Thirteen crucifixions, 104

                                                          2001

 

            There was no one left in the café.  Melissa was gone, they’d done a good take today.  No one would notice if the West Wind was closed twenty minutes early.  It wasn’t that Sheila felt tired or overwhelmed.  Since putting the house up for sale the other day she was feeling energized, liberated.  Happy.   Twice she caught herself in the mirror smiling.  She was even singing at times.  Sheila hadn’t sung in an awfully long time.  Max the cook had already gone home.  The kitchen was spotless.  She’d already cleaned the floor, tables and glass.  There was nothing left but to do the cash.  Melissa seemed more anxious than usual.  Her boyfriend had gone missing on a camping trip.  A search party had been sent out.  Her hair was blue now, instead of green, and a bit longer.  It suited her, a vibrant peacock blue.  If she could appreciate green or blue hair on a young girl’s head then maybe Sheila wasn’t such a fossil after-all.  Lately, she was just overflowing with good will and equanimity.  Even Michael's young friend, that boy, Lazarus, she’d taken a shine to. A rather pathetic young man, homeless, orphaned and clinging to Sheila like a mother substitute.  She found him interesting, if somewhat hard to reach.  It was a lot of work convincing him that he was welcome in her house for as long as the place could be of use to him.  She thought it ill-advised that he’d just left his job, and was all set to join Michael and Glen at their religious community.  He was barely twenty, far too young for making drastic decisions.  He’d hardly had time to live.  But Sheila was never one to give unasked advice.  She wished that she knew what it was about Lazarus that appealed to her so. They didn’t really talk very much.  They didn’t seem to need to.

            Bill and Persimmon wanted to see her this evening.  Though Sheila liked Persimmon she didn’t particularly feel like seeing Bill, who no longer interested her.  She was almost certain that he was on Prozac.  She had never seen him so relentlessly cheerful.  Perhaps Persimmon was just what he needed.  She wasn’t sure if Persimmon would agree.  Last week she’d caught her muttering, “Gawd, he annoys me.  How could you stand being married to him?”  Sheila, refilling both their glasses with sherry, simply replied that he couldn’t seem to stand being married to her, and appeared to be doing much better with Persimmon, who at least was his age.  What she didn’t bother to mention was that Bill wasn’t particularly bright, and unless she enjoyed thinking for two it was going to be her purgatory, and not his.  But Persimmon, astute, intelligent woman that she was, simply murmured that this was not unlike dating George W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan.  Sheila just smiled.