Page 15 of A Spot of Tea
Eliza sighed and set her teacup down. “When she interviewed me, all she said was, ‘Tell me about your day.’ I said, ‘My day?’ And she said ‘yeah.’ So I did, starting from when my alarm went off, how I brushed my teeth and skipped breakfast, how I rushed to the bank, and how I thought about stopping at the coffee shop but I didn’t –”
Joey laughed. “She thought you were stalling? Or obfuscating somehow?”
Was that even a word? Eliza had never heard it said out loud, so she said, “I guess.”
“I mean it.” He stared at her, a pen poised in his hand. “No detail is too small.”
She had to look away from him. That dimple. That stare. He was too much. “I’ll start with getting to the bank. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed the pickup truck right away, because it was parked on the sidewalk blocking the ATM.”
He nodded, writing on his notepad.
“It was a white Toyota Tacoma, at least ten years old, with Goodyear tires. The license plate started with MAC, I don’t remember the numbers, though.”
“M-A-C,” he repeated.
“The back was loaded with stuff and a cover was partially pulled away. The robber was pulling things out. I heard him grunting and came over to help.”
“Was he in the wheelchair at this point?”
“Yeah. I know it was dumb to not think how odd it was for someone to drive a truck, get out, and get into a wheelchair.” She stole a glance at him. It was one of the many things she’d been ridiculed for online – not recognizing that the robber didn’t need a wheelchair.
“He might’ve just needed it for mobility,” Joey said. “Don’t let people’s comments get to you. They weren’t there.”
She breathed, releasing the tension in her shoulders. “That’s true.” Eliza leaned in, her speech picking up speed. “The wheelchair was that blue pleather material, like the kind you see in hospitals. There were stickers on the back, and I was staring at them before he turned around. One was for Harbor Coffee – they’re in town. Another was a sticker from Olympia National Park. There were two stickers from Orcas Island, and one from this souvenir shop in town called Whale Gifts. The left armrest of the wheelchair was broken, but the right handle was normal.”
Joey furiously scribbled everything she’d said, drawing a big star next to the word wheelchair.
Eliza waited for him to stop writing before continuing. “The guy had a brown wool cowboy hat with a pink-and-gold band around it, and a tassel with gold thread at the end. I thought it looked like a lady’s hat. A little small on him, too. Most of his face was covered by a blue surgical mask, but his beard was sticking out from underneath.” She paused. “Thinking about it, it was probably a fake beard, because it was really dark and a different color than his hair, and the texture was just weird. Stiff. Plastic-y.”
“Interesting.”
“There was a tuft of his hair sticking out from the hat. That was a light brown, kind of like your hair, but the beard was black.” She thought for a moment. “Yeah, the beard was fake. He had pretty eyes. It was sunny, and I could really see them – dark green, with flecks of brown and blue, with gold around the pupil. His skin was pale, kind of like mine, but with a cooler tone than mine.”
“Cooler tone,” he mumbled, then looked up. “How old was he?”
“It’s hard to say. I would guess anywhere from thirty to fifty.”
Joey nodded, adding this to a page titled “Suspect.”
“He was wearing a black leather jacket, really loose, with a red-trimmed zipper and golden buttons. He had blue jeans – Levi’s. I saw them when he stood up. He didn’t have a wallet in his back pocket or anything. Oh – I guess you can see what he was wearing in the video.”
“It’s still good to know.”
“The jacket was too big for him. It made him look overweight, but I don’t think he is overweight. When he stood up, he was tall – definitely taller than me, about your height.”
Joey leaned back and looked at her. “Wow. You remember a lot of detail about this guy. Do you have a photographic memory or something?”
Eliza shook her head. “Not exactly. There’s no such thing as a photographic memory. I have a good memory, but…”
She stopped herself. There was no need for him to know about her boring self. Before she’d realized how good her memory was, she thought she was smart. Then she’d gotten to college and met actual smart people.
That was the story of her life. The shame of being smart, but never smart enough.
“This is amazing.” Joey scanned the page before flipping to a blank one. “Is there anything else you remember?”
Eliza described his cowboy boots and the curve of his nose. She talked about his coat, the smell coming off him – mint gum and cheap aftershave. She described everything he was wearing down to the mud on his left boot.
“What did he sound like when he was talking to you?” Joey asked.
