What Simon Didn’t Say Read online

  Where was the cop that usually patrolled this street—the one who never bothered him? That cop never looked down. Never used his baton to touch him.

  “Did you hear me? I said you need to move!”

  “Okay, okay.” He unwound his arms from his tingling legs and rose from the pallet. He began to fold his cardboard pallet and put it in his shopping cart. The baton lady didn’t wait for him to finish gathering his possessions. She was the one moving on. He watched her stroll south as he emptied his puny take from the coffee can—two dollars and seventy-five cents. He stuffed the rest of his belongings into the cart and wheeled it in the opposite direction. Things weren’t going well. Being forced to move wasn’t a good way to start the day. He hadn’t heard from heaven in a couple of days. Where’s God when you need him?

  CHAPTER 4

  Frances Woods

  “Now why you go and do that?” asked Queen, with her thick Jamaican accent, scooping up all of Frances Woods’s ninety-six pounds from the floor. “I told you that when you wanna go to the toilet, you call me. You okay?” Queen placed the trembling older woman gently on the plastic-backed pad on the bed and went to inspect the spot where she had fallen.

  “Yeah,” answered Frances Woods begrudgingly. “It was a slow collapse, not a fall. I couldn’t wait. I had to pee. Anyway, I don’t have enough breath to call you when you’re downstairs.” Frances Woods hacked a few times. The coughs caused her to tremble. She tried to take a deep breath and hacked some more.

  “So you pee on the floor,” said Queen, standing with her hands on her hips, peering over the small puddle on the wood floor. By anyone’s measurements, Queen was a big, strong woman. Strong legs showed from beneath her yellow-print housedress, like crusty black tree trunks rising up from her mannish slippers. She wore a red-knit cap, part of her year-round attire, along with the dishtowel that hung from her pocket. “You gotta use the walker,” said Queen, pointing to the apparatus on the wall, next to the bed table. Her tone was calm but firm. “Now I gotta take care of this mess. And get you cleaned. Sit still. I’ll be right back. If you get the urge to pee, pee on that pad.” Queen shook her head. “Looks like we gonna have to go back to diapers.”

  “Humph! You know I couldn’t help it. I thought I could make it,” said Frances Woods, mustering enough breath to yell after her caregiver, who’d already left the room. She hacked again and then snorted and mumbled to herself. She hated the walker. The thought of adult diapers was particularly distressing. She hated the feeling of helplessness and the feeling of being trapped in her own home. She hated being scolded most of all.

  With emotions cycling from anger to embarrassment, Frances Woods sat in her urine-soaked gown. She folded her arms tightly, using most of her strength. She needed to be angry with someone. The trouble was she didn’t know whom to target. Almost anybody would do at this point. Queen, she guessed. Whoever heard of naming a child after the queen of England? Maybe that’s what makes Queen so uppity.

  As her wet gown grew cold, she tried to undress herself, grumbling and struggling to remove the soiled gown. Her right arm got caught in the sleeve when she tried to lift the gown over her head. The garment partially hid her face as Queen returned to the room with a pail, a sponge, and the Lysol spray.

  “Couldn’t wait like I asked you?” Queen said, seeing Frances Woods’s face half-buried in the garment. “I only got two hands,” she continued in her singsong inflection. Queen put down the cleaning supplies and assisted her charge in taking off the wet gown and panties. Then she left the room again to fetch a pan of water, washcloth, and towel.

  With arms crossed tightly against her bare chest, Frances Woods hunched to hide her nakedness. But there was no one in the room to see her sagging skin, no one with whom modesty would matter. Queen had bathed and changed her numerous times in the eighteen months since her foot missed the second step on her way downstairs. Since Calvin’s death no males had come to the house, except for repairmen, like Queen’s brother.

  “Queen, I’m getting cold,” Frances Woods barked in a raspy voice. A series of hacking coughs followed, vibrating in her bare chest.

  Queen was back in a flash, this time with a pan of warm soapy water, a washcloth, and a towel. “You best quiet down, or you’ll go to spasms,” she said. She gently washed the old woman’s thighs between her bony legs, dried her, and powdered her gray-tinged skin; then she helped her change into a pair of white cotton panties and a pale-pink gown.

