Lucy's Launderette

by Betsy Burke

  I was curious. I pulled in a little closer to Mavis’s table.

  Mavis’s hubby sang first and it wasn’t bad except that he didn’t have the right look. He was string-bean skinny and as bald as a bowling ball. But if you closed your eyes it could almost be Elvis. There was lots of applause.

  The next singer was a very nervous woman with manic-depressive hair and fingers that never stopped twitching. I should explain: it’s hair that’s flattened at the back from hours of lying in bed and counting the little dots in the ceiling during the depressive phases. Dirk had been through a few flat hair phases himself. In a thin nasal soprano, she sang that old Gloria Gaynor hit, “I Will Survive.” I wondered if she would.

  I was looking away when the next person walked on stage. The music started up in the semidarkness. It was familiar, so familiar that a little shudder ran along my spine. In a near-perfect Marti Pellow imitation, the singer launched into “Love Is All Around.” The lights finally came up on him. I squinted into the brightness. The man was tall with reddish-gold hair that came to his shoulders. He wore a denim shirt and jeans and if I hadn’t known better, I would have said it was the man I’d square-danced with at the last FOBIA meeting.

  I said, “Mavis, do you know who that is singing?”

  “That’s one of ours from social services. That young Trelawny fellow. Very nice kid. Smart, too. Always available for an emergency. And doesn’t he have the prettiest voice on him?”

  Sam.

  And could he ever sing, goddammit.

  I was in trouble. A little tiny part of me would now be trying to find a way to get him to croon for me. It was humiliating being a slave to sound but there was a thirteen-year-old groupie in me that just refused to die. When the voice was right, only serious social conditioning kept me from climbing up onto the stage, laying myself at the singer’s feet and clutching onto his ankles so that he couldn’t get away from me.

  My eyes were glued to Sam right to the end of the song. The applause was frenzied. He was quite a favorite with the FOBIA crowd.

  I remembered what I was there for. I said a hurried goodbye to Mavis and ran toward what I thought would be the right door to take me to the backstage area.

  I was in an empty equipment room and although there was no equipment, the walls were still permeated with that old familiar odor of juvenile feet, chalk dust and rubber. I raced through an abandoned locker room and came out into a dark hallway. At the far end was Sam. His hand was on the door’s push bar, but he’d paused, as though he’d forgotten something.

  “Sam?” I called down the hallway. He looked up at me.

  “Who is that?”

  “It’s Lucy Madison.”

  “Lucy.” He looked startled, not quite pleased.

  “They told me at your office that I’d find you here.”

  By then I had closed the gap between us. Sam’s look had improved considerably. He wasn’t the same person I’d seen that day in the launderette. Although he still had a beard it was trimmed a bit. His clothes looked good on him. This was the Sam who’d twirled me round on square-dance night. I was sure of it now. I moved in a little closer to find out if he had that other smell of cinnamon and wood fires. That scent was gone though and in its place was the neutral safe smell of soap and some kind of musky men’s cologne.

  “What is it, Lucy? I’m really sorry but I’m in a bit of a hurry. Walk out to my car with me. I’ve got a group home to look in on.”

  “I wanted you to have these for Dirk’s file. They might be concrete evidence. You know, for the police.” I’d put all the letters in a big envelope along with a separate sheet of paper with my new address and cell phone number.

  “What’s in here?” he asked as I handed him the envelope.

  “Threatening letters.”

  Sam ran a hand over his forehead and through his hair. He looked exasperated. “Yes, okay. I’ll look at all this later, shall I? It’s just that I’m in a bit of a hurry. In fact, I’m already late. I like to touch base with the FOBIA people but there’s only so much a person can do in a day.” We’d already reached his car, a blue Hyundai with a shattered rear window, a dent in the passenger’s door and one windshield wiper askew.

  “I’ll be in touch about this, Lucy.” He had already slid into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.

  “By the way,” I said, “I liked your…”

  But the last word, “singing,” was cut off as Sam called out, “Sorry, Lucy, really gotta go. I’ll be in touch,” and roared out of the parking lot.

