Vultures at Twilight by Charles Atkins

Author:Charles Atkins [Charles Atkins]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
Published: 2012-01-08T13:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

‘Lil, it’s not hard,’ Belle Evans said, from beneath her shoulder-length blonde wig. She handed me the bulky set of keys. ‘All you have to do is keep an eye on things. If someone asks for something specific, like an Art Nouveau table lighter and you don’t know if we have one or not, just get Fred or me. After a while, you get to know what’s in the shop. Other than that, keep an eye out for shoplifters; some of the smaller pieces that aren’t in locked cases have been disappearing. I keep telling the dealers to use the cases, but most of them are too cheap. I’ll hold off on showing you the cash register.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s a beastly thing. Other than that, any questions?’

‘No,’ I said, wishing I had stuck to flats. Instead, I had unburied a pair of pumps from the deepest recesses of my closet. What was I thinking? My ankles and calves burned, and it was only ten.

I thought back to my breakfast conversation with Ada that morning. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she’d asked, weirdly upset. ‘You don’t need the money.’

‘True, I just want something different.’

I could tell she was going to push further, but at that moment, Aaron had breezed past on his way to school.

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ she had commented. ‘You’re going to work and I’ve got a teenager at home.’

‘It hasn’t hurt you any.’

‘I’ve missed Aaron, and I like the company,’ she’d admitted. ‘I hadn’t realized how lonely I could get. If it wasn’t for you, Lil . . .’

‘I know.’ I fought the impulse to hug her. I had wanted to say more, to bring up the inconsistency of her feeling lonely and then proposing to go care for her mother in Manhattan. But I’d held my tongue.

On one point she was right: this was strange. I had always expected to go to work, just not when I was coming up on sixty. As a young woman I had wanted a career. Almost finished with my Bachelor of Arts from Smith, I had fantasized about a career in journalism, possibly working for a newspaper, or even one of the glossy magazines. I had been editor of the school paper my last two years, and one of my professors had told me she could get me an internship at Newsweek. But then, Christmas of my senior year, I met Bradley. I had gone home for the holidays, and was caught up in the seasonal whirlwind of baking and social visits. It was a glorious time, with fresh snow frosting the antique homes and icicles glistening like ornaments. Mother and I, bundled in fur-lined coats, and armed with rum-soaked fruitcakes, and tins of chocolaty bourbon balls, went calling on the neighbors. At every house we’d stop and chat. And then, and I’ve often wondered if mother hadn’t intended this all the time, we’d stopped at Bradley’s house, to pay a visit to the new unmarried young doctor in town. The intent was to leave him with one of Mother’s scandalous batches of bourbon balls.

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