Cracks in the Sidewalk(22)

Charles glared at JT and growled, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ve gotta walk away from this,” JT answered, shaking his head. “I’m sorry Liz’s sick. I’m sorry things are the way they are, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I’ve got my own problems, and I can’t take on the responsibility of hers.”

“Responsibility?” Charlie echoed. “What responsibility have you—”

“I’ve got three kids and a business going down the tubes. That’s more than I can handle. I gotta take care of me and the kids. There’s no way I can care for Liz. She’s your daughter, you’ve got the money, you take care of her.”

“We enjoy having Elizabeth with us,” Claire said, checking her anger, “but she wants to be with you and the kids.”

“I can’t help that. I’m up to my ass in bills. I got problems with no answers, and I don’t want Liz coming back to my house!”

“How dare you!” Charlie snapped. “That house is as much hers as yours. More perhaps. She’s got every right to—”

“No, she doesn’t!” Jeffrey’s voice grew belligerent.

“We’ll see about that!” Charlie answered.

“Try it. I’m telling you right now, you bring her back to my house and I’ll walk out. I’ll take all three kids with me, and she can sit there and die alone!”

Charlie took a step toward JT. “You rotten—”

Elizabeth’s eyes darted from father to husband, husband to father.

“No, Daddy!” she screamed.

Charles stopped and turned to his daughter.

“You can’t make Jeffrey want me if he doesn’t,” she said. She closed her eyes and pictured JT’s blue Buick—a car he had adored, a car he waxed and polished until it sparkled like a diamond—but once he got a dent in the rear fender, it became a car he could no longer stand to drive. Within weeks he had replaced the Buick with a new Pontiac.

She remembered the Bulova watch that kept perfect time but was tossed away when JT discovered a hairline crack in the crystal. The green cashmere sweater she’d bought for him while they were on their honeymoon, gone because of the smallest snag imaginable. Flawed as she had become, Elizabeth knew he wouldn’t hold on to her.

When she opened her eyes again, he had left.



Later that afternoon Cyndi telephoned her sister, Kelsey, a single mom who, along with her two-year-old terror, had moved into Cyndi’s one-bedroom apartment. To say the apartment was unbearably overcrowded would be a gross understatement. Kelsey had arrived with five suitcases, several sacks of toys, and a tricycle that had a battery-operated siren attached to the handlebars.

“I’ve nowhere else to go and no money,” she’d complained.

Against her better judgment, Cyndi agreed to let her sister stay a few days. That was five months ago. Kelsey promised to get a job and find another place to live, but as days stretched into weeks she became more settled. Now she occupied every corner of every room, and she no longer bothered to flip through the “Help Wanted” section of the newspaper. Something had to be done.

The telephone rang six times before a groggy voice said, “Hello.”

“Kelsey?”

“Yeah.” She yawned.

“Were you sleeping?”

“Yeah. Me and Dumpling were napping.”

“At four o’clock in the afternoon?”

“Well, there’s nothing else to do.”

“I’ve got a thought for you,” Cyndi said. “I know how you like money and nice things. You know that big dress shop in Westfield, the one on Main Street?”

“The one next door to The Bootery?”

“Yup. The guy who owns it, his wife is here in the hospital, and she’s got a tumor…”

~

The next morning Kelsey, wearing a tee shirt that made skin saggy by comparison, trotted into Caruthers Couture and asked for a job.

“I’m not really hiring right now,” JT said, even though he could scarcely take his eyes from Kelsey, a younger, healthier version of Liz.

“I’d be willing to work for almost nothing.” Kelsey sighed and leaned across the counter so her face was inches from his. “I’m real interested in learning the business.”

“Oh.” JT made no effort to move back.

“I’d be a trainee. And I could model some of your beautiful clothes. Show them off to their best advantage.”

“That’s a point,” JT mused. “Yeah, that’s a point. Seeing someone like you wearing the outfits might encourage customers.”

“I’ll try on a few things. You can see what I mean.”

Before he could object, Kelsey scooped up an armful of gowns and headed for the dressing room. Moments later she came out wearing a blue satin sheath that reflected the color of her eyes and slid across her body like the cascade of a waterfall.

JT smiled. “Now that’s how a woman should look.”

Within the hour Kelsey had a job at Caruthers Couture. Although the store was just weeks from being padlocked, JT rationalized that Kelsey modeling clothes would bring an influx of customers.



Elizabeth stopped asking if Jeffrey would come to visit, but she continued to ask for the children. “Please,” she begged Claire, “make him bring them to see me.”