Penny’s instructions about the bookkeeping. It did feel lonely without Penny and Ray around, as if we were acting in a play with only half the characters, but I told myself it was for the best: Nicaragua had two willing workers and I didn’t have my sister suggesting that I might be getting in over my head with Trish and her problems.
The afternoon was cold and quiet. Andrea called once and asked rather pathetically if I’d enjoyed the fruitcake she’d left outside my door for Christmas. I didn’t tell her that I’d had to give it away, finding myself shy of a suitable gift for someone else at the last minute—but I did praise the tomato sauce I’d used on the cannelloni last night.
“I have some really great prune and apple chutney I could give you… you want to go to a movie or play this weekend?”
“Uh, that’s really nice, Andrea, but, urn, I’m really busy these days.”
“Oh, sure, I understand,” she murmured sadly. “You’ve probably got someone new, haven’t you?”
“Well, kind of.”
Sometimes I wished Andrea and Devlin and the rest of them could get together and tell Hadley what she was missing.
Shortly before I closed up the shop at five I tried calling Trish again. The line was busy, an irritating but still reassuring sound that made me feel a little like the mother of a teenager. Yet I found myself oddly happy too, knowing that she was there, that there was someone waiting for me at home. It enlivened my spirits and quickened my appetite. I’d go by the Market on the way home and pick up something special for us tonight—fresh shrimps in their shells sounded good—or would Trish think they were too icky?
I went down to First and caught a bus that let me off at the far corner of the Market, by DeLaurenti’s. I’d decided after all to stick with pasta and bought tortellini and sun-dried tomatoes, Niçoise olives and a hunk of Romano cheese. At the vegetable stands I bought Romaine lettuce, a cucumber and red bell peppers, along with some tiny sweet Satsuma oranges. I stopped to goggle over the headlines at the Read All About It newsstand. MOTHER DELIVERS ALIEN BABY: HUSBAND DEMANDS DIVORCE blared the National Enquirer , while Business Week worried over the Japanese: SAMURI AND COWBOYS: SHOWDOWN AT THE IMPORT CORRAL. I noticed the stand was starting to carry La Barricada , the Sandinista paper, and bought a copy, more out of a sudden longing to participate in whatever my sister might be experiencing down there than because I expected my Spanish to be up to reading it.
It was cold out; much of the snow had melted, but the air was frosty. People in down parkas and long wool coats rushed around making their last-minute purchases, the street musicians played old folk and new reggae and over the whole scene shone the beneficent light of the big red letters: PUBLIC MARKET CENTER. The words gave everything a festive, incandescent glow, gleaming on the worn brick of the street and enclosing the stage-like setting within a frame of color. For a moment, while I waited for the traffic light to change on First, I was stopped by the magic of it, the sense that here was the heart of the city, here was the city’s heart, beating red and warm against the cold black sky.
Then I crossed the street and immediately everything changed. The street kids were lined up outside the boarded-up, graffiti-covered windows of the abandoned building that had been J.C. Pauley’s Department Store all through my childhood. Another group stood in front of the Son Shine Inn opposite. The inn was run by the Union Gospel Mission and displayed a faded painting of Jesus holding out his hands. Bedraggled looking street people went in and out; I guessed the Christians must be serving dinner inside. Outside its door a steady contingent of kids hung out, managing to look both restless and bored. They played with each other’s hair, pushed and jabbed and hugged each other’s bodies. A couple of the boys, Black and white,
The afternoon was cold and quiet. Andrea called once and asked rather pathetically if I’d enjoyed the fruitcake she’d left outside my door for Christmas. I didn’t tell her that I’d had to give it away, finding myself shy of a suitable gift for someone else at the last minute—but I did praise the tomato sauce I’d used on the cannelloni last night.
“I have some really great prune and apple chutney I could give you… you want to go to a movie or play this weekend?”
“Uh, that’s really nice, Andrea, but, urn, I’m really busy these days.”
“Oh, sure, I understand,” she murmured sadly. “You’ve probably got someone new, haven’t you?”
“Well, kind of.”
Sometimes I wished Andrea and Devlin and the rest of them could get together and tell Hadley what she was missing.
Shortly before I closed up the shop at five I tried calling Trish again. The line was busy, an irritating but still reassuring sound that made me feel a little like the mother of a teenager. Yet I found myself oddly happy too, knowing that she was there, that there was someone waiting for me at home. It enlivened my spirits and quickened my appetite. I’d go by the Market on the way home and pick up something special for us tonight—fresh shrimps in their shells sounded good—or would Trish think they were too icky?
I went down to First and caught a bus that let me off at the far corner of the Market, by DeLaurenti’s. I’d decided after all to stick with pasta and bought tortellini and sun-dried tomatoes, Niçoise olives and a hunk of Romano cheese. At the vegetable stands I bought Romaine lettuce, a cucumber and red bell peppers, along with some tiny sweet Satsuma oranges. I stopped to goggle over the headlines at the Read All About It newsstand. MOTHER DELIVERS ALIEN BABY: HUSBAND DEMANDS DIVORCE blared the National Enquirer , while Business Week worried over the Japanese: SAMURI AND COWBOYS: SHOWDOWN AT THE IMPORT CORRAL. I noticed the stand was starting to carry La Barricada , the Sandinista paper, and bought a copy, more out of a sudden longing to participate in whatever my sister might be experiencing down there than because I expected my Spanish to be up to reading it.
It was cold out; much of the snow had melted, but the air was frosty. People in down parkas and long wool coats rushed around making their last-minute purchases, the street musicians played old folk and new reggae and over the whole scene shone the beneficent light of the big red letters: PUBLIC MARKET CENTER. The words gave everything a festive, incandescent glow, gleaming on the worn brick of the street and enclosing the stage-like setting within a frame of color. For a moment, while I waited for the traffic light to change on First, I was stopped by the magic of it, the sense that here was the heart of the city, here was the city’s heart, beating red and warm against the cold black sky.
Then I crossed the street and immediately everything changed. The street kids were lined up outside the boarded-up, graffiti-covered windows of the abandoned building that had been J.C. Pauley’s Department Store all through my childhood. Another group stood in front of the Son Shine Inn opposite. The inn was run by the Union Gospel Mission and displayed a faded painting of Jesus holding out his hands. Bedraggled looking street people went in and out; I guessed the Christians must be serving dinner inside. Outside its door a steady contingent of kids hung out, managing to look both restless and bored. They played with each other’s hair, pushed and jabbed and hugged each other’s bodies. A couple of the boys, Black and white,
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