Take a Load Off, Mona Jamborski

by Joanna Franklin Bell

  "I'm sure," I said. "I'm really sorry. You can take all the time you need, if you need a minute…."

  He shakes his head. "No, I'm okay now. Thanks for letting me in." He turns abruptly and starts for the door. I stutter step for a second to try to follow him quickly, to be the polite hostess who can at least see him out, when he stops as abruptly as he started.

  His eyes are on my couch.

  "What is that," he demands, and walks towards my sketchbook that's lying on the couch cushion – the cushion on the far left, not the ones I sit on. My unfinished portrait of Moises watches Moises approach and pick himself up while I close my eyes and receive all the abject mortification from the universe that was just his. We have a way of trading embarrassments.

  He stares at the drawing for a full minute, while I fight off roiling nervous nausea from being caught, before he looks up and meets my eyes.

  "It's good and all, but what the fuck, Mrs. Jamborski?"

  I shrug. We've apparently lost the ground we gained with that first name basis thing.

  "Don't take it personally," I said. "I don't see many new faces here. Or any. So, yours was a new challenge."

  I look at him a minute to make sure he believes me, and doesn't think I am some kind of crazy fat cougar who wants to devour younger men – in my case probably literally, right? – that I've seen on television. Correction: I've seen the previews on television. I would never watch the show. Who wants to see an aging Courteney Cox with her horrifying plastic lippy surgery chase men half her age? I know I'm not the defining expert on what's sexy, but it sure ain't that.

  "I used to draw the celebrities' faces from tv shows," I add, carefully, "because those were the only new faces I could draw. But that got old pretty fast. You don't realize how alike they all look until you try to draw them."

  He looks at me, still expressionless, and I add, "For real. The men and the women. You don't realize how similar George Clooney is to, say, Lady Gaga, even though they seem like total opposites. Once you start to draw them, you find the underlining symmetry that makes their faces considered so beautiful, so … desirable, and it's identical. It's boring. They're all the same."

  "Who painted that," he asks, barely letting me finish, nodding towards my mother's largest watercolor hanging in its gold frame on the wall.

  "My mother."

  "And that," he says, looking at the second one.

  "Also my mother. I have one of my father's in the bedroom. His is a cityscape."

  "So you're, what, drawing portraits of people you don't know, living in a condo with your parents' landscapes of nature? What, you got tired of painting the parking lot from in here, when you decided you couldn't go outside and sit by a stream to paint too?"

  My anger flashes hot.

  "Not that it's any of your business, but my mother painted both of these from right here in this living room. Have you heard of an imagination? Or photographs? I'm real sorry you're miffed by your portrait, Moises, but you know, unless you're a member of the Native American tribe who thinks their souls got stolen when a photo was taken, you really have no right to be offended. Or to insult me. I draw portraits because I like portraits."

  He guffaws, and just like that, the mood changes, as he breaks into a grin.

  "Did you seriously just say miffed? How old are you," Moises says, and his smile wrinkles his cheeks all the way up to his eyes. He's all front teeth. "I'd be pretty miffed if I was an artist and couldn't get outside to paint. That's all I'm saying."

  "Well." I have no idea what to say. "I don't really like to paint. I draw."

  "Whatever. Same difference." He swipes away my comment as inconsequential and puts down my sketchbook. "You know I am not allowed at all to use the customers' bathrooms. It doesn't matter who's sick or what. That's like Food Mart delivery rule number one."

  I nod, waiting for him to continue. He doesn't.

  "Are you … asking me not to tell them?" I venture.

  "Well, yeah. I don't want to lose my job. Highbrow career that it is."

  "I understand that you were having an emergency. I wouldn't tell anyone. But Food Mart doesn't send me satisfaction surveys or anything, you know. They send me … coupons."

  "Right." He guffaws again, his strange single syllable of laughter. It sounds like gyeeh, if I could spell it. Apparently I crack this kid up. "So, is this your parent's condo then? Do you housesit? Are they dead?"

  I am floored at his lack of grace.