  Frances Woods felt a good deal better. A weak thank-you punctuated with a hiss pushed passed her lips, almost as an involuntary action.

  “Mrs. Woods, you think I’m two maids round here. I need to find another place to work and leave you here to bark at yourself.”

  “There are plenty more people willing to take your place,” Frances Woods snorted.

  “Go ahead. See what you get if you replace me. The agency will send you one of them African gals. Then you’ll see how nice I’ve been to you,” Queen said as she fluffed her charge’s pillows and arranged the bedclothes.

  “Humph.”

  “You won’t like it. Sometimes them African gals smell. And their food puts a fire in your belly.”

  “Queen, your food’s no picnic.”

  Queen stopped fussing with the bed and put her hands on her hips. “So! Now y’ah don’t like my cooking! You eat it all! Every time!” Queen said with a laugh.

  “I have to. I have no choice.”

  “The agency will send you a body that can cook. One of those gals from El Salvador…cooks with the chilies…won’t speak a word of English. You’ll be sorry.”

  Frances Woods managed to snicker. She wasn’t about to raise the ante on this argument over who could and couldn’t speak English, though after many months she understood Queen’s thickly accented English perfectly.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Oh Lawd, who’s that now?” Queen asked with a groan.

  “Zoie’s got her own key.”

  “It’s Sunday. It must be your friend.”

  Queen headed down the wide staircase and across the formal foyer with its mirrored credenza. She opened the door and recognized the little old woman standing on the porch as Ida Bascomb. The old woman was huffing and puffing from climbing the seventeen stairs from the street to the porch. She was dressed in a grape-colored suit that hung like a potato sack on the hanger that was her bony frame. Two circles of pink rouge highlighted her dusty beige face. Her thick white wig, reminiscent of an English barrister style, made her purple hat ride high on her head. Even with this extra height, Ida Bascomb came only as high as Queen’s chest. Yes, Ida Bascomb was as frail as Frances Woods. On a gusty day, without the weight of her clothes, a good wind could have blown her back down the stairs to the street. Today there was no breeze. Ida Bascomb carried her usual black umbrella, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It served as a substitute cane and, if need be, a weapon.

  “Afternoon, Ms. Bascomb,” Queen said, looking down at the woman.

  “Good afternoon, Queen. I’ve come to see Frances,” Ida said, stepping in the door and handing her umbrella to Queen. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s ornery when she feels good. I think today she’s feels real good.”

  Queen looked out the door and surveyed the street to locate the old woman’s vintage Chrysler. She was glad to see the car parked safely down the street and not in the driveway behind her own red Nissan.

  “Mrs. Woods is awake. Can I help you up the steps?” Queen asked.

  “No, I’m fine. I can make it on my own. Just a little out of breath from those stairs.”

  All the houses on that part of Brandywine Street required a good pair of legs to get to their front doors. “I could use some water, if you don’t mind.”

  Ida Bascomb visited Frances Woods after church on every other Sunday. She’d drive from Calvary Cross Baptist to Brandywine Street and then back home again, without hitting major traffic.

  “Mrs. Woods, Ms.
Bascomb is here to see you,” Queen yelled up the stairs as the smaller woman started her climb, pulling herself up the first step with both hands on the banister. Queen watched awhile and then shook her head and went to get the water. She couldn’t believe that this woman, who was a good deal older than Frances Woods, was still driving and making it up all those stairs on her own. When Queen returned from the kitchen with a tray carrying two slices of pound cake and two glasses of ice water, she found Ida Bascomb seated on the bench on the staircase landing.

  “Just got to rest a bit,” she said.

  Queen passed her and continued up the stairs. “Take your time, Ms. Bascomb.”

  “Frances,” Ida Bascomb called as she started her trek up the rest of the stairs, “I told you long a time ago you should have moved to a rambler.”

  Queen set up a TV tray and chair for Ida next to Frances Woods’s bed. Then she left the room to give the friends some privacy, going down the stairs and passing Ida Bascomb still in her climb.

