SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAYbyLucille Bellucci
After thirty minutes they had covered less than a fourth of the parking lot. Celia glanced at Rudy, walking stiff-hipped along the next row over, and decided further persuasions were useless. He would not wait, while she searched alone, although she could walk faster without the weight of the small suitcase that was slowly pulling her arm out of its socket. Rudy had shifted his garment bag from left side to right side, and back again. This is one more thing, Celia thought. She was beyond embarrassment.
At the next break in the line of parked automobiles, she peered at the end cars on all four sides of the new row. The yellow sodium lighting made colors hard to distinguish; blue was gray, gray was blue, red was maroon, and black looked navy and vice versa. All the models looked alike. She had parked their light gray sedan next to a pedestrian walkway at the very end of a row. There had been stanchions, she recalled, and she had been careful not to turn too close to them when she was parking. The sign above read B-3. Self-hypnosis, she thought, and shut her eyes. Nothing happened, no nudge of one particular letter or number.
Rudy had proceeded to the next sector. She called after him, "Let's wait for the shuttle to take us around," but he did not respond. At eight years of age their daughter Leslie had started calling that sometimes deliberate deafness "chewing gum in Daddy's ears." Taking them to the Phoenix airport for their flight home to California Leslie, the woman, had asked if her parents would consider moving to Arizona. There was a nice condo unit near her home, Leslie said, and she could run over every day. Think about it, her husband Sam urged.
Rudy had treated it as a joke. What? Leave California, the land of drought and money? But after the fluster of farewells and mingled reminders to telephone and write, and Rudy and Celia were inside the boarding ramp, she was aware of a light sense of escape. This independence, she thought, trudging down Sector B-6, will kill us yet, if we let it.
She wished they had taken a luggage cart from the terminal, but they were too far now to think of going back. She stood aside to allow a vehicle to pass. It was the parking lot shuttle. "Rudy, come on," she called, and got herself up the step. It was good to sit down. Her ankles looked swollen, and her shoes felt two sizes too small. The shuttle driver waited patiently while Rudy crossed to them. At the step, before Rudy could stop her, Celia leaned down and took the garment bag from his hands.
"You didn't have to do that," he grumbled, but she could see he would have had trouble climbing in if she hadn't.
Being the gentleman for which Celia loved him, Rudy, taking the blame on himself, told the driver that he had forgotten where he had parked the car. Could they be taken around until they saw it? The driver, a Filipino in a neat blue uniform, said he couldn't do that, but the security people could help. "I will take you to their office. They take down all the license plate numbers every night so they can tell you exactly where your car is."
"That's amazing," Celia whispered to Rudy. "Imagine them doing that, hundreds and hundreds of cars, every night. Why do you think they do that? To find stolen cars?"
"For dopes like us," he said.
Mutely, Celia massaged his hipbone, exactly where she knew it was aching. He shrugged, to show the pain wasn't that bad, and put his arm around her. The shuttle hummed; the dim lighting painted Rudy's white head a dirty blond. Had an hour passed yet since they left the terminal? Eternity might be like this, going round and round a parking lot between rows of cars of ghostly tints.
The shuttle stopped. "The security people are in that shack over there. Don't worry, they can help you. You're welcome," the driver said, to their thanks.
The door of the shack was locked, and Rudy rapped on the glass with his car key. Almost at once it was opened.
A uniformed man wearing an official patch on his sleeve said, "Evening. What's the problem?"
"I'm afraid I forgot where I parked our car," Rudy said.
"That happens," the man said kindly. "What's the license number?"
"It's 5AMR--" Rudy hesitated. He looked at Celia.
"--778," Celia said.
"Just a minute." The guard leafed through a big ledger. "Here it is. Row 9 between F-5 and G-5. Just go straight across from here and you're on Row 11. Go over two rows, and there you are. Next time you park, better write down the number on your ticket."
"Well, thanks. This is very nice of you," Rudy said. He stepped out of the shack, and behind him Celia picked up the garment bag he had forgotten on the floor. "What row did he say?" Rudy asked.
"I have it burned in my brain. I will never, never forget. It's Row 9, between F-5 and G-5."
The pedestrian walkway was there, and the stanchions, and their own ghostly green-gray-blue car. But she had no memory of driving so far to the edge of the lot. The shuttle had come along just then, as she parked and locked the car, and she had no thought other than of her good luck in getting a ride to the terminal. In fact, Rudy was surprised she had joined him at the check-in counter so soon.
Rudy loaded their bags and got into the driver's seat. "We'll be home in thirty minutes, tops, and I'm going to have a hot soak, drought or no drought."
They were quiet as he drove to the gate and paid, Celia thinking on the mysterious inner workings of Security that had got them out of trouble. She relaxed, sighing, her shoes already off and on the floormat.
The car slowed down as they approached Doolittle Drive a half-mile from the parking lot, and Rudy prepared to make a left turn.
"You have to go straight on," Celia said. "We make a right turn at Hegenberger Road."
"I can see the Hilton over on the left. We passed it coming down on Hegenberger."
"But we don't on the way back, Rudy. This road bypasses the Hilton and we hit Hegenberger farther up."
The driver behind tapped his horn, and Rudy said irritably, Hold your horses, and drove on ahead. They had been talking in mild tones, each careful to keep the discussion from becoming an argument. One never knew whose turn it was next to commit the small everyday lapse that could become serious. It was best to remain neutral.
"I've always liked the Southwest," Celia said. "Phoenix isn't exactly isolated, either. I like the city, there. Leslie and Sam must be pretty lonesome, with the kids off at college."
"Phoenix is fine if you don't mind staying indoors most of the year, standing in front of the air conditioner."
"Well, they sounded serious. At least we ought to think about that. They're anxious about us." Rudy said nothing.
Celia touched his head and hooked a finger in his collar. Her hand stayed there for the rest of the drive home. When they were within a block of their street, she rummaged in her purse for the garage door opener--at least she never forgot to remove it from the car even if she forgot where she left the car. She was always eager, after a trip, for the first sight of their house. In the gloom the front yard looked dry, almost rusty from lack of rain. The kitchen light they had left on shone faintly through the drawn curtains. The bulb hadn't burned out, a possibility which had occupied her mind since they left.
As soon as Rudy parked the car in the garage, she got out and went through the connecting door into the house and directly to the main bathroom. So she had turned the wall heater off; that was the other worry she had not mentioned to Rudy.
She decided she would coax Rudy into discussing a move to Phoenix. They would not necessarily be giving up their independence; a condo with a balcony and a few potted plants to care for instead of a big backyard might be a relief, and they could always visit Rudy's beloved California. Her beloved California, too, but in life one made trades all the time. She and Rudy had no reason to expect things to stay the same forever once they had become retired persons.
Her nerves settled down, and she went on with the small, comforting tasks of her homecoming, thankful for the safe conclusion of another day. #
