6:Bitch

July 20

As she stepped out of Grand Central Station and onto East 42^nd Street, Charlie’s eyes roamed the edges of the crowd for a familiar face.  It brought a frown when she didn’t see it in the usual spot and, quite honestly, concerned her. 

She had been meeting Millie here on Monday mornings for about six months now.  Too mature and supposedly undereducated to find a job, she was one of New York’s homeless population that Charlie had discovered panhandling back in the cold days of January.  Unable to leave the older woman shivering and hungry, Charlie tried to convince her to seek refuge in a shelter or halfway house, but it had been like beating her head against a brick wall.  Millie said she had her own system and “thank you very much, but no thank you, although a cup of coffee might be nice”. 

That’s how the weekly routine of coffee and bagels had begun, along with an odd friendship of sorts.  In addition to the coffee and bagels, Charlie usually brought along a personal item for Millie such a blanket, shoes, coat, shampoo, or hairbrush.  Always something serviceable, but it couldn’t be something expensive or Millie would kindly refuse it while accepting the coffee with a smile. 

It was even touch and go when Charlie brought along some nonperishables from her volunteer weekends at the Food Bank of New York.  Sometimes Millie would accept her offerings, sometimes she would not, and other times she would take them with the disclaimer of passing them along to “a friend”. 

Charlie’s brothers Luke and Vince teased that the humanitarian activities were her guilty conscience’s way of making amends for being a bitch the rest of the week.  Dom was more protective in his role as oldest brother and wouldn’t say it even if he thought it, but she’d come to believe that they might be right.  More and more often lately, it took a concentrated effort to hold her vicious cynicism in check, and there were increasingly more instances where she wasn’t successful. 

Growing up with four brothers and going to law school made her just as tough as any man, which she considered a positive attribute.  However, tough was something entirely different than bitter and the last two decades of her life had slowly filled her with a bitterness that wasn’t flattering.  Her brothers weren’t the only ones calling her a bitch nowadays.

Jon Bon Jovi, for example.

Not that she knew it for a fact, but she would be amazed if he hadn’t called her that and worse.  She’d done her job and done it well, but toward the end it was Charlie’s malice driving the Bongiovi negotiations, not Dorothea’s wishes.  Jon merely had the unfortunate distinction of being Charlie’s personal voodoo doll, and she’d enjoyed jabbing every single pin into him.  It was only a shame that the man he represented hadn’t felt a damn thing.    

Charlie put both men out of her mind, and continued craning her neck to search through the bustle of commuters.  She was just about to turn around and go back inside the terminal when a woman’s raspy voice greeted her from behind. 

“Charlie Girl.  You’re early today.”

“Am I?” She turned and smiled at the woman whose posture was still ramrod straight after seventy-two years.  The jaunty red beret she wore was what caught Charlie’s initial attention in January, but there had been a snowflake pinned to it then instead of the current patriotic star.  “The line at the coffee kiosk wasn’t too bad.  Half of Manhattan must be on vacation.”

“That’s what people do in the summertime, dear,” Millie observed, releasing the grip on her pull cart and accepting the lightly sugared coffee with a nod of appreciation.  “Why aren’t you doing the same?”

In accordance with her friend’s usual wishes, Charlie put the bag of bagels on top of the cart’s other precious contents before shrugging her briefcase and purse higher onto her shoulder with a bemused smile.  “Oh, I am.  My youngest son turns eighteen in a couple of weeks and, calling it a combination birthday gift and college sendoff, he’s convinced me to go to the Hamptons the second week of August.”

Disheveled yet immaculate silver waves bobbed along with Millie’s head.  “August is a good time to go to the beach.  The heat in the city will be unbearable by then.”

“Are you finding ways to stay cool?”

A frail hand waved off the question.  “The heat is better than the cold for these old bones.  I enjoy the weather.”

“If you say so.” 

Charlie had learned early on that it was futile to argue with her.  Millie was determined to live life on her own terms and had told Charlie on more than on occasion that she found her “help” annoying.  If she wanted anything different, she would use the business card Charlie gave her on that first day.

“Brilliant show of restraint, my dear.  You’re getting better at not being a bulldozer.”

Chuckling, she patted Millie on the arm and confessed, “Only with you.  I’ll see you on Thursday?”

“As you wish.”

With the wave of her hand, Charlie strode toward the skyscraper where she would spend her day ensuring that rich women retained the lifestyle to which they were accustomed.

J J J J J

“I have Chinese!” Charlie called, stepping into the foyer of the brownstone just after six that evening.  “Who’s hungry?”

The question was scarcely out of her mouth when there came a commotion of tools hitting the floor above her and at least one loud exclamation of, “Finally!”

Chuckling to herself, she moved through the untouched living and dining rooms to pass into a kitchen that was now virtually complete.  The only thing unfinished in here was the blank wall across from the stove whose fate she still hadn’t decided, but it was at least primed and painted white.  Anybody but her would consider it finished, so her personal construction team had moved on to another project.

The latest target was the family room/den between the boys’ rooms up on the third floor, and that’s where the clamoring footsteps originated, growing louder and louder until three sets of big, male feet plodded into the kitchen. 

“Did you get eggrolls?”