  I felt dismal. Why was it that whenever we met in person, we always managed to disappoint each other?

  I called Leo.

  “Miss Piggy! How lovely to hear from your porkiness.”

  “Hi, Leo. How’s it going? How was the Rach Two?”

  “I survived. My left hand cramped a little in the last movement, but apart from that, I was divine. I was fabulous. Martha Argerich, eat your heart out. What are you doing right now?”

  “I’ve got loads to do but I wouldn’t mind taking a break. I’ve got to ask your advice about something,” I said.

  “Let’s be hearty types for an afternoon and take your pork chops and wrinkles for a walk.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, it’s spring. Let’s go somewhere we can see the sap run.”

  “The sap? Anybody I know?” I asked.

  “I hope not,” said Leo. “Unless you’ve started hanging out at the YMCA and not telling me about it.”

  “No, Leo. I’m afraid the sex change operation didn’t take.”

  “Good. What would I do without at least one pouchy-faced porcine fag hag in my life?”

  “You flatter me, Leo.”

  Leo and I met in the afternoon and walked around the sea wall in Stanley Park. Well, I walked while Leo gawked and leered at all the gay men jogging, zooming past and flinging their sweat at us. But Leo seemed to have his eye out for someone in particular.

  It was a beautiful May day. The sun glistened off the ocean. Seagulls screeched and careened across the clear sky. The park was crazy with new growth. But I was anxious, impatient. At the launderette, things had come to a standstill. I wanted everything turned on at once, so until all the components were ready, nothing could happen. The espresso machine was empty and waiting to express, the jukebox was unplugged and silent, the computers were purchased and waiting in Jacques’s office for the go-ahead from me, and the walls were painted and waiting for the art to be hung. Before anything could happen, before everything could be turned on, it had to be perfect.

  “Leo, we need a piano and someone to play from time to time.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “And someone to send aspiring musicians my way. Someone like you. Someone who knows lots of young promising talent that wouldn’t mind the exposure but wouldn’t have to be paid a lot.”

  “What are you up to, Lucy?”

  “We’re opening up this business.”

  “We? Who’s we?”

  “Me and Jeremy’s old girlfriend, Connie.”

  “Connie? But you hate Connie.”

  “No. I don’t. Maybe I thought I hated Connie. I didn’t really know her. I don’t think she really knew herself when it comes down to it. She’s okay. Anyway, it’s sort of a launderette cum art gallery cum coffee-bar cum cyber-joint cum music venue.”

  “Buff. Very buff.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m talking about that man, that GOD who just ran past.”

  “Leo. You’re not listening to me.”

  “Yes, of course I am. I have symphonic hearing. I could listen to you and forty other lardy wenches trashing your best friends simultaneously and tell you what each and every one of you said.”

  “Good. Okay. In this launderette, there’s a small space that would be good for live music. Small ensembles. Jazz or classical. So I figure we need a piano.”

  “What did you have in mind? A Steinway baby perhaps?”

  �
�Not a very good piano but one that sounds okay.”

  “An old upright grand,” said Leo. “You can lease one for next to nothing and they’re playable.”

  “You think?”

  “Sure. I’ll come with you and try it out for sound. All you have to do is pay.”

  “Good. Good. Okay. So now tell me about this guy you’re hoping to accidentally bump into out here, Leo. I haven’t seen you behave like such a dork for quite a long time.”

  “Well…” said Leo, rolling his eyes melodramatically.

  I groaned. “I know that expression. He’s straight, right?”

  “Well…” Leo repeated.

  “And married, right?”

  “Only a little married,” whined Leo.

  “Like being a little pregnant, eh?” And I thought I was a glutton for punishment.

  22

  It was getting close. The official opening of the launderette was almost upon us. Connie and I sat in the rec room eating popcorn and playing channel roulette, but neither of us could pay attention to the TV. We were too excited.

