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CHAPTER III

  Dilly stays home; Ernest goes home; and Pearl returns home, twice.

  Like most everyone, Oca was a champion of benign untruths.

  When a mere fourteen, with encouragement from her twelve-year-old mentor, Oca asked Mom, again, about her own daddy. Why ask? Haven’t I been good to you? Oca said Yes, again, but where is he? Go! Look! Unhappy Oca left with her mentor to sleep on the beach. The young truants eluded mothers and police for seven hours, until rain quashed Oca’s rebellion. Quarrels continued, but Dilly whittled away at intransigence. Within two years ‘I love you’ was all anyone heard from the pair.

  Even when caught in traffic, Oca, now twenty-two, enjoyed time spent behind the wheel. Hers was a spiffy sporty little car, a year-old graduation gift from Dilly to her only child. No need to rush; her lesson was private, her tutor, a retired police officer, began the session whenever she arrived.

  She and Mom thought it an investment, insurance, to prepare thoroughly for her academy entrance exam, including the infamously grueling physical. So Dilly paid to have hurdles put in her daughter’s way: fences, ropes and ladders to climb, crawl spaces, dark alleys, simulated cellars and pitched nocturnal rooftops.

  Oca had been through as many schools and courses as Mom could fund.

  High school, a private institution, provided diplomas once tuition was paid in full. She earned an Associate Degree in Matriculating; after her modest graduation party, Oca’s versatility was developed. First, culinary arts, a full nine-month course. Dilly fostered her daughter’s entrepreneurial urges to establish her very own catering service, but no one ever responded to the hand-written flyers she pinned under the windshield wipers of neighborhood cars.

  Eleven months of paralegal school followed.

  As Oca explained, she was a paralegal, having met all requirements of intensive year-long training, graduated and celebrated again, this time catered; she received a certificate with her legal name, Pearl Sue Borne, printed on parchment in gold. Her instructors and directors, outstanding attorneys, signed below her name on the left; she was proudest of her embossed gold seal and the spruce green ribbon pasted in the lower right-hand corner.

  The placement office guaranteed at least one interview upon graduation, and sent Pearl to A. Strump, Esq. Four days later, a distressed Oca came home before lunch.

  All that pressure for so little money!

  Whether she or Strump decided to terminate her employment was never fully investigated. That bossy lady lawyer wanted forms and letters typed as dictated instead of rewording them like the samples Oca had memorized in school. Called her a sniveler! Said she couldn’t spell! The entire understaffed firm would never recognize her goodness, her black cherry eyes just like Mom’s, her willingness to try just once more to understand what Strump was stuttering, and she could make strong coffee anytime. Go find some other paralegal to abuse. Dilly emphatically agreed.

  Sponsored by Mom, Oca leaped from law to crime, to become a police officer. She composed a letter of introduction, handwritten for that personal touch, and filled out her application with help from no one; she intended to submit them along with several peppermints to Sergeant Moss, of their local precinct.

  Traffic eased. Oca drove away from the beach, north along eight-lane Ocean Parkway, turned right when she finally reached Avenue U; she crossed Coney Island Avenue and entered small Chinatown. Her lesson was around the corner, one flight up, directly above the old fresh noodles lady.

  Concentrate, Pearl. Climb, squat, jump, punch, crawl, roll for an hour, hand the trainer Dilly’s check, buy noodles, bok choy, rice vinegar and silken tofu for stir-fry, a pint of red bean ice cream and there was one more errand before lunch. She drove south.

  “I was born right here in Coney Island. At Treatment,” she told Sergeant Moss. He looked down from his high desk and accepted her bulging envelope. “Maybe you know my mom. She’s worked there for years. And Uncle Cornelius grew up here, my grandma died here and Grandpa still lives here. I love dogs. And even when I was little I wanted to be a cop. Forever!” She laughed. “Have a candy!”

  She left for home, confident. Round hard candies, appreciated at Treatment by residents, some sick, most just very old, men and women, toothed and dentured, sucked them. Oca never failed to win their smiles and affection with a smile of her own, a giggle and the quick one-hand shoulder hug Mom had taught her, accompanied by a variety of wrapped flavors, peppermint the perennial favorite.

  Sergeant Moss put aside her small gift of doggie treats, glanced at the first line of her letter and smiled: ah, good old candy cane bonbons. He unwrapped one and buried it in the soft deep under his tongue; it warmed as he read her application. He chuckled; a drop of spittle dribbled from his lips; he caught it on the tip of his little finger, smeared pink across her essay and sat back, stroking the sharp edge of mint with his tongue, recalling his sassy nana’s pocketbook, its snap on his wrist and her wet, hairy smile as she squeezed, until the last fragile sliver dissolved.

  Dilly and Ernest knew a great deal more about each other than an hour before, and would most definitely be in touch.

  He kissed her and left. Bronze Dilly, like her skimpy swimsuit on the floor, was still sandy in intimate places and had irritated him a little -- like her talk with her daughter. He and she were obviously compatible in certain respects; he’d been searching for her, or someone; although glad to be out of there, he would be back. He took his bags from the car, waved to the waving security guard and walked a circuitous route home along the beach. His deadlines, there were always more, would wait.

  Groggy from codeine and her morning’s exertions, Dilly fell into heavy sleep. Oca came home and banged on her bedroom door.

  “Mom?”

  “Go away.”

  “Need something?”

  “Go away.”

  “Did he leave?”

  “Go see Grandpa.”

