“I’m not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself, Jack said, and stood up. He held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go out on the observation deck.”
They were alone on the windswept deck. The Pier Top was seventeen stories above the city, a skyscraper by Lauderdale standards. Helen felt queasy. She backed away from the edge, wondering if anyone had ever jumped off the deck.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jack said.
It was. She forgot her fear, caught by the glittering view: the sweeping glory of the Seventeenth Street Causeway, the splendor of the cruise ships. The sparkling tourist hotels and the outrageous mansions. And the black, shining water that made all this wealth possible.
Helen shivered. It was cold up here, so high above the city. All this beauty, and no one to share it with. She wondered if she would ever find someone to love, or if she would die alone. There are worse things for a woman than being alone, she reminded herself. But that thought didn’t warm her.
Jack took off his suit coat and put it around her shoulders.
It smelled of some manly cologne, with a hint of citrus. He put his arms around her and pulled her close. He felt warm and strong. He felt right.
This was happening awfully fast, she thought. But she’d watched Jack today. He was decisive. He knew what he wanted—and he wanted her. She was flattered. She was forty-two, but she made this man act like an eager young lover.
“Helen, I promise you, the telemarketing is only temporary,” he said. “I’ll be back on top of the world soon and you’ll be with me.”
He believes it. She liked his promises, even if they could never come true. He seemed hopeful. That’s what her life was missing. Hope. The promise of something better.
Then Jack kissed her. The city sparkled below, just for her.
It was after midnight when Helen wove her way to her apartment, giggly from kisses and cosmopolitans. The night had been perfect. There was a slight awkwardness when Jack had wanted to come back to her place. But she’d said, “Not tonight,” and he’d obeyed.
Then he’d kissed her so hard she’d almost changed her mind. But she wasn’t that drunk. She’d had too many wrong men. She wasn’t going to hop into bed with this one. Not right away, anyway.
She passed Phil’s door and inhaled deeply. “I’m higher than you are.” She was startled that she’d said it out loud.
She unlocked her door and nearly fell inside.
“Hi, cat. Did you miss me?” Thumbs sniffed her with disapproval.
“Don’t look that way. I deserve a good time. I’ll tell you all about it. Just let me sit down a minute.” She flopped into the turquoise Barcalounger.
She woke up at six A.M. She’d slept in her pantsuit. It was covered with wrinkles and cat hair. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed with fur. Thumbs had slept on her chest, judging by the large patch of cat hair on her suit. The ten-pound tom was gently patting her face with his huge six-toed paw.
“I’m sorry, boy,” she said. “I know it’s breakfast time.”
She stood up. The room had a funhouse tilt. Her stomach lurched like Savannah’s Tank. Savannah. She forgot to call Savannah last night.
I didn’t really promise I would, she thought. Not a firm promise. But she remembered what Savannah had said, “My baby sister’s lying somewhere in an unmarked grave. I’ve got to find her.”
And what had she been doing? Drinking cosmopolitans in a penthouse, like some subtropical Marie Antoinette.
Helen stumbled into the bathroom. She didn’t have the courage to look in the mirror. She ate an inch of toothpaste straight from the tube. Coffee. She needed coffee. It tasted funny, but Helen didn’t think that was from her Crest breakfast. It was going to be a long day.
She clocked in at seven fifty-nine and sat down at her desk. There was a half-eaten slice of pizza draped over her phone like a pepperoni tea cozy. It left a trail of orange grease on her desk. Her stomach flip-flopped when she dropped it in the trash.
“Good morning,” Jack said. He was smiling. She hated cheerful people in the morning. Once again, he was beautifully shaved. His skin was a healthy pink, his eyes clear, his shirt crisp. It was unnatural.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” he said, and handed her a single red rose.
“Oh,” Helen said. It was all she could manage. The rose looked so velvety dark and perfect in this boil of a boiler room. It made the scuffed walls and shabby carpet look worse.
“It’s lovely,” she said, as the computers flipped on.
“OK, people. Get your heinies in gear,” Vito screamed.
“We’re starting with Vermont this morning.”
“Hi, Mrs. Cratchley,” Helen said. “I’m Helen with Tank Titan—”
Mrs. Cratchley said, “Well, isn’t that lovely?”
Helen stopped in surprise. She wasn’t used to kind words.
“And how long have you been a telemarketer, dear?”
“Several months now. I sell a product that...” Helen tried to get back on track.
“It must be difficult, a single woman like yourself,” Mrs.
Cratchley said. “You are single, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Helen said. “And Tank Titan is the single most popular—”
“I thought so,” Mrs. C said. “My daughter Rita’s single, too. She has to support herself and my grandson, Jerrod. That poor girl works so hard. We never get to sit down and visit any more. Jerrod is four now, and he’s...”
Help! Helen thought. I’m trapped by a nice person. Nasty, I can handle. I don’t know what to do with nice.
“And then Jerrod said to me, ‘Granny’—he calls me Granny—”
“Mrs. Cratchley,” Helen said, “I’d love to chat with you, but my boss is here and I have to go.”
“I understand, dear,” Mrs. Cratchley said. “You call anytime.”
Helen’s next call let loose with a string of profanities that nearly wilted her rose. She felt better. She was used to that.
When she got her five-minute break an hour later, Jack was still on the phone, happily peddling septic-tank cleaner.
Helen dug a plastic soda bottle out of the trash can and walked back to the battleship gray bathroom.
She was filling the bottle with water for her rose when Taniqua came out of a plywood stall. A boiler-room diet of junk food was slyly putting pounds on her slender figure.
Taniqua definitely filled out her powder-blue halter top and tight low-rise pants. Helen wondered what brought this beauty to this beastly place.
“That rose from the new guy?” Taniqua said.
“We went out for drinks last night. He brought me this.
Wasn’t that sweet?”
“He nothing but trouble.”
“He’s romantic.”
“Huh,” Taniqua said. “A love rose. Oldest trick in the man’s book. Get those at the 7-Eleven for a buck. That makes you a dollar ho.”
“Taniqua! What’s he done to you?”
“He be a bailiff boy.”
“A what?”
“You find out soon enough. Just don’t be trusting no bailiff boy.”
Taniqua slammed the bathroom door.
Chapter 11
