece of metal skewering his eyebrow. Why would a nice young man mutilate himself like that? At least he hadn’t pierced his nose or lip. God help him if he had a pierced tongue. She’d read an article about tongue-piercing a few years ago. Terribly unsanitary. And wouldn’t it affect eating? Wouldn’t the metal conduct the cold if you were eating ice-cream? You might wind up with frostbite inside your mouth.

  He was still staring at her, so she added, “This is my first day. I’m a little early.” I sound like an idiot. Or maybe like I think I’m talking to an idiot. Take your pick.

  He stared at her apron for another few seconds, then opened the door wide enough to let her in. “I guess you need to talk to Francine,” he said.

  “I guess I do.”

  “Okay,” he said, as warm an invitation as she could hope for.

  Francine had given Ruth a hasty tour of the employees-only area of the store the day she’d been hired, and she remembered it all: the floor-to-ceiling metal shelving crammed with inventory, the painted concrete floor, the lavatory, the staff room, and finally Francine’s office. The mop-headed young man tapped on the door and nudged it open. “Francine?”

  Burnt coffee fumes wafted from the small, windowless office. Ruth figured her boss was drinking either French roast or else coffee that had sat in a carafe on a hot plate for days, condensing until it had reached the consistency of melted asphalt. Francine stood behind her desk, dressed in a long-sleeved red smock—were sleeves a symbol of superiority, like a general’s stars?—gripping a cup nearly big enough to hold a family of four in that Disney World mad-tea-party ride. Francine’s skin was the color of root beer and her hair was pulled severely back from her face and held in a flat barrette at the nape of her neck. Most of the hair was straight, but stray strands that had escaped the barrette fuzzed in tiny curls. Ruth wasn’t sure how old Francine was, but she was clearly younger than Ruth. Taller, too. And not given to smiling, at least this early in the morning.

  “I thought you were starting yesterday,” she said to Ruth.

  “No. Today,” Ruth said as calmly as she could. She hadn’t screwed up her first day. She was positive. She’d marked the starting date in bright red ink in her little pocket-size date book, which she’d bought at the First-Rate near the house last December. She’d marked it on the wall calendar she’d hung in the kitchen, as well: FIRST DAY AT FIRST-RATE. Also in red ink.

  Francine gulped some coffee. Ruth realized that if she’d been scheduled to start yesterday, Francine would have telephoned her when she didn’t show up. She’d gotten a land-line installed in her apartment the same day her platform bed had been delivered, and she’d supplied Francine with that number as well as her cell phone number.

  Phones or no phones, this was not a mistake Ruth would make. After raising three children, she knew how to organize things so everyone got where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.

  Francine seemed dubious, but she put down her cup, yanked open a drawer on one of the four-drawer metal file cabinets that consumed nearly half the office’s space, and pulled out a folder. “All right,” she said, as if her accusation had been some sort of test and Ruth had passed. “Here’s your staff ID card.” She handed Ruth a laminated card which had Ruth’s name printed in block letters on one side and a magnetic strip on the other. “Wade will show you the time clock in the staff room. You can leave your coat and purse in a locker there. Did you bring a combination lock?”

  Ruth shook her head.

  “You can buy one in the store. Five-seventy-nine less the employee discount. Go buy one, and then you can clock in and lock your things up. Wade will show you what to do. Wade—” Francine shifted her gaze to the mop-head “—show her what to do.”

  He nodded and led Ruth out of the room, then beckoned her to accompany him into the staff room, a stark, well-lit cubicle with two round Formica-topped tables surrounded by molded plastic chairs, a sink, a coffee maker which was apparently the source of the burnt coffee, judging by the smell, a mini-fridge and a row of lockers lining the far wall. Near the door was a compact machine, its screen displaying the time digitally. “Swipe your card,” he whispered. “Clock in.”

  “But Francine said—”

  “Swipe it. The first thing you do when you get here is clock in. You’re on her time, not yours, even if you’re buying a fucking combination lock. Excuse me,” he added, flashing her a sheepish smile. She caught a glimpse of his tongue, and it didn’t seem to have any metal attached to it. “You want to get paid for every minute you’re here.”

  “Okay,” she said warily. He was right—she did want to get paid, and she was on the store’s time. She didn’t want to get in trouble, though. She hadn’t totally recovered from Francine’s accusation that she was supposed to have started yesterday, and now she was being urged by this boy young enough to be her grandson to disobey her boss.

