Francesca's Kitchen (7 page)

“M
om?
”

The voice came to Loretta Simmons from someplace far, far away, like an echo in a canyon.

“
Mom
.”

It came round again, this time closer and more insistent. There was something tormenting in the sound of it, the way it sought her out no matter how she struggled to escape it.

“
Come on, Mom
.”

She was hiding now at the bottom of what she could only perceive as a deep, dark well, a well from which someone, very much against her will, was trying to pull her up and into the light. She did her best to resist, to stay burrowed in the darkness, but she knew it was of no use. No matter how hard she struggled against it, she was being borne inexorably to the surface.

“
Come on
,
Mom
.
We're gonna be late!
”

Facedown in the pillow, clenching the bedsheets beneath her, while a cold rivulet of drool seeped from the corner of her wide-open mouth, Loretta Simmons opened her eyes. She tried to move, but it felt as though she were lying beneath an anvil that was pressing her deeper and deeper into the mattress. She was too tired to even yawn. Wearily, she lifted her head off the pillow, pushed aside the hair hanging over her eyes, and looked into the face of her son, standing at the edge of the bed. Wiping the side of her mouth with the back of her hand, she glanced at the clock. Seven twenty-five. God, she had forgotten to set the alarm again. There was no way the kids would make the bus; she would have to drive them to school again. Dropping her head back onto the pillow, she let out a sorrowful groan and squeezed her eyes shut once more.

Up to that point, Loretta had been lost in a very pleasant dream, the last remnants of which were now quickly receding from her memory like smoke up a chimney. Desperately, she tried to pull it all back, to piece together the remaining fragments, before it disappeared forever. It was the type of dream she seemed to have with growing regularity lately. Whenever she had it, there was always something oddly familiar about it, like she was acting out the script to a play that had essentially all the same dialog and characters but was constantly being set in someplace new. This time around, she recalled standing on a balcony overlooking a shimmering, moonlit bay. A warm, gentle breeze caressed her face and hair, while from down below, the sound of calypso music rose above the sighing of the gentle surf. She wasn't alone, of course. Standing there with her on that beautiful balcony was a man. There was always something very familiar about him as well, even though she never could quite make out his face.

“Tell me you'll stay,” she recalls saying to him in the dream.

“Of course I will stay,” he had told her, reaching out for her hand.

“Tell me you'll never leave.”

“Never.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“With all my heart.”

It was all something right out of a romance novel, but just the same, it all came out so heartfelt, so dramatically real to her. It swept her away. The secret passion, the longing in her heart. It was all ready to burst forth, like the sun emerging from the clouds.

But then, just at the moment when the man finally took her in his arms and began to bring his lips to hers, that climactic moment when the music swelled and the violins began to play, the voice had come and chased the whole magical scene away. Now, try as she might, there was no way to put herself back into it, no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Get up, Mom,” insisted her son, nudging her in the arm. “We're going to be late for school!”

“Go get dressed, Will,” Loretta grunted. “I'll be up in a minute.”

“I'm already dressed,” he replied. “When are you going to make breakfast? I'm hungry.”

“You're nine years old,” she complained. “Can't you make your own breakfast? Do I have to do everything? Pour yourself a glass of juice. Have a bowl of cereal. Make yourself some toast.”

“We have no juice, there's no clean bowls, and the toaster is broke, remember?” her son impishly reminded her. Then, in a more pleading tone: “Come on, Mom. I'm really hungry.”

Loretta let out another groan and rolled over onto her back. She rubbed her eyes and stared forlornly at the ceiling. “Is your sister up?” she said.

“In the bathroom, brushing her hair, where else?”

“Okay,” his mother yawned, dragging herself from beneath the covers. “Go. I'm up.”

Loretta set her feet on the floor and rolled her neck and shoulders for a minute to shake out the cobwebs. Despite the urge to crawl back under the covers, she stood and shuffled out into the hallway. As she passed the bathroom, she rapped her knuckles against the door.

“Don't be all day in there, Miss America,” she warned her daughter. “Get a move on. Somebody else might need to get ready, you know.” Then she trudged downstairs to the kitchen to make herself a cup of instant coffee. Loretta preferred fresh-brewed, especially in the morning, but there was no time to make it, and in any case, the coffeemaker was broken as well.

