“What did you take?” Victoria hollered. “Did she take money? Stealing from her poor, handicapped sisters—bring back what you stole, you thief! We’re calling the police.”
The little woman was already out of the house, climbing the exterior back staircase to their tenant’s bedroom.
If nothing else, age had given her but one gift: she was no longer afraid of her sisters.
She found the girl sitting at her dressing table, still rummaging through her drawers.
“You’re the best!” Josie exclaimed, grabbing the pen.
The little woman thought that the girl would hug her. She almost fainted.
“I still would like to find my pen, though. Could you look for it while I write the letter?” Josie begged. “It’s a Waterman. It was a gift. I think it’s expensive.”
She set to work. The little woman, who had already finished cleaning, continued looking for the lost pen.
“I don’t remember if you spell Russell with one or two “l”s…”
The little woman stopped to think. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the correct spelling was with two “s’s” and two “l’s.” She looked at the girl’s writing. Josie had spelled Russell’s name with an “o” and just one “s”… Would it be all right to correct her? Maybe that was the way he spelled it.
“Did you see your sisters downstairs?” Josie asked halfway through her letter.
The little woman nodded.
“Did they ask you about the rent?’
The little woman shook her head.
“Good.” Josie pursed her lips and continued working.
Ten minutes later, after a couple of discarded drafts, she came up with a version that firmly stated her decision to end her relationship with her boyfriend.
Dear Rosel, the letter read. There is no easy way to say good-bye, but that’s what this letter is, a good-bye letter. We’re through. Please don’t come looking for me and don’t call me. It was fun, but it’s been enough. We are not meant for each other. Why did I fall for you, anyhow? You have the most beautiful eyes, but that can’t anymore win me. I said I loved you, but I lied. I never meant it. Please understand that I need a man that can pay for my whiMs. You are a poor man and I’m a rather whimsical woman. And you’re too old. Let us both be a good memory. I would offer to be your friend but I know it wouldn’t work. So that’s it, ta-ta! I’m no longer your girlfriend. Yours affectionately, Josie.
She traced the dot over the “i” in her name in the shape of a heart and extended the tail of the “e” in a flowery swirl that ended in a little heart with little lines around imitating pulsations.
“I think this will do. Do you think it’s too harsh?’
The little woman shook her head, guessing that that would be the appropriate answer.
Josie put the letter inside an envelope. “It’s for the best,” she sighed. She stared then at the white envelope. Russell lived not too far, in a pad that he shared with his best friend, John Porter, a bass player mulatto, but Josie didn’t know the exact address.
She didn’t have a stamp, either.
“I’ll have to take it myself.”
She pushed the chair back to stand up. As she did, the wooden floor creaked under her weight. Almost immediately, they heard a sharp rapping from downstairs, and the voice of one of the crones yelling: “It’s Friday!”
“You didn’t tell them I was in here—did you?”
The little woman shook her head with horror.
“I’ll pay everything I owe you by Monday. I promise. But today you’ll have to go down and tell your sisters you haven’t seen me. I’ll sneak out. If I’m going to see Richard, I don’t think I will come back till very late.”
That was a game they played often.
As usual, nothing but a silent look of disappointment came from the little woman.
She would tell me if they needed the money that bad, Josie looked at the little woman. Then she looked at her own hands and noticed that she hadn’t had a manicure in weeks. Maybe they don’t. I do.
The long face kept staring at her. What could she do to keep her little landlady happy? Josie got an idea. She took an expensive-looking cream from her vanity table and presented it to the woman.
“For you,” she said, with a grin as big as if she had just presented her with a medal. “Moisturizer. Contains essential oils and other natural ingredients,” she read from the label. “It does marvels for parched skin.”
The little woman remained immobile.
“It’s a present. You work so hard, always cleaning, always doing all sorts of difficult chores for your horrible sisters. Let me give this to you. You deserve it.”