  Francine had put him in charge. He was showing Ruth what to do. If worse came to worst, Ruth could always say she was simply following his instructions.

  She swiped her card.

  He grinned. “Ka-ching.”

  “I’m Ruth Bendel, by the way,” she said, extending her hand.

  He shook it. His fingers were long and thin. A pianist’s fingers, she thought. She wondered if he played. Boys with pierced eyebrows didn’t play the piano, did they? Maybe they played rock. Not Rachmaninoff, though. “Wade Smith,” he introduced himself.

  Wade Smith? What kind of name was that? Wade was odd enough, but Smith? She had never met anyone named Smith in her life. She’d always assumed Smith was the ultimate pseudonym, the false name adulterers used at sleazy motels, or possibly the name some idiot at Ellis Island might have attached to an immigrant at the turn of the last century, when he couldn’t deal with the immigrant’s Slavic name that was spelled with only consonants. Smith was such a common name, nobody had it.

  Wade Smith apparently did, unless he was an adulterer. He didn’t look like one. Who’d cheat on her husband with a guy with hardware poking through his face like Frankenstein’s monster?

  She shouldn’t think poorly of him. Thanks to him, she was clocked in and ka-chinging. Thanks to him, a minute later, she was standing in front of a rack of combination locks in the housewares section, and a minute after that she was at the front counter, paying for it, presenting her employee card at Wade’s urging so she could receive her ten-percent employee discount. Fifty-eight cents was fifty-eight cents. And since she was now supporting herself, she had to watch every penny.

  “Always keep your employee card with you,” Wade said once they were back in the staff room and Ruth had her coat and purse stored safely inside a locker. She’d been about to slip the card inside her purse before setting it on the locker shelf, but he’d stopped her in time. “The card opens the staff door so you don’t have to buzz in. And if you want to pick up something, like for lunch, you need your card to get the discount.”

  The food First-Rate sold didn’t qualify as lunch in Ruth’s mind. Chips, pretzels, cookies, soda, mixed nuts that looked like mostly peanuts . . . The most nutritious edible they sold was processed American cheese. She’d figured that if she had enough time, she’d buy lunch at the sandwich shop three stores down, and if she didn’t she’d skip lunch and make up for it at dinner.

  She didn’t want to be a snob, though. If all the other employees ate First-Rate junk food for lunch, she’d do her best to fit in. Maybe she could buy a cup of yogurt and some crackers. Or she could bring her own lunch in a brown bag, just like when she was a schoolgirl, only with two cookies.

  “Today you’ll just do stock,” Wade informed her. “By next week Francine’ll have you doing check-out. But everyone starts with stock.”

  “Is that how you started?” Ruth asked, once again following him out of the staff room. “You must be, what, the assistant manager?”

  “Who, me?” Wade snorted.

&n
bsp; “Well, since you were assigned to train me—”

  “Until this morning, I was the most recent hire,” he said. “Now you’re the most recent hire.”

  So training the new arrival was a task for the staff member with the least seniority. Ruth wondered how long she’d be working here before she’d be responsible for training the next new hire. She liked the idea that she’d soon know enough about First-Rate to train another rookie.

  “With stock,” Wade explained, “what you do is wander up and down the aisles, and when you see we’re out of something or running low, you come back here—” he gestured toward the shelves of inventory “—and ask Frank or Carlo to get it for you. They’re the stock guys, and they’re . . .” He peered around for a minute, then wandered around one of the shelves and spotted an open door leading to another parking lot outside, behind the store. “Yeah. They’re unloading a truck right now. But, okay, so you ask them to get you the athlete’s foot ointment or the toothpicks or whatever. By the end of the week you’ll know where all the stuff is on these shelves, but Frank and Carlo flip out if anyone touches their precious inventory without their permission. Trust me—you don’t want to get on their bad side. They’re, like, nuts.”

  Ruth nodded. Nuts she could handle. The world was filled with nuts.

  “So Frank gets you the toothpicks or the candy corn or whatever, and you bring it out on one of these trucks.” He pointed to a couple of wheeled carts parked near the door into the store. “The trick is, you don’t want to go back and forth a million times, so you do a few aisles and then come back and get a bunch of stuff at once. Or if you don’t have anything going on in the store, you come back here and find a truck already full of stuff—” he gestured toward one of the carts, which was stacked with bottles of vitamins, calcium supplements, and assorted other nutritional pills “—and you wheel it out into the store and restock the shelves.”