Down Time

By Diana L. Rowe
Copyright 2000 by Diana Rowe Martinez
100,000 WORD CONTEMPORARY CHICKLIT:

Chapter One

“Mom, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”  Elbows on the counter and palms propped under my chin, I leaned against the cool surface of the safe deposit counter. The air surrounding me had a decided chill too, as if it kept a cold secret, but I started at the box, unable to open it right away.

When I finally slid the small Mary Kay pink urn out of its storage, I got a little teary-eyed, same as I had since the day I’d deposited Mom’s ashes. Three weeks ago today.  Thursdays had been meatloaf day for Mom and me--a la cafeteria style.  I had traded the buffet for a shorter line at the bank.

“How difficult is it to just pick up this urn, take Mom home, and deal with it?” I asked the vaulted ceiling after a quick glance around to make sure I was still alone. “It” was that quasi-deathbed promise that kept me talking to myself, avoiding a pledge I’d made as if it was a sexually transmitted disease. Of course, with my love life, I had a better chance of catching cabin fever.

That last day with Mom was more than a month ago, but it felt like yesterday.  Pillows had supported Mom in bed, same place she’d been the six weeks prior to her car accident, fighting the cancer I thought would take her. We’d gone around and around like we always did, me trying on the hat of a good and obedient daughter, and her attempting to be the perfect mother.

Until she mentioned my father.

“Raches,” Mom had said. I had always hated that nickname. The smell of cigarettes and death curled around me, almost gagging me every time I entered her darkened room. The smell was the same, but that’s where my safe world turned inside out.

“Raches, be a good girl and light this for your mother.”  Shaking, bone-thin fingers held her Lucky Strike cigarette. God knew I’d lectured her plenty on the perils of smoking, long before the cancer had settled into Mom’s lungs, dark, deathly and cold, but I’d discovered it was a waste of my breath to not light it. So I did.  

Mom fell back onto her pillow, the effort leaving her more short of breath.  “Thanks, dear.  I’ve got a little favor to ask.”  

Favor? I remembered rolling my eyes, since the last “little favor” was to quit “your high-paying accountant job and take care of your dying mother.” No, we weren’t Jewish or even really Catholic, and yes, Mom hit the truth dead on. Granted, even though accountant salary was good, the job wasn’t, and I welcomed any excuse to escape the tax season blues, even if the alternative was trapped in the house with my overprotective mother.

“What do you want?”  I asked.

“Promise me, when I’m gone, you’ll remember that Jesus has the answers.”

Well, that wasn’t what surprised me.  Mom had always been a bit religious, sometimes even fanatically so since her husband, a.k.a. my father, had left her. She’d followed Jesus to the point of a stalker.

“Yeah sure, Mom.”  I agreed, although I found it difficult to believe, when our home reeked of cancer, that anyone had the answers. Anyway, I wasn’t about to get into any religious debates with my dying mother.  

“And one more thing, Raches.”

Oh-oh. I only had a quick second to get irritated at her use of my nickname before she went for the jugular.

“Promise me, you’ll find your father.”

“What?”  From Jesus to my father? Just the mention of my biological father took the wind out of my life, sinking my stomach down to my feet. Anthony “Don Juan” Summers had never been a father to me, or much of a husband to my mother.  There was as much chance of me looking him up as Mom giving up smoking.  

In all these years, the thought of searching for dear old dad had never crossed my mind.  Okay, not since I had put aside those foolish father-daughter dreams, at about the time I gave up Barbies because my boobs (for that matter any part of my body) refused to develop like the dolls I’d idolized.   

Besides, for the life of me, I couldn’t think of him as “Dad.”  That title should be reserved for someone who actually hung around. So how could I agree to a request so out there?

Mom reached for my hand and squeezed.  “Just promise me.”

“You can’t make me.”  

She squeezed my hand and suddenly looked even smaller and frailer than usual...and desperate? “I know, Raches, but you have to just remember, Jesus and your father have the answers.”

What answers?  Hell, what questions?

“I won’t.”  I jutted my chin out.  “I mean it. I won’t.”

“Thanks, Raches.” Her smug smile and final pat on my hand told me she hadn’t listened to me.  

“Mom, I won’t. Really.”

“Okay, dear.”  She patted my hand again, and I knew (as usual) she’d tuned me out.  “Raches, you’d be surprised what your father knows.”

“The only thing my father knows is how to desert his family.”  

“There’s more than what meets the eye.” Before I had time to digest that Mom had actually defended my father, she continued with, “Now, I believe I’m ready for a nap.”  

