Читать книгу The Special One - James Griffin - Страница 3

Rhetta Sweeney wasn’t half as crazy about tag sales as was her sister. Cathleen usually started scanning the newspapers on Wednesdays, writing down the addresses for that weekend’s adventure. Cathleen didn’t drive any more, having vision issues that left her severely nearsighted. So it befell her older sister to be the chauffeur on that Friday morning in November.

Both were now widows, each only using their married names now for contracts and checks. Whatever friends were still alive never did take to the “new” names, for they had been “the Sweeney girls” long before “those men” came along. So, over the years since their husbands passed, things settled back down to normal. The Sweeney sisters were back.

It was the third stop of the morning. After this one they knew all the good pickings would be slim, so it would be “goin’ home time” soon for tuna sandwiches and tea. Cathleen was in the garage area, slipping her hands between garments hung on a makeshift closet pole that was propped up between two chests. Out in the driveway, Rhetta was walking between the various boxes and tables, glancing sideways through the corners of her eyes at possibilities, cautious not to arouse the awareness of the sellers.

You see, Rhetta had learned the game of supply and demand. If she showed too much interest in a thing, she’d have a harder time bargaining its price down. So when her heart’s eye caught on something, she’d frown, jerk her head back in feigned indifference, and walk away. Only at leaving time would she present her pennies- on- the- dollar offer, come what may. It always worked.

But then she forgot. She forgot to walk past. Forgot to hide her feelings for “the deal.”

On a card table there was a cardboard box filled half way with old sheet music. One thing Rhetta’s eighty years could never steal was her love of playing her piano. This brown-edged music was all from the fifties, back when she played constantly. There they were, some she had owned then: “Misty,” “Memories Are Made of This,” even “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Rhetta realized her eyes were wide with interest, so she caught herself, regaining control. She had shaken it off, blinking twice, then thumbing through a bunch at a time to get past her emotion.

But her composure was short lived. Near the back of the pile was a non-descript sheet of church hymns, and on its cover was a colorful picture of a stained glass church-type window. The window was of a Gothic shape, pointed upward in its center. In the center of the glass was a lily, of almost white color, surrounded by oranges and light greens.

“Rhetta? Rhetta! What’s wrong?”

She felt her sister’s hand on her arm more than her words. Jerking her arms away from the sheet music, as if she was receiving an electrical shock, Rhetta shook her head, blinking her eyes. Then the felt the tears as they streamed down her cheeks. Embarrassment followed, the clutching of her arms to her stomach as she quickly turned away, her lips trembling. Fumbling, desperately, she found a Kleenex in her purse and wiped her cheeks before anyone could see.

Rhetta busied herself with feigning great interest at what Cathleen had selected, “Oh, let me see that one held up to you. Silk? Ah, yes. If we take it in just a bit in the hips it’ll be perfect, Cath. And the dark crimson? Perfect for the holidays. What else have you got there? Some blouses?”

When all was said and done, Cathleen had taken six clothing items. Rhetta had chosen to take only one thing, which was for her granddaughter, Emily. For her it had to be the little unicorn statue; the collection in that girl’s bedroom curio cabinet could never be big enough.

The last leaves of the stubborn oaks were swirling around the ladies’ feet as they brought their treasures back to the car. In the distance they could hear the roars of the Brookline High School’s football game. Rhetta gently held the figurine with both hands, cradling it with care and then with an extra squeeze of her fingertips as she thought of the cheerleading squad, and of Emily, one of it’s co-captains.

Cathleen’s only child, Billy, or “Bill,” as he preferred, is now 42, and lives in Boston proper. He and his wife, Joanna, have twin six year old boys. Billy manages the produce section of the local Stop and Shop. Joanna has her real estate license, but when houses stopped selling she got a part time job at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital as a receptionist for Dr. Penn, a psychologist. Bill and his mom talk by phone at least twice each week, and they come to visit a few times a month. The proximity makes the relationship easy, especially since Cathleen doesn’t drive.

Rhetta, on the other hand, had three children: two girls and a boy. The youngest, Ann, is 39, without children, and divorced. She works mornings at a health club and in the evenings as a waitress at a large sports bar.

The middle child is Robbie. “Rob” is 42, and he has always been the cut-up, the trouble maker. A good boy he was, but always skirting the edges of the law, and always staying a half step ahead of it. A bit after high school he ran with some gambling buddies and found himself in a few dead ends, so he quickly stepped into an Army recruiter’s office one day and was off to training camp and two tours in Afghanistan. Robbie went in tough and came out hard, yet still his mamma’s boy. Always wearing a smile, he is, as he drives a truck for a plywood wholesaler, toothpick in his teeth and tattoos up and down both powerful forearms. His eyes, though, have an inner darkness in them ever since he went away. He, too, is divorced, with four kids of his own under the age of fourteen. He shares custody with his ex-wife, right down the middle. He and Tammy are close friends.

