Missing Pieces by Joy Fielding Page A

laugh and a snort, and looked away.
    “I’m sorry, Mom,” I explained. “I met an old friend from high school.”
    “Who she wanted to sleep with, but didn’t,” Jo Lynn said.
    “What?” said my mother.
    “Jo Lynn …”
    “It’s true,” Jo Lynn said, smiling at our mother. “Did she tell you I’m getting married?”
    At our meeting Mrs. Winchell, whose tomato-red suit set off her velvety black skin but clashed with the rest of her predominantly canary-yellow office, made no effort to disguise repeated glances at her watch. She couldn’t stay long, she’d stated before the meeting got underway; we were almost forty minutes late and, regrettably, she had a dinner engagement in Boca.
    Got married. Moved to Boca. Got divorced. Moved to Delray.
    “Perhaps you could tell your daughters your complaints regarding Mr. Ormsby,” Mrs. Winchell began.
    Our mother looked surprised, then confused. Clearly, she had no idea what Mrs. Winchell was talking about.
    “Didn’t you tell me that Mr. Ormsby was harassing you?” Mrs. Winchell prompted. “Fred Ormsby is part of our janitorial staff,” she explained, checking her watch.
    “He’s a lovely man,” our mother added.
    “He hasn’t been calling you at all hours of the night?”
    “Why would he do that?”
    It was Mrs. Winchell’s turn to look confused. “Well, of course, he wouldn’t. He didn’t. I’m just repeating what you told me.”
    “No,” my mother insisted. “Fred Ormsby is a lovely man. He would never do anything like that. You must have misunderstood.”
    “Then there’s no problem?” my sister asked, jumping to her feet.
    “Apparently not.” Mrs. Winchell smiled, obviously relieved the meeting had reached such a surprisingly swiftand satisfactory conclusion. If she had any other concerns, she wasn’t about to get into them now.
    “What did you make of that?” I asked my sister as we rode with our mother in the elevator up to the fourth floor.
    Jo Lynn shrugged. “Mrs. Winchell obviously got her inmates confused.”
    “I don’t trust that woman,” our mother said.
    Jo Lynn laughed. “You just don’t like her because she’s black.”
    “Jo Lynn!” I gasped.
    “Mrs. Winchell is black?” our mother asked.
    “How could she not know the woman is black?” I whispered as we exited the elevator and proceeded along the peach-colored corridor. “Do you think something’s the matter with her eyes?”
    “She just didn’t notice.”
    “How can you not notice something like that?”
    “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s not polite to whisper behind people’s backs?” our mother asked pointedly, stopping in front of the door to her apartment, making no move to open it.
    “What are you waiting for?” Jo Lynn said. “There’s nobody home.”
    My mother reached into her pocket for her keys. She was elegantly dressed in a soft pink skirt and matching sweater set, highlighted by a single strand of pearls. “I was just thinking.”
    “About what?” I asked.
    “About what I’ve done that would make Mrs. Winchell not like me.” Her voice carried the threat of tears.
    “She doesn’t like you because you’re Jewish,” Jo Lynn said.
    “I’m Jewish?” our mother asked.
    “She’s joking, Mom,” I said quickly, glaring at Jo Lynn, feeling like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
    “So was I,” our mother said, smiling mischievously as we stepped into her small one-bedroom apartment. “Where’s your sense of humor, Kate?”
    I left it at the courthouse, I thought, my eyes taking in the room in a single glance. The living area contained a small love seat and matching chair, with a glass coffee table crowded in between, and a standing lamp cramped into one corner. Pictures of me, my daughters, and Jo Lynn covered every available surface, including the windowsill that ran along the far wall, overlooking the parking lot below.
    “It’s like an oven in here. How high do you have the heat?” Jo Lynn moved to the