Surviving San Francisco
by
Susan Oloier
Copyright © 2015 Susan Oloier
Praise for Susan Oloier
“Oloier has a gift with language and her writing is so lyrical that at times it feels like poetry.” –Amazon Reviewer
“Wow! What an amazing book. It grabs you from the first chapter and never lets go.” –Tammy Brewer, Reviewer at The Books You Read
“I have read many good books in recent months, but this book is not only exciting…you can empathize with the feelings of all involved and fight on each side with them. The other day someone said to me: I only give 5 stars if the book changes my life. This book changes lives…If it were, I would give [it] 7 of 5 stars.” –Goodreads Reviewer
Dedication
For Brian, wherever you may be
Chapter One
Leah Newland pushes the frilly pink curtains of her bedroom window aside for the last time. Outside, it’s a typical winter wonderland in the suburbs of Chicago: gray, blustery, and wet. Even the once-fluffy whiteness that edges the roads has turned to charcoal black. Leah will leave it all behind.
Inside, stuffed bears sit idly on her frilly pink linens, and her BS in Marketing degree from Northern Illinois University hangs on the wall beside an Assistant Buyer of the Year Award. She doesn’t think she’ll miss any of it.
Neatly stacked boxes reside in the corner of a room, which is nearly bare and void, save an open U.S. map. A matching set of luggage leans beneath the valanced window.
Leah lingers at her dresser where a letter is folded closed. The only visible portion is the closing, scrawled in a male’s handwriting. I’m sorry I hurt you. Love, Charlie. Leah runs a finger over the name, pushes it away, and then finally swipes and pockets it.
Leah hears voices in the living room and decides to go downstairs to join her going-away party. She touches the San Francisco dot on the map one last time before folding it. She plans to study her route again, just to be sure.
As she descends the stairs like a not-so Miss America in her stuffy Liz Claiborne, hair in a French twist, a deflating helium balloon hits Leah in the face. She recovers, only to be molested by a renegade streamer arranged near the stairs. Its brothers hang limply from the guardrails. Leah can’t wait for all of this to be over and to start her new life. She musters her courage and creeps toward the living room. A few of her family members sit around, waiting.
She first spies her cousin, Jay. Not a hard thing to do considering he screams at the television set.
“Rip ‘em a new one!”
His Bears jersey rides up in the back, giving Leah an unwanted glimpse at his butt crack. His girlfriend, Tara—whom Leah barely knows—sits beside him rolling her eyes, studying a Tostito like it’s a Rubik’s Cube. Leah wonders what she and Jay are doing here at all. It’s not like Leah spends any time with them. Ever.
She wishes her friend, Paisley, were here instead of being at an obligatory wedding in Florida.
Leah picks up one of her mom’s Precious Moments statuettes and wiggles her way between her grandmother, who crouches in her wheelchair, and her older brother, Glen, who seems to not want to make any room for her on the love seat.
Leah feels awkward, so she opens up her road map again.
“In twenty-four hours—” she says to her grandmother.
“You’ll be back,” Glen says. His smile is smug.
Leah looks at Glen, and then she searches around the room. Painted wood furniture, upholstered chairs, country-style everything, snow outside the windows, Bears on TV, and butt cracks. “No way.”
“You say that now—”
“I’m not coming back, Glen,” she puts the Precious Moments down, “I’m not. This job transfer is everything I hoped for.”
Glen picks up the figurine and assesses it. “You know, you’ll be living with the gays.”
“Good. Less chance of being hit on.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” Glen smacks the figurine down on the painted end table; Leah’s sure it’s going to break. “No one’s going to hit on you.” Then Glen stands and leaves the room, headed for the kitchen where Leah hears her mom humming along to Barry Manilow.
Fifty-five year-old Lorna Newland dances, Copacabana-style, into the living room. She carries two packages.
It’s clear she lives for her two children. Unfortunately, they don’t live for her. But Leah knows her mother went out of her way to make the going-away celebration memorable.