  “Okay,” said Connie. She was wearing tortoise-rimmed glasses that made her look very serious and efficient. When she wasn’t shifting uncomfortably, or clasping the place where the baby just kicked her, she was ticking things off a list with a pencil. “We’ve got Hit and Run Kitchen set up for the sandwiches, croissants, cakes and cookies. I think we should forget about salads.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Just too much limp lettuce left over at the end of the day. If we do some decent vegetarian sandwiches, that oughta be enough. Okay. We do Italian Espresso coffee orders with Marini Food Imports. Milk delivery each morning for the cappuccinos and lattes. The cable guys are coming tomorrow to put in the lines for the computers and your friend Jacques is bringing them and he’s going to do the fiddly stuff…”

  “Programming.”

  “The programming. Tomorrow morning, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Then we got the cartoon tapes and TV set with video for the kids’…”

  “Educational TV…nonstop. So we don’t have to go and change tapes all the time.”

  “Educational TV…for the kids’ corner. Then we got the art. Listen, you’ve gotta get that stuff hung. What about your friend? Cindy?”

  “Candy. I’m still working on her. She’s a special case. And listen, I’m going to ask her if she wants to work the espresso bar. She’s smart. She managed a record store. Right now she’s working for her mother and that can’t be good for anyone.”

  I’d been doing my best with Candy, going round to Boito’s Beauties and pestering her, trying to remind her of who she’d been, the artist she’d been, to reassure her that she had friends whenever she felt scared. I’d assured her that if we saw her pulling out her mascara brush and looking at a dog whimsically, or tearing off her clothes and heading for the ocean, that we’d stop her. She was still afraid of everything but had mentioned she missed painting.

  I said, “She may not be in on the first show but one of these days there may be something.”

  “Okay,” said Connie. “Bob is technical manager. That what we’re calling him? Officially?”

  “Yeah. Any mechanical or electrical problems are his. And he has lots more to worry about now.”

  “Listen, we gotta look carefully at revenues here.”

  “I know it’s not going to be big money….”

  “Well, I’ve had a few ideas,” said Connie.

  “Shoot.”

  “Okay, you’ve got your washer and dryer revenues, your very inflated soap, bleach and softener revenues, your coffee bar, your jukebox, your Internet time. And now how about tapes? You get any half-decent musicians in there you could tape the evenings. But it’s gotta be a free platform. We can’t afford to pay musicians but we can pass a hat. Now the paintings and drawings are going to be for sale, so the launderette gets a commission. I figure thirty percent, and maybe we can put together little books of the artwork whenever there’s a new show. That could be down the line a bit when we can afford it. Keep reminding everyone it’s local. It’s happening here and now. It’s original. You could get people who write to come and read their stuff. Poems and stuff…”

  “Hey, Connie, slow down.”

  “We’ll make it work, Lucy. It’s gonna work. We’ll make ourselves proud. But there’s one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The old name’s gotta go.”

  I felt a little twinge of sadness. “You don’t want Madison’s Coin Wash? But it’s a way to remember Jeremy.”

  “Who’s forgetting him? It’s just not catchy enough. It’s sort of sad and run-down, like a name from the depression years. I had a better name in mind.”

  “What?”

  “Lucy’s Launderette. In pink neon writing with a red heart in the middle, like the decor. The launderette was your idea.”

  “No, I don’t think…”

  Connie cut me off. “Yes. It’s my place and I’ve decided and I’m not going to change my mind. It sounds good. And you’re his granddaughter so it’s still kinda in the family. It’s gotta ring to it. Lucy’s Launderette.”

  Jacques arrived the next morning with two computers. When he saw the launderette he said, “Awesome. This is an amazing place you got here. If I’d known it was going to be like this, I wouldn’t have brought you these hunks of junk.” He pointed to the computers.

  “They look brand-new to me. What’s wrong with them?”

  “They’re about two generations old. A generation lasts about six months. Maybe less these days. But I guess they’ll do for the basics.”

