Round Robin Read online

  After the “grass” and “soil” and “water” areas were laid out, Robin started buying potted plants and trees. She picked carefully, having done her homework. She wanted flora that would do well indoors, that would thrive without running wild, that would provide a lush, green screen against the outside world. She planted tubs of hardy dracaena, rubber trees, jade plants and palms; she bought potted Norfolk Island Pines, ficus, schefflera, coffee plant, citrus, bamboo and Chinese evergreen. She hung baskets of spider plants, trailing jasmine, grape ivy and philodendron. Adjacent to the pond she planted Baby’s Tears and English ivy. She nursed containers of New Guinea impatiens, begonias and hibiscus to bloom through the winter.

  With the greening of her garden came the accoutrements. Grow lights, watering cans, pruning shears and two honest-to-God park benches bought surplus from the Chicago Park District. Robin spent at least an hour a day in her park and often quite longer. Sometimes she read. Other times she sat and thought. Not infrequently, she cried.

  She wouldn’t sell her house for all the money in the world.

  The problem was, it looked like she’d soon need more money than she had to keep it, and to keep it up.

  Robin made $50,000 per year working for Mimi. Which sounded like a lot. Until you got done lopping off all the payroll deductions and health insurance costs. Her house payments were chickenfeed by now, but her property taxes were stupefying. And the premiums for her homeowner’s insurance were over the moon. When millionaires moved into the neighborhood the miserable cruds raised your cost of living. They drove up property values and real estate taxes soared. Everybody had to pay the added freight when a neighborhood turned chic. So Robin did. She was not going to lose her house by being late paying her taxes.

  She lived simply, which didn’t bother her. She paid her bills each month and had just enough left over to make a payment to Mimi. Except now she was facing added expenses that she couldn’t afford and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.

  “Robin Phinney?” a man’s voice asked.

  She snapped out of her reverie and saw a portly older guy in coveralls holding a toolbox. The plumber had arrived.

  “Getting to be a real nip in the air, huh?”

  Robin hadn’t consciously noticed how cold the fall day had grown, but now that the guy had brought it up she realized she was shivering.

  “What do you say we go inside and see what I can do for you and how much money you’re going to owe me?”

  The plumber grinned.

  Robin didn’t.

  That night the nine o’clock news on the TV in Robin’s bedroom told her that the city could be in for a hard frost by early morning and showed her half a dozen animated maps explaining just where the cold weather was coming from and how bad it would be. The weatherman seemed gleeful about the prospect of frigid air arriving not two weeks after the official end of summer. Robin killed his inane image with her remote control.

  She got out of bed just long enough to turn the heat up to 76 degrees, warmer than she needed but comfortable for all her plants downstairs.

  Having to get up for work at 5:30 a.m., Robin usually went to bed early. Tonight she’d barely done the dinner dishes before crawling under the covers. After the plumber had cleared the garbage disposal at a cost of $60, and had advised her either to get a new one at a cost of $249 or start throwing her food waste in the trash, she’d hit bottom, unable to see any solution to her money woes.

  Now, facing an assault of cold weather on her morning trip to work, she turned out the lights at 9:35…

  … And woke up shaking from the cold. Even under two wool blankets and a goose-down comforter. The sky outside her window was as black as the devil’s sense of humor. Three-thirty a.m. Robin slid her feet into her slippers and pulled her robe around her. She crossed the room and put her hand in front of the heat vent.

  Cold air poured out. The fan was still on, but the furnace wasn’t.

  Robin took stock of herself. No headache, no nausea, no blurred vision. So there probably wasn’t a gas leak. She was cold, but she was safe.

  Then a thought hit her like a slap across the face. The park wasn’t safe. All of her plants — and maybe her fish — had to be dying!

  Robin started to panic, not knowing how long she’d managed to sleep with the heat being off. Certainly, under the covers, she hadn’t felt the cold as immediately as everything downstairs would have. Through pure grit, she got a grip on herself.

