A STOLEN TABLE AND KEEP THE CHANGE

This blog contains a new funny story, information on the Mother’s Day Show, and details formy May Wednesday Writing class.

I was putting out the garbage in the back of the building. I saw someone had left a wicker table in the back next to the garbage, so I took it in, and with a bit of rearranging of my living room, it was a good fit. A few hours later, I took the dog out for a walk, and there was a sign on the door, “Give me back my white table.  Signed Nicky in 402.” Nicky in 402 was called Grumpy Nicky by everyone in the building.  She was miserable sod. She was the kind of person who, if you said, “Nice day, Nicky, she had to say Not as nice as yesterday.” She could taking anything loving and turn it into shite. So when I saw her sign, I was in no hurry to give her back her damn table. After all, if she didn’t want someone to take it, she should have put a sign on the table so that no one would take it in the first place. 

The sign stayed up there all day, and since I live next to the front door, I could hear people’s comments when they came into the building and saw that sign. From the Fedex guy to the super to the new lady in 303, they all said, “ Ff she didn’t want the table taken she should have put a sign on it”  90 percent of the people didn’t think Nicky deserved her table back so went off to the fruit and veg market to get some fresh flowers to place in a vase on top of it. Small guilty thoughts broke through.  I  knew she was grumpy before the cancer, needing a double mastectomy, and chemo didn’t help her mood. I did judge that she still smoked. Smoking shouldn’t factor into my decision to give her the item back, but it did.  By 9 p.m., my need to hate Nicky, to give her what she deserved, waned.  What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I just take back her table? Yes she was a bitch on wheels, but she had cancer for god sake and its not easy to give up the cancer sticks. So when the sun went down and the building got quiet, I picked up the table to return it to the back. I got as far as the laundry room when I saw the plumber fixing something and blocking my exit. I ended up leaving it in the laundry room. She could ferret it out herself. Well, barely an hour later, Burt needed to go out for his final wee of the evening, I opened the door to Nicky standing outside my door.  I thought she knew that it was me who had returned it, but no. She was taping all the signs she had put up over the past two days onto my neighbour, the cellist’s, door. 

“What are you doing?”  I asked.

Slurring her words and pointing to my neighbour Sophie’s door, she said, “My table’s back, but it’s her that did it.” 

“Did what?” As if I didn’t know.

“Stole the table, the fucking table. It’s her in there — she took it.” After she landed harshly on the ‘pronoun she’, her eyes closed, and she stood there swaying for a good minute. I reached out to help her if she passed out.

“It wasn’t Sophie.” I wanted to say it was me, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, “Sophie’s away in Montreal. She hasn’t been home in weeks.” I said it casually, in an offhanded way—the way the guilty always do.

“Yes, but she’s got it sublet to that Chinese woman.”

Great, we are now descending into racism. I climbed up on my high horse and gave her a lecture, “Chinese woman? What? How do you know she’s Chinese? Maybe she’s Korean? Or Vietnamese? Or Thai?”

“Thai? Who gives a fuck what her country is.  She took my table.” 

Then she staggered up the stairs, and when she was out of sight, I took the compilation of signs off the unsuspecting subletters’ door, tore the signs into shreds and put them at the bottom of the garbage can. 

At three in the morning. I awoke terrified, and. worried all night if my lies would catch up with me. Or if Nicky would kill the Thai, Vietnamese, or Korean woman.  I had been binge-watching endless numbers of Midsomer Murders, and even though I was convinced someone would be dead by morning, I went back to sleep.

In the morning, the young subletter exited her apartment and smiled at the same time I did. She had made it through the night unscathed, as did everybody in the building. 

I asked her how long she’d be in Canada before she went home. She said, “Two weeks, and I  get  to return to Portugal.”

Nicky sold jewelry and vintage tin cans in front of the building the following Saturday. Downing an Extra-large Coke and had sunglasses, smoking and looked pretty good for someone with the kind of night she had. All her stuff was on the beautiful table I had stolen and returned. I told her, “I just loved the table so much,” and she went on to regale me with the whole convoluted story of the night before, and I guess she had forgotten, and suddenly I felt sorry for her. Poor Nicky. To have cancer, no breasts and still smoke and need to be outside selling your wares, no wonder she was grumpy. I asked her if the table was for sale, and she said yes. And after haggling a bit, I got it for forty bucks.  When I dug in my  purse, I  only had  a  fifty, and she didn’t have any change, so  in a grand gesture of magnanimity, I said,” Keep the  change.”

From my New book, An Old Lady on the Beach.

Give Mom the of Laughter:

Mothers’ Day Show: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Saturday May 10. 6pm

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