The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

When they reached the flagstones outside the common room, they both paused for breath. When Dave had his, he said, ‘So what have we learned today, class? That death personified isn’t a skeleton riding on a pale horse with a scythe over his shoulder, but a hot dancehall kid with glitter on his cheeks.’

‘I imagine different people see different avatars,’ Ollie said mildly. ‘According to what I’ve read, the majority see their mothers once they reach death’s door.’

‘Ollie, the majority sees no one. And you’re not in mortal—’

‘My mother, however, died shortly after I was born, so I wouldn’t even recognize her.’

He started for the double doors, but Dave took his arm. ‘I’ll keep the watch until the Halloween party, how’s that? Four months. And I’ll wind it religiously. But if you’re still around then, you take it back. Deal?’

Ollie beamed. ‘Absolutely. Let’s go see how Olga’s doing with La Tour Eiffel, shall we?’

Olga was back at the card table, staring down at the puzzle. It was not a happy stare. ‘I left you the last three pieces, Dave.’ Unhappy or not, she was at least clear on who he was again. ‘But that will still leave four holes. After a week’s work, this is very disappointing.’

‘Shit happens, Olga,’ Dave said, sitting down. He tapped the remaining pieces into place with a satisfaction that went all the way back to rainy days at summer camp. Where, he now realized, the common room had been quite a bit like this. Life was a short shelf that came with bookends.

‘Yes it does,’ she said, contemplating the missing four pieces. ‘It certainly does. But so much shit, Bob. So much.’

‘Olga, I’m Dave.’

She turned her frown on him. ‘That’s what I said.’

No sense arguing, and no sense trying to convince her that nine hundred and ninety-six out of a thousand was a fine score. She’s ten years from a hundred and still thinks she deserves perfection, Dave thought. Some people have remarkably sturdy illusions.

He looked up and saw Ollie emerging from the closet-sized craft center adjacent to the common room. He was holding a sheet of tissue paper and a pen. He made his way to the table and floated the tissue onto the puzzle.

‘Here, here, what are you doing?’ Olga asked.

‘Show some patience for once in your life, dear. You’ll see.’

She stuck out her lower lip like a pouty child. ‘No. I’m going to smoke. If you want to take that damn thing apart, be my guest. Put it back in the box or knock it on the floor. Your choice. It’s no good the way it is.’

She stalked off with as much hauteur as her arthritis would allow. Ollie dropped into her seat with a sigh of relief. ‘That’s much better. Bending’s a bitch these days.’ He traced two of the missing pieces, which happened to be close together, then moved the paper to trace the other two.

Dave watched with interest. ‘Will that work?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Ollie said. ‘There are some cardboard FedEx boxes in the mail room. I’ll filch one of them. Do some cutting and a little drawing. Just don’t let Olga have a tantrum and disassemble the damn thing before I get back.’

‘If you want photos – you know, for matching purposes – I’ll get my iPhone.’

‘Don’t need it.’ Ollie tapped his forehead gravely. ‘Got my camera up here. It’s an old Brownie box instead of a smartphone, but even these days it works pretty well.’

III

Olga was still in a snit when she came back from the loading dock, and she did indeed want to disassemble the not-quite-complete jigsaw, but Dave was able to distract her by waving the cribbage board in her face. They played three games. Dave lost all three, and was skunked in the last. Olga was not always sure who he was, and there were days when she believed she was back in Atlanta, living in an aunt’s boardinghouse, but when it came to cribbage, she never missed a double run or a fifteen-for-two.

She’s also really lucky, Dave thought, not without resentment. Who winds up with twenty points in the goddam crib?

Around quarter past eleven (Fox News had given way to Drew Carey flogging prizes on The Price is Right), Ollie Franklin returned and made his way to the cribbage board. A shave and a neat short-sleeved shirt made him look almost dapper. ‘Hey, Olga. I have something for you, girlfriend.’

‘I’m not your girlfriend,’ Olga said. There was a small, meanly amused glint in her eye. ‘If you ever had a girlfriend, I’ll be dipped in bearshit.’

‘Ingratitude, thy name is woman,’ Ollie said without rancor. ‘Hold out your hand.’ And when she did, he dropped four newly constructed jigsaw pieces into it.

She glared at them suspiciously. ‘What’re these?’

‘The missing pieces.’

‘Missing pieces to what?’

‘The puzzle you and Dave were doing. Remember the puzzle?’

Dave could almost hear the clicking beneath her frizzy cloud of white hair as old relays and corroded memory banks came to life. ‘Of course I do. But these will never fit.’

‘Try them,’ Ollie invited.