Sam and Raul were wandering around Kaufman’s Department store browsing the men’s section. Raul had invited Sam along to help him update Mr. Rogers’ wardrobe, but Sam was quite fond of the one he already had. Clothed like a sweet grandfather a child would snuggle up with while he read a story, or a kindly uncle who played with puppets.
They had been discussing Sam’s jobless fate between aisles of pleated pants and button-up shirts.
“What do you want to do?” Raul asked while nixing everything he saw as outdated or old-fashioned.
“Little kids don’t need trendy fashion. They want comfort. Safety. Something that says trustworthy.” Sam held up a red zippered cardigan. “What about this one?”
“Red? Isn’t that too bold for a grown man?”
“I don’t know. I think it makes a statement,” Sam said, carrying it to the register despite Raul’s protests.
Raul hadn’t been keen to go shopping, but when the studio stagehand Michael Keaton asked Raul to pick up a couple extra shirts to have on hand, Raul asked Sam to join him. No one said no to the Flying Zookeeni Brother that always kept the production team laughing. A star in the making.
“You didn’t answer me,” Raul reminded Sam.
“About what?”
“What you plan to do.”
“I don’t have an answer.”
“Does that mean you will consider staying in Pittsburgh?”
“I don’t have a job here.”
“But you have me.”
But Sam had never tied herself to a single person, with the exception of her sick father, and she wasn’t confident she should start now. New York had a job, Pittsburgh had Raul.
What if Raul wasn’t enough reason to stay?
Chapter 38
After Sam had forced Raul to purchase the cardinal red cardigan that Raul doubted Mr. Rogers would wear, Raul drove them back to Sam’s house, finding Miss Posey standing on Sam’s doormat in a tizzy.
“What did Fido do now?” Sam groaned as she mounted the porch steps expecting the worst.
“No, it’s not Fido’s antics this time,” she said, her voice warbling. “I… I… I almost died!” she exclaimed, at which point she broke down into tears, pulling tissue after tissue from her sleeve like a magician with a silk scarf. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sam was about to ask her what happened—clearly Miss Posey wanted to tell all about it; why else would she be standing on Sam’s doorstep announcing it to all the neighborhood?—but Miss Posey trembled and sputtered.
“It’s too horrible to put words to,” she said between sobs.
“Would you like for me to make you some tea?” Sam offered.
“Tea? I can’t possibly stomach tea when I’m in such a state. Didn’t you hear me? What would poor Archibald Maverick Emerson Posey the Sixth do without me?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“No, it’s too traumatic to speak of what happened.”
“Okay, I won’t press,” Sam surrendered, nudging past Miss Posey toward her metal screen door.
Miss Posey’s hand flew out and yanked Sam’s arm to stop her, then she spun Sam around to face her.
“If you’re going to insist on being so nebby, Samantha, fine, I’ll tell you.” From there she launched into storytelling mode, which for Miss Posey was every mode. “It was earlier this afternoon, and I was on my way home from the dry cleaner, getting the stain out of my fur coat from when Betty—do you know Betty, who lives four houses down?”
Sam had lost count of all the Bettys in her life, but she nodded nonetheless in order to move the story along.
“Anyway, a couple weeks ago Betty spilled wine on my beautiful fur coat that my late husband—God rest his soul—had bought me for our first anniversary. Would you believe the dry cleaner said it was one of the toughest stains he had ever encountered?”
“Yes, I would.” Sam prodded her, saying, “Now about your near-death experience?”
“I’m trying to tell a story, dear. The details are important.”