Will was already sitting on the end of the living room couch, playing a video game on the television, when Loretta came downstairs. Beside him, on the end table, rested a paper plate holding several saltine crackers. Next to it, a butter knife rose from an open jar of peanut butter. His eyes glued to the television, Will munched away on the peanut butter crackers he had made, oblivious to the crumbs falling onto the couch and rug while he manipulated the game controller. It wasn't the breakfast of champions, thought Loretta, but she supposed that her son could eat worse in the morning. It would have to do. Just the same, she couldn't suppress her exasperation at the mess he was making.

“Watch what you're doing!” she cried. “You're getting crumbs everywhere! Why is it that no matter how hard I try to keep this place clean, it still ends up a mess?”

“Cleansing breath, Mom,” said Will placidly, without looking away from the video game. “You're starting to get worked up again.”

“Don't give me that,” she snapped in reply. “Turn that thing off and finish eating your breakfast at the table. And get your backpack ready for school. Who said you could sit around wasting time playing those games when we're all going to be late? And have you even looked at that science project you had me working on for you till all hours last night?” She followed that up by screaming upstairs, “Penelope Simmons, get yourself down here.
Now!
”

Penny descended the stairs a few minutes later. She was a pretty girl with blue eyes and dark, straight hair like her mother's. However, her choice of attire that morning—a flimsy blouse and a skirt much too short for a sixth grader—elicited sharp criticism from her mother. The daily dress review before school had become something of an ordeal ever since she had turned eleven.

“Absolutely not!” cried Loretta. “Where did you even get that outfit?”

“My friend Jenna let me borrow it. We're the same size.”

“I don't care. Give it back, because you're not wearing it to school.”

“But why not?”

“Well, for starters, you're too young to dress like that, young lady.”

“But this is the way
all
the girls are dressing today,” Penny insisted.

“I don't care. And besides, it's the middle of winter. At least put a sweater on. You look ridiculous.”

“Tell me about it,” chimed in Will, always willing to add fuel to the fire.

“Shut up, game boy,” sneered his sister. “Try minding your own business.”

“Whatever.”

As it usually did on a school day morning, the decibel level continued to increase as the time to depart for school drew nearer. By the time Loretta managed to get herself dressed, collect her own things for work, and bustle with them out the door, she was in full throat, leading the chorus of bickering and mutual recrimination. She glanced inside just once and gave a dismayed sigh at the untidy state of things in the living room and kitchen. There was nothing to be done about it now, so she slammed the door shut and hurried them all off to the car. With barely a look in the rearview mirror, she backed the car out of the driveway, and tore off down the road.

“Now remember,” she told her two children a short while later, when she pulled the car up to the school's front door, “you'll have someone new staying with you today until I come home. Please try to be nice to her. Be polite. Especially you, Penny. Got it?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Penny, stepping out of the car.

“And that goes for you too, mister.”

“You know me, Mom,” said Will, dragging his backpack behind him as he slid out the door.

“Hey,” Loretta called after them as they began to walk away. “Don't I get a kiss from either of you anymore?”

“When you get home, Mom,” Will called back, waving over his shoulder.

Loretta watched until the two of them were safe inside before tearing off again down the road. With any luck, she would be only fifteen or twenty minutes late for work.

H
ad it not been for the Snickers bar in her desk drawer, Loretta would have eaten nothing at all at lunchtime. Her head was banging and her stomach growling, but she had no time to eat anything more substantial; having arrived late that morning, she was behind in her work and needed her lunch break just to catch up. With just about everyone else gone to lunch, it was quiet enough for her to focus all her attention on the tasks at hand.

Loretta worked in downtown Providence as a legal assistant in the law offices of Pace, Sotheby, and Grant. Much of her day was spent typing up and reviewing for accuracy contracts, articles of incorporation, and other such legal documents. She had discovered early on, when she was first hired, that it was a fast-paced office that demanded the antagonistic attributes of speed and attention to detail. Arnold Grant, for whom Loretta did most of her work, might forgive her for arriving a few minutes late every now and then, but he would never tolerate any diminution in the quantity or quality of her work. He was one of those bosses who was always pleasant but had no time for pleasantries. Dexter Sotheby was cut from much the same cloth. Loretta learned right away that she didn't dare disappoint either of them.