If you didn’t count long, one-sided chats in the safe deposit vault, that was the last time I spoke with Mom. The day after our enlightening conversation an unidentified older model Mercedes ran down my mother.  The Denver P.D. chalked it up to Mom being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A terrible tragedy, of course, and they’d work on finding the driver, but they were backlogged and couldn’t make any promises. Not to mention there was really no clear evidence, no license plate.

Mom hadn’t left home in weeks, and an explanation as to why she did that day was yet another mystery. I’d spent several days fretting about the whole thing, until I finally comforted myself with the knowledge that at least she’d gone quick and painless, instead of the cancer eating away at her.

But that was then, and now I stared at the urn, trying to convince myself that I wanted to take Mom home.  Really, I did, but she was safer here, I told myself. Like anyone would steal Mom’s ashes.

A safe deposit box had seemed a logical choice a few weeks ago.  Out of sight, I thought would equal promises out of mind.  Not so much.

My friend Sally had thought it was ridiculous, even though it was actually her idea. Okay, she hadn’t actually said, “Hey Rachel, why not lock your Mom’s ashes in the vault? She’ll be safe there,” but with Sally working at the bank, and reminding me that I should check Mom’s safe deposit box someday, well, having Mom’s ashes hanging out in the box seemed the logical next step.    

I knew keeping her here was. . .somehow wrong.  What kind of daughter would keep her own mother in an airtight vault?  

I stared at the pink urn, Mom’s favorite color, and for some reason, I thought of the old sit com “I Dream of Jeannie,” and was sure she’d have everything all organized and over-decorated by now.  

“Sorry, Mom,” I said. “I can’t do it.  Not yet.” I shrugged my shoulders, trying to push away the guilt.  I couldn’t deal with a half-hearted deathbed promise; worse to have Mom’s ashes in the living room as a constant reminder of a promise I didn’t have the guts to fulfill.  

I carefully replaced the urn in the box and laid my hand across the top.  My fingertips caressed the lid, which seemed a pretty intense response considering Mom had never been the touchy-feely kind of parent.  “Sorry, Mom.”  I repeated, sliding the box back into its opening and rang the buzzer.  

Sally Evans, a North Denver Unified executive banking assistant, responded to the buzzer.  Dressed in a tailored two-piece skirted suit in brilliant royal blue, Sally was a gorgeous redhead with a killer body, whereas my body was potentially kick-ass at the best of times.  If Sally weren’t my best friend since elementary school, I’d probably have to kill her.  

“Ready?”  Sally asked and I nodded.  Her keys jangled as we did the duo security lock-up ensuring Mom was cozy as ashes can be in her safe deposit home.  

And that was that.  Another day of procrastination.  

I picked up my purse and turned toward the exit.  

Sally’s ever-perceptive glance swept over me, pausing at my obviously empty arms.  “Don’t tell me you left her in there again.”

“Okay, I won’t tell.”  I proceeded to the exit, slinking away like a child caught in a lie.

Jamming her hands across her slim hips, she glared at me and hissed, “Rachel Sue Summers, your mom can’t stay here forever.  It’s...wrong, and it gives me the creeps. Why did you have to tell me you put her here in the first place. If I didn’t know--”

“Blame it on the tequila, Sally. You know it makes me confess all my sins.” Some people went to midnight mass to confess. I drank tequila.

“I didn’t make you drink tequila,” she hissed. “You clung to that bottle like it was a lifejacket. You’ve got to take your mother home. Rachel.”

“I know, I know, but I just can’t do it, Sal.”  

“I’m starting to freak out, Rachel. At our staff meeting Monday, the president mentioned something about ‘inappropriate storage’ problems at the bank.  I about peed my pants when I thought he was going to ask me about your. . .storage, um, deposit. What if I lose my job?”

Crap. Crap. Crap.  “Okay, you got me. Stick a needle in my eye, I promise next week--” I dutifully crossed my heart.  God, the pressures of friendship and free checking.  

Sally rolled her eyes and then shut the vault door.  “Yeah, yeah, well, you promised before, but I mean it.  Next week you have to take her home.  It’s just too weird.”

“This time I double promise I’ll take Mom home next week. Really. You know I don’t want you to lose your job, sweetie.  You might have to support me some day, considering my unemployment money will eventually run dry.”  