“Please tell me there’s Mongolian beef.  And fried rice.”

With a laugh, her brother Luke scuffed her with his perpetual stubble as he bussed her cheek, saying, “I’d settle for a beer.”

Charlie dropped her purse and briefcase on the kitchen island and reached into the shopping bags to produce the requested Mongolian beef, fried rice, eggrolls and beer.  Because she was an overachiever, she also added steamed rice, chicken and broccoli, chow mein, lo mein, kung pao, wonton soup and a pile of condiments to the spread.

“Anything else?” she asked with a grin.

Twisting the top off his beer bottle, Luke peeked into the closest bag curiously.  “You got a hot woman in there?  Be nice to not spend all my damn time here.”

He had been divorced for nearly two years, his wife Courtney having left him the minute their daughter graduated from high school.  She had found a man who was more “refined” than a mere contractor, which wounded Luke’s pride more than he cared to admit and, as a result, he hadn’t shown much interesting in looking for her replacement.

“Oh?” she asked casually while turning to withdraw plates and cutlery from the cabinets.  “You want a date, huh?”

“Hell, yes.”

“All you had to do was ask, big brother.”  Charlie gave him an innocent smile as she placed the dinnerware amidst the takeout boxes.  “Meet me at Cipriani’s on Wall Street next Tuesday at six.  No wait, you’re always late.  Five-thirty.”

The resulting scowl dimmed his already dark features to pitch black.  “What?  No.  I’m not desperate enough to go out with my sister.”

Shaking her head at the tallest and lankiest of her brothers while her teenagers dove into the food like rabid wolves, Charlie commented, “It’s been a long time since you and Courtney split up.  If you aren’t dating by now, I’d say you’re pretty desperate.”

“You haven’t had a date in two years?” Noah froze in the midst of doling out his Mongolian beef with a pained expression that told just exactly how tragic he found that to be.  This was a boy who went out every weekend, most often with a different girl each time. “Damn, Uncle Luke.  It’s not like you have a hunchback or something.  What’s the deal?”

That earned him a slug in the shoulder and a milder scowl.  “I went out just last weekend, for your wise-ass information.  That’s exactly why I’m not desperate enough to go out with your mom.”

He was possibly her favorite brother, depending on the day of the week, but that didn’t stop him from being an annoying brother, too.  Rolling her eyes and popping the top off her own beer, she resigned herself to playing the needy little sister card.

“Please?” she whined after swallowing and putting the beer aside to grab an eggroll.  “It’s an awards dinner for the Food Bank, and one of the directors personally invited me.  I can’t say no and I don’t want to go by myself.  It’ll be over late and you know what you always say about the subway at night…”

She let the sentence trail off, knowing it was unnecessary to finish it.  From the time she’d hit puberty, all four brothers had told her that the subway at night is “full of freaks and perverts, and no place for their sister”.  Reminding him of it guaranteed that Luke’s protective instincts would kick in sooner or later.

It was sooner.

“You could take a cab, yanno, instead of making me put on a damn suit,” he sighed, snatching her eggroll from her.  “Better yet, find a real man to take you out.  Someone who isn’t your brother.”

Knowing that wasn’t a serious consideration, Charlie dismissed the suggestion without a second thought.  It had been eons since she’d had to swim in the shark-infested waters of the dating pool, and taking another dip with Jaws attached to her ankle…?  Well, that sounded about as much fun as a midnight subway ride.

“The men that I’m fortunate enough to meet don’t seem to like me,” she diverted with a smirk.  “I wonder why.”

“Because you take no prisoners, just lots of their money?” Caleb suggested around a mouthful of lo mein.

Noah snorted at his side.  “Yeah, that’s a nice way of putting it.”

Charlie narrowed her eyes at the boys.  She’d never really considered how the kids perceived her and the work she did.  It might be interesting to know. 

“What’s a not nice way of putting it?”

“Vicious and cold-hearted.”

Mahogany waves slithered around her shoulders when she dipped her head once in acknowledgement.  Straightening from her leaning position against the counter, she observed that it hadn’t taken him long to come up with the harsh labels that rolled effortlessly off his tongue. 

“Not a vicious and cold-hearted bitch?”

“You’re my mother,” he explained with a shrug.  “I’m not going to call you that.”

Your son thinks you’re a bitch, too. 

That might just be an assumption on her part, though.  Neither of the boys were particularly happy about the situation between her and their father and she was pretty sure they blamed her.  That was her own fault, though, because she’d made absolute certain they didn’t know the shit she put up with from their father.  Still, it would be better to have the actual facts rather than assuming.

“What if I wasn’t your mother?  Would you call me a bitch then?”

Another shrug as he dug into the fried rice box again.  “Maybe.”

And there you have it.

“Fair enough,” she acquiesced as the heaviness settled in her chest.   “Just remember that I’m doing the best I can to do the best I can, would ya?  And save me some chow mein.  I’m going to go change out of this suit.”

Hooking the neck of her beer bottle with two fingers, she brought it along when stepping around Luke, who stood between her and the stairs. 

“Hey,” her big brother said quietly.  “I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

Charlie lifted a hand and patted him on the chest with a wistful smile.  “Good thing, since I’m not going to be changing anytime soon.”