  "Yes they are dead," I say, aghast, "is there something else you'd like to know? They were killed in a car crash together, and this was their home. I took it over after the funeral. Five years ago. My mother was Alice and my father was Denny. They had been married for exactly forty-four years. They liked dining out and long walks on the beach. What else?"

  He either misses my point or is baiting me.

  "And you decided to never to leave again? Is it because you miss them? Were they, like, literally the only people in the world who loved you? You must not have any other family."

  I'm officially speechless. Moises has no malice in his voice – he could be reciting the alphabet, for all some observer might know. Is he genuinely curious and just lacks any modicum of a social grace? Or is he being deliberately, casually cruel?

  "How do you know I've never left the apartment?" I counter, to buy time until I re-think this kid.

  "Well, Javier and I did overlap for a little bit before he got canned. So, the lady who won't leave the apartment is kind of something we covered. Just on the side. Not, like, official training. I mean, Javier had no idea I would be taking over his shifts. At the time."

  He has no guile. Zero. He's just talking. He doesn't know how he's laying me bare, here. I relax a little.

  "Gotcha. Yes, Javier did get to know me a little bit, just from coming to my door for a few years. I can imagine he might have … talked about me." I swallow. I really hate this. Moises might be clueless, but for me this is excruciating. How could he be so intuitive the other day, and such an idiot today? "For the record, I certainly have left the apartment. Just not in a while. A long while."

  "I had no idea this was you," he said. "When I started doing his runs, it was just a list of names and addresses I'd never been. I just, uh, you know, figured it out pretty quick once I got here."

  I have no doubt about that.

  He looks to his portrait again and studies it for a minute. "It's actually really good, Mrs. Jam," he says. "Does my hair really do that?" He runs a hand through his tight dark curls. "God. Well, it doesn't matter."

  "Thank you," I say. "If you want to sit still for a couple minutes, I can finish it and give it to you–"

  "No," he declares, emphatically. "Why would I want a portrait of myself. Even my mother wouldn't know what to do with it. No way." He shakes his head, unaware that that he's technically declining a gift and breaking every rule of manners ever created. "Nope. You can do whatever you do with it. I gotta go."

  "All righty then," I reply, mystified. "I hope you feel better, and I'll see you maybe next week."

  "Is there anything you need before I go?" Moises asks suddenly. "Like, since I'm here? That you'd need, uh, a second set of hands for?"

  I give up. I cannot figure him out.

  "I think I'm okay," I say, "right now. But I appreciate you asking."

  "Okay." He nods, which suffices as his goodbye again, and I watch him walk out my door. Right as I am about to take a few steps to close it, he reaches back and closes it himself, behind him. And I'm left looking at my door.

  What does one google to figure that out? I don't even know where to start. Shoot, I realize, I could have asked him to take my mail on his way down. I wait a minute, and then open my door a crack and peek at the floor – my envelope is still there, with its sticky note attached. Well, okay then. I shuffle over to the couch but I don't sit down – I will be spending a good portion of the next few hours in and out of the kitchen, I know, since it's that time of day, so I might as we
ll stay on my feet until my stomach gets its first real fill. I look down at my sketchbook and am surprised. I'd forgotten I'd even started drawing Moises, a few days ago. I got distracted by a couple of Sandra Brown bestsellers and the ever-present Law & Order marathons, and, of course, by a few boxes of easy-bake mozzarella sticks and ranch dipping sauce. The portrait is good. It might be one of my best, in terms of capturing a likeness, but even more than that – Moises' own unusual face is its own art, and my imitation of it lends a studied appreciation of the ways in which he is different, including his hair, which I have drawn curling tightly around his ears, but which was standing almost on end just a moment ago, after Moises ran his hand through it.

  But ah, dammit, I have thought of the kitchen and the food therein, and now I am ensnared. It's time to cook, heat, reheat, boil, broil, pan-fry, microwave, whatever the case may be. I shuffle back through the doorway where the Pine-Sol still hangs in the air, and start looking around. I have several frozen tv dinners of baked ziti, which are just awful – there is no way to cook them without burning the edges, and the portions are so small to render the effort barely worth the result. I will not be buying these again, but I need to eat them soon to make them go away. I have a few bags of microwaveable frozen pretzels, which require water dripped on them to make the salt stick before microwaving. Or, I can melt shredded cheddar cheese on them and dip them in mustard, which renders the salt less of a requirement. I have tubs of ice cream and plenty of Pepperidge Farm cakes, but this is a meal I am looking for, not a dessert … right, stomach?