Bill Pace, the founding partner of the firm, was her favorite of the three. A sweet, avuncular old gentleman, he had reduced his role over the years to simply overseeing the operation and occasionally schmoozing with the clients, leaving the hands-on work to his junior partners, who were just as happy to have the amiable codger out of the way. A widower for some years, he had no children or grandchildren to occupy his days, so the office was something of a second home to him, the staff a surrogate family of sorts. That, at least, was the way that Loretta saw him, for he certainly seemed to treat her and the rest of the staff like family. Pace passed the bulk of the workweek in his office, perusing the
Wall Street Journal
when he wasn't working on his putting game. On this day, as occasionally happened, a stray golf ball came rolling out of his office door and across the lobby floor, evidence that the firm's senior partner had once again misread the cut of his office carpet. The ball caromed off the leg of a chair and rolled along the floor, its momentum slowly waning, until it finally came to rest by the wastebasket next to Loretta's desk.

Loretta leaned out from her cubicle and looked down the hall to his office. “Too much club!” she called out playfully to him.

With shirtsleeves rolled up and one suspender slipping off his shoulder, Pace emerged from his office, examining the club head of a new putter he had recently acquired. He gave it a dubious look, which suggested his evaluation of it was less than favorable. The old man stopped at Loretta's desk, rubbed his chin, and regarded the ball for a moment, noting with consternation its proximity to the wastebasket and Loretta's legs.

“Looks like an unplayable lie,” he grumbled before discreetly stooping down to pick it up. “I suppose I'd better take a mulligan. Otherwise, it's a one-stroke penalty.”

With that, he sauntered off, the putter riding atop his shoulder. Loretta assumed that he was heading back to his office, to further refine his golf game, but he returned a short time later, bringing with him a cup of coffee, which he placed on her desk. “That's for not reporting me to the rules committee,” he said, giving her a wink.

“Why thank you, Mister Pace,” said Loretta, delighted to have something to perk her up and perhaps relieve her headache. “But
I'm
the one who should be getting the coffee for
you
.”

“Bah,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “That's about all they'll let me do around here these days. A man needs to keep himself busy doing
something
useful—at least now and then.”

Noting that his tie was hopelessly askew, a not-uncommon state of affairs with him, Loretta clicked her tongue and crooked her finger for him to come closer. He leaned over the edge of the desk and looked pensively at her while she fixed it for him.

“Tell me, Loretta,” he said genially. “How did a nice girl like you end up working in a place like this?”

“Why do you say that?” she laughed. “I think this is a very nice place to work, don't you?”

“Hmm, maybe,” he grunted, “if you like swimming with sharks. Trust me, they're out there, and they're always watching. Be careful, is my advice.”

“Oh, I always stay out of the water,” she replied with a smile. “If you know what I mean.”

“Smart girl,” he said, straightening himself up. He rolled his neck back to help it adjust to the tie's snugger fit and beamed her an affectionate smile. “How are your children?” he asked. “Growing up fast, I bet.”

“Too fast,” Loretta sighed. She paused and smiled again. “But then again, there are some days when I think that they're not growing up fast enough, if you know what I mean.”

“What you need is a good man in your life, to help you appreciate it all,” said Pace. He patted his midsection and gave a little cough to clear his throat. “I'd, uh, offer myself, but I'm afraid these old bones are just about fully depreciated.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” she replied, playfully batting her eyes for him before adding, “but
you
could use a good woman to look after you.”

“Have anyone in mind?” he said, playfully batting his eyes in return.

“Sorry,” she shrugged. “I'd offer myself, but unfortunately, while a good man would be nice, I think what I could really use right now is a wife.”

“Hmm, can't help you in that department,” chuckled her boss. “But I'll keep you posted.” He patted his tie and gave her a nod. “Thanks for keeping me presentable.” With that, he tossed the putter over his shoulder once more and strolled back to his office.

“Hit 'em straight!” she called after him. “And thanks for the coffee.”

Loretta sighed and turned her attention back to her computer. She had been making excellent headway in catching up on her work, but now that her concentration had been broken, she had lost all her momentum. It was then that she remembered that she had several bills to pay. Of course, there were
always
several bills to pay. Loretta could never seem to find time to do them when she was at home. Between Penny and Will, there was always one thing or another going on to distract her. On those few occasions when she did have the time, it seemed like there was never enough money in the checking account to cover everything. Where it went, she could not understand. Loretta earned a good salary and did her best to watch her spending, but the well just always seemed to keep running dry. She was perpetually juggling her finances. It was like she was slowly hemorrhaging dollar bills, always trying to stop the bleeding by tapping into one of her lines of credit, whose outstanding balances grew inexorably larger with each billing cycle. It was a problem she knew she needed to address, but it was also just one of a million other things that she had on her mind. With another sigh, she logged onto the Internet and navigated to her bank's web site for a few minutes, to see if she could juggle her way through the latest financial crunch until her next paycheck came along.

