Take a Load Off, Mona Jamborski

by Joanna Franklin Bell

  And the brain starts spinning: spinning with remembered inventory of the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry cabinet. And the stomach starts whining: whining about its inability to wait for a plan. So the brain works harder to come up with the right solution, while the stomach, a spoiled brat of a child, sees the brain is at its mercy, and so it ups its ante and really turns on the tears. The brain, panicked, starts to focus on the fastest meals available, rather than the ones that would be the most pleasing, and the stomach shoots it a look of utter betrayal – don't you love me? The brain surrenders to the plea and the stomach grants the brain a moment of peace to think of a really satisfying gift, but only a moment, because when the brain starts to get creative, the stomach stamps its foot and screams.

  I get to my feet in that way that I do and head to the kitchen. I remind myself that I have a lot of food – I had a double delivery. There is beau coups pasta, sauce, and cakes, plenty of cheese, sweetened almond milk, oatmeal and brown sugar. I have cornbread mixes, eggs (oh how I love eggs, especially scrambled), two loaves of bread in the freezer and a fresh one in the cabinet. I am not going to starve. I have plenty of money, internet access and a telephone, the ability to summon any meal I want to my own door, and a back-up generator should the electricity fail. There is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing to worry about. There is no reason to panic or even fret. I am fine. I will be fed.

  Fucking relax, I order my stomach.

  My stomach doesn't like me, because it can't bully me as well as it can my brain, and it shoots me a sidelong glance and sulks in a corner. But I'm in the kitchen now – I'm in charge. I assemble eggs and Bisquik and almond milk and vanilla extract and an extra couple teaspoons of sugar, set the butter out to soften, and find the pancake syrup on the refrigerator door. Twenty minutes later I have a stack that would make Bob Evans and Jimmy Dean both jealous, and I eat and eat and eat and eat.

  And when I'm done, I feel like I weigh every minute of that 528 pounds.

  Clean-up is a bitch, especially when I've used the griddle. I tried to swear off the griddle, but that would mean swearing off pancakes, and that ain't gonna happen. Washing dishes at the sink is an exercise in arm stretches, because my girth prevents me from standing as close to the water as I would like. Scrubbing the griddle is exhausting, but it doesn't fit in the dishwasher. I try not to use the dishwasher anyway, because loading and unloading it requires bending over and…. You know.

  So one meal at a time, standing at the sink, I carefully scrub my plates or bowls or whatever, my silverware, and any pots or pans or the griddle. It's brutal. I almost think lifting weights would be easier. I take my time, control my breath, let my arms flop to the sides to rest, sudsy drips collecting on my fingertips falling to the tile floor, and then keep going. My back aches horribly, and my feet feel like they will crack right up the middle. Being on a reality show for the morbidly obese might be one thing one day – being on the show for hoarders or those people who refuse to clean – that's quite another. I will not succumb to my body's sluggishness when it comes to basic apartment cleanliness. Call it pride, call it decency – I am so embarrassed by every other facet of myself, I don't have room for any more mortification.

  When one day they find my body here, dead, collapsed on the living room floor, at the very least they will look around and say, "Well, at least she kept a clean apartment."

  I wipe down my counters and clean the stove's burners. I add a little Pine-Sol to the hot soapy water I clean with, and the kitchen smells just like my mom was here. While I am still upright, I go ahead and use the sponge to wipe down the windowsill, the tabletop, and handles of the fridge and freezer. I wipe off the microwave, open it, and scrub the inside as best I can.

  I drench the sponge in the cleanser over and over again, and squeeze it out onto the kitchen floor. Soak it up, squeeze it out, hear it raining down. When the bucket is empty, I drop dish towels on top of the puddles and, holding on to the countertop tightly, I use my feet to rub the towels in little circles over the tiles – this is how I clean my floor. I kick them over to the washing machine in its nook off the kitchen, and let them stay piled on the floor until my next laundry day, when I will retrieve them using the pole of my broom and fling them into the washer, with bleach.