  Bully, my stomach flings at me, but it shuts up for a minute, sneering quietly.

  I have jars of peanut butter and spoons – no prep required. I can also mix peanut butter with tremendous glops of honey, add enough wheat germ to solidify the batch into something paste-like, add some blueberry syrup and the mini chocolate chips – they must be the minis – and make peanut butter balls. I don't know what that recipe sounds like to a new ear, but for me, this is the best stuff in the world, and not because I used to make it with my mom when I was a kid. It's simply good because it's good.

  Or, skip the part where I roll them into balls, and just eat the paste out of the bowl with a spoon.

  Or my fingers.

  But I don't have chocolate chips. I never have chocolate chips. Because as soon as I have chocolate chips, then I immediately cease to have chocolate chips. They have no staying power in my pantry. There is no such thing as a bag of chocolate chips I am saving for a recipe, or a leftover corner of a bag I didn't need, saved and tied up with a twist tie. Chocolate chips enter my house, and then they disappear. I eat them. That is the equation.

  Can I make peanut butter balls without the chocolate chips? I vividly remember doing such as a kid, and the crushing disappointment of how less special they tasted without. One thing that is not an option is ordering a bag of chocolate chips from Food Mart. I never order single food items – that would be telling. I might as well hang a banner outside my window, announcing to the world what my craving is. Besides, Food Mart won't deliver a less than $50 order. That's recent though. I think that's probably in response to the stoner college students who are like, "Let's order a bagel, man…." And since Moises was just here, I can't very well go online and order chocolate chips, laundry detergent, a loaf of bread, and enough cans of niblets to complete a $50 order. (Yup, done that.)

  I think I am stuck. I'll sprinkle some cocoa powder into the mixture and see what happens.

  Polly-O string cheese. My god, how could I forget. I am so happy I opened the drawer in my fridge. String cheese is to mozzarella sticks as ice cream is to milkshakes. Or Hershey bars are to hot fudge. Or apple cinnamon sorbet is to hot apple pie. Same heaven, different temperature.

  I'll save peanut butter balls for my next trip to the kitchen, or even next week when I make sure I have chocolate chips. I can wait that long, considering neither my stomach nor my brain is real excited about peanut butter balls without the chips. Right now, I have an entire, unopened pack of single-serve, individually wrapped Polly-O string cheeses to take to the couch, which will last through at least one entire episode of absolutely anything that's on television.

  I sit down and open one package at a time, peeling the cheese down, sometimes in skinny thready strips, sometimes in thick ones. Do you know what I don't have, next to my couch, or even anywhere in my living room? A trash can.

  I will not be the person who slowly moves her kitchen into her living room. I will not sit on this couch and have the trash from my last meal withering within arm's reach, or use the coffee table to throw toast in a toaster, plugged in right here, or spread my peanut butter from a jar and a knife I keep beside me. I will not give in and become that slug. Garbage goes in the kitchen. Food stays in the kitchen. Toasters belong in the kitchen. That's another equation. I don't care how hard it is to stand up, I will keep standing up every time I want to fetch more food.

  Food prep belongs in the kitchen. Meals, however, can be eaten right here on the couch. And sometimes in bed. But the trash goes in the kitchen. So do string cheese wrappers. They accumulate on the cushion beside me, but that's a very temporary situation. As soon as I get up to eat again, however long it takes me, I will be bringing them with me to throw away.

  I'm not looking for any kudos for being a neat-nick. I just know, in the darkest, least examined part of my soul, that once I cross that line, there will never be any coming back. I, and my home, will soften and blacken with the fast decay of the dying, with all its requisite smells and bugs and horrors that enter in a swarm once there is so much as a crack. And while I'd volunteer to be first in line if a firing squad showed up in my hallway tomorrow, dying slowly in my own filth is one hundred percent not allowed.