  She raced to her bedroom closet and pulled out a huge armload of clothes. She ran downstairs to the park. She turned on the lights and her heart sank. All of her plants were turning in on themselves, shrinking from the cold. Robin threw the pile of clothes on the nearest bench. One by one, she started dressing the plants in her garments. Trying to provide them with warmth.

  Praying she could save them.

  Chapter 3

  At first light, Robin made a phone call, fervently hoping she would reach a human being and not an answering machine. All around her in the park a bizarre fashion show had been staged. A ficus wore a housedress. A rubber tree was decked out in a ski parka. Four pots of begonias shared the warmth of a woolen muffler.

  “Easy Living Heating and Cooling,” a voice on the phone spat out .

  “It’s me, Charlie” Robin said.

  “That you, Rob?” Charlie asked, losing some of his abruptness. Instead, there was almost a note of surprise in his voice.

  “Yeah. Charlie, are you busy?”

  “Out the wah-zoo. You think I’m here this early everyday? A cold snap like this, every jerk who let his furnace go without maintenance is yelling for help. You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Yes, Charlie, I would.”

  There was a short pause on the line.

  “Your furnace went out, Rob?”

  “Middle of the night. I had to run downstairs and put long-johns on all my plants.”

  Charlie laughed.

  “It’s not funny, Charlie. Some of them died.”

  “Sorry, Rob. I’ll be right over.”

  Robin hated the way her brother-in-law shortened her name, but she loved his generous heart. She wondered how he put up with Nancy. Had to be the sex.

  “What about being so busy?”

  “You’re family. Everybody else just got bumped down a notch.”

  “Can I ask you one more little favor?”

  “What?”

  “Can we keep this just between us? Not tell Nancy?”

  This time there was a long pause.

  Finally, Charlie said, “I can’t lie to you, Rob. I’d have to tell Nancy. That’s just the way our marriage works.”

  Robin gritted her teeth. Boy, if this guy couldn’t keep a furnace repair from Nancy, she was never going to have a worry about him cheating on her. But then the very thought was laughable. Cheat on Nancy and she’d make Lizzie Borden look like Miss Congeniality.

  “Let’s skip the whole thing then. I never called, okay?”

  “That I can manage.”

  “Can you recommend somebody else I can call?”

  “Rob, a cold snap like this, it’s God’s way of having heating contractors work around the clock. Everybody’s gonna be booked.”

  “Damnit, Charlie,” Robin said, “I can’t let my park die.”

  “Rob, all I can tell you is you got a little breathing space. The forecast I heard on my way to work this morning said it’s going to warm up again this afternoon and stay seasonable for a few days — before the next cold snap.”

  “So you think I’ll be all right?”

  “As long as you find somebody to fix your furnace in the next few days,” Charlie said.

  Robin got into work late, after the breakfast crowd had come and gone.

  Mimi said to her, “In my office.”

  Robin apologized. “I’m sorry. My heat went out last night and—”

  Mimi crooked her finger at Robin, not wanting to hear the details. When her door was closed, Mimi sa
t behind her desk and looked at Robin.

  “I spoke to your father last night,” she said.

  “What?”

  Robin suddenly felt as if she was back in grade school and had been summoned to the principal’s office. Her face turned red.

  “Don’t get upset. I knew him a long time before I ever met you. I wanted to get his opinion of an idea I had last night.”

  “What idea?” Robin asked uneasily.

  “This idea.”

  Mimi tossed a copy of that day’s classified section from the Trib on her desk. One ad was circled in red. Robin gave Mimi a look, then picked up the paper and read the ad aloud.

  “Wanted. Handyperson. Must be able to repair and maintain all mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems in fashionable Near North two-flat.” Robin gave Mimi a look before continuing. “In exchange will receive charming garden apartment rent free.”

  The ad listed Robin’s name and phone number, but not her address.

  “I got it inserted special, after deadline, because I got a friend over at the paper,” Mimi said. “It’ll run the next three days.”

