25. Reunion After Layoffs

Marina couldn’t believe how much Fara could drink. She was on her third pina colada. The one she'd bought Marina made her head spin. The drink was very sweet and went straight to the brain. Fara had slid a few inches further down her seat and now looked like she was blending into the tan fake leather of the booth at the bar where they’d all wedged themselves, still in shock from their sudden layoffs even after two weeks.
“I can’t take it in.” Fara took a deep swallow, almost emptying the glass. “I just can’t take in that All Read is no more.” She looked like she could cry but finished the drink instead, and waved to the waitress.
Peg called out to her from where she sat closest to the edge of the u shaped bench,“Don’t you want to pace yourself?”
Fara turned and glared at her.
“Don’t give me a what’s it to you look. You know you’re a diabetic and after Marina’s cast party you told me you fell asleep on the train and had no purse when you came to.”
Fara laughed and motioned to the waitress for another round.
“Not for me.” Peg got up and caught up to the waitress. “None for me.” She stood by the table with her hands in fists.
“Sorry.” She clenched her fists. “I don’t know if I’m pissed or sad or disappointed or what I feel. I’m displacing my anger at you. Fact is I’m getting out of here before I punch you. Fact is watching people get drunk makes me sick.” She grabbed her purse and walked out of the bar.
The others were silent for a few minutes.
Fara broke the silence with a loud laugh. “She’s right. Peg’s right. I’m a sloppy drunk. Who likes to look at that?” She put her arm on the table, rested her head on it and started to cry. Soli shook her head. “We better put her in a cab. Not my idea of happy hour.”
“Nobody’s ready to go home yet.” Fara said. Soli took off her glasses and wiped them with a napkin. She rubbed her eyes. “I’ve been with Mrs. Asher since I was in college. Do you believe I started as an intern? Until Glory talked me into going to work for the Central Board a couple of months ago, this was the only workplace I knew.”
“Glory Vincent felt sorry for you and got you that job after you got demoted and that other Vivian started pissing away the money.” Fara spoke from inside the crook of her arm without looking up. She moaned. “Mrs. Asher’s so old. How old is she?” She slurred. “She’s fucking at least 70 years old. I thought she was immortal.”
Marina looked at Soli and pointed to her watch.
“We better get her in a cab before she passes out.”
Soli dragged Fara out of the booth, draped her arm around her shoulder and guided her out of the bar onto the sidewalk.
“No cabs down here.” Marina looked up and down the narrow street. “We’ve got to get onto an avenue.”
Fara was moaning. “What am I going to do now? Where am I going to go? How’m I going to get another job?”
Marina and Soli looked at each other. They draped Fara’s arms around each of their shoulders, and wrapped their arms around her waist. Fara was almost dead weight.
“Is she passed out?” Soli’s yellow green eyes were wide. “Didn’t Peg say she’s diabetic? I didn’t know that.”
“Should we get her to emergency? Or what is it you do, feed them sugar?”
“That’s all we need. All Read practically killed us with the up and downs. Mrs. Asher sold off parts of her land to make payroll.” Soli looked at Marina and laughed. “Oops, you never had to know about that. But I guess now I don’t have to keep Vivian’s secrets.”
“That’s putting your money where your commitment is. I can’t get over that. What do her heirs think about her giving away their inheritance to pay the help?”
They’d made it to the corner and Soli waved down a cab and shoved Fara inside.
The driver craned his neck and looked at Fara.
“You can’t just dump a passed out woman in my cab.” He figured it out from how Soli was giving him Fara’s address she had managed to get out of her, and fishing into her own wallet for money.
Soli shrugged, gave Marina a beseeching look. “Don’t make me ride out to South City with her by myself, please.” Marina groaned. “Machi's with Ori so I don't have that excuse.” They both slid in beside Fara who was snoring softly.
“I hope she’s asleep and not dying.”
Marina stared out the window. The cab eased out of the dense City Center onto the highway. “At least I’ll be part of the way home. Looks like Fara lives not far from Moon Park.”
“Look at the lights shining on the river.”
Marina smiled.
“It’s easy to forget to notice beauty.”
They rode in silence for a while, until Fara suddenly sat up, opened her eyes and looked at Soli. “Well you made sure you got out of that sinking ship!”
Soli blushed. “O no, no. no. I left for other reasons. Reasons to do with my own professional development.”
Fara rolled her eyes and passed out again.
Soli looked at Marina. “That’s got to be what people think.” Soli fought tears. “You all think the structural problems, the way Mrs. Asher treated me like an extension of her, of her brain…all of that is not separate from what got us in this fix.”
Marina studied her friend. “I think the problem is more systemic than that. Small agencies are getting crushed by big ones. Literacy isn’t marginal any more. It’s too potentially revolutionary to have poor people come together with no policing. All Read doesn’t fit the policing mode. The Amanuel Coles of the world have arrived and are creating jobs for themselves by appointing themselves our funders and overseers. You probably moved over to Central Board in the nick of time.”
“Who knows, maybe I can do something there.”
“Yeah, you single handedly will thwart the system. I’ll take the bets.”
