“She
“I take it this is unusual?”
But after his little joke, he wasn’t going to say anything else.
“I’ll call her, if you just wait a minute,” he said.
He picked up the phone, dialed, and told Melba Totino about my presence in the lobby. She would see me.
“Go on up,” he said. “She don’t get too many visitors.”
The elevator smelled like a doctor’s office, like rubbing alcohol and disinfectant and cold steel. The guard had told me there was a physician’s assistant actually in residence; and of course a doctor on call. There was a cafeteria in the building for those who “enrolled” for that service, and groceries could be delivered from one of the local stores. Everything was very clean, and the lobby had been dotted with old people who at least looked alert and comfortable, if not exactly happy. I supposed, if you couldn’t live entirely on your own, this would be a good place to live.
Mrs. Totino’s apartment was on the third floor. I could tell by the spacing of the doors that some apartments were larger than others. Hers was one of the small ones. I knocked, and the door swung open almost before I could remove my hand.
I could look her straight in the eyes, so she wasn’t more then five feet tall. Her eyes were dark brown, sunk in wrinkles that were themselves blotched with age spots. She had a large nose and a small mouth. Her wispy white hair was escaping from a small bun on the back of her head. She wore no glasses, which surprised me. Her ludicrously cheerful yellow and orange striped dress was covered with a gray sweater and the air that rushed out smelled strongly of air freshener, talcum powder, and cooking.
“Yes?” Her voice was deep and pleasant, not shaky as I’d expected.
“I’m Aurora Teagarden, Mrs. Totino.”
“That’s what Duncan said. Now, what kind of name is Duncan for a black man? I ask you.” And she backed into her apartment to indicate I should enter. “I asked him that, too,” she said with great amusement at her own daring. “I said, ‘I never knew no black man called Duncan before.’ He said, ‘What you think I should be called, Miz Totino? LeRoy?’ That Duncan! I laughed and laughed.”
Who-wee, what a knee-slapper. I bet Duncan had thought so, too.
“Have a seat, have a seat.”
I looked around me nervously. There were seats to be had, but everything was so busy I wasn’t sure if they were occupied or not. The sofa and matching chair were violently flowered in orange and brown and cream. The table between the chair and the sofa contained a
“This apartment building is very nice,” I offered.
“Oh, yes, the new security makes all the difference in the world! Can I get you a cup of coffee? I’m afraid I only have instant decaffeinated.”
Then why have coffee at all? “No, thank you.”
“Or a-Coke? I think I have a Coke stuck in the refrigerator.”
“Okay, thanks.”
She walked bent over, and haltingly. In the jammed tiny room there were two doorways, one at the rear left leading into the kitchen and one at the right into the bedroom. I heard the sounds of fumbling and muttering in the kitchen and took the chance to look around me.
The walls were covered with doodads of every description. Gold-tone butterflies in a group of three, one rather pretty painting of a bowl of flowers, two awful prints of cherubic children being sweet with cute animals, a straw basket holding dried flowers that looked extremely dusty, a plaque with The Serenity Prayer… I began to feel dazed at the multitude of things that presented themselves for inspection. I thought of all the room in our house and felt a stir of guilt.
Then the television caught my attention. All this time it had been on, but I had not paid any attention to the picture. I realized now that the scene I was seeing was the apartment building lobby. An old man with a walker moved slowly across the screen as I watched. Good Lord. I wondered if many of the residents chose to watch life in their lobby.
Mrs. Totino tottered back into the room with a glass of Coke and ice clutched in her shaking hand. The ice was tinkling against the glass with a quick tempo that was distinctly nerve-wracking.
“Did you like the placemats?” Mrs. Totino asked suddenly and loudly.
We negotiated the transfer of the Coke from her hand to mine.
“I’ve never seen any like them,” I said sincerely.
“Now, I know you won’t be offended when I tell you that they were wedding presents for T.C. and Hope. They’d been packed away in a drawer for these many years, and I thought, why not let someone else enjoy them? And they’ve never been used-it’s not like I gave you a
“Recycled,” I suggested.
“Right, right. Everything’s this recycling now! I recycled them.”
I had hoped to see a picture of the Julius family, but in all this clutter, there were only two photographs, in a double frame balanced precariously on the television set. Both photographs were very old. One showed a stern small woman with dark hair and eyes standing stiffly beside a somewhat taller man with lighter hair and a thin- lipped shy face. They were wearing clothes dating from somewhere around the twenties, I thought. In the other picture, two girls who strongly resembled each other, one about ten and the other perhaps twelve, hugged each other and smiled fixedly at the camera.
“Me and my sister, her name’s Alicia Manigault, isn’t that a pretty name?” Mrs. Totino said fondly. “I’ve always hated my name, Melba. And the other picture is the only one ever taken of my parents.”
“Your sister is still… does she live close?”
“New Orleans,” Mrs. Totino said. “She has a little house in Metairie, that’s right by New Orleans.” She sighed heavily.
“New Orleans is a beautiful place, I envy her. She never wants to come see me. I go there every now and then. Just to see the city.”
I wondered why she didn’t just move. “You have relatives here now, Mrs. Totino?”
“No, not since… not since the tragedy. Of course you know about that.”
I nodded, feeling definitely self-conscious.
“Yet you bought the house, or your husband bought it for you, I understand from Mr. Sewell.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You aren’t scared? Other people backed down from buying it at the last minute.”
“It’s a beautiful house.”
“Not haunted, is it? I don’t believe in that stuff,” said Mrs. Totino robustly. I looked surreptitiously for a place to deposit my glass. The Coke was flatter than a penny on a railroad track.
“I don’t either.”
“When that lawyer with the stupid name called to say someone really wanted to buy it, and he said it was a couple about to be married, I thought, I’ll just send them a little something… after all these years, the house will be lived in again. What kind of shape was it in?”
So I told her about that, and she asked me questions, and I answered her, and all the while she never talked about what I was most interested in. Granted, the disappearance of her daughter, her granddaughter, and her son- in-law had to have been dreadful, but you would think she would mention it. Aside from that stiff reference to “the tragedy” she didn’t bring it up. Of course she was most interested in changes we had made to the apartment over the garage, the one built for her, the one she’d inhabited such a short time. Then she moved to the house, conversationally. Had we repainted? Yes, I told her. Had we reroofed? No, I told her, the real estate agent had ascertained that Mr. Julius had had a new roof put on when he bought the house.
“He came here to be near relatives?” I asked carefully.
“His relatives,” she said with a sniff. “His aunt Essie never had any children, so when he retired from the Army, he and Charity moved here to be close to her. He’d saved for years to start his own business, doing additions onto
