Hi everyone,
We have a new story for you! Catherine Pherson already shared some wonderful poetry with us, and now we get the pleasure of reading her fiction. The following short story is in line with our March theme (see description here), and addresses the economic inequality present in our society. In doing so, this tale also gives us a little dose of the poetic justice we all long for, but so rarely see. Read and take heart, friends!
-Em
-Em
DIVINE REDISTRIBUTION
By Catherine Pherson
Martha
Lee Hobart had a million things on her mind, as usual. As she turned the key in the final lock to
secure the front door of her luxury Greenwich Village apartment, she mentally
sped through the obstacle course of the day ahead. Lunch with her gossipy friends Gina and
Janice came first. A glance at the
jeweled face of her watch reassured her that she had plenty of time to get to
the Rosa Mexicana restaurant on Columbus Avenue by 1:00. After lunch, she would drive across town to
her favorite salon, where she had a 3:30 appointment for cut and color. She hoped her husband Don had remembered that
they were going to Atlantic City this evening.
This thought reminded her that she should stop at her bank branch before
heading uptown. She preferred to take a
set amount of cash to Atlantic City, and she would not allow herself to
continue to gamble after that amount was gone.
She knew her own obsessive personality well enough to realize that she
could get into deep trouble once she started down the slippery slope of
gambling on credit.
Holding
her full-length fox fur coat closed with her left hand and slinging her crocodile
bag onto her shoulder with her right, Martha Lee clattered down the parquet
hallway to the elevators. Cooking odors
wafted under the doors of neighboring apartments. Some late riser’s bacon and coffee mingled
incongruously with the rich scent of simmering curry. As Martha Lee punched the down arrow to
summon the elevator, the electronic strains of Beethoven’s 5th
alerted her to an incoming call. She
reached into her bag, feeling for the handsome monogrammed leather case Don had
given her, along with a new iPhone, at Christmas. When she pulled the phone out and glanced at
the glowing screen, she saw with dismay that the call was from her old college
roommate Jessica. Jessica had always
been the crusading type, volunteering
to clean up polluted waterways, build homes for the needy and raise
funds for various bleeding-heart causes.
In recent weeks, she had been pestering Martha Lee to purchase tickets
to a charity ball to benefit a free health clinic in Harlem. The phone went back into the crocodile bag,
the call unanswered.
In
the subterranean parking garage, while she waited for the attendant to bring up
her Mercedes, Martha Lee’s elegantly manicured fingers tapped out a text
message to Don, reminding him that she was planning to pick him up in front of
his lower Manhattan office building at 5:00 sharp. That man was always in a meeting or on a
conference call, and an engagement with his wife could easily slip his mind if
he was involved in discussing his byzantine business deals. Just as she was hitting the SEND button, the
youthful parking attendant brought up her car, slid out from behind the wheel
of the gleaming vehicle and held the door for Martha Lee. She checked the upholstery for any signs of
dirt or debris before she inserted herself into the driver’s seat; you could
never be sure what happened inside your car while it was parked in the
garage. Satisfied that the pristine
interior had not been violated, she pushed the gear shift to DRIVE and pulled
up onto the sidewalk on West 13th Street. She didn’t notice an elderly couple,
strolling arm in arm, who had to stagger back to avoid colliding with the
emerging car. Martha Lee briefly glanced
to her left, checking for approaching traffic, and then pulled into the street.
It was a
dull winter day, with weak sunlight barely penetrating a solid mass of gray
cloud sky. At the end of the block,
Martha Lee turned left into the hurrying traffic on 7th Avenue. She negotiated a few more turns to get to the
Avenue of the Americas before pulling over to double park in front of the
Citibank branch where she conducted most of her banking business. She left the motor running, doors securely
locked, and swept into the bank with her usual air of entitlement. Bypassing the teller counters, Martha Lee
moved to the rear of the lobby to request the assistance of a bank
manager. She asked for two thousand
dollars in hundred dollar bills to be withdrawn from her checking account. A few minutes later, she was tucking the
envelope of cash into the coat pocket where her keys were already jingling.
As she
emerged from the bank, a gust of chill wind sent the skirts of her fur coat
billowing and generously dusted her face with urban filth. Martha Lee felt the intensely irritating sting
of a tiny foreign object imbedding itself under her eyelid. While pulling her keys out to remotely unlock
the Mercedes – thankfully, there was no ticket on its windshield – she tried to
delicately dislodge the bit of trash without smirching her eye makeup. At that very moment, the iPhone began to ring
inside the crocodile bag. Rubbing her
eye, fishing for her phone and opening her car door simultaneously, Martha Lee
failed to notice the bank envelope slipping out of her pocket and onto the
pavement. She jumped into her car, put
her phone to her ear to greet Gina at the other end of the line, and pulled out
into the traffic heading uptown.
As
Martha Lee passed through the intersection at Avenue of the Americas and 14th
Street, a petite figure emerged from the subway stairs onto the avenue, heading
south. Rosa Sanchez had as many thoughts
swirling through her brain as the woman in the Mercedes. Before she reached St. Vincent’s Hospital to
begin her duties with the housekeeping staff, she needed to stop at a drug
store to get a new baby thermometer, to replace the one that had failed to
register any temperature when inserted in 8-month-old Juan’s bottom last
night. Rosa had known without the
confirmation of the thermometer that the little boy was burning with fever, and
she’d given him some Infant Tylenol to make him more comfortable. He seemed better this morning, so Rosa’s
sense of guilt had not been too acute when she had delivered Juan and his older
sister Graciela to the facility on 103rd Street that provided
affordable child care services for working mothers.