  Bleached dish towels also smell like my mom.

  In fact, they smell like her mom – bleached dish towels is a smell I first associated with my grandparents' house, somewhere between the cookie jar and the Apple Jacks. So I am carrying on a tradition of proud, clean women.

  Or so I can tell myself.

  Chapter 8

  I'm having an uneventful week. Without a grocery delivery scheduled, I feel like I am on a vacation, having packed for everything I will need for a while. I don't have any packages coming – I haven't needed anything lately from Amazon or eBay either. Once a day, I hear the soft knock of my mailman, and rather than trying to hurry to my feet, I stay on the couch and wait until I can see him through my window, crossing the parking lot to his little white mail truck. I reach out and touch the window glass, so grateful for this man and his gentle, unassuming ways. He has what is almost a handlebar moustache, and he looks a little like Super Mario might if Mario hit middle age, wore comfortable shoes, slowed down a bit and switched careers.

  Today, when I eventually retrieve my mail from the hallway, using my toe to guide the envelopes into my living room so I can suffer the machinations of bending over to pick everything up in private, or getting creative using one of those extended reach wands (of which I have several), or a broom handle and the side of my foot, I am surprised to see a handwritten envelope with the name Warrington above the return address. Mr. Warrington? Bruce Warrington, my old neighbor?

  Interesting, and maybe problematic. I feel a bite of unease as I open the envelope and remove a sheet of stationary.

  Dear Ms. Jamborski,

  I trust you remember me as your neighbor from across the hallway, several years ago. I did you the service of removing your garbage for several months, as you also might remember, although you did not acknowledge my efforts at the time. I wonder if you might be inclined to return a favor to me now.

  You might not have known but my wife and I had separated, which is why I was renting a condo, and we have long since reconciled. She has recently become concerned that during our separation, I may have participated in several dalliances, which I most assuredly did not. She seems unable to move past her worries, and I am hoping that you, my closest neighbor at the time, would be able to vouch that you never once saw me, or more to the point, heard me, with another woman in the condo building.

  I am in an awkward position asking you this, and I appreciate your discretion. If you wouldn't mind writing a return letter to this address, 1. identifying yourself, 2. stating our relationship as previous neighbors, and 3. recording any observations you made about my solitary living situation and my lack of guests. I would be in your debt.

  Actually, we could call it even, since I would not actually be in your debt, you having been in mine for a good while, one bursting garbage bag at a time. I feel you owe me this favor and I will be very displeased if I do not secure your cooperation.

  Yours faithfully,

  Bruce B. Warrington

  I read the letter over and over again, one hand clamped over my mouth, my eyebrows climbing higher and higher. I am equal parts amused and pissed, and yet, he's technically right – he did perform a service for me, for which I never thanked him. I certainly would have expressed my gratitude if he had been my neighbor now, but at the time, the escalating shame I was living with permitted no such niceties. My only directive to myself was to hide and stay hidden, and to figure out how to get through each day without ever needing to leave my home again.

  Sure, I had a vicious little smile of satisfaction when I heard him take my garbage sometimes, because of what a prig I thought he was, but really, that was no excuse to have never thanked the man.

  How shall I answer t
his letter, I wonder. What would he do if I ignored it? Is there a veiled threat in that last sentence, or, is that simply how he speaks? I am inclined to believe the latter, having heard him more than once tell his wife over the phone that he was "very displeased," but still, I am wary at the idea that I do not have a choice but to vouch for him.

  And yet, he is not asking me to lie. I can be very truthful if I say I never once saw Mr. Warrington with another human being, not even in the lobby when I was still using it, because any other neighbor who saw him coming beat a quick exit in the other direction to avoid getting caught in a conversation that predictably turned to a boorish recitation of what his new times were for the three mile run, the thirteen mile bike ride, the half mile swim. I learned the term "PR" stands for "personal record," and he was always setting those. Apparently running and biking require as specialized clothing as swimming does, because I saw him more times that I can count in the tight, bright, shiny gear of athletes who need their sweat wicked from their skin by high-tech fabrics and their bodies highly reflective to be visible in headlights on the road.

