I was without a partner for the day so they hooked me up with Linda. We’d only go out if it got busy. Ben and Don were both out of town at a conference, so it was quiet about the office. I did laundry, restocked the shelves, and washed ambulances. I liked to keep occupied. Around noon, we took the ambulance out to get lunch.
“Do you see Troy at all?” Linda asked.
“Every so often.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Okay, he likes to call himself the hardware czar of the tri-town area. He’s even got a commercial on the local cable TV that’s pretty funny. He’s sitting in a chair in front of the store wearing a big velvet robe with a crown on his head, smoking a corncob pipe and grilling a hot dog. “You want to win the battle against peeling paint, leaky facets, and stubborn crab grass, don’t do it alone. Come see the Hardware czar. I’ll get you what you need to turn your life into a picnic. Ya’ll come down now, you hear.”
She laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“No, he filmed about six or seven different spots. It’s all low budget. I think Pat filmed them with his camcorder. In one of them he’s wielding a sword, and he cuts this over grown brush into a pristine lawn in ten seconds. Another he’s drinking a beer in a tree fort with a sign in the background that says no girls allowed. ‘Build your boy a tree fort. Then kick back and have a cold one. Life’s little pleasures.’”
“You have to be putting me on.”
“No, I’m serious. He’s only been running them a couple weeks; he’s already a cult hero. Business is booming, he says.”
“He can be so funny.”
“He’s a trip all right.”
“But how is he doing?”
“Okay, you know, I think he misses us up here, but he’s getting time to enjoy other things.”
“He has a girl?”
“You know Troy.”
“He has several in other words.”
“Maybe, I’ve just seen the one he hangs out with most.”
“Veronica?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I met her a month ago. Don and I ran into them at a restaurant down on the shore. She’s pretty.”
“Yea, in the Swedish bikini team sort of way.”
She laughed. “She certainly had Don’s eyes rolling.”
“I think Don should be happy with what he’s got.”
She patted my shoulder. “You’re so sweet Lee. I’m not the jealous kind. Men are men. They think with their dicks too much. At least Troy is honest about it.”
“I think she’s just a filler for him.”
“Really?”
“It’s just a sense I have. I think in the end, you are more his type.”
“We did have fun, but he’s still a boy. He’ll probably always be one. I’m just glad he’s doing well.”
She seemed legitimately interested, and truly unjealous. That’s what I liked about her. She was always on such an even keel.
I insisted on paying for her salad. She tried to hand me money, but I wouldn’t take it. “Humor an old man,” I said.
“You’re not old.”
“As the hills,” I said.
“That’s not what I heard from Kim. I heard you have plenty of life to you. Look at you you’re blushing. You thought it was a secret. Who says girls don’t talk? Give us some credit. You shouldn’t pass on her. She’s a special lady.”
“I know.”
“Men are stubborn and blind. You’re smarter than that.”
Kim and I were still going out occasionally, more as friends than lovers. Talking with Helen then made me think I should try to get it back going a little more solidly.
I had to admit I was flattered to think about them talking about me in that way. It’s easy to think of yourself as old when your mind is weighed down. A woman with an affectionate laugh can make anyone feel young.
It was a brilliant summer day. The sky clear blue, a light breeze. There were red and yellow tulips growing in the beds outside the office. We sat out on the picnic benches and ate our lunch.
“It’s too nice a day to stay inside reading run forms. Let’s go play in the city,” she said when we were done.
She put us on with dispatch as a floating car, and we drove around visiting other crews and seeing the city. It was funny, sometimes if you didn’t stop and look around, you’d miss the life that was there. Old men played chess and laughed down by Bushnell Park, where mothers watched their children on the merry go round and office workers threw Frisbees on the lunch breaks. On Albany Avenue girls showing their bare shoulders, firm abs, and long legs drew whistles and smiles as they promenaded past the men in front of the Laundromat. Work continued on renovations to the community health center, moving it into a modern building to better serve the community. In Kenney Park, preschoolers fed the ducks and chased each other in circles under the watchful eyes of their keepers.