“Yeah right.  I can barely support myself.” Sally walked behind her desk and filed the safe deposit card I’d signed. I sighed loud enough for Sally to stop to give me another perfumed hug.  “It’ll be okay, Rachel.  You’ll see.  You’re just going through a little down time.”

‘Down time’ was our mantra, as both our lives alternated between everything peachy to life (a.k.a. men and mothers) sucked the big one.  “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve been stuck in down time so long I’m beginning to decorate the hallways.”

“Down time is only temporary, Rachel. Listen, I have to get back to work.  See you Sunday, okay?”

I bid Sally a “see you Sunday” for our regular girls’ night in.  I returned down the shadowy bank antechamber toward the entrance when a man’s voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Miss Summers?”

“Yeah?”  I glimpsed the profile of a business-suited man, dark hair and glasses, wide shoulders and dark hair curling at his collar.  

My libido immediately said, “Nice.” But out loud I said, “Yes, can I help you?”

“Do you have a minute?”  With an air of authority, the man assumed that I’d automatically follow him.  A prickle of the old Rachel egged me to ignore his arrogance.

“Oh, Rach, I forget to tell you that he wanted to talk to you.”  Sally tapped me on the shoulder, enunciating ‘he’ like he was a god or something.  

“About what?”

She lip-synched words I couldn’t comprehend and motioned me forward with an encouraging smile, which didn’t encourage me at all.  Oh boy.  Either she was my savior or she was sending me to the wolves.  

I proceeded toward the bigwig banker’s window-encased office, a bit apprehensive and a lot curious.  Why would a big shot want to talk to me?

“Thanks for seeing me.  Have a seat, Miss Summers.”

A red-leather chair rested in front of the oversized mahogany desk, and I settled uneasily onto the cold leather. “Sure, uh, no problem.”

I allowed myself a once-over of the man’s body.  (Hey, I wasn’t married, and eyeing a hot guy fell under the heading for a single desperate female.) He reclined comfortably, with his chair slid back and his legs crossed.  Not bad looking for an accountant type, and I would know, being one myself.  

Then, I inspected his face, which was pretty much the same way I check out all guys.  Body first, face second.  He looked vaguely familiar, but nowadays all boys looked alike. Besides I’d been swayed by far too many pretty faces to get all excited about a good-looking guy, but when a woman reached her thirties, a great body was a totally different dating game.  Oh, and a personality. Yeah right, and size doesn’t matter.  Ah-hem.

That was when I remembered my attire.  A quick something I’d thrown on in my haste to get meatloaf/bank vault day over:  tennis shoes, sweat shorts and a T-shirt that read, “You’ve been a very naughty boy.  GO TO MY ROOM!”  

I crossed my arms over my chest.  I wasn’t sure which was worse, the burning embarrassment or the blatantly erotic thought of this man actually going to my darkened bedroom where his white skin wouldn’t glow in the dark.

My glance flickered to his nameplate:  Mr. Alan Humphrey, Senior Vice President.  Warmth hit my cheeks as I vaguely remembered him as a preppie boy who attended my high school.  (Was he the Humpty-Dumpty that “accidentally” fell in front of passing girls so he could peek under their skirts?)  I flicked another once-over glance his way.  Naw, not the same guy.  

This was a geek with money, if the Armani suit he wore wasn’t rented.  He’d probably been one of those guys that went to some ritzy out-of-state college on a full academic scholarship. He’d probably played sports too, from the width of his shoulders. But hey, I had been fooled before.

My MO was not even close. I just played, procrastinating even back then.  College wasn’t for me.  Or so I’d thought.

After I had toiled at four weeks of manual labor in a sweatshop making fishhooks, I changed my mind.  That had motivated me PDQ to attend the local college and get a paycheck without the benefit of stinky, sweaty clothes.

I sat back, panic curdling in my gut, like the expired milk I’d drank this morning.  He was too young to be a bigwig, wasn’t he?  This high school geek, turned bank VP wanted to talk to me?  This silence while he flipped through a file couldn’t be good.

Oh my God.  Was this the bank manager who had hinted at ‘inappropriate storage?’  I sized up the distance to the getaway door.  Should I make a quick exit?  Could he know Mom was in the bank vault?  No way.  Still, with my steadily spiraling downhill life, anything was possible.

“Is there something I can do for you, sir?” I slid forward on the chair and my sweaty legs did one of those skin-farting noises when wet (sweaty nervous) flesh hits leather.  I wanted to crawl underneath the desk and die.

“Ah yes, sorry, just a minute.”  He squinted at the file, then looked up, giving me one of those fake professional smiles.  “How are you today, Miss Summers?”  