  I'd rather just explode one day.

  In fact, maybe that's the plan.

  Chapter 10

  Three days later, in the evening, as the sun starts to fade and my apartment begins to get dark, I am standing in my living room with two police officers and an ashen Moises, who is holding a rag to his bald white head to staunch the bleeding. I am shaking, in pain, scared to death that I am about to collapse, and humiliated that there are now three people inside my apartment who are not only witnessing me, but witnessing me in a moment of weakness. I cannot lower the blinds and crawl into my bed, I cannot turn on the tv to drown out the world, I cannot even really go sit on the couch, because Moises is on it, and I cannot be in a position where anyone sees me try to stand up again. I cannot.

  As much as I am grateful that they are all here, they all need to leave.

  "Tell me one more time, ma'am," says one of the officers, the younger one with a soul patch on his chin and his hat under his arm. "What time was it when you let him in?"

  God I was so stupid. I did let him in, too. It's entirely my fault. I should have known better, I should have been smarter, but my damn autopilot was pushing the buzzer to let him come right up….

  "It was just about seven," I answer, "or maybe 7:30." I'm feeling something very wrong inside of me. When I fell, I felt like all my organs skidded to the wrong end of my body and got clotheslined by my fat. By the time I got up again, I was too focused on my outrage, my humiliation, and the searing memory of my position on the floor like a Japanese beetle who'd been turned upside down and just ineffectively waves its legs in the air, unable to right itself.

  But there was nothing funny about the fall. Something is wrong inside of me now. The bruises that are blooming purple on my exposed upper arm, which hit the ground under the rest of me, are just on the surface of what else is happening. So is the knot on my cheekbone, which I should be holding the ice pack to, but I am too busy fidgeting with it. Then again, maybe I am just in panic mode, with my head spinning, and my blood pressure all over the place. If I were a normal person, I would be focusing on my victimhood, but being me, the crime feels secondary to the attention I am getting now as a result. I'm being violated all over again. I just want it to end.
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  "And how long was he here, total, do you think?" asks Officer Soul Patch. "It's 8:15 right now, so how long has he been gone? We have cars on the ground who are searching in an expanding grid, which changes every minute longer someone is on the run."

  "I … really don't think he was here for more than five minutes," I said. "And then his tussle with Moises couldn't have been more than a couple minutes. So he's been running a half hour now, I'd say? Or an hour."

  The second officer, older, grey hair, with an impressive Dunkin Donuts paunch, addresses Moises.

  "Can you describe again the car he got into?"

  "A maroon Camaro," says Moises, for at least the third time. "Old. I don't know the year. The same beater he's been driving since I met him." He stands up suddenly and moves away from the couch. "Mrs. Jam, go sit down."

  I shake my head. "I'd rather stand while all this is happening."

  "Don't be stupid. You look like you're going to die. You've been answering questions for twenty minutes. Just sit down." He glares at the cops and takes the rag away from his head, and the sizeable scrape across his scalp starts slowly growing pinpricks of blood again. It's not a deep cut, just a wide shallow scrape, across his new bald head.

  "Please ma'am, have a seat," says Officer Soul Patch, suddenly solicitous. "The EMTs should be here any minute to check your vitals, both of you, so relax for now."

  I don't really have a choice. I hurt. I move to the couch with as much dignity as I can put into each step, trying to actually lift my feet and walk, not shuffle, and I sit heavily into my spot on the couch. I try to control my descent but of course gravity takes over halfway through and I plop right on down as if I have no audience watching me and judging me, and the couch complies by groaning and cracking, as loudly as I have ever heard it, which doesn't make my face flame with a new shade of maroon at all.

  Officer Soul Patch is scribbling on his clipboard, and Officer Dunkin moves around the living room and turns on two of my lamps, which isn't helping. I was clinging to the growing twilight as a sign that soon no one would be able to see me. I cannot believe this has happened. Of all the events I worry about, or dwell on, living here alone, this has never been on my list of nightmares.