Soli stepped out of the cab. “I can’t believe Fara lives here.” She held the door open while Marina pushed Fara toward the door. Soli had given the cabbie a big tip and he got out, came around and helped them lift dead weight Fara to the door. The street and building number Fara slurred turned out to be one of a row of identical six story buildings with no stoops. On the door of the one listed as Fara’s was a handcarved wooden sign, Casa Zion. Marina knocked several times before a long haired, long skirted young woman came to the door. She looked Fara up and down and brought her palms together at her chest, closed her eyes, whispered, “Ayudanos, senor.” She stepped aside and the women, with Fara hanging off both their shoulders, managed at last to get inside the dim lit hall. When Marina could see in the dark she made out what must be a worship room to the left, where the parlor room would be, rows of handmade, plain wooden benches on stripped, unfinished wooden floors, bare walls and windows, a small table at the front with a rough wooden cross on the wall behind it.
“Sister Fara has a losing fight going with this demon.” The young girl led them around the stairs, down a narrow hallway to the back of the house. The hallway had doors opening on both sides, and they followed her into a room on the right, that must actually belong to the adjoining building. “How many houses belong to you?” Soli spoke softly. Marina had never seen her be shy. The girl held up five fingers. “El Senor has blessed us and we just keep buying them up. Pastor Mercado’s plan for us is to one day own the whole block.”
The room they’d entered had a series of small cots, made up with threadbare sheets, flat pillows, green wool blankets faded from washing. The windows opened onto a yard completely planted in rows into a vegetable and herb garden. There were small crosses on every wall. A short plump woman with long gray hair, also dressed in a long skirt, stood wiping a small metal table.
“Hermana Paula, la Hermana Fara llego mal otra vez.”
“Hay que orar mas, Hermana Beatriz. Y ayudar al señor con mejores castigos.”
Hermana Beatriz left them with the older woman.
“We’re Fara’s co-workers. We just wanted to bring her home safe.”
Hermana Paula said nothing and looked at them hard.
Marina laughed. “Don’t look at us like we’re the ones led your lamb astray. She’s pretty much getting into hell all by herself.”
Soli grabbed Marina’s hand, squeezed hard. “Things are hard for her. You must know she lost her job.”
Paula turned her gaze from Marina onto Soli. Her big long lashed black eyes fixed on her. Soli went silent for a minute. “But I’ll let Fara tell you about her life herself.”
Marina headed for the door but Paula blocked her way.
“You’re leaving without praising the Lord?”
She took Marina’s hand and tugged her back the way they’d come with Beatriz. In the hallway they ran into a short round faced mustached man and Paula stopped. “Amigas de la Hermana Fara.” He extended his hand. “Soy el Reverendo Mercado. He held out a hand to each woman, grabbed them by the wrist and led them into a small room. In addition to the crosses the walls here had photographs of the Reverendo preaching to enormous congregations, and arm in arm with politicians. The largest photo in the middle of the wall behind his desk, showed towering Mayor Geffen with his arm around the tiny preacher and Amanuel Cole on the other side.
He sat himself down and pointed to two chairs facing him across the desk.
“We’ve wondered who were Hermana Fara’s amigas del mundo.”
Marina interrupted him. “I’d love to chat Reverendo, but I have to get home to my son.” It was Ori’s day. She'd lied to a man of the cloth.
Soli leaned forward and gave the reverend her best smile. “We’re now quite assured we’ve brought Fara home to safety. We were just a little worried. You know she’s diabetic.”
“We have all her illnesses in prayer. El Señor has Hermana Fara in his hands. We just want to help el Señor by dealing with the friends that led her astray.”
“Look.” Marina stopped herself, softened her tone. “I told Hermana Paula out there, if anyone is doing any leading astray it’s Fara leading us. Tell you the truth, only time we ever drink is when we happen to go out with her. And she doesn’t need much of a reason to…”
Soli cleared her throat. “It’s the diabetes has us worried, really. There’s something about how diabetics can’t hold their liquor that worries us. We heard Fara fell asleep on the train not too long ago and when she woke up her purse was gone.” With that Soli stood up and Marina followed. They stepped toward the door. “Maybe you can enlighten us. How long has Fara been here?”
Marina turned the knob, pulled the door open and there stood Paula blocking her exit. “I don’t think the Reverendo’s done.”
He’d followed them and taken their hands again. This time he led them into the worship room.
“Hermana Fara can tell you herself. She has a beautiful testimony. We don’t violate the confidentiality of our residents.”
He took them to the front of the prayer room and sat them on the front row bench. He stood by the small table, closed his eyes and raised one hand. Paula pointed to her own eyes, mimicked closing them and Marina closed her eyes.
“Gracias Señor por estas hermanas laicas que han ayudado a nuestra Hermana Fara. Iluminanos para ayudar a sacarle a Fara, y a estas dos mujeres perdidas, el demonio del alcohol…”
Reverendo Mercado began to speak in tongues and within minutes Hermana Paula had joined him. Marina listened to the visceral fascinating sounds they made. She remembered her first visit to the City as a young child, pretending to speak English by making similar sounds.
Eyes closed she noticed her heart was beating and she was on the verge of vomiting the pina colada from terror. What if these crazies never let them leave? Who would know where she and Soli were? Would it make the news? Would the cabbie connect the two vanished women with his drunken fares?
She noticed there was silence and opened her eyes. Hermana Beatriz was with them once again, and showed them to the door.
They were several blocks away from the nearest train station and walked quickly in silence through the burnt down, gutted buildings on the fringes of the Moon Park barrio. The row of Casa Zion buildings were almost the only ones standing.