What?  Small talk?  “I’m f-fine.  Thank you.”  At least he didn’t comment on the skin noises.

But what was up with this idle chitchat?  I wanted to demand he get to the point of this meeting, but I bit my tongue.  For once, the little common sense I had I actually heeded.

At least for now.  

Keeping my left arm folded across the writing on my T-shirt, I wrapped my right fingers around the purse strap.  I concentrated on the poster of downtown Denver skyline, located behind him, and avoided eye contact.  

“You visit the bank quite often.”

“Y-yes.”  Busted!  He knew.  

Bite your tongue, Rachel.  Don’t say a word!  

Over the years, I had cultivated this really bad habit.  Under pressure, I was one of those volcanic bubbles of guilt, spewing out everything from cheating on tests (only once!) and my total lack of a social life (okay, way too many times!).  

“I’ve noticed.”  

“You do?”

    “Well, you do walk past my door.”  

    I remembered to breathe.  “Oh yeah.”  My tongue stuck to the top of my dry mouth.  “But only once a week!”  My voice rose, ever so slightly.  

    “You visit the safe deposit vault area, right?”  The brow thing was beginning to annoy me.

    “Y-y-yes. Mom paid for the remainder of the year before she died.”

“Oh, yes, your mother.  Sorry to hear about that.  My condolences.”  He stared over my shoulder, not meeting my eyes, which was good because then he wouldn’t read my shirt. Still he sounded sincere even though he obviously couldn’t have known my mother.

    “Thank you.”  I said and settled back with some sense of relief.  Maybe this was just one of those banker-customer conversations.  Yeah that was it.  Maybe he was simply going to offer meaningless words of sympathy (or a nice toaster) in an effort to keep my business now that Mom was gone.  “She went quite suddenly.”  

    “I bet that was difficult for you.”

    “Well, you could say that.”  At the realization that neither Mom nor I had any great amounts of money worth a private visit from a banker big cheese, my blood pressure rose to guilty levels.

He knew Mom was deposited here at his bank; he had to!

    “I understand.”  VP Humpty nodded.  “I lost my mother a couple of years ago.  It was difficult for me as well.  We were very close.”

    Difficult?  Very close?  He had no idea, and quite frankly I was sick and tired of everyone ‘understanding’ when they couldn’t possibly understand.  “You know, Mister. . .”  I leaned forward, the chair creaking underneath me.  “Mr. Humphrey, everyone seems to understand, but do they really?”  

Heat crawled up my neck to my face.  After weeks of listening to everyone on the planet telling me how much they “understood,” I was just so incredibly (and unreasonably) pissed.   

“I-er...”

“You probably grew up with both parents. Well, not all of us are so blessed. Some mothers had to work their ass off for their kids because of deadbeat dads.”  

Oh shit.  The volcano had erupted and logic consequently flowed downhill with everything else. I had jumped to the defensive. Poor Humpty Yuppie.

    “Uh-uh…”  The VP geek sputtered and his previous confident look was replaced by blatant bewilderment.  

“Why don’t you just spit it out?  Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know?”

    “I-I don’t know what you mean.  I only wanted to ask…”

    “Ask me what, Mr. Humphrey?  Ask me why I keep my mother’s ashes in the safe deposit box?”

    “You keep your mother’s ashes in this bank’s safe deposit box?”  Humphrey turned deathly pale and sat straighter in his chair.  His hand strayed to his power red necktie as if it strangled him.

Too late, I realized that my inherited temper had gotten the best of me yet again, resulting in a jumped conclusion off in left field.  Banish the thought, but I may have turned into my mother, my own worst nightmare.  

“You mean, you didn’t know?” I swallowed hard, my armpits and hands sweating. “That’s not what you wanted to talk to me about?”  I was not past moonwalking my way out of a bad situation.

    “Know?  How could I know that?”

    I heaved a sigh and sat further back in the chair.  I’d blown it, really blown it this time.  “I’m under a great deal of stress.”  Was that ever an understatement!  “I apologize.”  One of those duh moments hit me with the brightness of a 1,000-watt light bulb.  

I directed my attention back to bank bigwig and hastily added, “You don’t need to worry about those ashes.”  I attempted what I called my dazzle-‘em-smile, and what Sally tagged my Wile E. Coyote smirk.  “I’m going back there right now and take dear Mommy home.  Sorry about my, er, outburst.  Losing Mom has been difficult.”  And you don’t even know the half of it.  “So, w-what did you want to talk about?”

