Leota's Garden (21 page)

“On your paper?”

“No. Another class. Philosophy.”

She smiled sardonically. “It’s that interesting, is it?”

“After one in the morning, it’s a little hard to make any sense out of anything.” Everything about this old woman made him feel he had to defend himself.

“Are you a slow reader?”

“
No
, I’m not a slow reader. You try getting through two hundred pages of reading in a night.” He saw the flicker in her eyes.

“It was a simple question, Mr. Solsek, not an accusation.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insolent.”

She gave a cool laugh and headed into her kitchen. Stifling his annoyance, Corban followed. Standing in the doorway, he watched her turn the knob on the stove. There was a click as the flame caught on the front burner.

“Read enough and you’ll learn there’s nothing new under the sun,” she said and set a kettle firmly upon the burner. “Take a seat, Mr. Solsek. Would you like coffee or tea?”

Something about the way she said
Mr. Solsek
made him uncomfortable. He wanted to start over. He wanted to like her and have her like him. And he knew he was making a mess of everything. “Why don’t you call me Corban, Mrs. Reinhardt?”

She looked at him then, studying him briefly. “Corban, it will be. Coffee or tea?”

Was she mocking him again? “Coffee. Please.”

“Plain or fancy?”

He almost rolled his eyes. What was going on here? He felt like a turkey facing Thanksgiving. “Are you having any?”

“I’m not the one who needs to wake up.”

“I’m awake.”

“Barely. Sit. You haven’t eaten, either, have you?”

“No.” He never ate breakfast. He guzzled black coffee and went to classes. He never ate until afternoon.

“I think I might even have a sweet roll left for you.”

Suspicious, he watched her bustle around her small kitchen, taking a mug from the cabinet, then a brown bag from a breadbox. She wanted something from him, that was for sure—something more than a walk to the bank.

“So,” she said, pouring hot water into a mug. “Did you come up with an answer to my question yet?” She spooned in instant double-chocolate mocha.

“No.”

“Have you been thinking about it?” she said, setting the cup in front of him.

Corban stared down at it grimly, the aroma of the steaming chocolate-coffee combination assaulting his senses. He remembered how she had complained about the cost. He didn’t dare tell her now that he hated sweetened coffee. He always made his strong and black. During finals, he lived on Mad Maxes: three shots of espresso in a cup of black coffee.

Shuddering inwardly, Corban turned the cup between his hands, determined not to blow this interview no matter what he had to swallow. “I’ve been thinking about your question. In fact, I’ve been thinking about little else.”

“That’s good.” She eased herself into the chair opposite him. Folding her hands on her newspaper, she waited.

He sipped the coffee and tried not to grimace. “I’d appreciate it if you’d just spell out your objections to what I proposed, Mrs. Reinhardt. It’d make it easier.”

“Easier, perhaps, but it wouldn’t sink in as deeply.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know what you want to sink in.”

She was silent for a long moment, looking at him. He could almost see her wheels turning. There was such sadness in her eyes, Corban felt uncomfortable. He had disappointed her in some way, and he couldn’t stop the twinge of conscience.

“I want to help people like you, Mrs. Reinhardt.” He meant it.

“Corban, I’ll put it simply. What begins in mercy can end in destruction. I have objections, but some of them I can’t put to words. It’s a—” she thought for a moment again, frowning—“a sense of impending doom.”

He should’ve been insulted, but something in the way she said it made him pause. “Maybe you just don’t understand what I want to do.”

“Corban, you think you’re blazing a new trail, but you’re just going down the same worn path. Where do you think it’ll end up?”

“Better off than we are now. There are already facilities similar to what I’m writing about, but they’re all privately funded. People have to be loaded to get into them. You’d have to come up with one to two hundred thousand dollars just to get in the door of some of these places. Once you’ve signed, you’d have complete care until you died. What I’m trying to work out is a program for people who’ve worked all their lives but don’t have a big estate to show for it.”

She shook her head sadly. “You don’t see it, do you? The dangers. Maybe you haven’t got it in you to see what I do.” Her eyes looked moist and troubled. “Then again, I’ve probably overstated my concerns. I’m just an old woman. What do I know?”

He felt the subtle rebuke, but before he could comment, she went on. “Let’s leave it alone awhile, shall we? Let the idea perk. After a while, you’ll get the real taste of it.” She looked down at his cup. “You don’t like the coffee?”

Corban thought about lying but knew he’d have to finish the whole cup if he did. He still had the cloying aftertaste of the first sip. “I’m sorry, but it’s a little too sweet for me.” Seeing her mouth tighten, he added, “I’ll buy you another tin of it.” He hoped that would stave off any complaints about how much she had spent on the stuff.

She took the cup and poured the contents into the sink. “Thank you, but I think the tin I bought will be around long after I’m gone.” She rinsed the mug and set it upside down on a towel on the sink board. “I’ll get my sweater and we can go to the bank.” She sounded as though she were marshaling her troops. She went into the front room.

On the way down the hill, her hand tightened on his arm. Corban could tell the walk to the market and bank was not an easy one for her. He couldn’t understand her stubborn refusal to ride in comfort. “Why won’t you let me drive you, Mrs. Reinhardt?” He spoke gently, remembering the last time and how tired she had been. Worn out, in fact.

She kept walking, looking straight ahead again. “This is the only time I get outside anymore. I used to walk all the way around Lake Merritt on my lunch hour, and now my world has narrowed down to the few blocks between my home and the market.” She glanced up at him. “Would you have my world narrowed even more?”

He knew where she was going with that question and was gratified the subject wasn’t closed. “The facilities wouldn’t have to narrow your life. There would be activities.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Why should it?”

