Della was still in bed when her cell rang. She ignored it. It was Sunday morning. The phone rang again. She groaned and reluctantly rolled over toward her nightstand. She’d only had the cell for a few days and hated the device. It was a replacement for the one stolen from her purse. With one eye closed, she cautiously picked up the phone. The call display read Roy Lesder.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said to the ceiling, turned off the cell’s ringer and put the phone back on the nightstand. It’s the weekend, doesn’t Roy ever relax? She was still groggy from the joint she’d smoked the night before. She pulled the covers over her head, closed her eyes and fell back asleep.
Just before noon she crawled out of bed. Still finding her footing, she gave her phone a sideways glance, then slowly stepped in front of the window. She drew aside the curtains. A blazing May sun lit up the room. Glancing down from her eighth floor condo she had a grand view of a nearly full parking lot and, in the distance, the always busy Don Valley Parkway.
She showered, had a lunch of cherry Pop-Tarts, an overripe banana and black coffee. Her stomach now full, if not happy, she called Roy back.
“Hi, Roy. What’s up?”
“Didn’t you get my text message?”
“Only just now.” But in fact she hadn’t noticed it.
“I left you a voice mail too. Doesn’t matter. Listen, we got it. The landlord agreed to our offer. He’s willing to lease the store to us for three years. No five-year contract. He’ll give us an extension for another two years at the same rate at the end of our lease, if that’s what we want.”
This was good and bad news. She’d have to decide now for real whether to give up her job as office manager. It paid okay and the trucking company she worked for treated her well. The job was boring most of the time but could become tense when customers or staff took their frustrations out on her, intimidating, shouting. The firm also offered the usual benefits, dental, health, retirement. But the retirement benefits were pitifully small. She was sure she couldn’t survive on them. The thought of being reduced to asking for handouts at a food bank made her sick. She was fifty-three. It would have to be now or never if she was going to change jobs.
“Come down,” Roy said, excitedly. “Let’s walk around the front of the building one more time.” He owned and ran an independent pharmacy in Mississauga. Being his own boss made him happy. He spent five days a week, eleven hours a day, filling prescriptions. It was a busy place with another pharmacist, three pharmacist assistants and two clerks. The other pharmacist was his son, Ken. Roy lived in a large house by Lake Ontario in the upscale Port Credit area, a fifteen-minute drive from his drugstore.
Della and Roy belonged to the same tennis club. That’s where she had met him and his wife. Back then Della had been married to an electrician, Henry, who cheated on her. They’d been legally separated for years but they hadn’t gotten around to completing the divorce process. Henry moved to Red Deer and was out of the picture and their daughter was attending graduate school in Edmonton.
