Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (48 page)

Anita sat and Olivia introduced her by name, saying only that she was the children’s aunt. Olivia said nothing about the fact that she was also their only living relative.

Sidney, having positioned Anita on the other side of himself, turned to her, “Sidney Klaussner, the lucky dog who’s still alive because of your nephew.” Motioning toward Carmella, he added, “And this here’s my wife, Carmella.”

“Pleased,” Anita said and gave a slight nod.

At that point Olivia stood and said she was going to get the coffee. Halfway to the kitchen she heard Carmella’s voice saying how she envied Anita for being able to spend time with such wonderful children.

“Spend what time?” Anita replied. “I haven’t spent day one with these kids!”

Olivia turned around and headed back to the table. “Coffee is still brewing,” she said and sat back down. In an effort to change the subject, she turned to Anita and said, “I hope you like chocolate cake.”

“Chocolate’s fine,” Anita answered.

“Why would you not spend time with these children?” Carmella asked accusingly. “They’re wonderful children, some of the nicest I’ve ever met!”

“There’s good reason for me not seeing the children,” Anita said coldly.

“There can be no reason,” Carmella argued. “Children grow up so quickly, you’ve got to grab every precious moment you can with them. Shame on you, ignoring these kids!”

Olivia wanted to reach across and stuff a napkin in Carmella’s mouth to shut her up, but doing it would have only increased the tension bouncing back and forth across the table. With her eyes fixed on Carmella, she said, “I have some wonderful oatmeal raisin cookies if you’d prefer not to have chocolate cake.”

“Chocolate’s fine,” Carmella replied, then went back to Anita. “Looks like you’d be thanking the Lord for these three wonderful kids instead of making excuses for—”

“Wait a minute,” Anita interrupted. “First off, I ain’t even related to that one!” She pointed a finger at Ethan.

He grinned and nodded. “She ain’t. I ain’t even blood related to Grandma, but she took me in anyway.”

A look of confusion spread rapidly across Carmella’s face, and a lead weight had suddenly settled in Olivia’s stomach.

Carmella looked at Olivia. “But aren’t you grandmother to all three?”

“Not exactly,” Olivia said. She explained that Ethan Allen was related to her late husband, and she was simply caring for the other two children because they didn’t have anyone else.

“But they do have someone else!” Carmella argued. “They have an aunt who is right here at this table. You yourself said she was their aunt!”

“So I did,” Olivia said. “So I did.”

The Meeting

J
im Turner banged his gavel against the podium for the third time, and he did it with such ferocity that the chattering crowd stilled. It was the largest turnout the building association had ever seen. Every resident was in attendance, with the lone exception of Olivia Doyle. Olivia was missing because no one had told her of the meeting; in fact, they went out of their way to keep her from knowing of it.

The crowd began filtering in at five-thirty, and by six o’clock the room was filled with residents standing shoulder to shoulder and pressed against the back wall.

Jim Turner had already sensed a wave of rebellion wafting through the room, and he was determined to squash it right from the start. “This meeting will come to order!” he shouted. “Or there will be no meeting!”

“That’s what you think!” a voice in the rear of the room yelled back.

“Quiet!” Turner angrily slammed his gavel down again. “The bylaws of this building specifically state that all association meetings will be chaired by the president and conducted in an orderly fashion!”

“We’re sick of your bylaws!” Cathy Contino shouted.

“Quiet!”

“We’ve been quiet long enough!” Seth Porter yelled. “It’s high time we said something!”

“Yeah,” a chorus of voices echoed. “We been quiet long enough!”

Anticipating just such a reaction, Clara smiled. She’d carried a wooden milk crate to the meeting and while an angry undertone still circled the room, she stepped onto the crate and gave a loud two-finger whistle.

The murmuring stopped and everyone turned to look at Clara who now stood a head taller than anyone else in the room. Trying to give her message an air of propriety she said, “I would like to make a motion that we impeach Jim Turner.”

Before she could say anything else, Fred Wiskowski yelled, “I say we just kick his ass out of office!”

Cindy Hamilton leaned over and whispered in Fred’s ear, “That’s what impeach means.”

“Well, then, they ought to come right out and say it.”

Clara gave another whistle. “Having bylaws means we’re regulated. It means we’ve got no choice in what we do! Is that what we want?”

A chorus of voices yelled, “Hell, no!”

“You’re out of order!” Turner yelled and banged the gavel so hard the head flew off and went rolling across the floor.

Everybody applauded the broken gavel.

After three bounces, the gavel rolled to a stop in front of Linda Foust. She picked it up and dropped it into the waste basket.

There was another round of applause.

Without the gavel Jim Turner was helpless. Several times he tried yelling “Quiet!” but when his throat began to close up, there was little more he could do. He finally said, “I relinquish the floor to Clara Bowman,” and sat down.

It was a good ten minutes before the wolf whistles and cheering subsided and the room grew silent enough for Clara to speak.

“We’ve become a bunch of old fuddy duddies,” she said. “We’ve closed our minds to new ideas and look down our noses at anyone who dares to bring a bit of fun and laughter to this building. I say it’s time to change that!”

Several “Woohoo’s” came from the back of the room, followed by another round of applause.

Clara continued. “It was against the bylaws when Ethan Allen came to live here, but we all agreed he was a welcome addition.”

Turner gave a sideways glance of disagreement.

“Okay,” Clara amended, “we almost all agreed.” She looked at Beth Lillis. “Beth, when your arthritis was acting up, who did your errands?”

“Ethan Allen.” Beth smiled.

“Tom,” Clara said, pointing her finger, “who carted all that stuff to the storage bin when you had your apartment painted?”

He nodded. “Ethan Allen.”