  Robin’s face was a mask, an unsmiling mask.

  “You had no right to do this. Call your friend and pull the ad.”

  “You’re sure?” Mimi asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll have to give you this.”

  For one dizzying moment, Robin thought Mimi had handed her a severance check, but then she saw the amount was far too large for that. It was several thousand dollars. The amount clicked jarringly into place for Robin a second later.

  “This is all the money I’ve given you so far for the buyout,” Robin said.

  Mimi nodded.

  “Deal’s off,” she said.

  “Just because I was late one day?” Robin couldn’t comprehend it. “This is a joke, right?”

  Mimi shook her head.

  “Robin, sweetheart, if I could afford it, I’d give you this place when I go. But I can’t afford it. I’ve got to have a buyer. If you need to fix up your house, and you won’t take help from your father, you won’t take help from your sister, you won’t take help from me, then you need that money.”

  Mimi inclined her pink-haired head toward the check in Robin’s hands.

  “What else are you going to do? I’d still like you to work here, of course. But if you can’t, I’ll have to understand.”

  Mimi looked like she might cry.

  Robin didn’t know whether to cry or rage.

  “You cooked this up with my dad,” she hissed.

  “We talked, honey. I told him what I had in mind. He said he didn’t think it would work, that you’d already turned down help from him and Nancy, but I should take my shot.”

  “I won’t have a man in my house,” Robin said flatly.

  “It could be a woman. Someone good with her hands. The ad says handyperson.”

  Robin glowered.

  “It might do you some good to have company for a change.”

  “I don’t want company.”

  Mimi shrugged, looking like she’d lost the battle and it was breaking her heart.

  “Goddamnit, Mimi, I’m tempted to hire a lawyer.”

  “You can’t afford one.”

  Robin looked like she might have a stroke ... and then she put her face into her hands and wept. Mimi gave her a minute before handing her a tissue. Robin blew her nose and backhanded away her tears. She looked straight at Mimi and said, “I’m going to buy this place. I am.”

  She dropped the check on Mimi’s desk.

  “Give the ad a chance,” Mimi said.

  Robin squeegeed one last tear off her cheek.

  “I won’t have a man in my house.”

  “Of course not, sweetie. Just see what turns up.”

  Robin thought back over the course of her morning. She’d tried finding another heating contractor to fix her furnace but, as Charlie had said, they were booked solid for the next week. The weather forecast had predicted that the cold would be back in three days, four at the outside. Maybe Mimi’s idea would be her salvation.

  “I’ve got to get ready for the lunch crowd,” Robin said, standing up.

  “Sure,” Mimi said. When Robin got to the door, Mimi stopped her.

  “Sweetie.”

  Robin turned to face her.

  “I want you to know it was very hard for me to face the thought of losing you.”

  Robin barely nodded and left.

  Mimi slumped behind her desk.

  Oy! That was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Including her divorce.

  There was no way in the world she’d really have let Robin go. She’d have jumped over her desk to grab that check back if Robin had headed for the door. But Dan Phinney had told her it would take something drastic to get Robin to go along with her plan.

  Well, today she’d been as meshugge as she ever planned to be.

  If Robin’s ad didn’t find somebody for her, Mimi would just give her the deli and finally accept Stanley Prozanski’s standing proposal of marriage. That wouldn’t be exactly the retirement she had planned, but it would have to do.

  Be a crying shame though, if she went out known as a soft touch.

  Chapter 4

  When Robin got home her phone was ringing. She was sure who was calling. Some pot-bellied, tattooed simian with dandruff, tufts of hair growing out of his nose and body odor that would gag an alley-cat, somebody who’d had the ad read to him and was eager to knuckle-walk right over and see if he might find a new lair. Well, no thank you. Robin would just let the phone machine handle that little chore.

  Except it didn’t. The tape was full.

  Robin had to wait until the phone stopped ringing.

