Becoming Ellen (8 page)

This, she decided, was what it looked like when you were given that magical gift of doing what you loved. Joyful work that turned simple basics into something complex and beautiful.

Alchemy.

W
hen Ellen reached her own alley, she checked the grating. No light came from the basement inside, but the bag had disappeared.
Good,
she thought.
He ate tonight.
Ellen climbed the stairs to find Temerity still up. She'd stayed late after the concert for a birthday celebration. She was standing at a window that she had cracked open. Her face was flushed.

“Isn't it a great night?” she enthused. “So moist and fluffy.”

“Speaking of which,” Ellen said quietly as she moved toward the window, “I was wondering about something.”

Temerity rocked a bit and a huge, silly smile cracked her pretty face. “Shh. Just a second. Listen.” Ellen turned her head and, sure enough, she could make out the piano music floating up from the loft below over the quieter nighttime street noises. The melody was sad yet lovely. It made Ellen think of someone crying with a smile on their face, as if remembering another time or person, long gone, but recalled with fondness. The music ended, and Temerity held her hands out the window and began to applaud. When she stopped, a voice came up. “Thank you! I'll be here Thursdays and Fridays. Don't forget to tip your waitress!”

Temerity laughed with delight, turned to Ellen, and said, “You gotta love a musician with a sense of humor!”

The pleasure on her friend's face gave Ellen such a warm sensation in her chest that she thought,
I already do.

“Anyway, wondering is always good.” Temerity pointed a finger accusingly at the air. “People should do it more.” She crossed to the sofa and sat down, letting her head fall back where it rested on Mouse, who was curled on the top of the cushions. He made an annoyed sound but didn't move. “Ouch,” Temerity said. “You think you'd be softer with all that flab.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Ellen responded.

Temerity snorted a laugh. “I meant the cat.”

“Actually, we're both pretty squishy,” Ellen said, having no illusions, about that anyway. “But I meant I guess more people should wonder. But I don't really know that many people.”

“You know more
about
people than anyone else I know,” Temerity said. “Most people are so involved with themselves they don't see anything else. Anyway, what were you wondering about?”

“Can you teach me how to use the oven?”

Temerity reached around behind her, picked up the big cat, and set him in her lap. She cocked her head to one side, thinking. “It depends on what you want to use it
for
. I mean, I can show you how to set the temperature. It talks, you know, for my benefit. Just turn the dial and it will tell you what degree you've set it on. What do you want to make?”

Fixing her gaze on the big windows across the room, gilded by the lights of the city outside, Ellen said, “Gold.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, uh, cupcakes, maybe, and . . . stuff.”

“Sweet! And I mean that both literally and metaphorically. It's a little late to start baking tonight, what brought this on?”

“I bought a book,” Ellen said, holding it up for absolutely no reason, since Temerity couldn't see it. “I'll get the ingredients tomorrow night at work.”

“Or, we can pick them up tomorrow day while we're out in the burbs.”

“The . . . what?” Ellen was confused.

“The suburbs. I found an address for the Rushes in Highland Park, and we're going to check on Lydia. Remember we promised?”

Ellen distinctly remembered
Temerity
promising, but she didn't say so.

“Shall we go in the afternoon? Say around three?” Temerity suggested. “Will that give you enough time to sleep?”

“Okay,” Ellen said. Though the very thought of going somewhere unfamiliar made her insides feel like they were being whisked with a rusty eggbeater, she knew Temerity would not be deterred.

Temerity stood up, grunting with the effort of lifting the eighteen-pound Mouse, who hung limp in her arms, making a sound like an idling motorboat. “Here.” She handed the huge cat over to Ellen. “I know he likes to sleep on your feet.”

Ellen grinned. It was true. Temerity said good night and made her way to the hall doorway, singing and zigzagging a bit as she went. Ellen looked down at Mouse. He was watching Temerity go with something like annoyance. She set him down and he pretended to groom himself and not care.

Ellen made a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and put it on a plate with a few cookies. She poured a glass of milk and headed upstairs, pausing at the door for Mouse to take his sweet time sauntering through. When she was in her room, she pulled her chair over in front of the window and watched the different apartments as she ate her snack.

One particular woman, Ellen had noticed, was often awake at this time. She was standing in her open window, looking out, but she never looked at Ellen, which was usual. Ellen recorded this and everything she'd seen tonight—the baker's generosity, the woman at the coffee shop, the child in the cheerless basement. When she was done, she began to close the book but paused. The pen did not want to leave her hand. Ellen turned to a clean page and sat looking at it. There was nothing more to report, but somehow, Ellen felt, there was more to
say
.

