Hardly Knew Her

An iPod-now wouldn’t that be something to have, although the Melvilles had only one computer and it was hard to get any time on it, even for homework. Plus, the big kids in the neighborhood knew to look for those white wires, and they would smack a man down for them, then kick him harder if it turned out to be some knockoff player. He counted up in his head again, but naw, he was nowhere close. And here it was going on 3 P.M., the meaty part of the day gone. Unless he found a wi

The big race was only ninety minutes away and the neighborhood had pretty much gone quiet when a man and a woman in a huge-ass Escalade inquired about the final space at the Melvilles’, which had opened up unexpectedly after some couple had a fight earlier in the afternoon. That was what Dontay thought had happened, at least. He had escorted two people in, a man and a woman, and the woman had shown up not even an hour later, so anxious to get away that she had shot the car right over the curb, no thought to the shocks. The Melvilles were wondering what would happen at day’s end, when the man returned for the car that wasn’t there. Maybe they could offer to take him home, undercut the local cabbies.

“How much to park here?” asked this latecomer, the woman behind the wheel of the Escalade.

Uncle Marcus hesitated. This late in the day, she might expect a discount. Before he could answer, she jumped in: “Forty dollars?”

“Sure,” he said. “Back it in.”

“I admit I can’t maneuver this thing into such a tight space,” she said. “It’s new and I’m still not used to it. Would you do it for me?”

She hopped out and let Uncle Marcus take her place, her dude still sitting stone-faced in the passenger seat. Dontay thought that was cold, making a man look weak that way, but the man in the Escalade didn’t seem to notice. Uncle Marcus showed off a little, whipping the SUV back into the space and cutting it a lot closer than he should have, but he pulled it off. The woman counted two twenties into his hand, then added a ten.

“For the extra service,” she said. Her man didn’t say anything.

Oh, how Dontay prayed they would have a cooler, but they didn’t look to be cooler people. She looked like a grandstand type-polka-dotted halter dress, big hat and dark glasses, high-heeled shoes in the same yellow as the background of her dress. The man had a blazer and a tie and light-colored pants. Those types usually didn’t have coolers. In fact, those types didn’t usually park in the yards, but it was late. Maybe the lots at the track were full.

Still, it never hurt to ask.

“You need help? I mean, you got any things you need carried in?” He indicated his parking cart. It had been in the Melville family for years, taken from a Giant Foods that wasn’t even in business anymore.

“What’s the going rate?” the woman asked. Not the man. She seemed to be in charge.

“Depends on what needs transporting,” Dontay said. After seeing how things had worked out with Uncle Marcus, he wanted to see what she would offer to pay before he named a price.

“We have three large coolers.” She opened the back of the Escalade, showed them off. They looked brand new, the price tags still on their sides.

“That’s a big job,” Dontay said. “They’ll be piled so high in my cart, I’ll have to go real slow so they don’t tumble.”

“Twenty dollars?”

Twice the going rate. But before he could nod, the woman quickly added.

“Each, I mean. Per cooler.”

“Sure.” He loaded them up, one on top of the other. “But you know I can only take you up to the gate. You got to get them to your seats by yourselves. How you going to do that?”

“We’ll figure it out,” she said. The man had yet to say a word.

The three coolers fit into the shopping cart, just, and rose so high that Dontay could not keep a quick pace. What did it matter? Sixty dollars, the equivalent of six trips. They must be rich people, the kind who brought champagne and-well, Dontay wasn’t clear on what else rich people ate. Steak, but you wouldn’t bring steak to the Preakness. Steak sandwiches, maybe.

“You do this every year?” the woman asked.

Usually, people walked ahead or behind, a little embarrassed by the transaction. But this woman kept abreast of him, her yellow high heels striking the ground with a loud clackety-clack, almost as loud as the wheels on the shopping cart.

“Yes ma’am.”

“You ever think about going to the race?”

“No’m. I make too much money working it.” He wished he could take that back. It wasn’t good ma

“Want me to place a bet for you?” she asked. She was white-white, her skin so fair it had a blue tint to it, with red hair like a blaze beneath her black straw hat.

“Naw, that’s okay. I wouldn’t know what horse to bet for.”

“The favorite in the Derby often comes through in the Preakness. That’s a safe bet.”

Dontay liked talking to the woman, liked the way she treated him, but he couldn’t think of anything to say back. He tried nodding, as if he were very smart in the ways of the world, and all he did was hit a pothole, almost upset the whole load.

“But you probably don’t like safe bets.” The woman laughed. “Me either.”

The man, who was walking behind them, still hadn’t said anything.

“I’m going to bet a long shot, a horse coming out of the twelfth gate. Know how I picked it?” She didn’t wait for Dontay to reply. “Horse bit his rider during a workout this week. Now that’s my kind of horse.”

He finally had something to contribute. “What’s its name?”

“Diablo del Valle. Devil of the Valley. It’s a local horse, too. That’s also in its favor. A local horse with a great name who bit his jockey. How can I lose?”

“I don’t know,” Dontay said. “But based on what I see, a lot of people do.”

She loved that, laughing long and hard. Dontay hadn’t been trying to be fu

“I’ll probably be one of them,” the woman said. “But you know, I don’t gamble to win. The track is interactive entertainment, theater in which I hold a financial stake in the outcome. If I ever found myself too invested, I’d have to stop. Don’t you think? It’s awful to care too much about something. Anything.”

Dontay wasn’t sure he followed that, but he nodded as if he did. He was wondering if the woman was cold, her shoulders and back as bare as they were. With her yellow dress with the black dots, yellow heels, and big black hat, she looked like something.

“You’re a black-eyed Susan,” he said.

She nodded, clearly pleased. “That I am. But they’re fake, you know.”

“Ma’am?”

“The black-eyed Susans. They’re not in season until late August, so they buy these yellow daisies from South America and color the centers with a Magic Marker. Can you imagine?”

“How much that pay?” It hadn’t occurred to Dontay that there was a single opportunity in Preakness that his family had missed. Coloring in flowers sounded easy, like something the twins could do.

“Oh, I don’t know. Not enough. Nothing is ever enough, is it? Doesn’t everyone want more?”

The question seemed like a test. Did she think him ungrateful or greedy?

“I’m fine, ma’am.”

“Well, you’re a rare one.”

They had reached the entrance to the grandstand, but to Dontay’s amazement, the woman didn’t stop there. “We’re in the infield,” she said. The infield? She was paying almost as much to bring her stuff as she was paying for the tickets. The infield was mud and trash. The woman would get messed up in the infield, where no one would care that she had taken the time to look like a flower. Dontay looked for the man, but he had disappeared.