Читать книгу Almost Crimson - Dasha Kelly - Страница 10

FIVE

SQUISH

DORIS STOOD OUT LIKE A neon light amid the crowd of travelers jockeying for curb space. She was easy to spot, with her inflated ash-streaked hair, Christmas-red lips, and a face-eating brooch that Doris had pinned high on her shoulder instead of her lapel. She had always reveled in becoming a caricature of herself.

They embraced, young woman and old, before CeCe lowered Doris’ overnight bag into the trunk.

“That’s all?” CeCe said, standing by Doris’ passenger door.

“I only needed my thong and a toothbrush,” Doris said.

“No,” CeCe laughed. “No. I do not approve.”

“Stop being a hater,” Doris said.

They cruised along the expressway, chatting about Doris’ twins, now married, and CeCe’s mother, now compelled by crafts projects at the independent living center. Dr. Harper told CeCe her mother responded well to the mixed company of the center, not just depressives. CeCe was about to ask for any updates on mall gossip when Doris interrupted.

“Get off on Parker,” she said.

“What? No dim sum from the Emperor’s Throne?” CeCe said.

Doris smiled. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Doris’ turn-by-turn directions carried them beyond the shopping center to a residential neighborhood of bungalows. CeCe parked in front of a gray house with lavender trim.

“Cute house,” CeCe said. “You used to live out here, right?”

“Yep, right here,” Doris said, looking past CeCe at the house.

CeCe parked on the curb and followed Doris up the walkway of flat granite circles. A black sedan was parked in the driveway and Doris stooped to brazenly peer inside. They continued past the empty car and reached the porch. CeCe was surprised when Doris pushed open the front door without even ringing the bell first.

CeCe hadn’t expected to find the house empty. She knew Doris had always hated the idea of renting this little house to strangers, and remembered listening to her friend complain about the “trolls and cavemen” she’d been interviewing as tenants. She had asked CeCe to move in, but CeCe couldn’t afford the rent and hadn’t had transportation to get herself and her mother around from this end of the city. Now, her friend’s tenant had skipped out on her. CeCe had witnessed plenty of couches, lamps, and laundry baskets filled with clothes sneaking away in the middle of the night in the final years at her and her mother’s old apartment.

CeCe closed the door behind them as Doris’ soft-sole shoes squished across the hardwood floor to the oversized window overlooking the back yard. CeCe knew how much Doris loved this little house. It had been a victory for her in every possible way: engineering a divorce from her philandering husband of nearly twenty years, and stumbling into an intimate clique of socialites who paid her handsomely to clean their condos and, ultimately, provide a bit of homespun therapy while they hunted for the next prenuptial agreement. Doris had bought this house, her first, with part of what she earned from the Ladies, as she called them. She never gave CeCe hard numbers, but CeCe had long estimated that Doris’ job at Sears was simply for insurance and rainy-day money. She’d purchased other properties, her condo in Florida and homes for her sons, but this one was special, and CeCe was saddened for her friend.

CeCe fiddled awkwardly with her keys, not sure if Doris would want space or a hug. She watched Doris take in a slow, deep breath before turning around. Her face was full of light and whimsy.

“Take a look around, kiddo,” Doris said with a smile. “I gotta go see a man about a horse.”

“I’m a ranch hand now?” a man’s voice called from the kitchen.

Doris laughed and squish-squished toward the kitchen door, saying, “You can be a cowboy, if that makes you feel better . . . ”

CeCe shook her head as Doris disappeared into the doorway that held the man’s voice. Whatever happened with her tenant, CeCe thought, Doris had it under control. CeCe couldn’t be surprised. Since the day Doris had adopted her in the smokers’ garden more than seven years ago, CeCe had always known Doris to have a plan. Whether convincing mall management to support a cross-store secret Santa tradition, helping her youngest son secure a grant for a conservation study in Belize, coaching CeCe through her first attempts at dating, or researching retirement communities in Florida, Doris was always thinking about the next move. Doris had once told Cece that after spending half of her life doing as she was told, she was now intent on creating her own pathways out of this world. CeCe often wondered what such an assembly of thoughts might feel like.