And so, she began to say it. For the very first time, Ellen not only recorded what she had seen and the possible reasons for it, but she allowed herself to envision what
might
be. Having learned long ago that if she expected nothing she was far less likely to be disappointed, projecting had always been a restricted activity.

It was odd, this transfer from fact to supposition, and it did not come easily. After a very few phrases, a complete sentence or two, and eventually two full pages, Ellen stopped. She read it back as she finished off the last cookies. It surprised her.

Ellen brushed her teeth and climbed into bed. Mouse settled into his usual spot between her calves, effectively pinning her legs down. If she moved or shifted, he
rrraw
ed at the air in annoyance, raising one paw and placing it on her calf with the claws extended. Ellen patted his huge head with an awkward open palm, which he seemed to like, leaning into it until she scratched harder than she thought he could bear. When she left off, he was clearly put out, but he nestled his huge head on his paws and fell noisily asleep.

Usually when she lay down to sleep, the thoughts of the day stalked busily through her brain until they made camp and finally fell quiet. But this morning Ellen had already watched that parade, and, having transferred all the thoughts onto the lined pages of the notebook, she dropped right off.

When she woke in the afternoon, the first thing Ellen did was check her notebook. She'd written that she'd like to be a baker.
Weird,
she thought.
I didn't even know I wanted that.

Temerity was waiting for her downstairs. She'd made Ellen an egg sandwich and a big cup of coffee, and she tapped her foot in an impatient tattoo as Ellen ate. Runt's furious barking at the door told them both that Justice was home. He came in as Ellen was putting the plate in the dishwasher.

“Hello, ladies!” he called out across the loft as he hung up his coat on the row of hooks by the door. “How's tricks?” He wandered over to the table as he searched through the mail he'd retrieved, since Ellen hadn't been out that morning. “Here's the mail. There's one for you, Ellen.”

Ellen sighed. It would be a credit card offer. “Just leave it there, I'll throw it out later,” she said.

Justice laughed, but then he said, “I think you might want to open this one. It looks kind of official.”

Curious now, and afraid—nothing “official” had ever meant good news to Ellen—she took the envelope from Justice as he came around the counter into the kitchen area. On the top left was the name and address of social services. At first she assumed it was some kind of form letter or questionnaire, which she occasionally received, but then she noticed that her name was handwritten.

“Oh,” said Ellen, feeling numb. She didn't want to open it, to give them any further power over her. Maybe if she just ignored the letter, it, and all its bad associations, would go away. “I'll open it later. We were just leaving.” She left the unpleasant thing on the table.

“Where are you two off to?” Justice asked, his eyes narrowing.

His sister piped in. “I'm taking Ellen to the suburbs. She was curious about landscaping.”

Justice's eyes had thinned to slits. “Uh-huh,” he said suspiciously. “Sure she was. Do me a favor?”

“What?” asked his sister, starting for the door.

“Try not to get involved in any”—Justice counted on his fingers as he reeled off his list—“murders, knifings, shootings, robberies, rebellions, or general mayhem.”

Temerity's long-suffering sigh took a full four seconds. “Well, we'll try, but you know how it is.”

Justice turned pleading eyes on Ellen. “Not really. It's a mystery to me how much trouble you two can find.”

“Got a date tonight?” Temerity asked in a thinly veiled attempt to change the subject.

“No. Amanda's working, again.”

“How's things at the Institute for Saving the World?” Temerity asked.

“The Institute of
Educational and Behavioral Research
is fine, thank you. I've got a ton of archived information to go over. We've been asked to prepare a list of possible suggestions for teachers to integrate into their classrooms. Bullying in schools is a huge problem now.”

Ellen leaned over to pick up her bag. “Not just
now
,” she was surprised to hear herself say under her breath.

Justice heard her. “Too true, as usual, my intuitive friend. Sadly, it seems that problems must become desperate epidemics before anyone pays attention to them. Until then, people pretty much just suffer or look away, depending on whether they are the bullied, the bullies, or the ‘afraid to get involveds.'”

Ellen thought,
I used to be the first one, now I'm the last.
But she sensed that wasn't
exactly
true.

“What about political upheavals, revolts, and mutinies?” Temerity challenged. “Aren't those examples of people getting involved and saying ‘No' to bullies?”

Justice clapped his hands together. “My point exactly. Generally, a well-fed and fairly treated populace doesn't start guillotining the aristocracy. It's usually a
really
hungry, angry mob that takes on the well-armed powers that be, even if that's just a big kid stealing lunches on the playground. Anyway, the institute wants an overview by the end of next week so that we can prepare a list of suggested inclusions in the curriculum.”