Singing a throwback 70’s song, Lorna sets the presents down right on top of Leah’s map. “Make your grandmother happy. Open them now.”
Gina, her grandmother, beams. Leah studies her grandma for a moment. She seems so small: Dentures too big for her mouth, hands curled in on themselves. Maybe she’s physically fading.
Lorna clears her throat, and Leah moves the map from under the gifts, checking it for creases. She hates creases. When she finds none, Leah folds it.
“Open it,” Gina demands.
Leah sets the map aside and unwraps the package along the seams of the paper, not wanting to tear the gift-wrap: Just another thing to drive her crazy.
“A sewing kit!” Leah says with mustered enthusiasm.
“Buttons pop off at the worst times,” Grandma Gina says.
Leah opens the pouch and removes a whistle on a chain and a butterfly pin. No sewing items.
“I was dancing with a fellow—not your grandfather,” Gina says. “He twirled me so hard that a button popped off and my boob flew out.” The shock of the experience shows on her face. “I could have used a sewing kit then. Instead, I danced all night like this.” She closes her arms over her chest.
Lorna shakes her head at Leah—the tell-tale sign that Lorna thinks her grandmother is making up memories again.
“Thanks for the tip, Grandma,” Leah says while twirling the whistle.
“That’s in case you get into a spot.”
Leah nods.
Glen picks up the butterfly pin, and his face is a question mark.
“My father bought that pin for me when I was a girl,” Gina reminisces, “so that I’d stop chasing butterflies and pinning them.”
Glen winces. He looks as though he’s going to be sick.
Gina turns to Leah. “I want you to have it.”
Leah ponders the item before taking it from her grandmother.
“His famous saying was ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’”
Leah opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted.
“What does that even mean?” Glen asks while trying to puzzle it out. “That doesn’t even make sense. Unless it’s some sort of weird hybrid bug.” Glen fingers the sharp end as if it’s a dangerous weapon, as if putting himself in a scenario with the mythical creature. Disgust spells out on his face.
Leah clears her throat. “Grandma, I actually think Muhammad Ali said that.”
“Muhammad who?” Gina asks, leaning in toward Leah and turning up the volume on her hearing aid.
Lorna points to her temple, does a swirly-whirly thing with her finger and rolls her eyes.
“It looks expensive, Grandma.”
“Real rubies and emeralds.”
Lorna shakes her head.
“I want to play some Yahtzee,” Grandma Gina blurts.
“Not right now, Grandma.”
Lorna steps in the center of the conversation. “This is from your father, Glen, and me.”
“Touchdown! Yes!” Jay jumps up.
Leah’s eyes move to the television set, but Lorna chooses to ignore it.
“It’s not from me,” Glen says, leaning back in his chair.
“Whe
re is dad?” Leah asks.
“Open the gift.”
Leah removes the paper, revealing a glass, heart-shaped music box. As she lifts the lid, Chicago chimes. Leah gives Lorna a wide-eyed look. She’s clearly moved by the gesture.
“So not from me,” Glen says.
Leah, so much like her mom, ignores her brother. “Where did you find it?”
“We found it,” Lorna answers.
“Music Box Company,” Glen says as if spilling the news about Santa Claus.
Leah shoots her brother a look. “I’m going to find dad.”
***
It’s dark in the den, except for the flashing screen where the stock quotes scroll along the bottom of the television. The anchorman drones in his monotone voice. “Intel’s stock showed a sharp increase today…”
Leah tunes it out and focuses on her dad, who tips back in his recliner. Darrell Newland is a distinguished man in his mid-fifties. He wears his glasses on the tip of his nose, making him look either like an east coast scholar or a washed-up newspaper reporter. As Leah creeps in with the music box, she notices that her dad’s stern demeanor remains unchanged.
“Dad?”
Darrell continues to look straight ahead.
Even Leah’s voice is a tiptoe. “Thank you for the music box. Mom said—”
“Shhh. I’m trying to listen to the stocks.”