  It started again thirty seconds later.

  “What?” she asked harshly, picking up the phone.

  “You the one with the ad in the paper for the handyman?” a male voice asked.

  “Handyperson,” Robin corrected.

  The guy laughed. “Yeah, right. Well, I’m a man and I’m a person and I’m handy. What I want to know, is it you I’d be workin’ for?”

  “I’d be very surprised if it was.”

  “Yeah, me too. ‘Cause I got one ball-buster at home already. I don’t need another.”

  The guy called Robin a dike and hung up.

  It made her pause and think. She was a master at face-to-face confrontation, but the telephone was a different medium. On the phone, she was either familiar with family or businesslike with business calls. With phone solicitors, she didn’t waste her breath and simply hung up on them. If she was going to make this interview thing work, she’d have to see these people in person.

  But not at her house.

  Nobody was getting that close until she’d had a chance to screen them. What she’d do was listen to the tape. If there was anyone who sounded remotely acceptable she’d invite them down to Mimi’s early, before the morning rush got going, buy them a cup of coffee and look them over.

  That seemed a safe way to do it.

  Robin listened to twenty-two messages. Seventeen callers were male, five were female. Six of the calls were obscene, including four in which the creeps were dumb enough to leave their phone numbers, and who’d be hearing soon from Stan Prozanski. Of the remaining calls, Robin picked the two men and two women who most closely sounded as if they’d been raised indoors by actual human beings.

  The two men, however, were chosen strictly to provide legal cover. Mimi had told her that the term “handyperson” had been mandated by the newspaper to avoid charges of sex discrimination. So, Mimi had said, while Robin might be excluding half the world’s population in her own mind, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if she gave herself a fig leaf to hide behind publicly.

  Robin made her four calls and set up two meetings, one man and one woman, on each of the next two mornings. Who could argue with such an equitable arrangement? Over the phone, one of the men had sounded African-American, a
nd one of the women had a Hispanic surname. More politically correct cover. She only hoped that one of these two broads knew her stuff, was quiet, clean and generally invisible any time Robin was at home.

  That night, the cheery TV meteorologist said the cold weather would be back in three days.

  Lupe Ayala showed up right on time the next morning and Robin almost hired her on the spot. She was tiny, soft spoken and, from the way she talked, could really do the job. She’d apprenticed in plant maintenance at Procter & Gamble, had been there four years, showed glowing letters of recommendation from all of her superiors, everyone from her immediate supervisor on up to the plant superintendent. She was looking for a new situation because the plant where she worked would be closing.

  To each question Robin asked about heating, plumbing and wiring, Lupe shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Oh, suuure. I can do that.”

  There was no boastfulness in her manner, just a calm certainty, indeed a sense of polite forbearance, as if Robin had asked if she could tie her shoelaces by herself. Feeling a bit surprised, Robin thought that she might actually like having this little pixie in her basement. Lupe would work her magic, solve Robin’s problems, and she was so small and quiet she probably slept in a matchbox. Just what Robin wanted.

  Robin was about to offer her the job when Lupe mentioned Chuey.

  “Chuey?” Robin asked. “Is that your boyfriend?”

  Lupe giggled.

  “He’s my frien’, but no is a boy. Is a pet.”

  Not a dog, please, Robin thought. She couldn’t handle barking.

  “Chuey’s not a dog, is he? A chihuahua, or something.”

  Lupe laughed.

  “Oh, no, not a chihuahua. Chuey, he’d eat chihuahuas.”

  “What?”

  “Chuey a python.”

  “A snake?” Robin asked incredulously.

  “Only little one,” Lupe said. “Twelve feet. Supposed to be eighteen, but I think Chee-cago too cold for him, stunt his growth.”

  Twelve feet seemed plenty big to Robin; she’d heard more than one horror story about exotic snakes that had slithered away from their owners. She imagined going into her park and lurking there in the foliage ... Well, no, that definitely wouldn’t do.