  Oca drove a half-mile east to Grandpa Irwin’s, his one bedroom apartment in the old six-story Arms Hotel, overlooking the elevated rail tracks and the Atlantic; she prepared a late lunch in his closet kitchen and served authentic oriental cuisine to them both.

  Dilly phoned her office at Treatment to instruct an assistant: cancel all appointments and rounds. Somehow, despite her injury, Dilly would work tomorrow.

  She woke again after a two-hour nap; she stretched, her toe stung, but she was so sweetly satisfied with herself and with Ernest Ewing, attentive, docile, eager, employed, though she didn’t understand exactly what he did. There had been no time this morning, now afternoon, for more than superficial talk. She sat up. Her toe smarted. Tortured toe, tender Ernest; she preferred scheduled tidiness, but a morning’s reprieve was delightful. He’d mentioned, while dressing, that he lived where he worked, nearby in that rambling beach-front squatter’s hut, that yard full of junk she had laughed at for years, dangling seaweed, piles of rocks, arches, statues, rotting logs. Ernest’s house with the quirky backyard; he was the quirk, and hers.

  Her injury demanded an afternoon of convalescence, but Dilly was eager to confer with her oldest continuous friend, Sander Wilmington Kohrnough, Esq. about urgent familial concerns. She phoned his office. As expected, Mr. Kurt answered with his ritual insubordinate greeting,

  “Kohrnough’s Law.”

  Old Mr. Kurt, executive amanuensis, willful undermining busybody, exploiter of any chance to augment his employer’s dependency, had assisted Kohrnough for years.

  Dilly requested, “Mr. Kohrnough.”

  “Mr. Kohrnough is not in. Who is calling?”

  She hung up, tried his cell phone and left a message, dialed his home number, lost patience when she heard his recording, and called back.

  “Kohrnough’s Law.”

  “You know who I am. Give me Mr. Kohrnough.”

  “As I explained. Madam, Mr. Kohrnough is not in.”

  Dilly allowed her frustration to fester. She had to see him, tonight. He was in court or a deposition, lunch on the boardwalk or r
ight there at his desk studying one of his ridiculous art journals. He would answer when he heard her voice.

  “Give me his voicemail.”

  “And who is calling?”

  “His voicemail!” she shouted.

  She parsed her message carefully. She despised that eavesdropper, that shriveled myopic snoop with crusty ears, flaky headphones, that mouth always full of gum. He was a bad habit, but her friend had argued for nine years? ten? that he couldn’t be replaced.

  Mr. Kurt (whose salary was not and never would be commensurate with experience) laid his headphones on his desk before connecting her to voicemail and hurried to open Kohrnough’s private office door. Mouth agape, he cupped his ear to catch her message:

  “Call me. Call me. Call me call me call call call.” She hung up.

  Mr. Kurt marveled at his employer’s choice of intimates, and returned to work.

  Oca sat with Grandpa Irwin at his collapsible card table and played checkers after dessert. She pushed a red, she always played red. “King me.”

  “You working?” he asked.

  “Let’s take a walk. You like the boardwalk. I’ll drive.” She laughed, shaking his shoulder to convince him.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I don’t know. Just funny.” She pushed another checker. “You go.”

  “You working? Or more school?”

  A rugged man of moderate height, although still taller than Oca, he was shrinking, stooping, smiling too much lately. His trembling hands embarrassed him; he steadied them between his knees or hid them under his thighs when a rare visitor appeared, uninvited. Even indoors he wore a shapeless cotton hat, faded to pale blue by the boardwalk sun, to protect the thinning white hair which grew on his earlobes instead of his head. Behind bifocals, his lashless eyes stored yellow sand in their corners, unless Oca helped him wash.

  He moved his king and jumped two of hers. “I win again.” He sat back and sighed, “Enough.”

  “Enough to eat?” she laughed, “I got extra from Mrs. Mee. Remember her?”

  “No.”

  “Extra noodles. From Mrs. Mee, the noodle lady. Grandpa? No walk today?”

  “I’m tired. You go.” He pushed himself up from the table.

  “Remember, Grandpa? You threw me in the water.”

  “I did?”

  “I swam like a doggie, right away.” She followed him into his bedroom. “No walk? Maybe later.”

  “Go home,” he said, lay down and turned away from her; she covered him with his orange flannel robe.

  “Grandpa?”

  He was asleep. Oca drove home.

  Dilly, in her fuchsia lace-trimmed robe, sat typing at the kitchen table, right foot propped on a chair, telephone beside her laptop. No calls as yet.

  “Mom?”

  Dilly continued her work and asked, “How’s Grandpa?”

  “Same. Sleeps a lot. I’ll cook something. OK?”

  “Good idea.”

  “Omelet?”

  “White. And wheat toast.”

  Dilly stopped typing to admire her daughter, now a polished young woman.

  “Mom?” and she sliced the toast diagonally, “I was thinking.”

  “Good idea.”

  Oca grinned at her; sometimes she wasn’t sure about what Mom meant, but ignoring uncertainty was safe. “I’ll work with you at Treatment till I start at the police.” She garnished the omelet with thinly sliced twisted orange peel and halved strawberry, and presented it to Mom with “Whalah!”

  “At least for the next few days,” Dilly said, paused and thought of Ernest, “until my toe heals, I could use your help with the rounds.”

  “He’s nice? That beach man?”

  “Ernest. I’ll see him again. Make me coffee.”

  “Sergeant Moss was very nice and friendly. He said I’d hear from him soon.”

  “Good. Let me know when you do.”