  We all know about Mr. Warrington's achievements in this building. I can only imagine how much he has continued to achieve now that his marriage is intact and his captive audience of children cheers him on from the sidelines. I wonder if his wife puts down her plaque scraper often enough to attend his triumphant competitions, maybe safety-pinning his race number to the front of his shiny tank top, in her proprietary way.

  Yes, I think I will definitely respond to this request. I do owe him a favor, and I can only imagine what kind of woman his wife is, to be so concerned over her claim to her husband.

  I gather my own stationary from my desk drawer: not the top drawer that contains all my credit cards and all my cash, but one of the side drawers. I have lovely stationary, if I don't say so myself – I designed the floral bouquets in each corner, on a website that allows a user to upload her own images. In this case, my image was a colorful drawing of mine that I had always liked but didn't want to frame, since I felt ostentatious framing my own work. I scanned my drawing in, using that all-in-one printer that I never thought I'd need to use, and boom, I was creating my own stationary. I was able to make even my name look lovely, with a scripty font across the top: "From the desk of Mona Jamborski."

  I have my dad's old ink stamper that is my return address, and I use it to prepare the envelope, addressing it to Mr. and Mrs. Warrington both. I am definitely not going to write directly to the wife.

  I settle on the couch and use my closed laptop as a writing surface.

  To whom it may concern:

  My name is Mona Jamborski and I reside in Unit 303, directly across the hall from Unit 301, in the Warren Condominium Complexes of Cockersville, Maryland. Several years ago, my neighbor in Unit 301 was one Bruce Warrington, who lived alone and was never witnessed by me to have a companion: female, or otherwise.

  I did have the dubious entertainment of overhearing several phone calls, which were almost entirely made to said man's wife, and any other phone call that I may have been unintentionally privy to was regarding Mr. Warrington's efforts in vain to lower his cable bill, dispute his most recent electrical meter readings, and lodge complaints against the volunteers who staff the Greater Baltimore Triathlon Challenge.

  It is my opinion that Mr. Warrington's wife need never worry about another human being, female or otherwise, expressing interest in maintaining a close physical proximity to said man, especially when said man's vocal range exceeds the distance usually encompassed by human hearing, and one can learn all one ever wanted to learn about said man's accomplishments by continuing to keep a distance of at least 500 meters, or by visiting his very public Facebook page where he chronicles his personal accomplishments.

  I would hope that the Warringtons' marriage can remain firmly grounded upon the premise that only one woman on this green earth is invested in Mr. Warrington's attentions, and that woman is Mrs. Warrington.

  Most sincerely,

  Mona Jamborski

  And that should do it. I lick the envelope shut, affix the stamp, and toss my masterpiece onto the coffee table to slide into the hallway later, to be picked up tomorrow by the mailman.

  On second thought, I want to add a quick sticky note. I never have mail for the mailman to pick up – bills are paid online, most of my rare communications are via email, and I would never return any package that is delivered. The very few times I have ever needed to mail a letter, I have given it to Javier to drop in the mailbox in the lobby on his way out, and tipped him extra as thanks. That's a big tip, since I only have ten dollar bills, but it's not like I can go make change. I feel like I should acknowledge the mailman's efforts at my door, especially when tomorrow he will be picking up as well as delivering.

  I take a few minutes to prepare myself for effort, and then I stand up, leaning every ounce of my upper body into my coffee table. The world goes wonky for a second as my vision blurs with sweat dripping in my eyes and my sight dims, as it does, like camera flashes have just popped all around me, until I can focus again once I am standing fully. I take another few minutes to adjust to standing, especially as I had only just sat down, and carefully walk to the desk. I put away the stationary and the ink stamper (since I am here, and I'm all about combining trips) and I retrieve a pad of sticky notes. I jot on the note, standing at my desk, Thanks for picking up today, I appreciate the ability to send a letter. Yours, Mona.

