Georgia On My Mind Read Free

clothes, or anything else they could think of. Nothing was off limits.
    “Morning, Gus.”
    “Hi there, Georgie. How are you today?”
    “Same as yesterday.” Since they had the exact conversation every day, she could have written the script.
    His snow-white hair was combed back off his cherubic face. Even at seventy-six, his blue eyes were still bright and animated. Once he had told her about his proud military service during “the war,” which meant Korea or Vietnam with this crowd, and his long career as a car dealer and entrepreneur.
    “Georgie, I wondered . . .”
    Satisfied with the display of coffee and donuts, she turned to him.
    “I hate to ask because I know you’re inundated with requests.”
    “What’s up, Gus?”
    “Do you think you could call Blue Cross for me today? I can’t hear them on the phone, and I got this notice that says they denied my claim.”
    He was so cute and so sweet, how could she say no? “Of course,” she said with a sigh she knew he couldn’t hear. “I’d be happy to.”
    His face lifted into a relieved smile. He had children somewhere, but from what the others told her, he didn’t see much of them, which was their loss. She heard he played Santa the previous Christmas when the seniors invited their grandchildren to the center. Georgie could picture him pulling it off with his easy charm. She took the denial of payment notice from him, wrote down his date of birth and the social security number she’d learned she would need to gain access to his account, and promised to get back to him before the end of the day.
    “Thank you, honey.” He reached out to squeeze her arm. “Your mother was so proud of you for stepping up for us the way you have.”
    Mortified by her emotional response to the compliment, Georgie mumbled, “Thank you,” and escaped to her office at the end of the hallway before she could embarrass herself by bawling all over poor Gus.
    The morning flew by as she attended to a number of crises, broke up an argument over who was prettier—Angelina Jolie or Farrah Fawcett in her prime—waited on hold for twenty minutes with Blue Cross to find out that Gus had failed to notify his primary care provider that he was seeing an “out of network” doctor for his prostate cancer follow-up—info she could have lived without knowing—and helped the kitchen staff dole out more than one hundred servings of breaded flounder with baby red potatoes and asparagus.
    The smell of fish permeated the center, and Georgie fought off a gag as she went around the common room collecting the used Styrofoam lunch trays into a big garbage bag. On her way past their table, she heard Bad Gus, Gus Richards, telling a filthy joke about a woman, a goat, a bucket, and something else Georgie chose not to stick around to hear. The other old men gathered around him at the table—Walter Brown, Henry Stevens, Bill Bradley, Good Gus, and the oldest of the regulars, Donald Davis—hung on his every word. Their guffaws at the raunchy punch line followed Georgie out the back door to the Dumpster.
    Stinking of flounder and vinegar that had somehow splashed onto her shirt, she wrestled with the top of the big Dumpster but couldn’t get it open. Sweat ran down her face as she gave one last heroic but unsuccessful attempt to get the lid open. Defeated, she slid open the side door and took a step back when the stench of yesterday’s Salisbury steak smacked her in the face.
    Since the garbage bag wouldn’t fit through the smaller opening, she gritted her teeth, reached into it, and, dreaming of Lancôme and Clinique and Donna Karan and Jones New York , she grabbed a handful of smelly Styrofoam and jammed it into the Dumpster. She was on her third handful when the slam of a car door startled her.
    “Hey! What’re you doing? That stuff is recyclable!”
    Georgie whirled around and almost passed out from the shock. Him! Jogger Guy! He wore a crisp dress shirt with pressed khakis and a glare in his