We had just gotten back in the ambulance after Linda bought us pastries -- her treat this time at the Los Cubanitos bakery on Park -- when she spotted Helen Seurat outside the school, watching a group of small children run about the playground.
She was wearing white shorts and a red halter-top. Several of the children clung to her like she was Snow White. I saw a softness in her eyes and a smile I hadn’t seen before.
“I love these kids,” Helen said. She and Linda sat down on a bench while she kept an eye on the kids. “Julio, Venga aqui!” she called to one of the boys who went too far off. He smiled and came back to her. She adjusted the collar on his shirt, and rattled off something else to him in Spanish that made him laugh. He smiled and joined a group of his friends playing on the swings.
“You’re Spanish is getting better,” Linda said.
“I can almost speak it now,” she said. “Perry wants to take me to Puerto Rico.”
“That sounds great.”
“The problem is Senator Shrieb wants me at a rally with him down in New Haven.”
“You still working with him?”
“Yeah, I’m even on his field staff now.”
“Wow. What’s he like?”
“He’s full of himself.” She giggled. “Perry, I think likes to have me on his arm. I make him feel like a man I think. Shrieb, I think he just needs a Puerto Rican on his staff. He smiles and looks you in the eye, but it’s like his mind is elsewhere. He’s very ambitious. At least he has gotten some grant money for the literacy program and Head Start. Men – you can never find the right combination.”
“You have someone else in the mix?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Tell it to me girl.”
“We haven’t done anything yet, and I’m not going to make the move, but I don’t know if I could resist him.”
“Who is it?”
“You won’t approve.”
“Who said I had too?”
“For one, he’s married.”
“That’s not good. What’s ‘for two?’’
“He just got out of jail.”
“Jail? Wow, Helen, talk about a bad combination. You better start from the beginning.”
“He’s Perry’s cousin. I met him at a family picnic that had in Pope Park. There’s a connection there. He was attentive to his wife, but I saw the way he looked at me. A woman can tell what’s in a man’s eyes. I’ve seen him a few times since. We haven’t done anything, but I find myself imaging myself with him. A girl can fantasize, can’t she?”
“What’s his name?”
“Hector Ruiz,” she said. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Yeah. Who hasn’t? He’s a bad man.”
“But he is way good looking. And he has his tender side. He’s very poetic. He buys me sweets and drops them off at my office. These delicious pastries with guava jelly in the middle. Unbelievably good.”
“I can’t believe you are telling me this.”
“I know, I thought what am I doing? But he is not who you think.”
“Be careful.”
“Oh, I will be. It’s too bad I couldn’t put them all together. Shrieb for his intelligence, Perry because he’s crazy for me, and Hector for all that a woman wants in a man.”
“Look at you, you’re blushing just talking about him.”
“Not to change the subject too much, but how’s Don?”
“You know, he’s Don. Work has got him all tied in knots, but on the weekend, he gets out on the boat, and he’s okay. The kids love his beach house.”
“That must be fun for them down there.”
I was surprised at how well the two of them got along. I gave the kids piggyback rides while they talked. I loved to hear their laughter.
“You have to come volunteer for us, Lee,” Helen said when she gathered the kids together to take them back inside.
“Maybe some day.”
“Lee works too many hours,” Linda says. “It would be good for him, though.”
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” she said. She shook my hand and smiled warmly.
When we drove away, Linda told me, “Helen hinted she might be back in the ambulance business.”
“How’s that?”
“You know everything that’s going on with the company up for sale. It is very political. The partners want to sell and they can get the most money if they can sell national. I think what she was hinting at was after the sale; the city’s going to step in and split the town up. And she and Santiago maybe able to buy into Champion and run the south end.”
“It’s too confusing to me.”
“That’s alright. She said she’d hire us if it comes to us. Besides no matter who ends up running it, they’ll always have a need for people to fill the rigs.”
