Keeper of the Keys

Kat hung up. “She’s either dead, abducted, or on the run,” she said. Ray put a hand over his eyebrows, as if seeing something in the distance he didn’t want to see. “But she went through Idyllwild,” Kat continued inexorably. “I bet she left you that charge on your bank statement in case you were looking for her, just like those people leave signs of who they are in the homes I appraise. She’s smart-she didn’t want you to know right away where she was going, but she didn’t want to be completely cut off from you, either.”

Ray said, “I’ll be right back.” He left the living room. Kat took out the notebook and read some more of Leigh’s love poems. In five minutes he returned, loaded down. “A couple sweaters,” he said. “Two sleeping bags. It might get cold up there at night, even in summer, and I sure don’t expect sheets. Bring another bottle of that French stuff from the fridge.”

“Yessir,” Kat said, scrambling up from the floor. “Don’t forget toothbrushes.”

19

I ’m outta here,” Eleanor Beasley said, walking past Esmé’s station. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait a second, Eleanor.”

Eleanor waited while Esmé finished checking through a big shopping cart, whizzing through the bar-coded items and bagging them with efficiency born of long experience.

“Thanks for shopping at Granada Market,” she told the customer, who nodded. Esmé swiftly fastened the chain to her station. While she finished her closing-up chores, Eleanor talked to the bagger at the next register about his new Prius. Eleanor wasn’t a hurrier; this could be a problem in a grocery store, but the customers liked how she noticed when they were tired and asked how they were doing.

Granada Market had started out as a small specialty health food store in the seventies. Over the years, as people became educated about the virtues of healthy food, the store had tripled in size. Granada gave Safeway and even Trader Joe’s a run for their money. The store had twelve full-time clerks, but since it was open until midnight, they all worked long shifts during extra-busy times or vacation times. Esmé most appreciated the ten percent employee discount on food items.

“Where are you going tonight?” she said as they pushed open the double doors and entered the cool, dim rear of the store.

“Jackstraps,” Eleanor said, “same as every Friday night.” She pulled her scrunchie off and her blonde hair stayed put until she ran her fingers in and out a few times. She had the thin, hard-living face of a smoker and drinker and had been divorced for decades from her rodeo-rider husband. She pulled lipstick out of her bag and ran it over her lips without checking a mirror, then traced her work with a finger.

They punched out. “I thought-maybe I could join you?” Esmé said.

Eleanor’s eyebrows went up and she smiled. “You changing your ways, Esmé? It’s pretty rowdy there.”

“I feel rowdy,” Esmé said. She felt like exploding, was how she felt, after the latest call from Ray. Something had torn between them like the tear on a piece of fabric that continues straight across, all the way across the cloth until the piece is neatly halved. If she went home now she would call him, apologize, say things she shouldn’t, anything to try to mend this tear.

And besides, she couldn’t stand the thought of going home right now. She couldn’t contain all she felt right now. She had to get out, right now, but not alone. She didn’t want to be alone.

Their boss, Ward Cameron, a small man who liked to cut a big swath, sneaked silently up behind them. “Not so fast,” he bellowed, startling them. He chuckled at their reaction as they turned to face him. “Rotation tomorrow, Saturday morning. You two, eight a.m. Don’t be late.”

They both maintained smiles for as long as he was looking, then Eleanor rolled her eyes.

“We oughtta unionize.”

“He beat back a union vote twice.”

“Then I oughtta quit. I hear they might open a new Safeway across the street from the Whitwood Center.”

“Ellie, you love it here. You’re so sociable. I admire how friendly you are with the customers. You love getting people laughing.”

Eleanor smiled, appreciating the compliment. “I love the money.” They walked into the employee lunchroom, where each employee was allowed a small locker for personal items. Eleanor pulled off her work shirt, a modest blouse, replacing it with a green tank top and hanging a string of beads around her neck. “Voilà,” she said, and laughed.

Esmé wondered at her changing in this room, but no men arrived to applaud her.

“Ward likes me,” Eleanor was saying. “Have you noticed? Whenever he gets a little bored, he drops something just so he can watch me bend over. What would he do without me?” She already knew the answer. “Hire another one. I guess that’s why I’ve gone through two husbands already. I think I’m special but they think different. You ever married, Esmé? I always wondered.”

Although she had worked at the store for many years, Esmé had always kept her distance. She never went out with the other clerks, and kept to herself at lunch. She preferred to walk somewhere, to the dollar store to browse for little household things, or to a nearby park where she could escape the store, which had no windows, no natural light, and a lot of talk about very personal things.

“I’m a widow,” she said.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Long time ago,” Esmé said, changing out of the thick-cushioned shoes she wore to protect her feet from the day of standing. Everything important in her life had happened so long ago, but Ray was now on a rampage through the past. She remembered the phone call again and this uncontainable anger returned-against Ray, for his pigheadedness, and against Leigh, who had dealt him a massive and destabilizing blow and set him on this course.

“Let’s go, Eleanor!”

“We’re gone.” Eleanor snapped her purse shut and gave Esmé a glossy smile.

They joined a crew of three other female coworkers, all finishing shifts at six o’clock that day. Even for those on an early shift, Friday had that glow. Even Esmé felt it, a hopeful electricity as if this weekend would bring all they desired. Chatting and laughing, they walked toward the cafe-bar, which was only a block from the grocery store.

Esmé worked hard to enjoy the walk. The hot yellow of the day had drifted away, a burning sun low in the sky now at its sweetest and most benign. The heat of the sidewalk radiated up through the thin sole of her sandals.

She tried to hear what Eleanor’s friends were saying, but one thing about evening, every car for thirty miles around had hit the boulevard. Drivers squinted against the long low rays. She saw angry faces behind the windshields. She crossed her arms.

“You cold, honey?” Eleanor asked. “Here.” She removed her thin crocheted sweater. “Take this. I’m hot enough for both of us.” She expanded her chest and everybody laughed. The other women were younger than Eleanor and Esmé and in pretty good shape. You couldn’t hold a job at Granada ’s unless you could stand for eight to ten hours.

Esmé looked down at her blouse and black pants and thought, I look older than I am. She felt a little ashamed, as if she was letting down the other women, detracting from their beauty. She wished she had put on some makeup, or a skirt-her legs were still good-oh, what was she doing? She’d given up cocktail lounges years and years before. She felt like turning around and going home, but it had been such a long time since she had let herself live a little-there would be a long bar, shiny bottles, low light. She could relax, have a refreshment-

A long long time.

Jackstraps had flashed its green sign for a lot longer than Esmé had worked at the market. A long wooden counter with shiny black marble inlays made a wide half-circle through the center of the room. Two immense flat screens blasted quick-cut images of Nascar racing. The place had begun to fill up. The women sat down along the far end of the bar, Eleanor choosing to stand.