Leah hesitates, and then sets the gift on the end table and leaves.
Chapter Two
In the waxing light of a new morning, a snowplow hums in the distance. Curls of chimney smoke thread through the brisk air, and the muted headlights of a plow prowl along a street riddled with vehicles. The truck buries the Illinois plates in a blanket of white, sending a burst of flakes into the air.
A set of tire marks cuts through the newly-fallen snow, the only thing left behind by Leah Newland’s Honda as it trails out of town before the rising sun. The song Chicago pipes through a tinny car stereo.
Then the plow trudges through, sweeping away any sign she was there at all.
***
The music box lay on the passenger’s seat of the Honda. On the radio, I Left My Heart in San Francisco replaces the melody of Chicago. Traffic rushes past as Leah navigates her way along the I-101. She spies the Golden Gate Bridge up ahead, and Leah’s heart races. Her fingers grip the steering wheel as she listens to the mapping software guide her to her destination. Even with the monotone voiceover, Leah feels frazzled and afraid of making a wrong turn. After all, she’s never been to San Francisco before.
By the time she makes it into the city, Leah’s head throbs and her shoulders ache from tension. She really needs pain pills—something—but everything’s buried in the bottom of her bag. She presses fingertips to her temples, lets her hand drop to the butterfly pin fastened to her blouse, and then decides to blindly dig for the bottle. It can’t be that hard to find.
“In one mile, turn right,” the navigation software says.
“One mile, right,” Leah repeats, her hand deeply embedded in her bag now. “Where is it?” she says aloud. “It has to be here…”
Leah turns for a moment, finally unearthing the prescription bottle. When she refocuses on the road, Leah sees a streak of fur dart in front of the Honda and feels a light thump on the front tire. She slams on the brakes, and they squeal. Leah flies forward. Traffic screeches to a halt. Car horns beep. Angry voices yell, but Leah ignores it all. Instead, she works hard to breathe and settle her raging heartbeat.
Leah scratches for the glove compartment and a paper bag inside. She opens it like clockwork and presses her mouth to the opening. Breathe in and out, in and out. Another horn blare startles her back to reality, and Leah rushes out of the car.
A limp cat lies in the road. Traffic pulls up behind the Honda. A hippy emerges from a V.W. bus and arrives at her side. The cat meows sickly.
“He’s still alive! Get a towel,” the hippy says. He’s pretty bossy for someone who is supposed to practice peace and be all Namaste.
Leah stares at the tie-dyed throwback to the 1960s. He smells of hemp and weed. She shakes herself from her trance and goes to the trunk to rummage through her luggage. She pulls out a Calvin Klein blouse, hesitates, and then tosses it aside.
“I don’t have anything.” Not a lie. Who would use a designer label to administer first aid to a cat?
The hippy seems to teleport to her side. He now holds the injured cat in his arms. Blood trickles from somewhere beneath its fur. Leah winces at the sight and averts her eyes.
“How ‘bout this?” He lifts a scarf from her bag and swaddles the cat in it.
Leah makes a reach for the garment. It’s her favorite. Lambs wool. Handmade. Designer. Irreplaceable.
“That’s artisan craft—” She cuts off her own words at the guy’s furrowed brow. One more head-to-toe of his attire, and she knows the argument is fruitless. “Never mind.”
“Better rush it to the hospital.” He dumps the cat into her arms as horns continue to honk and the whoosh of traffic in the distant lane zips by. She’ll be lucky if she makes it back to the driver’s side door without being taken out.
The hippy rushes back to his bus, and Leah—cat in hand—follows on his heels.
“I can’t take this cat,” she says, peering down at it. It makes a sound. Was that a whimper?
“I have to be somewhere by six.”
The hippy stands with his hand on the passenger’s side door, ready to pull it open and roll back into his henna-colored world.
The hippy rakes his full-on scrutiny over her. “I’m sure your pedicurist can wait.” Disdain taints his voice.
“You don’t understand…”
The guy climbs inside, starts his sputtering engine, and labors into the street.
