Deceit

TWO

There were no storm warnings.

No emergency disaster center urging me to board up the windows and leave town.

I can look back to that day, borrow a cliché (I apologize to my first journalism professor, who abhorred clichés as much as he abhorred the newly instituted no-fraternization-with-coeds rule), and state that with the exception of Belinda Washington turning 100, absolutely nothing that day was out of the ordinary. Ordinary, after all, was pretty much the daily state of affairs in Littleton, California-approximately 153 miles east of L.A.

Change approximately to exactly.

Two years ago I’d driven every mile of it in my last certifiably owned possession-a silver-blue Miata, purchased back when Miatas were hot shit. A case could be made that back then I was, too.

Now the Miata was ignobly dented in two separate places, with a sluggish transmission that complained loudly when asked to change gears.

On the morning in question, I was summoned into Hinch’s office and told to cover Belinda Washington’s centennial. Clearly a human-interest piece. You could safely state that every article in the Littleton Journal was a human-interest piece. It went to press only five times a week-sometimes less, if not enough local news had taken place since the previous issue. The only serious news stories that made it into the town’s paper were picked up from the AP, stories that came from places like Baghdad and Kabul, where you could almost smell the cordite emanating off the type. I perused them longingly, as if they were dirty French postcards from a long-ago era.

Belinda Washington was from a long-ago era.

You could intuit that from the wheelchair and her nearly bald pate. When I entered the dayroom of Littleton’s only senior citizen home, she was wearing a ridiculous paper tiara with the number 100 printed on it. It was obviously someone’s idea of cute. Probably not Belinda’s. She didn’t look happy as much as bewildered. I dutifully maintained my objectivity and resisted the urge to knock it off her head.

These days, I was strictly adhering to the noble tenets of my profession.

I introduced myself to the managing director of the home, a Mr. Birdwell, who was orchestrating the august occasion with the aid of a digital camera. Good. That would save me from having to snap any pictures. On the Littleton Journal, we multitasked.

I kneeled down in front of Belinda and introduced myself in a louder-than-normal voice.

“Hello, Mrs. Washington. Tom Valle from the Littleton Journal.”

“What you shouting for?” Belinda asked, grimacing. Evidently, Belinda wasn’t any fonder of patronizing reporters than she was of paper tiaras.

“Take that thing off my head,” she added.

“Gladly.” I stood up and removed the tiara, handing it to one of the male attendants who looked personally miffed that I’d intruded on their fun.

“That’s better,” Belinda said.

“Sure,” I said. “Well, happy birthday, Mrs. Washington. What’s it like to be 100 years old?”

“What you think it’s like?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“More fun turning 18.”

“That would’ve been… what, 1920 something?”

“’22.”

“Right. Math was my worst subject.”

“Not me. I’m good at it.”

I’d expected to be interviewing a drooling apparition. So far, the only one doing any drooling was myself. One of the partygoers was kind of attractive. Auburn-haired, 30-ish, seamlessly fitted into lime green capris and precariously perched on three-inch heels. There were moments I thought my drooling days were past me-not because of my age (nudging 40) but just because everything was past me-all the good stuff, and didn’t women constitute good?

Belinda lifted a skeletal hand.

“I miss things,” she said.

For a moment, I thought she was referring to the general bane of old age, things getting past her: conversations, names, dates.

She wasn’t. She was referring to that other bane of old age.

“People have gone and died on me,” she said. And she smiled, half wistfully, but half, I think, because she was flirting with me.

The feeling was mutual. Objectivity or not, I kind of liked her.

Belinda was black, a true rarity in Littleton-Latinos yes, blacks virtually nonexistent-deep black, like ebony. This made her milky eyes pop-the palms of her hands, too, pink as cat paws.

She beckoned me with one of those gnarled, ancient hands.

I wondered what had gained me this special privilege? Probably no one ever talked to her anymore, I thought. Except to tell her to take her meds, turn out the light, or put on a stupid hat.

“People have gone and died on me,” she repeated, “but one, he came back.”

“Came back?”

“Sure. He said hey.”

“Who was that?”

“Huh? My son.”

“Your son? Really. Where did he come back from?”

“Huh? Told you. He passed on… long time ago, but he came back to say hey. He say he forgive me.”

“Oh, okay. Got you.” I was tempted to ask what she’d done that needed forgiveness, but really, what was the point? Belinda was feeling her age, after all. When I looked up, one of the attendants shrugged, as if to say, what else would you expect? The woman in capris, evidently there to visit one of the other residents, threw me a wan smile that seemed mildly encouraging.

“Looked old as me,” Belinda said.

“Your son?”

“Yeah. He looked sickly.”

I almost made the kind of wiseass comment I was given to uttering in the old days, when I hung with the kind of crowd that conversed mostly in cynicisms. Back before I became a national punch line. I almost said: considering he’s dead, sickly’s a step up.

I didn’t.

I said: “That’s too bad.”

Belinda laughed, a soft knowing laugh, that made me feel a little embarrassed, and something else.

Nervous.

“I ain’t fooling wit’ you,” Belinda said. “And I ain’t crazy.”

“I didn’t say you were crazy, Mrs. Washington.”

“Nah. But you nice.”

I changed the subject. I asked her how long she’d been a guest of the home. Where was she born? What was her secret to longevity? All the harmless questions you learn in high school journalism. I avoided asking her what family she had left, since, with the possible exception of her dead son, none had bothered to show.

After a while, I became cognizant of the smell permeating the room-stale and medicinal, like a cellar filled with moldering files. It became impossible to ignore the ugly stains in the linoleum floor, the melanoma-like cigarette burns in the lopsided card table. Mrs. Washington was wearing a polka dot dress that smelled faintly of camphor, but the rest of them were dressed in yolk-stained robes and discolored T-shirts. A man had only one sock on.

I felt like leaving.

Mr. Birdwell snapped a picture of Belinda enclosed in a gleaming thicket of wheelchairs and walkers. I stuck my hand in and said bye.

“One more,” Mr. Birdwell said. “And this time I want to see a smile on our birthday girl.”

The birthday girl ignored him-evidently she wasn’t in a smiling mood. Instead, she grabbed my hand and squeezed tight.

“Yeah, you a nice fellow,” she said.

Her skin felt ice cold.