“So . . . you're supposed to isolate the cause of ignorance and cruelty, fire up some Bunsen burners, and come up with a vaccine?” Temerity asked.

Justice's face went all starry for a second and he said, “Wouldn't that be great? A society where you could send a kid to the school nurse for an injection of kindness. Or a power-crazed egomaniac could be injected by court order, for that matter. Of course, we'll need a shot for apathy, too.” He made a thoughtful humming sound, as though it might not actually be impossible, which impressed Ellen. Always, Justice's positive, yet realistic, attitude impressed Ellen.

He turned to her. “You two be careful out there. Are you taking the bus?” Ellen nodded. “Well, call me if you need a ride back, I'll be home.”

They gathered their things, Temerity her shoulder bag and stick, Ellen her medium duffel bag with her work clothes, and they set out.

The ride took over an hour. They switched buses twice, each change lowered the size of the apartment and office buildings through which they snaked, until the third bus made its way out of them altogether, into neighborhoods that had strip malls with parking lots, then individual homes. Ellen, who had spent her entire life in the city's urban or industrial areas, shrank farther and farther down in her seat. It wasn't that she hadn't been in big open spaces, she loved the city parks, some of which were large enough to get lost in. But this wasn't a park, just . . . space. Finally, they got off and Ellen looked around.

She and Temerity were the only people actually standing or walking on the wide sidewalk. The bus stop consisted of a covered shelter with a bench and a large map of the bus system. Just that—there were no ads, no trash in the gutters, no graffiti.

And then even the reassuring presence of the bus abandoned her as it pulled away, and Ellen found herself standing in a strange new world.

A
ll righty, then,” Temerity said as they stood stranded on a sidewalk with nothing edging it but grass and trees. Ellen felt marooned, lost, and utterly forsaken, except for Temerity.
Temerity,
she thought,
isn't afraid of having no boundaries.
She felt the shiver of jealous fear.

“We have to walk from here.” Temerity unfolded her stick. “What do the directions say?”

“It says go south on Winston and take the second left on Florita,” Ellen told her, swallowing her dismay. She turned in a circle. In the city you could tell which way was south by the street numbers getting bigger or smaller, but there were no street numbers anywhere in sight and the next road sign was too far away to make it out. “How do we know which way is south?”

Temerity pointed up. “It's winter, late afternoon, the sun sets in the west. So . . .” She turned until the weak warmth of the sun fell full on her face, then pointed a finger to her left. “That way!” she announced.

They went south. Ellen realized very quickly that there were no such things as “blocks” in the suburbs. She felt like they'd been hiking for miles when they finally turned left into a community of homes. Ellen stared at the similar brick houses, all two-story, with lots of windows. Of course Ellen had seen this kind of suburb on television and in photos, but this was her first actual visit, and it was like a cartoon come to life. Everything seemed so . . . endless. Most of the houses actually had their own
trees
. Full grown, glorious
trees
. It had never occurred to Ellen before that individuals would own trees. Plants of course you could buy, lots of people had plants or small potted trees even, they carried those at Costco, but something thirty feet tall? She wondered why Costco didn't sell them; they sold everything else. She would have enjoyed having a big oak tree in the store, though dusting it would be a challenge.

“How are you doing?” Temerity asked as they took a right onto a curving street called Lilac Road.

“Uh . . . Okay. It's really far away from . . . everything.” Ellen was fighting down her open-space panic. It was easier to hide when you weren't the only one.

“Have you ever been out here before?” Temerity asked.

“No. I've never actually been out of the city. It smells nice, I guess.” Ellen would have felt safer if she could crawl under something.

Temerity giggled. “Yeah, that it does. Okay, we should be getting close. What's the address, 3250 Lilac, right?”

A glance at the sheet in her hand confirmed this and Ellen thought to ask, “What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Scope it out, of course,” Temerity said.

In a few minutes they had come to the house, which was the last one on the dead-end street. After she had taken a look at it, Ellen said, “There are trees all behind and beside the house. I think that if we hide there, we'll be able to see into the windows on the side of the house.”

Walking past the house and driveway, they took a sharp left into the trees at the end of the street. Pushing through a bit of light shrubbery, they positioned themselves beneath the canopy of leaves and pine needles, where they were shielded from anyone inside the house. It smelled even better here, though Ellen thought a whiff of truck exhaust might have gone a good ways toward calming her nerves, every one of which had split ends. The trees edged a narrow strip of lawn, maybe ten feet wide, that separated the house's property from the woods.