Clara then called on Frank Casper, Wayne Dolby, Barbara Harris, and Jeanine Elizalde. Every one of them had the same kind of story. Ethan Allen had helped out, he’d run errands, fetched medications, carried laundry up from the basement.

“Has the child ever done one thing that makes this building a less lovely place to live?”

A murmur of no’s floated through the room.

“Well,” Eloise Fromm said, “he does from time to time push all the buttons in the elevator and keep riding up and down.”

When a crowd of angry faces glared at her, Eloise added, “But that’s certainly not much to complain about.”

“Let’s face it,” Clara said, “these bylaws are outdated, obsolete, of no use whatsoever.”

Several heads nodded as she spoke.

“All they do is tell us what we can’t do. Those bylaws say we can’t bring grocery carts through the front lobby, we can’t paint our door a different color, we can’t do this, and we can’t do that. The bylaws even tell us we can’t park anywhere but in our assigned spots.”

“Yeah,” Agnes Shapiro shouted, “and Jim Turner took the best spot himself!”

Turner stood up. “I have that parking spot because I’m the president of the association!”

“Well, we can change that!” Seth Porter yelled. He then insisted they have an immediate vote to impeach Jim Turner.

Clara, who by now had pretty much taken over the meeting, said, “All in favor of removing Jim Turner as the association president, raise your hand.”

There were two or three on the far side of the room who stood without moving, but most everyone else raised their hand. A few people raised two hands. When Clara did a count, the number of hands exceeded the number of residents, so she gave another whistle and declared the motion had passed unanimously.

“Wait a minute,” Turner said. “That wasn’t unanimous.”

“Shut up and sit down!” Fred Wiskowski yelled. “You been kicked out!”

“I say we make Clara president,” Barb Harris suggested.

Several cheers echoed throughout the room.

Turner stood up again. “This is not proper procedure!” Before he could finish explaining how people had to be nominated first, a chorus of boos forced him to sit back down.

“Anybody got any other suggestions?”

“Maybe Seth Porter?” a voice said.

Clara looked over. “What about it Seth? You wanna be president?”

Seth shook his head. “Nope. Too busy.”

“Anybody else?” Clara asked.

When there were no further suggestions, a show of hands went up and Clara declared herself president. “My first act as president is to abolish the bylaws.”

There was a round of applause along with a number of folks making comments like “Good!” and “About time!”

When Clara asked if there were any objections to doing away with the bylaws altogether, three hands went up: Jim Turner, Eloise Fromm, and a man from the ninth floor who nobody knew by name. Clara shot an angry glare at Eloise.

“What is your problem?” she asked. Eloise’s hand went down as did the hand of the man from the ninth floor. Only Jim Turner’s hand was still raised.

“We cannot have a building without bylaws,” he said emphatically. “It’s against the law.”

“There’s no such law!” Jack Schumann yelled.

“Jack ought to know.” Clara nodded. “He used to be a lawyer!”

Turner’s hand remained up. Fred Wiskowski, an ex-wrestler and a man with shoulders as wide as a doorway, inched his way through the crowd. When he got to where Turner was standing, Fred leaned in and whispered something in Turner’s ear. There was a moment of hesitation; then Turner lowered his hand and sat down. That was the last objection he made for the remainder of the evening.

By ten o’clock the meeting was over, and most everyone went home happy.

A number of things had been decided. There was no longer a set of bylaws that residents had to adhere to. The building would be open to all residents, including children, young adults, dogs, cats, and any domesticated animal other than pigs. Everyone agreed pet pigs were not a good idea. They also decided that residents would no longer have to put in quarters to use the community laundry machines, nor would they be required in park in assigned spots.

Clara Bowman, they declared, was by far the best president they’d ever had.

Finding Family

O
nce Carmella got started on why Anita had not taken responsibility for the children, she refused to let go. “Here you are, turning your back on these sweet things, when you ought to be gathering them to your bosom!”

Anita’s bottom lip began quivering.

Olivia nervously twisted her beautiful linen napkin into a knot and then plopped it on top of the butter dish. “Perhaps we should change the subject,” she said.

Paying no attention whatsoever to the comment, Carmella continued. “Why, if these kids were related to me, I’d be praising God with every breath I draw!”

“It isn’t that I don’t care about the kids,” Anita said. “I do, but there’s extenuating circumstances.” Her eyes narrowed, and her voice sounded brittle as a dried twig.

Sidney turned to Anita. “I apologize for Carmella’s actions. She gets very emotional when it comes to children.”

“And rightfully so!” Carmella answered. “All my life I’ve prayed for a child. A boy, a girl, that didn’t matter. All I wanted was a child to care for, a child to love!” She turned back to Anita. “Now here you have two wonderful children and care nothing for them.”

Anita stood up so quickly that her chair toppled backward. “I don’t have to listen to you tell me what I care about! It so happens I do love these kids, love them the same way I loved my sister!”

Sidney rose from his chair and wrapped his arm around Anita’s shoulders. “Now, now,” he said and squeezed her arm. “We’re all friends, family almost, so let’s put an end to this conversation and have some of that delicious chocolate cake Olivia’s been talking about.”

“Yes,” Olivia agreed fervently, “that’s a good idea.” Before she could rise from her seat, Anita grabbed hold of the conversation.

“I haven’t seen these kids because that’s the way Ruth wanted it!”

Jubilee’s mouth dropped open, and Paul’s eyes shifted from Anita to Carmella then back again to Anita. Neither of the children spoke. Even Ethan Allen had nothing to say, which was somewhat unusual.

“Your sister didn’t want you to see the children?” Carmella asked, her voice now softer, the words without undertones of accusation or anger.

Anita nodded, her eyes filled with tears. When she spoke it was in a small, fragile voice.

“It wasn’t Ruth’s fault,” she said. “She was doing what she thought best for the children.”