“No, darling, but you are. Be a sweetie and call me a cab.”
Red-faced, she dropped her lipstick back inside her bag and clip-clopped downstairs in her ridiculous heels to wait for the car she knew her brother would order. Portia hated it when he was cross with her but she knew that she deserved it, and the fact that he was right made her worse. She was like a toddler stuck in an eternal tantrum. She knew that she behaved badly, but somehow couldn’t seem to stop herself. She sometimes wished that they could go back to when they were children and he was the big brother who doted on her.
As Bomber watched her go, he tried and failed to recognize in this brittle woman even the faintest trace of the affectionate little girl that he had once loved so dearly. For years now he had mourned the sister he had lost so long ago, who had hung on his every word, ridden on the crossbar of his bicycle, and carried his maggots when he went fishing. In return he had eaten her sprouts, taught her to whistle, and pushed her “as high as the sky” on her swing. But she belonged to the distant past, and his present was poisonous Portia. He heard the cab door slam and she too was gone.
“Is it safe to come in?” Eunice poked her head around the kitchen door.
Bomber looked up and smiled apologetically.
“I’m so sorry about this,” he said, gesturing at the floor around her desk.
Eunice grinned.
“Not your fault, boss. Anyway, no harm done.”
They gathered the things up from the floor and restored them to their proper places.
“I spoke too soon,” said Eunice, cradling a small object in her hand. It was a picture of a lady holding flowers, and the glass inside the gold-colored frame was smashed. She had found it on the way home from her interview and had kept it on her desk from her first day. It was her lucky charm. Bomber surveyed the damage.
“I’ll soon have that fixed,” he said, taking the picture from her and placing it carefully in an envelope. He disappeared downstairs without another word. Eunice finished rescuing her things from the floor and swept up the cigarette ash. Just as the kettle boiled, Bomber returned both in body and spirit; soaking wet again, but his broad smile and good humor restored.
“The watchmaker on Great Russell Street has assured me that the glass will be replaced by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”
They sat down to their very belated tea and donuts, and Douglas, finally assured of Portia’s departure, wheeled himself back into the room hoping for seconds.
“She wasn’t always like this, you know,” said Bomber thoughtfully, stirring his tea.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but as a little girl she was really quite sweet; and for a little sister, tremendous fun.”
“Really?” Eunice was understandably skeptical. “What happened?”
“Great-Aunt Gertrude’s trust fund.”
Elevated eyebrows registered Eunice’s curiosity.
“She was my mother’s aunt; rich, pampered, and cantankerous as hell. She never married but always longed for a daughter. Unfortunately, Ma wasn’t her idea of a girl at all; couldn’t be bought with expensive dolls and pretty dresses. Might have had more luck with a pony or a train set . . . but anyway . . .” Bomber bit into his donut and squirted jam onto his chin.
“Portia was a different matter. Ma tried to intervene; withheld some of the more lavish gifts; remonstrated with the termagant Gertrude, face to gargoyle face. But as Portia grew up Ma’s influence inevitably diminished. Furious at what she called Ma’s jealous meddling, when the Great Gertie died she took her revenge. She left the lot to Portia. And it was a lot. Of course Portia couldn’t touch it until she was twenty-one, but it didn’t matter. She knew it was there. She stopped bothering to make a life for herself and started waiting for one to happen to her. You see Great Gertie’s legacy was a tainted tiara; the worst gift of all. It made Portia rich, but robbed her of any sense of purpose.”
“Thank goodness I’m not filthy rich if that’s what it does to a girl,” Eunice joked. “Just how filthy, exactly?”
“Feculent.”
Eunice cleared away the tea things and went back to work.
Bomber was clearly still fretting over the effect of Portia’s tantrum.
“I hope you’re not sorry that you came to work here.”
Eunice grinned manically.
“I must be nuts to be in a loony bin like this,” she quoted in her best Jack Nicholson voice.
Bomber laughed his relief as he picked up a loose sheet of paper from the floor by his desk and screwed it into a ball. Eunice leaped to her feet, arms in the air.
“Hit me, Bomber, I got the moves!”
They had been to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that week for the third time. They spent so much time together now both in and out of work that Bomber couldn’t imagine life without her. The film had made an indelible mark and the ending had them both in tears. Eunice knew the script almost by heart.