Leah stands in the middle of the road with the cat.
“I’ve never been late for anything in my life,” she says, calling after the disappearing V.W.
Leah loads the cat into the passenger’s side of her car. She punches animal hospital into her phone’s navigation system, then grabs hold of her headache medicine, which she downs without water.
She glimpses the cat. It looks to be on death’s door.
“Please don’t bleed,” she tells it. “It’s full-price designer.”
Chapter Three
Leah scrambles through the front door of what is supposed to be an animal hospital and comes to a dead halt. Instead of ER triage, the room looks like a lackadaisical clinic. People loaf in lobby chairs as if in no hurry, no place to be. A woman cradles a cat carrier, as the man next to her dozes off into his magazine; a terrier nose pokes out of the kennel at his feet.
Classical music pipes into the room through built-in speakers.
Leah backs up and glimpses the stenciling on the glass door: Pacific Coast Veterinary Clinic, Dr. Everitt Grady. There are no hours listed on the windows or the door.
Stupid navigation app.
Leah wades into the room with the cat dangling from her arms. She has no other options. She steps around a caged something or other, and her eyes light on a poster on the opposite side of the room. It contains some obscure message (Bob Barker from vintage The Price is Right is in it), but the print it too small to read.
Leah peers down and feels the shallow breath beneath the scarf. As the couple in front of her step aside, Leah approaches the counter. A thirtyish man wearing surgical scrubs and in need of a shave sits behind reception.
“Excuse me,” Leah says.
The guy looks up. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t. Thing is, we’re not accepting any more patients today.” He sets the closed sign on the counter in front of her.
“This can’t wait,” Leah says.
“As you can see…” He sweeps a hand toward the waiting room and the clock on the wall, which reads 5:20. “We’re busy and we close at 5:30. Of course you’d know that if you t
ook off your I’m the most important person in the world goggles and actually scheduled an appointment.”
“It’s an emergency,” Leah says, holding the swaddled cat up for him to see.
He squints toward the bundle in Leah’s arms. The cat is hidden in the recesses of her designer scarf. The guy heaves a sigh and continues to sort through files and shuffle papers in search of something.
“Everything’s an emergency. Now where did she put Sparky’s file?” he mostly asks himself. His eyes remain plastered to the paperwork in front of him.
Leah is rendered speechless for a moment. Then she musters the acumen to speak. “This cat got hit by a car.”
This garners immediate attention.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He scrutinizes Leah, narrows his eyes.
The guy stands up and steps out from behind reception and through the side door to the lobby. He shoves the scarf aside and assesses the cat. When he’s through with his physical examination, he meet her eyes.
If he weren’t such a jerk, he’d be kind of cute.
“Why didn’t you take her to the veterinary hospital?”
Leah pulls herself away from the distraction of his eyes—more green than hazel, not that she noticed—to the sound of his accusatory tone.
“The mapping software…” she struggles to form a thought. “This is the first place I found.”
“Mary?” the guy calls toward the exam rooms.
She doesn’t answer. “Forget it.” He opens the door and escorts Leah and the cat to the back.
“Hey!” the man with the terrier calls out. “What about us?”
The veterinary employee holds up his hand and closes the door behind him.
“Room 3,” he says, pointing out the way for Leah. “We’re a little short staffed, but we’ll do what we can.”
Leah relaxes a little as she steps into the room. “Will this take long? I have—”
But the door closes on her words.
Leah tries to glimpse the watch on her wrist, but the cat lies like dead weight over her arm. Gosh, she hopes the feline isn’t dead. Beyond that, she hopes she’s not too late to meet with her landlord and get her apartment keys. Because come 6:00, no one will be there to let her in, and she has no idea where in San Francisco she and her stuff will stay.
She glances around, thinking of leaving. But the cat needs help as soon as possible. And it’s her fault they’re both here.
Leah settles into a hardback chair and moves the scarf aside to take a quick glimpse of the cat. Its breaths are shallow, but they’re still there.