“I hope they don't spot us. Although it's not likely anyone will think I'm a Peeping Tom.” Temerity laughed out loud at the idea. “But they might think I'm the Wicked Witch of the Woods. Justice used to scare the bejesus out of me with that one.” She raised her stick and cackled, “Fear me or face my monkeys!”

“Your . . . what?” asked Ellen.

The blind girl turned toward her. “Do
not
tell me that you have never seen
The Wizard of Oz
.”

Ellen couldn't help it. “Do
not
tell me that you
have
.”

Temerity threw her head back and laughed until she was doubled over. “Oh my God,” she wheezed as she wiped a tear out of her eye. “Sometimes I forget that you have almost no iconic childhood images.
Cinderella
?”

“What about her?” Ellen asked.

“Did you see that?”

“I saw part of it on TV once.” Ellen didn't mention that she had related only to the drudgery in the fairy-tale character's life. It had seemed completely normal to Ellen that the stepmother and sisters had treated Cinderella so badly. The whole ball-gown/rescued-by-a-prince thing seemed, frankly, absurd. Talk about setting yourself up. What she mostly recalled about
Cinderella
on TV was being caught watching from the hallway by the real son of the household. He had shouted at her and harangued her for being an ugly freak until she retreated to her bare mattress where she slept in a thin sleeping bag. There had been no princes in Ellen's childhood, and believing in them would only have made getting through each day more difficult. “How do
you
know what's in those movies?” she asked her friend, to banish the stinging, sticky feeling churned up by the memory.

“I listened to them. And by the way, they were both books first and I
can
read.”

Looking at the house from the side, Ellen could see into a large open kitchen that opened onto a porch with stairs down to a backyard that had both a trampoline and a pool.

A pool.
Ellen hadn't ever been in a pool. In fact, she'd never been swimming, but she'd stood outside the fences of public pools, wishing she could have one to herself. The idea of being able to soak in cool water on a hot day Ellen found enchanting, and far more magical than a pair of glass slippers, which struck her as uncomfortable and impractical, not to mention downright dangerous.
Glass
slippers?

The daylight was fading, which made it easier to see into the large kitchen. Ellen leaned forward and studied the interior intently. At first she saw no one, and then a woman came in. Even from this distance, Ellen thought her face looked kind.

Ellen leaned around the base of a large pine tree, until, with a little thrill of discovery, she saw Lydia. She was dressed in a pink turtleneck with a red sweater. Her dark hair was neatly brushed and held in place by a pink band with a sparkly green flower. The girl was writing in what looked like a workbook. As Ellen watched, the older woman poured a glass of milk and brought it over to the girl. Then she sat down next to Lydia and took up a pencil. Heads together, the two of them worked on something until Lydia held up the page with a shy smile. The woman clapped her hands together and then put an arm around the girl's shoulders for an easy hug. Lydia did not pull away. Ellen couldn't help a small gasp.

“What? What do you see?” Temerity asked impatiently.

The two of them stood together for another fifteen minutes, while the air grew chillier and Ellen related the scene before her, saying out loud to Temerity what she would have written in her notebook. The table was cleared, Lydia helped set the table for three. The woman brought a large steaming bowl to the table and a man joined them. He patted Lydia on the head and gestured to the table before he sat, nodding his head and smiling as if he were deeply impressed. Lydia smiled down at her shoes before climbing up into her chair and being served a steaming bowl of rich-looking stew and biscuits from a napkin-covered basket.

At this point, Temerity touched Ellen's shoulder and said gently, “I think we're done here.”

But Ellen didn't want to leave. In all her experience with foster care, with group homes for the truly unwanted, with her own barely remembered monster of a mother, she had never imagined finding anything like this. Lydia, it seemed, had hit the jackpot. Ellen knew you couldn't always tell from a first impression how safe a new home was, but to see the little girl, who had been terrified to speak to a stranger, smiling with this couple, told a deeper story.

“Wait,” Ellen said, unwilling to leave.

“We'll come back,” Temerity said, squeezing Ellen's shoulder kindly. “We'll check again, but so far, I'd say we have something good to report.”

Good?
thought Ellen as they turned away and started the long walk back to the bus stop. This was better than good. It was a fairy tale
that had actually come true
.

Ellen was quiet for the long bus ride home. Temerity seemed to understand, and so she sat humming quietly to herself and occasionally patting Ellen's knee, probably to reassure herself that her friend was still there.
Or maybe,
thought Ellen,
it's the other way around.