“Well, you tell me. What sort of activities do you have in mind for us old folks? Maybe I’ll change my mind about where this idea of yours is heading.”

He dove in, hoping to sway her. “Arts and crafts?”

“Oh.” Leota Reinhardt said nothing more.

They turned the corner and walked a block, then stood at the stoplight, waiting for the pedestrian sign to go on. He held his silence all the way across the street, down another block, under the freeway overpass, and to the next light before he surrendered, knowing she wouldn’t say anything until he pressed. “I take it you don’t like that idea.”

“Oh, I suppose it would depend on the arts and crafts. Were you thinking about gluing Popsicle sticks together and making birdcages? Things like that?”

Kindergarten stuff? “Not exactly.” What exactly? He hadn’t thought about it.

“Paint by numbers, perhaps? That’s real challenging.”

“Okay,” he said dismally, “I haven’t thought about all that in detail. Would you like to make a few suggestions?”

“How about a class on how to work a computer?”

He laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “A computer? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Why? You don’t think someone my age could learn?”

“Maybe. But why would you want to?”

“That’s the sort of question they ask someone intent on climbing Mount Everest. Because it’s there. Why else?”

“It’d drive you nuts.”

“Push me over the edge into complete senility, hmm? Is that what it does to you?”

He grinned. “On occasion.”

“You have the idea locked in your head that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. What if the old dog wanted to learn?”

He had the feeling she was baiting him. “I suppose you could learn the elementary stuff. A class could be pared down to the bare basics.”

“Meaning what? I’d be dead before I could figure out any more than that?”

Was she determined to tick him off? “I didn’t say that.”

“You think it would be better to offer classes that require no thinking, is that it? What do they call them these days? No-brainers? Something that won’t challenge us poor old folks too much. God forbid—we couldn’t take anything too mentally challenging. Put us under any kind of stress, and poof, we’ll croak. And then who’s responsible?”

She was warming to the subject, he thought grimly. She wasn’t walking anymore. She was marching, and dragging him along with her. Cantankerous old broad! He groped for reason.

“Why would you want to learn how to use a computer?”

“I didn’t say I would.”

“You just suggested it!”

“I was thinking out loud. I suppose you don’t do that sort of thing.”

“I talk to myself on occasion.” Especially after a visit with her! “Fine. Computer classes. Why not?”

“Consider it preventive medicine.” She slowed down. “I’ve read articles that say maintaining an active mind could ward off Alzheimer’s.”

“Are you worried about developing that?”

She glowered up at him. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

He had no doubt this old lady was of sound mind. Right now, at least. “Did the articles suggest what kind of activities?”

“Games like chess. Learning a foreign language. Putting complex puzzles together. Studying music. That sort of thing.”

“Do you do any of those things?”

“Well, I don’t play chess. You need two people for that.” She looked up at him. “Do you play?”

“No. It never appealed to me.”

“A pity. Music is out. I don’t have a piano. A foreign language might be something, but I can’t get very excited about that. It’s one thing to learn French if you’re planning on going to France. Since I’m not going anywhere, it seems a sorry waste of time. Ebonics, perhaps. That would make more sense.”

He laughed, imagining this little, old lady learning to speak street lingo.

“Or I could just stick to what I do,” she went on. “Work crossword puzzles. Read the newspaper. Read my Bible.”

“I noticed you have a lot of books around.”

“They belonged to my husband. I never had much time for reading.”

He sensed an undercurrent and decided to go with it. “Why not?” Maybe he would get some family history.

“I preferred spending what spare time I had in my garden.” She glanced up at him again. “I don’t imagine there’d be much gardening in one of those facilities of yours, would there? Potted plants only. Did you know that plants grown in hothouses have barely any scent at all? Might as well have one of those silk things that fade in the sunlight.”

He sighed inwardly. He was beginning to understand that Leota Reinhardt’s mind didn’t wander. It was fixed, steady as you go. “I think I get your point.” The only way anyone would get Leota Reinhardt into the kind of facility he thought would be the wave of the future would be doped and tied, gagged and dragged.

Shaking his head, he opened the door of the bank for her and followed her inside. Why was she so set in her thinking? Why did she find his ideas so repugnant? She’d already made it clear she wasn’t going to spell it out for him. She wanted him to “get the real taste of it” for himself.

He felt as though he’d just been enrolled in kindergarten and was learning by tactile experiences.

He needed to figure out what she was thinking. He needed to see from her perspective. The only way he was going to get what he needed from her was by spending more time with her. Oddly enough, his decision didn’t fill him with the grim despair he knew he would’ve felt a week ago. The more time he spent with her, the more he wondered what she was thinking. And why she was thinking it.

Leota Reinhardt was turning into an interesting challenge.

Chapter 8

Annie sat at the kitchen counter, reading her art history book, a binder open beside her so that she could write notes. So far she had been to only three classes, but all had proved fascinating. The instructor was an artist who knew art history inside and outside and upside down. His passion for the subject came through, firing her imagination as well.

The telephone rang, causing her pulse to shoot up. It rang a second time and she started to reach for it, then held off. After four rings, the machine picked up the call. “This is 555-7836. No one is available to take your call. Please leave your name and number at the sound of the beep.”

She listened, thankful Susan hadn’t played any more pranks and changed the message again. The last message was “In jail. Need bail. Unless you have bond, don’t respond.” Though Annie’s father had laughed and left a message, her mother had not seen the humor in it. “I suppose you think that’s funny, Susan. It isn’t! Anne, this is your mother. Call home.”

Annie had done so and suffered through a fifteen-minute, one-sided diatribe in which her mother had called her to task for not having the courtesy to call home sooner.
“Do you have any idea how much I worry about you? I had to take a sleeping pill last night . . .”