  By the time Ida Bascomb entered the room, Frances Woods’s earlier anger had disappeared. She was sitting up in her bed, propped up by her two large pillows. Ida shuffled to her bedside. The two hugged.

  “I do believe you get thinner each time I see you,” Ida Bascomb told her friend.

  “Now look who’s talking. You could fit another person with you in that suit.”

  The older woman smoothed the air pockets from her blouse to reveal a perfectly flat chest. “You know my theory: less weight, less to carry. Makes it easier to get around,” Ida said with a smile.

  “I wished I had learned that before I slipped down those stairs. Now look at me.”

  “I thought I’d find Zoie and Nikki here,” Ida said as she sat in the chair that Queen had provided. She took a sip of the cold water and picked at the cake. “I haven’t seen that child since your Laurel died. Zoie was still pregnant.”

  “Yeah, that was a bad year, with Laurel’s passing and Zoie’s breaking up with that jerk. I didn’t think Zoie wanted to come back to DC after that.”

  “I was surprised when you told me that she was moving back. What made her do it? A man?” Ida Bascomb said with a mischievous smile.

  “Something tells me this has nothing to do with a man.”

  “A man—a good man—is what she needs. That white guy she hooked up with in New York, now he was what you call a scalawag,” Ida said. “I hated to hear her getting hurt like that.”

  “White, black, green—all men can be dogs. Look what happened to my Laurel.” Frances Woods coughed.

  Ida and Frances Woods had been friends for fifty years. Ida knew all of Frances Woods’s secrets, and Frances Woods thought she knew all of Ida’s.

  “I’d like to see Nikki. Frances, you know I’ve never seen that baby.”

  “Whose fault is that? I invited you to come with me to New York after Nikki was born. She’s not a baby anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “Now that Zoie’s back in town, you’ll see her. Right now Nikki is in Ohio for the summer, with Elliot’s parents.”

  “The father’s parents? I know you’re joking!”

  “His parents offered, and Zoie needed the break.”

  “I got to give it to her: she’s a better person than I could be, letting his folks keep Nikki like that, after all that unpleasantness.”

  “Humph,” said Frances Woods, not caring to say more.

  The two friends prattled on for almost an hour. Ida did most of the talking, while Frances Woods rested her voice. The usual topics prevailed: church gossip, each other’s aches and pains, prescriptions, doctors, and disputes over health-insurance claims. Frances Woods wanted to tell Ida her latest complaints about Queen but thought better of starting that discussion, just in case Queen sashayed back into the room.

  Ida, as usual, was worried about money. Her husband, Coleman Bascomb, had died without an insurance policy or a pension. With only Social Security and a small pension due upon her retirement, Ida had stayed on at the DC Public Library as long as she could. The way she told it, every last penny was committed to some bill or other, with just five dollars to spare.

  “Frances, I can’t tell you how fortunate you are that Calvin left you well off.”

  “I thank the Lord every day,” said Frances Woods, holding her chest. Calvin, bless his soul, had invested wisely. Between the money he’d made as a postal worker and her salary as a vice principal of a high school, plus the windfalls they’d received some forty years ago, her money—if handled wisely—was something she didn’t have to worry about. With Calvin and her daughter Laurel gone, there was only Zoie. Zoie and Nikki. And when she was gone, all of what was left would go to them. She began to cough again. The cough came from deep in her chest.

  “Frances, you don’t sound well at all.”

  At first Frances Woods couldn’t catch her breath to respond. She wanted to say that she already knew that she didn’t sound good. Ida gave her some water.

  “When I get these coughing spells…I’m so drained,” Frances Woods said between hacks.

  “When are you going to see the doctor?”

  “Thursday,” Frances Woods whispered with a wheeze.

  “You get Queen or Zoie to take you before Thursday.”

  Frances Woods waved her right hand dismissively while covering her mouth with the left.

  “Frances, you’re as hard headed as they come,” Ida told her.

  Frances Woods waved her hand again. She was trying to quiet the coughs by keeping her mouth closed. She saw the concern in her friend’s eyes.