    “Actually I was going to offer you a job, Rachel.”  

“A job?”

Humpty hid behind his banker pose, (no doubt thrilled to talk about business instead of emotions).  He rolled his executive chair tighter under the desk and folded his hands in front of him.  “Sally had mentioned your skill with numbers and forwarded me your resume, said you were looking for a job. Uh, we’re in a time crunch completing audits on old accounts.  Since you’re a friend of Sally’s and you seem quite qualified, we thought we’d forgo the formality of an interview through HR.”  

    Oh brother, I mentally bopped myself on the head.  I’d totally forgotten that brief moment of businesslike order in my life.  About a month ago I’d given Sally my resume, in the hopes that she might hear of a job at the bank and pass it on, but with Mom’s death, and all that, well, I hadn’t remembered.  Thank God, Sally had forgotten to mention my lack of skill at intelligent conversation.

“I’ll take it.” I needed a job. Desperately. I’d been out of works for a couple of months now.

While caretaking during Mom’s illness, I had developed severe focusing problems and a bad case of numberitis.  I couldn’t blame my torrid social life when the last date I had was in a different century. I’d quit, but I had sensed my supervisor wasn’t looking too kindly on my lack of focus.

“So you’d still be interested?” Humpty pushed his chair back, thrumming his fingers on the slick desktop.  No doubt he was relieved that the conversation was almost over, and probably regretted offering me the job in the first place.

“Oh yes, I’m interested,” I jumped on the offer, and then continued to ramble, another one of my defects.  “Unfortunately, I worked for a company that lived and died for their balance sheet, at about the same time my mother was, well, not feeling so well.  I had to spend a lot of time caring for her.  Hey don’t get me wrong.  I believe in the sanctity of the balance sheet, just like any accountant, but I guess you could say I was short-sheeted.  I and my mother’s illness were disposable; the balance sheet wasn’t.”  

When the going got tough, I usually ran, but this time, I had to toughen up.  Jogging through the bank would only get me chased, so I employed gut-wrenching honesty and played off his sympathy because I needed a paycheck or I’d have to resort to waving a cardboard box on a street corner.  So not conducive to dating.  

“Mr. Humphrey, I would love to work here.”  Here was as good a place as any. “If you’d still have me.”

    “You would?”  He slid forward, likely ecstatic to halt the talk about dead mothers and doubtless not so sure he wanted me as an employee.  

    “Absolutely.”  Time to charm the socks off him.  Okay, forget charm.  Time to beg.  “I could use the job.”

    “This is only temporary, but-” he added quickly when he noticed my dejected look, “-you could start Monday.”

    Before he could change his mind, I stood up, reached across the desk and grabbed his hand, shaking it vigorously.  When I remembered my suggestive T-shirt, I quickly released my grip to cleverly cross my arms back across my chest.  “You’ve got a deal.”

“Great.”  He sounded less than enthusiastic, but at last I was gainfully employed…again.  “Check in with HR on Monday, sign some paperwork, and they’ll give you the details.”

“Thanks, thanks a lot.  Now, I’m off to get my mother’s ashes.”  Which sounded way too Dorothy-from-Oz-ish.

    Turning on my heel, I hightailed it out of Mr. VP’s office, searching for Sally, my mission set in mind.  I was going to pull those ashes and my issues out of the safe deposit box.  Pronto.

    Tomorrow.  Or maybe the next day, I’d deal with the demands of Mom’s ashes glowering at me from the mantel and shaming me into keeping deathbed promises.

Synopsis:

In DOWN TIME, a first person ChickLit Mystery, Rachel Summers is an unemployed accountant and avoider of pretty much everything--sticky situations, drama, love and life--definitely life!  When her meddling mother becomes a victim of a hit-and-run-accident, Rachel's mother suckers her into one of those deathbed promises to find her long-lost, deserter of a father, so Rachel does what all procrastinators do.  She sticks her mother's ashes in a very large safety deposit box--out of sight and out of mind.  But when her best friend and Denver cop Marcos Gallegos informs Rachel that her mother's death is not an accident and that he has been placed on administrative leave for failing to obey an order to stop investigating the accident as a homicide, Rachel brings her mother's ashes home and confronts a secret past.

Together Rachel and Marcos search for Rachel's father and dig into a mystery that reveals a killer.  Rachel must confront a past that threatens her own identity and admit to a passion for seeing her best friend Marcos naked.

Web Hit Counter Sponsor: DJ Turntable