SUNSET ROMANCE: 4) TROUBLE
My Saturday Evening Post
4.
The landline telephone at Elsa Peabody’s bedside awakens her from slumber. It disorients her for a long moment, as this phone rarely rings.
“Ma? It’s me, Rodney.”
“How nice of you to phone, Rodney. Is something wrong?”
The younger of Elsa’s two sons, Rodney shows up once a month at Sunset, yaks about himself for half an hour, and scrams, as if hanging out with old folk would age him prematurely.
“What’s going on there, Ma?”
“What do you mean?”
“I got a call from someone at the home, uh, I mean care facility, saying that you’re making some kind of trouble?”
“No, not me.”
“Ma, they say you’re trying to pry into the personal affairs of another resident.”
“That’s not true,” says Elsa. “I simply asked why they had moved a new friend of mine from here.”
“Who, Ma?”
“It doesn’t matter who.”
“Ma, if you make trouble, they’ll throw you outta there. Is that what you want?”
“No, but I do expect honesty and discretion from people who make the rules around here.”
“Discretion for what?”
“For allowing me to choose my own friends.”
“I got a call from John Mulberry, Sunset’s director, who told me he just got off the phone with a lawyer who threatened him with a lawsuit. You haven’t hired a lawyer, have you, Ma?”
Aside from upsetting Mulberry, it aggrieves Rodney that his mother might be chipping away at money from his presumed inheritance to pay a lawyer who would, doubtless, take advantage of a wealthy nonagenerian by running an expensive meter.
“No.”
“Then what’s going on? This lawyer, someone named Barton, called Sunset to complain on your behalf.”
“Did you say Barton?”
“Yes, Daniel Barton. Did you hire him?”
“I’ve got to go to breakfast,” says Elsa. “Call me later, Rodney.”
Rodney stands dumbfounded in the kitchen of his magnificent replica chateau in Hope Ranch, a pastoral suburb of Santa Barbara, holding a disconnected phone to his ear. Normally, he struggles to terminate a call with his mother. He is astounded she did the terminating, had practically hung up on him.
Elsa dresses quickly, dispensing with make-up, wishing to seize this day by its tail and fling it as far as she can.
Sara Barton is finishing breakfast—a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and sliced banana—and breaks into a mischievous grin as Elsa wheels up.
“Sara,” says Elsa, “what did you do?”
Sara swallows and clears her throat. “My grandson, Daniel, is a lawyer. He’s taking your case, pro bono.”
“What case?”
“My grandson can make a case of anything.”
“But what if they ask me to leave?”
“They’ll have my grandson to deal with. He’s a lovely boy.” Sara pats Elsa’s knee. “But a wicked lawyer.”
“What did he say?”
“You’d think after being married to a lawyer for half a century, bless his soul, I’d understand legal mumbo-jumbo,” says Sara. “But I don’t. I only told Daniel the situation. That’s all it takes. Lawyers see things others do not. Things like loopholes. That’s one word I do know.” Sara’s smile disappears as her eyes are flagged elsewhere. “Uh-oh, here it comes.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Peabody.” Ernesto, the day manager, looms over Elsa. “Did you sleep well?” His tone is more deferential, less patronizing, than the day before.
“Very well, thank you.”
“May I have a word with you.” He glares at Sara Barton (someone had pieced this puzzle). “In private?”
“Of course.”
Ernesto grips Elsa’s wheelchair and turns it around, a little less gentle than usual.
“Off to the gulag?” Sara cracks, dipping a spoon into her oatmeal.
Ernesto rolls Elsa around the reception counter, past the office desk where Carol-Ann sits peeking over half-moon spectacles, and into a room with a desk on which rests an imitation wood nameplate that says John P. Mulberry, Director.
And behind the desk sits Mulberry himself, attired in an off-the-peg polyester suit from Sears, pretending to scan a sheaf of papers before him. He has a bland moon face and straight brown hair, sharply parted on the left side of his pate. Mulberry looks up and smiles artificially. “And how are we feeling today, Mrs. Peabody?” He speaks in a condescending manner, as if she were a child.
“Better than ever, thank you.”
Mulberry studies her with a bemused, skeptical expression before excusing Ernesto. Then his face grows stern. “We’ve had an interesting call.” He pauses to gauge Elsa’s reaction. “Do you know a Daniel Barton?”
“We’re not personally acquainted,” says Elsa with a stoic stony-faced expression. “But I know the name.”
“He is a lawyer,” says Mulberry. “He phoned my office purporting to represent you.”
A few seconds pass.
“Is that a question, Mr. Mulberry?”
“Does he?”
“Does he what?”
“Represent you?”
“Yes.”
Mulberry smiles uneasily, clasps his hands behind his neck and leans back in the swivel chair, almost causing it to tip over. “Why do you think you need a lawyer, Mrs. Peabody? Aren’t we all your friends around here?”
“I thought so,” replies Elsa. “Until yesterday.”
Mulberry raises an eyebrow, as if to express bewilderment.
“I made a new friend here,” Elsa continues. “A very special friend. And he was removed for reasons I still do not understand.”
“Oh, that,” says Mulberry, waving it away as an insignificant footnote. “I thought I explained that your new friend needed medical tests, a fact of life for seniors in their nineties.”
“I recall that you did, “says Elsa. “But you wouldn’t say when he will return.”
Mulberry shrugs. “It’s not in my hands, Mrs. Peabody. It depends on the tests. And as I explained to you yesterday, for reasons of privacy I’m not allowed to discuss his medical condition.”
“And as I said yesterday, I’m not asking about his medical condition, Mr. Mulberry. I’d like to know how to reach him. A telephone number or an address. Surely that would not be an invasion of his privacy.”
“Ah, but I’m afraid it is.” Mulberry has a new thought. “But if you would like to write him a letter, I can have it forwarded to him.”
Elsa brightens. But something about a twitch in Mulberry’s right eye arouses her suspicion about his mail delivery skills. “Thank you,” she says. “Is that all?”
“Yes. I’ll phone this Mr. Barton and tell him everything has been resolved.” Raising his hand, Mulberry signals Ernesto, who’d been waiting just outside the door, and picks up his phone as Ernesto wheels Elsa away.
Sara Barton can tell by the dejected look on Elsa’s face, as she approaches the card table, that her meeting with management had not gone well. She waits until Ernesto was out of earshot. “Well?”
“He says if I write a letter, he’ll forward it. But I don’t believe him.”
Sara shakes her head. “Nor do I. But there’s no need for you to use that weasel to send a letter.” She pushes a piece of scribbled notepaper across the green felt.
“What’s this?”
“A phone number.” Sara grins naughtily. “This is where you’ll find Miles Stewart.”
“I don’t understand?”
Sara winks. “Lawyers use private detectives to uncover what needs uncovering.” She lowers her voice. “Ernesto is watching us, don’t turn around or they’ll get suspicious. Go to your room, write a note, seal it in an envelope and give it to that weasel Mulberry, just like he asked. They’ll think they’ve won. When nobody’s watching, call Miles Stewart. Not from your room. Use the public phone in the corridor.”
“Where in heaven’s name did you learn to be so sneaky, Sara?”
Sara grins, lips tight. She would take the brief affair she once had to her grave.