  “Okay, you get some rest,” said Ida. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” She picked up her bag and left the room.

  Minutes later Frances Woods heard the heavy front door close. Her coughing subsided as she lay perfectly still, her head back on the pillow, her eyes directed at the leaf-patterned relief in the center of the ceiling. This room, which she had so lovingly decorated with rose-patterned wallpaper and champagne-colored curtains, had turned into her prison. Its four walls and the bathroom down the hall were now the extent of her world. Her thoughts drifted to her dear Laurel and Calvin and other friends and family she had lost over the years. Gone, all gone. Somewhere in heaven they were waiting for her. She was glad they couldn’t see her now. She’d always been such a strong woman. At least that’s what everybody told her. In heaven she would be strong again. They all would be there. What about Gabriel? Is he in heaven too? How did I lose him all those years ago? There’d been no word from him in fifty-four years. He had to be dead. She had tried not to think of him, especially when Calvin was alive. These days thoughts of him entered her mind more often—his beautiful dark face, those loving eyes, that mouth that could consume hers with the kind of kisses reserved for the young. It might be crowded in heaven with both Calvin and Gabriel. She smiled. She’d have to deal with that when her time came.

  The house was so large and so empty, except for Queen. Francis Woods was disappointed upon learning that Zoie had decided to get an apartment rather than move in to share the place. There was plenty of room. After all, the house was going to be Zoie’s one day. Maybe sooner than later.

  CHAPTER 5

  Be Careful What You Wish For

  Glass in hand, Jahi Khalfani weaved through the crowd at the Washington Hyatt. The high-ceiling reception room was filled to capacity with attendees from donor companies and their anxious recipients. The mayor, city-council members, and prominent business leaders—not to mention a small contingent from Capitol Hill—waited to have their pictures taken. Their black-tie uniforms made them look like penguins from National Geographic’s “Life in the Arctic.” Tonight, in a rented tux, Jahi was one of them.

  So far he hadn’t seen Ray Gaddis, his main contact at the Crayton Foundation. Ray will turn up soon enough, Jahi thought, continuing to make his way through a tight pack of people vying for hors d’oeuvres. Jahi tolerated these events. Attendance was de facto mandatory, at least for active nonprofits. He nee
ded to be there to promote the Crayton Foundation’s crucial support for his mission: Mahali Salaam, or “Shelter for the Homeless.”

  Angling his broad shoulders, Jahi forged a path through the crowd. “Pardon me, coming through,” he announced. And like a biblical sea, those around him parted so he could pass. Across the room a clearing next to a column beckoned him. He had almost reached his destination when a woman backed into his path. Focused on telling a tale to a mesmerized audience, the woman was oblivious to his presence. Her arms flailed dangerously close to his glass. Jahi steadied his wine. In a mischievous moment, he considered simply allowing the mishap to take place. As if reading a script, he envisioned an accident scene: wine splashing on the woman’s bare shoulder, the red eruption catching his shirt, the onlookers moaning, and a flurry of napkins dabbing to save the woman’s dress. Of course, he would offer his heartfelt apologies and don his best imitation of embarrassment. Everyone, including the Crayton folks, would understand the reason for his departure—a badly stained shirt. The foolhardy notion of a staged calamity quickly faded.

  “Excuse me,” he said. The woman who was blocking his way still didn’t notice him. “Please excuse me,” he said again, this time leaning into her ear, his whispered request leaving his breath on her neck.

  She snatched her head around. Her tight lips that had initially greeted him transformed into a soft smile. “Oh,” she said.

  “Sorry, I just need to get by,” he said, smiling back.

  “Oh, of course,” she responded and stepped aside.

  The spot by the column was still available. Having claimed it, he looked back at the crowd, sipping his wine and pondering the grand event. Here he was, in the seat of global power, Washington, DC, where citizens slept on the sidewalks only blocks from the White House. How could the nation dare to solve the deeper problems facing the world without handling those at home? A call from a familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.

  “Jahi! Jahi! There you are.” The voice was unmistakable. Its vocal cords were affected by incomplete puberty. Their owner, Milton Page.