  I let Jacques get to work and began hanging my paintings. I didn’t bother to ask him about Madeline. I didn’t want to depress either of us so early in the day.

  Just before noon, Connie showed up. She was walking like a duck now with the weight of her belly. She stood behind me while I adjusted my canvasses. “Your stuff’s growing on me, Paleface,” she said.

  Jacques looked up from what he was doing, saw Connie and leapt to his feet. “Can I offer you a chair, ma’am?”

  “She’s not ma’am, Jacques. She’s Connie, my boss, the owner of this place.”

  Jacques was staring at her in the most peculiar way. He rushed forward with a chair and said, “Connie, please sit down. I’m getting swollen ankles just looking at you.”

  Connie accepted the chair.

  When lunchtime came around, Jacques stretched and said, “All finished. Now I’m taking you to lunch. And I think Connie and her little passenger should come, too.”

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon when my cell phone beeped at me with my first real caller. I didn’t count all the times Sky had phoned me from the next room just to try it out. I had great expectations now, but they were dashed when I heard the voice.

  “Mom.”

  “Lucy. Brush your hair and put on some makeup. Oh yes, and do put on a bra. You’re going out.” I never went braless these days, but she seemed to think I was still an adolescent trying to sneak out of the house with too much black eye-liner and too little clothing.

  “Mom. What’s the problem?” I’d rarely heard such anxiety in her voice.

  “I’m coming to get you. I’m just finishing my coffee now, then I’ll have a quick visit to the bathroom then I’m getting into the car, that should be in about five minutes, which would get me into town and to Connie’s house within about forty-five minutes, so be ready and waiting on the doorstep.”

  “Where are we going? Mom? Mom…?” But she’d already hung up.

  She was punctual. Forty-five minutes later, I was on the doorstep, wearing a flowing, flowery summer dress. It was another warm, cloudless July day. I toyed with the idea that we might be going somewhere fun, somewhere I’d want to be seen looking nice. Sometimes my mother got urges to take me shopping, to buy me something “decent” and I usually humored her. She was good for those neutral all-purpose items of clothing
, plain black slacks, sweaters, that sort of thing. And she was a great believer in support garments, ever willing to buy me new bras.

  My mother’s Toyota pulled up. She flapped her hand for me to get in. Before the passenger door was even shut she was speeding out into the road. It was going to be one of her white-knuckle specials.

  “What’s this all about, Mom? And slow down, would you? You just cut that guy off.”

  “He was creeping along like a snail. You’ll see where we’re going when we get there.”

  “You can tell me now. I’m over twenty-one. I’m considered an adult by most people.”

  “Horse-frocky. When you’re married with children of your own, you’ll have a better idea of what it means to be an adult. What it means to be responsible. A concept that seems to have escaped a few people.”

  “Where are we going? Can you tell me that much? Because we’re certainly going in the wrong direction for anything fun and townlike.”

  “I suppose I can. We’re going to the airport.”

  “The airport? Who’s leaving?”

  I could picture it, my father with his possessions in a little red-and-white biker kerchief, off to see the world he’d missed seeing because he was so young when his career as a stick-in-the-mud started. Where do over-the-hill, rebel sticks-in-the-mud go when they cut loose? Marakesh? Upper Volta?

  “Motherrrr. Is this about Dad?”

  “Your father? Heavens no. He’ll be fine when he comes back down to earth.”

  “You mean he still hasn’t… Oh, Mom.” I wished it had been about Dad. It was unsettling to think that my father was still a bible-thumping biker, at large. Why couldn’t it be some boring parentlike reaction to a crisis of my father’s. No such luck.

  “The question you should ask,” said my mother, “is who’s arriving.”

  “Who’s arriving then?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “Couldn’t you meet them alone?”

  “I might not be able to manage it.” The way my mother’s jaw was clenched would have been appropriate for in-laws, but she’d never had a mother-in-law and Jeremy was gone. Was it one of her own relatives from back East? Her mother? My maternal grandmother from Hell?