At the
corner of 13th Street, Rosa encountered the noxious, filthy homeless
man who regularly panhandled on the spot.
Some days, when she was feeling flush in the pockets, Rosa would drop a
few coins into the man’s paper cup.
Today, conscious of looming expenses that were already beyond her means,
Rosa handed the man the second of two buttered rolls she had purchased for her
own breakfast. She hoped some other kind
person would provide him with a cup of coffee to wash down his roll and warm
his bones. She only fleetingly allowed
herself to contemplate a world where she had enough cash to treat the poor old
fellow to a sumptuous meal at a nice, warm diner. If God had wanted her to be rich, she would
have been born into a very different family.
Rosa’s
family, far from providing her with a lap of luxury in which to wallow, was
currently burning through her paychecks much faster than she could earn
them. The little ones always needed
something – disposable diapers, doctor visits, new shoes. Rosa’s husband Reynaldo was unable to work
because of a knee injury he had suffered on his last construction job, so Rosa
had to pay his doctor bills, too. The
biggest drain on her purse at the present was the fee for the nursing home
where she’d had to place her mother Honoria.
Honoria‘s mind had become shrouded in a fog which her daughter could not
penetrate. The old lady didn’t recognize
the apartment Rosa shared with her husband and children – she thought she was
being held there against her will - and she would run out into the street
searching for a familiar person to rescue her.
Reynaldo didn’t have the strength now to restrain his mother-in-law, and
Rosa couldn’t stay home with her, so Honoria had been placed in a facility with
24-hour nursing care. Rosa didn’t know
how much longer she’d be able to keep her mother in the facility; she was
already over a thousand dollars behind in the payments. Rosa tried not to indulge in fruitless worry
about this debt. She had prayed to the
blessed Virgin for aid, so the problem was out of her hands.
Rosa
continued down the Avenue of the Americas, her attention divided between thoughts
of family and the task of navigating through the crowd. She was forced to step off the curb to get
around a delivery truck that was blocking the walkway. She continued walking in the street for a little
way, until the stream of pedestrians thinned out enough for her to once again
obtain the sidewalk. As she was about to
place her oxford-encased foot on the curb, she noticed a white envelope
littering the street. She picked it up
with a gloved hand at the same moment her eyes located a trash receptacle on
the next corner. Rosa moved along
considerately, trying not to jostle into other people who were sharing the
sidewalk with her on this chilly winter day.
Snatches of ribald laughter mingled with irritated outbursts of
profanity from some men working on an electrical connection. Strains of popular music emanated from a
radio on a nearby newsstand. When she
reached the corner and was about to toss the envelope into the waste bin, Rosa
paused to contemplate the weight and thickness of her trash find. Maybe she should check inside the envelope, just
in case it contained something valuable that had been dropped
accidentally. She lifted the envelope
flap to discover a short stack of currency.
To be precise, the envelope contained a stack of hundred dollar bills.
The
crowds ceased to flow around her as Rosa’s mind carried her far away to a land
of new possibilities. With this windfall
of cash, she could buy the homeless man many good meals. She could get the best quality baby
thermometer available for Juan. Maybe
she could even pay off her debt to the nursing home. Then Rosa wondered about the person who had
dropped the envelope of money. Perhaps
that person had debts to pay, hungry children and sick relatives, just as she
did. Would it be possible to return the
cash to its rightful owner? It was in an
ordinary white bank envelope with no name or identifying information written
upon it. If she tried to turn it in (to
whom? the police? a bank?), would it
ever find its way back into the hands that had dropped it? Rosa thought not. Besides, hadn’t she prayed to the Virgin
Mother for relief? This money – which
she alone of all the passing throng had noticed and retrieved – must be the
answer to that prayer.
Glancing
up at the clock on a nearby storefront, Rosa realized that she was going to be
late for her shift at the hospital if she didn’t fly. She carefully placed the envelope in a pocket
inside the battered, ancient hobo bag she carried everywhere, before continuing
briskly down the avenue. She would wait
until after work to find a drug store where she could purchase the baby
thermometer. And then she would find a
church where she could light a candle and pray.
Having sent so many prayers for money winging up to heaven, Rosa
wondered fleetingly if the Virgin Mary was already waiting patiently to receive
her prayers of gratitude.
Catherine Pherson was born in California and raised mainly in North Carolina. A theatrical actress by trade, she has performed in many shows, including Lettuce and Lovage, The Mousetrap, and Master Class. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Rob, and is mother to Jessica and Mallory and grandmother to Lily and April.
Read more about Catherine Pherson on The Matchbox!
Catherine Pherson was born in California and raised mainly in North Carolina. A theatrical actress by trade, she has performed in many shows, including Lettuce and Lovage, The Mousetrap, and Master Class. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Rob, and is mother to Jessica and Mallory and grandmother to Lily and April.
Read more about Catherine Pherson on The Matchbox!
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