Bed & Breakfast by Lois Battle

Author:Lois Battle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

Nine

THE FOYER OF the Azalealand Nursing Home looked like a motel that had earned a two-star “very clean with modern fixtures” endorsement from the automobile club—pale blue walls, beige curtains with large flowers in unlikely shades of blues and burgundy, ersatz mahogany furniture. Sunlight streamed through the windows but the heat was turned up high. The air smelled of baking sugar cookies and pine disinfectant with a barely detectable trace of urine. A Christmas tree, decorated with red and green paper chains and tinfoil stars that must’ve come from a crafts class, had been placed next to a large TV. Two old women sat on the burgundy couch, holding hands and nodding off in front of a game show while a lump of a man hunched over his walker, muttering, “That’s not the right answer, you fool,” to a stumped contestant.

A young woman stood in the reception area leaning over the desk, chin in one hand, pencil in the other, her rear end bouncing to an inaudible beat coming from the iPod hooked into the waistband of her polyester uniform. Her head, bent over her charts, showed an inch of dark roots fanning into a shock of brassy gold. “Tiffany,” Josie greeted her, “how are you, dear?” Tiffany raised her head and pulled out her headphones, causing her candy-cane earrings to jiggle. She had beautiful blue eyes and a tiny ring in her pug nose. A smile puffed her acne-scored cheeks. “Miz Tatternall and Mr. Robido. I figured you’d be in today.” She smiled at Cam, waiting for an introduction.

“This is my daughter, Camilla, visiting from New York.”

Cam shook Tiffany’s hand, noticed it had no wedding ring, said, “Pleased to meet you.” Tiffany’s face brought to mind trailer parks, scrubby toy-strewn yards, singles nights in country-western bars, Elvis painted on velvet. She might have been twenty-three or pushing forty. And she could see that Tiffany was making similar calculations, trying to guess her age, thinking something like, “Career bitch. Never had kids. Can afford facials and manicures and good clothes. Must be older than she looks.” Money was the thing that made the difference, Cam was sure they’d agree on that. Not, Cam thought, that she’d ever had a great deal of it, but what she’d had, apart from contributions to Planned Parenthood, literacy campaigns, arts organizations, and the like, she’d mostly spent on herself. How could she possibly go through a pregnancy, find a bigger apartment, hire a decent nanny to look after the baby when she went back to work? Assuming there was even a job to go back to. She couldn’t. And she wouldn’t.

“And how’re Kayla and Lance?” Josie asked. Tiffany laughed, showing a gap between her molars on the right side. “Oh, they’re marking off the calendar to Christmas just like convicts in those ol’ prison movies marked off the days till they were gonna be sprung. Kuntry Kids is closed for the holidays so my neighbor’s taking care of ’em, so she’s markin’ off the days too.

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