Later that afternoon, after finally getting her work back up to speed, Loretta allowed herself a brief break and took a walk to the ladies' room. On the way back to her desk, she stopped to chat for a few moments with Shirley, one of the other legal assistants in the office. Like Loretta, Shirley was single and in her early thirties. The two often talked during their break times, swapping tidbits of company gossip, lamenting the dearth of eligible men in the firm, and occasionally confiding in one another about each other's ailments, real and imagined. Loretta had a great propensity for fretting about her health and that of her children. In this regard, she and Shirley were kindred spirits.

“So, how goes the rat race?” Shirley asked when Loretta settled into the chair next to her desk.

“The rats seem to keep getting farther ahead,” said Loretta wearily. “Why is that?” She closed her eyes for a moment and massaged the sides of her forehead “Uff, and I have such a headache today,” she added.

Shirley looked at her with concern. “Is it really bad? I mean, you don't think you're having a stroke or something?”

“No, silly,” laughed Loretta. “I know I'm a worrywart, but I'm not that bad. I think I'm just hungry.”

“Hey, don't laugh about these things,” replied Shirley. “I just read about a woman in Oklahoma who told everyone at work that she had a headache. Someone gave her some aspirin to take, and two hours later, she dropped dead from a brain aneurysm.”

“I saw that story too,” said Loretta, shuddering. Then, with a chuckle, “But I'm pretty sure this isn't an aneurysm. I just need something to eat.”

“I'll say,” said Shirley. “You're so skinny, it makes me sick. All I do is look at food and I get fat. How do you stay so thin?”

“I don't know,” shrugged Loretta. “I guess I just don't look at food that often.”

Though she had said it in jest, it was really quite true. Loretta seldom had time for more than a cup of coffee and a piece of toast for breakfast. Lunch generally consisted of a small sandwich and another cup of coffee, purchased in the deli downstairs. She rarely ate anything else between meals. By the time Loretta staggered home from work most evenings, tired and often stressed out, the best she could manage for herself and the kids was to bring home takeout from a restaurant or to heat up frozen dinners out of the fridge. Loretta would have liked to do better, at least at supper time, but more often than not, she simply didn't have the energy.

“So, how are your kids doing?” asked Shirley. “Find them a new babysitter yet?”

“She starts today, thank God,” answered Loretta. “I was beginning to think that I'd never find someone.”

“Who is she?” said her friend, always eager to know everyone else's business. “Where did you find her?”

“I put an ad in the newspaper,” explained Loretta. “It ran for a week. Do you believe that only two people responded?”

“Who did you hire?”

“A grad student from New York who goes to school at RISD,” said Loretta. “Her name's Brenda. She's a little young, but she seems dependable enough.”

“Who was the other one?” Shirley pried. “Why didn't you hire her instead?”

“The other one was nice too, I guess,” answered Loretta. “But she was this old Italian woman, and I just wasn't sure she could handle the kids. Not that they misbehave or anything like that—I mean, not any more than anyone else's kids—but I thought it would be good for the kids to have someone younger there, someone they might have a little more in common with.” Loretta paused for a moment. “Plus, I don't know,” she continued. “It's hard to explain, but there was something about her, something that made me feel…”

“What?” said Shirley.

“She made me feel guilty,” Loretta finally confessed.

“How on earth did she do that?” laughed her friend.

“Well, when I asked her if she had any experience with children, she started to tell me about her own children and her grandkids, and a little about the rest of her family. It sounds like she's very close to them all.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” said Loretta. “It just made me wonder about a lot of things, that's all. As you know, my family life has never exactly been an episode out of
The Brady Bunch
. And then, of course, there was the look on her face when she asked about Will and Penny's father, and I told her that David was long gone and that the two of us had never married. You know, she didn't say anything, but I could tell that she didn't approve, like I had done something wrong. I think she's an old Catholic, just like my mother.”

“Old Catholics tend to be like that,” opined Shirley.

“I suppose,” said Loretta. “But I just don't need that whole guilt scene right now. In any case, I decided to hire the girl.”

“I'm sure she'll work out fine,” Shirley told her.

“Me too,” said Loretta, brightening. “At least that will be one thing off my mind.”

With that, she stood and walked back to her desk. It was nearing three-thirty. The first thing she planned to do before getting back to work was to call home to see how things were going with Brenda and the kids. When she settled back into her chair, however, she noticed the red light on her telephone blinking, telling her that someone had left a message.