When the bus pulled up in front of their building, Temerity stood and said, “Okay, bye. Don't forget your baking stuff.”

“I won't,” Ellen told her. She watched Temerity make her way down the bus aisle with her stick extended. Some people shifted uncomfortably away, as though blindness might be contagious. A few stared openly, even looked pityingly. Ellen just smiled. They had no idea of the confidence that was Temerity. There was nothing to be pitied—quite the opposite.

Ellen arrived at work, early as usual. She was climbing the dock stairs when she noticed Eric going out to meet a small van, the side of which read
FRANCO'S
HANDMADE
TORTILLAS
.

Ellen was intrigued, because Costco generally took in only very large shipments of goods and this truck was better suited to a family-restaurant delivery. She watched as both driver and Eric checked around carefully before they moved to the back of the van. Ellen slid in behind the huge, retracted, vertical plastic strips that could be pulled closed across the loading ledge either completely or partially in bad weather. She waited.

A few boxes were unloaded onto a handcart that Eric himself had brought down. That in itself was unusual, but when Eric pulled out a fat manila envelope and handed it over, the driver quickly buried it under his jacket. With a quick fist bump, the driver climbed back into the van and backed away. Eric wheeled the handcart up a ramp, but instead of stacking the boxes in the inventory area, he turned toward her. Squeezing her backside firmly against the cement block of the warehouse wall, Ellen waited as he passed. Eric looked around, and then deposited the four toaster-size boxes behind high stacks of boxes marked
PAPER
NAPKINS,
500
COUNT
.

Harsh, tinny rock and roll music sounded, and Eric fished a phone from his pocket. He looked at the caller ID, checked around, then held it to his ear. He snapped, “I told you not to call me at work, Mom! I'll have to call you back.”

“Eric?” a voice called out, and Eric jumped, literally rising an inch or two off the ground. Twisting, he seemed to calm when he realized that he was out of sight of whoever was calling his name, and with a fearful glance back at the boxes, he hurried away.

Ellen followed him, or rather she paralleled him between rows of stacked cardboard waiting to go into the recycle bins.

The general manager was waiting for Eric outside the dock office. Billy, the GM, was, or had been, a redhead, but there was little left to show of his hair now except for a ring that stretched from ear to ear around a bald spot. Eric approached him with what Ellen knew was an affected ease. “Billy, hey man, what's up?” he said to the GM.

Billy was holding a purchase order, and with a grim shake of his head he said, “I see here that we had another accident last night, lost a couple crates of ketchup. And it was Daniel again. This is the fourth or fifth time he's damaged merchandise.”

“Well”—Eric held out his hands like he was checking for rainfall—“stuff happens sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know, but here's the thing . . .” The timbre of the general manager's voice dropped. “It seems to be happening almost entirely on your watch.”

Eric stepped back like he'd been slapped, and his mouth fell open. “Are you holding me responsible? That's not cool, man.” He did some headshaking of his own. “I can't control everything.” He rubbed his eyes, and Ellen thought she could detect a quaver in his voice as he added, “It's been hard since my mom passed, but I've really made an extra effort to get in here and help out.”

Billy put a hand on the other man's shoulder. “I'm so sorry, I didn't know your mom died. That's tough. I'm sorry. Maybe you need to take some vacation time?”

“No.” Eric wiped at his face and made a show of straightening his spine. “Thanks, but it's better if I, you know, stay busy.”

Billy nodded. “All right, try to stay on top of things, and if you do need some time off, you let me know.”

“Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.”

“We need to go over the time sheets,” Billy said, opening the door to the office.

As soon as the door closed behind Eric, Ellen went back to the boxes that he had hidden and read the labels.
GOURMET
FOOD
ITEMS
.

From her fanny pack, Ellen pulled out a box cutter and some packing tape that she used to open and repair packages from which she wanted to “borrow.” She flipped a box upside down and slit the tape open. Inside she found shredded paper, and nestled in that, three fist-size plastic baggies filled with whitish powder.

Interesting,
she thought. She wasn't sure what the bags of powder were exactly. “Gourmet” they might be, but food they were not.

Ellen resealed the box with her packing tape, and then hurried back into the shadows. Eric reappeared, now wearing a jacket with large pockets he must have put on in the office. As Ellen watched, he slit open each of the boxes and she could see a glimpse of the baggies as they were furtively stuffed into the pockets. As soon as all the boxes had been emptied, Eric hurried to the restrooms. As he got to the men's room and reached for the handle, the door opened suddenly. Squirt was coming out, and Eric jumped so sharply that, for a second, Ellen thought the handle of the door had electrified him.