Rhetta’s eldest, Julie, is 54. Julie is married to Ed Miles, a truck salesman at a large dealership in Shrewsbury. Julie herself is a stay at home mom, yet maintains a busy piano lesson business there. She has eleven students that come for lessons each week, and three children. The oldest child is the aforementioned Emily, who is seventeen; Brett is sixteen, and little Alex, six. Alex was quite the surprise, but a beautiful one at that.

Rhetta calls Robbie about once a week, gets calls from Ann about once every three, and doesn’t really have to call or be called by Julie, since the connection between Emily and her grandmother is an almost daily one.

The two sisters live in a large three story colonial-style house, mostly made of stone. It has six bedrooms, three baths, and a detached two car garage. It, like the high school, is in Brookline, Massachusetts. The house was the family home of the Bartletts. That was Rhetta’s married name. She and Ted lived there, raising their three children with no apparent troubles, until Ted died of lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. When Cathleen’s husband subsequently passed five years later of prostrate cancer, Rhetta invited her to share her house.

Since childhood, the two sisters’ relationship was strained, but close. Cathleen was enamored and envious of her older sister, yet she depended upon her for her maturity, which Cathleen never got around to finding on her own. There was a rivalry, yet they were close, for Rhetta understood her sister and long ago accepted her, even with her shortcomings. So it came as no surprise to their surviving friends that they took in together once widowhood came to them.

Rhetta didn’t pull the car into the garage, seeing that there was an afternoon trip to the grocery store still on her day’s itinerary. As the sisters walked into the house, Cathleen remarked upon the clouds blowing quickly in from the west. Her sister hardly glanced upward, still somewhat lost in thoughts of another time and another place.

The elder sister was the primary cook of the two; it just worked out better that both didn’t do that, although it had never been articulated. But Cathleen did make the tea, at least this time, as Rhetta made two tuna sandwiches with low calorie mayonnaise and a few small slabs of “bread and butter” pickles on the side. The small radio on the counter was on, playing a local AM station’s Saturday call-in show. Today’s topic was a referendum on a new radio transmission system for the police station and a new fire truck. The women ate without speaking.

Rhetta seemed surprised when her sister finished her entire lunch, pickles and all, while her own wasn’t even half gone. Then again, she wasn’t. Cathleen placed her dish in the sink and strolled off toward the staircase with her mug of tea in her hand, not even having to say where she was going, for each day’s lunch was followed by a short nap for her.

Now Rhetta was forced to be alone with her thoughts, not even hearing the radio over her left shoulder as she daydreamed. The tea, especially toward the end of the cup, was always so good as the honey gained in concentration there, but today it was all so mechanical for the elder sister; she didn’t taste a thing.

Switching gears now, she rinsed each plate off and put them in the drain rack, making mental checks on what she’d have to remember at the store. The skinless chicken breasts, yes… Cath likes those with breadcrumbs. And the scrod’s on sale. And so is the pot roast this week; the weather is sure pot roast cool now… and Breyer’s ice cream is 20% off…

Without even turning off the radio, which was now playing a commercial for a local tire company’s “get ready for winter” special, Rhetta slipped her arm between the straps of her pocketbook and let the kitchen door close by itself behind her. It had started to drizzle slightly, and the air carried with it the scent of snow as well as the sounds of what surely must have been a touchdown. With the engine now running, she took out the Kleenex she had used earlier from her coat pocket and wiped off the rain droplets from her glasses before proceeding to the Grand Union.

Rhetta was off somewhere, but not consciously daydreaming about any particular thing. But she was really just going through the motions. Sitting at the red light at Hill Street and Decker Avenue, she quickly opened the buckle of her purse to make sure she had enough cash on hand. When she looked up, the light had already turned green, so she quickly looked with embarrassment into her rear-view mirror, then calmed herself, for there was no one behind her. She smiled, remembering all the times people had to beep to make her realize the light had changed. This time she was lucky.

As she stepped lightly on the gas pedal, something caught her eye coming from the left, from Decker Ave. She turned her head to see a mini van coming directly at her, without even slowing down. She saw the woman who was driving, a blonde haired thirty something year old who had just started turning forward after having been looking into her back seat at something. The young woman’s eyes opened wide as Rhetta had time to say one word, “Oh!” and a sound like a million glasses being dropped at once ensued. In that split second’s time, Rhetta felt a sharp pain in her neck and the side of her face where her cheekbone smashed into her driver’s side window.