  I'd have liked to have written his name, but I do not know my mailman's name. Shame on me. Then again, how many people know their mailmen's names? I stick the note to the envelope, carefully drop the envelope to the floor by the door, and slide it with my toe just into the hallway, where it is sure to be safe until tomorrow's mail time.

  And wonder of wonders, while I am already standing, my doorbell rings. This is the main condo doorbell, the one visitors must ring to be buzzed in. I only need to take two steps to reach the original intercom button, affixed to the wall, but I also have a remote control that I keep on my coffee table from when the condo redid all its main electrical work. As long as the batteries are fresh, my remote allows me to access the intercom as well as buzz people in. Technology, I tell ya. I almost feel sometimes like the world can be made to accommodate people like me after all.

  I press the button. "Yes?"

  "Mrs. Jamborski, it's Moises from Food Mart." He's out of breath and his voice is rushed. "It's a bit of an emergency but can I come up and use your bathroom?"

  I pause for a second with surprise. "Sure," I find myself answering, pressing the second button to buzz him in, before my brain has even processed what he is asking. No one has used my bathroom other than me, in years. Thank god it's clean. Wow. A surge of relief comes over me like a cold sweat. Thank god it's clean. If this had happened yesterday, I would have shot myself before I'd have let someone in. I'm still struggling with indecision, even though my auto-pilot has already committed to pushing the buttons that let people in. I'm just so taken aback – the idea of someone in my apartment. That's a violation of privacy that I never, ever, ever intended to compromise. That's not allowed in my new life. That's not on my agenda today, or this year. That's …

  … a hurried knock at my door.

  I open it and see Moises who is grey. His face is the color of the limestone this building's exterior is built from: a dead chalk grey. There is a sheen of sweat under his eyes, and he's gripping my door jamb so hard he's trembling.

  "Sorry –" he chokes out, and then he's past me, half skipping and half running, down the hall to the bathroom.

  Thank god it's clean. I cannot yet appreciate whatever his distress it – I am too concerned at the moment with the near-miss that this situation could have been on my end. I walk to the kitchen and turn on the water, deciding to wash my sink, since I don't know how to handle myself right now, and Moises obviously needs an amount of privacy as well. My sink isn't dirty, but there's no such thing as too clean, so I go ahead and
let the water run hot, adding a few drops of dish detergent, and a few drops of Pine-Sol. I swirl everything around together and use the sponge to wash inside the drain, to wipe down the faucet, to scrub the sink edges where crumbs get caught between the seams and the counter. I move slowly, killing as much time as possible, until I hear Moises' heavy footfalls come back down the hallway. I don't know if it's the bum knee or what, but as small as this kid's frame is, he's got the clunkiest feet.

  "Thank you," he says, looking at the cabinets to my left. "I'm, uh, sick sometimes, and it hasn't happened before while I was working."

  I don't answer right away, trying to figure out what the right thing is to say that doesn't embarrass him further. He looks like I do when I am wishing for a quick smite from the heavens to end my mortification. He takes my silence as a demand for more explanation, which I wish I could spare him, because he continues, still watching my cabinets, "I, uh, knew you'd be home, out of everyone, of course, and I was coming from the building next door. I couldn't wait until I got back to the store. I have, uh, ulcerative colitis."

  I snicker, out loud unfortunately, and he looks at me bewildered. Out of everyone, he knew I'd be home. Well of course. Who'd have thought I could be reliable for someone else, here at home?

  Chapter 9

  "Oh god," I say, and I cover my mouth with my hand for a second. "I'm so sorry, I'm not laughing at you at all. I'm so sorry you're sick. I was laughing at.…" I don't know how to delicately explain why his rationale was so funny to me, so I don't. "You look much better now. You were pretty grey when you were at the door."

  "It can be very painful," Moises says in his flat way, not emphasizing his words or his emotional injury that I know I've inflicted, but his heavy eyebrows are drawn together more than usual.