Crystal stood a little taller. 'No one's ever called me a jewel before.'
'Well, it's about time someone did,' Helena said matter of factly.
Anna guessed Helena was a woman who made up her mind about who was friend or foe within minutes of meeting someone. For some reason, Helena decided she cared about Crystal. And for Helena, that was like signing on to a campaign.
After Helena made a few phone calls and had a short visit in the hallway with one of the nurses, the women said goodbye. Anna did not need to hear the words or even understand the language. She knew by the nurse's movements things would be easier for Crystal from this point on, or Helena Whitworth would see that heads rolled.
When oil rigs first spread across the land, labor was hard to find. Many of the farm boys were pulled from the cotton patch to work in what they called the 'oil patch.'
Helena and Anna stopped off downtown at the Randell House for a late lunch. Neither wanted to end their time together.
Back in Italy, Anna would have left the funeral of a loved one to go home to a house full of company. Here, there was no one. She longed for relatives to cook for and clean up after. Somehow, keeping busy seemed a kinder way.
The two women walked into the empty restaurant arm in arm like old friends.
Davis once told Anna that during the 1890s the Randell House had been a huge home. The town had grown up around it. At some point, the house lost its first floor to commerce. Now, it stood like an architectural mutant with a top floor restaurant of old grace and charm and a main floor filled with offices and bank tellers. The Victorian decor had been further humiliated by the joining of a parking garage at the back.
As they sat at the table surrounded by dark mahogany and leaded glass, Anna saw nothing but the beauty that had somehow survived a hundred years.
Anna found Helena surprisingly easy to talk to. An unconditional acceptance between them crossed the barrier of age and made friendship possible.
From the second-floor windows, they watched shadows grow long across Main Street, elevating the town from dilapidated neglect into classic mystery. Helena ordered a thick cup of coffee and asked to see the dessert menu. Although neither woman commented, both realized that, for once in their lives, no one waited for them to come home.
Half an hour later, Anna sipped her coffee and watched Zack Larson walk into the restaurant. He looked as out of place among the ferns and bookshelves as a bull in a deli. His usual work shirt and jeans were gone and his old Stetson had been replaced by one without a sweat stain.
'That your neighbor?' Helena asked as she sampled her coconut pie and tried to peek through the foliage.
'H-he was at the funeral.' She guessed Helena knew why Zack Larson was, but she continued anyway, 'He has the p-place to the north of us.' She only remembered speaking to the man a few times when Carlo or Davis could not be bothered to deliver a message. Larson had not been friendly. Once, she told him what she thought of the horrible barbed wire that fenced his cattle in, and once she had complained about the cattle trucks using the back road between their property lines. The constant roll of dirt had dusted her sunroom windows on the north side for two weeks.
'He hasn't been home to change out of that ghastly suit,' Helena added. 'Must have had business in town after the funeral. Word is his ranch is struggling, but then what ranch hasn't at some point? I would like to see him prosper enough to buy new clothes and maybe get a decent haircut. I hate to see a nice-looking man ugly himself up. I swear he wore that suit to his wedding.'
'He is married?' Anna lowered her voice even though Zack Larson could not have overheard them.
'About eight years ago.' Helena usually limited her gossip to the facts and comments about clothes. 'His wife left him before the first year was out. He's kept pretty much to himself since then, not that he was particularly friendly before. He must be real tired of his own cooking to stop in here.'
The waiter directed Zack to the table behind Anna. Even though plants separated them, Anna heard him ask the waiter if the place served beer.
'I got a headache the size of Oklahoma,' he mumbled bumping both the table and chair as he tried to fold his six foot frame.
Anna turned back to Helena, Zack Larson forgotten. She watched Helena order another slice of pie. 'You are very hungry?'
Helena laughed. 'J.D. swears I can put away more than a field hand. I guess I just enjoy eating. Good food, good company.' Helena raised her thin shoulders. 'Well, that's not altogether true, though I've enjoyed your company. I eat just as much when I'm home alone. Give me a good movie and I'll finish off a bag of Oreos along with the popcorn.'
'I-I do not mind eating alone,' Anna admitted, as she wondered what Oreos were. After meeting Helena, she guessed they must be something fancy ordered in only the best shops. 'Davis was gone most of the time, anyway. It is nice to eat in silence watching the day come to an end.'
'I know,' Helena answered. 'With my two daughters setting up camp at my place this week, I long to be alone. They're masters at making trivial conversation. We've had entire meals with nothing talked about but a thirty- minute TV program from the night before. We could have all watched the rerun in less time.' Helena waved at the waiter and pointed at her coffee cup. 'Now, my grandchildren are a little better. If we ever get their volume controls fixed, I might listen to them.'
Anna laughed. 'Y-you know what I miss most?'
'What?' Helena leaned forward.
'I-I miss something I never have had, really. But at least when Davis was alive, there was a chance of it.'
'Oh? What's that?' Helena thanked the waiter with a nod as he delivered her pie.
'I miss…' Anna sighed. 'I miss those huge warm, all encompassing hugs men sometimes give women. I would like to disappear into a man's arms and forget about everything but being safe. It is a fantasy I know must only exist in the movies.'
'I know what you mean. My J.D. gives me those hugs. He has since we were in our twenties. I remember the first one when Paula and Patricia's father died in Viet Nam. i was a young mother with two little girls to raise and no skills. I thought it was the end of the world.'
Helena smiled, looking more into the past than out the windows as the town lights flickered on. 'J.D. was back in the States for training of some kind. He'd already been to Viet Nam once. He came home for a short visit. The minute he saw me, he hugged me like he would never let go and told me everything was going to be all right.'
'Did you love him, then?'
Helena shook her head. 'Not the way you think. Though I've loved him all our lives, folks don't marry their first cousins. So, I thought the love was more brotherly than anything. I'm a few years older than him. We were great friends as children, our mothers being sisters and all. When he came back years later for the funeral of my second husband, we figured we'd wasted enough time with the brotherly love. We expected all kinds of trouble after we got back from tying the knot in Mexico, but most people thought since he'd been gone for years; he wasn't really a close relative anymore.'
Anna laughed again as they stood to leave. Helena had managed to give Anna a quiet sense of peace in their hours together. As they passed Zack Larson's table, Anna noticed he had tossed down a few bills and walked out behind them, leaving his drink untouched.
At the elevator, Helena said goodbye to Anna with a motherly kiss on the cheek, while Zack politely held the door.
When Anna entered the elevator alone, she tried not to look at him. She wanted the feeling of peace to last just a little longer before the world stepped in.
'Garage?' he said.
'Pardon?' Anna glanced his direction, but Zack stared straight ahead as if looking at another in the elevator