She did work hard, the little woman thought. She woke up at half past four, every morning. By five, she rode her bike down to the market to help the fishmongers clean their booths before the crates of fresh fish arrived. She was back home by seven, to prepare breakfast for her sisters, then out again to be at Dr. Nishimura’s office in Ocean Park by eight-twenty, and left before the first of the doctor’s appointments stepped in at ten.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she cleaned for Mrs. Bell on Park Avenue. Tuesdays and Thursdays, she worked for Ms. Cummings on Altair Place. Saturdays, she cleaned a house on Rialto, and on Sundays her sisters sent her to their parish on Coeur d’Alene to sweep between the benches before mass.
Even Cautious, her dog, had a better life than she did. The little woman bathed him, fed him, and picked up his waste. His only task was to serve as her companion.
“Take it,” Josie insisted.
The little woman wouldn’t. So the girl took her hand and put the jar in her palm. A horror-struck scowl appeared on the little woman’s face. It was the first time in almost thirty years, since her mother’s husband had last slapped her, that anyone touched her.
“It’s a good brand,” Josie giggled. “I wouldn’t put anything cheap on my face. Let me show you.” She took the jar back and removed the lid. “Your face is so dry that it may sting a bit, but it won’t hurt you. It’s refreshing.”
The little woman had started twitching.
“It won’t hurt, I promise. You see?” The girl applied some of the cream on her own face. “It will make you beautiful… Oh, poor you! You look like a little pup on her first visit to the vet. Stop shaking.”
She took a lump of the white cream on her finger and reached to apply it on the little woman’s face. The little woman jumped back before the girl could touch her.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said, putting the lid back. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”
They stared at each other for a second. The expression of horror on the poor woman’s face changed to one of embarrassment.
“Do you want to try it?” Josie asked again.
The little woman nodded. Before she could escape, Josie held the little woman by her chin and started applying the cream to her face.
“Come on. Stop twitching… Don’t you want to be pretty?’
She did. As pretty as the girl was.
“You have to take care of yourself to be pretty.”
She was in love with her. Not sexually, of course, but platonically. She loved the girl the way one can love the singer of one’s favorite song, or the writer of one’s favorite story. She loved her the way we love those whom we admire, the way we love the ones we want to be like; the way poets love their imaginary muses, the way kids love their superheroes, the way a boy loves his kindergarten teacher.
“You will look so pretty, your two mean sisters won’t recognize you. I promise.”
She had watched Josie in her sleep (many times!), lying defenseless, like a nymph resting on a bed of moss by a river bank, then awaken, celebrating morning because the day was sunny. She had seen her dancing like a light-footed fairy in the middle of a rose garden. She had heard her sing—how could that not b
e the voice of a siren? A voice for men to die for, to commit a crime for? She had heard her laugh, and she could have sworn, if she closed her eyes, that what she heard was the laugh of an angel. She had heard her fight with the neighbors, bicker like a drop of water over hot oil, and she could have sworn she had heard a Valkyrie bearing a shield and ready to ride to the afterlife with the bodies of a dozen brave Viking men as trophies. Oh, was she beautiful!
And now—the poor little woman could have not envisioned a bigger pleasure in her wildest dreams—she could feel on her old, wrinkled skin the touch of her delicate fingers, unworthy as she was of being seen, unworthy as she was of being heard or even spat upon, and… It was more than her poor heart could bear! She felt as if her chest was about to explode, as if her heart was about to come out through her mouth, as if she couldn’t get enough oxygen. She felt as if she were dying.
“Are you okay?” Josie asked, seeing that the poor woman’s symptoms didn’t improve but instead worsened, despite all her attempts to calm her. “Do you want some water?’
The little woman nodded.
Josie ran to fill up a glass in the bathroom.
The warm tap water tasted as pure ambrosia to the little woman. She even pronounced a few words: “Thank you,” she said, giving the glass back to Josie. But her voice was so low, Josie could only guess what she had said by the movement of her lips.
“I guess I should go.” Josie remembered her letter. “Russell is never home before six. If I hurry up, I’ll be there before he comes back.” She brushed her hair a couple of times, slipped on a headband, and walked to the door. “If you find my Waterman pen,” she said, with a hand on the doorknob, “please leave it on top of my dressing table.”
And she darted downstairs to the alley.
The little woman waited for a few seconds. Then, she climbed onto Josie’s chair and took a look at herself in the mirror. She inspected her reflection for almost a minute, then shut her eyes in disappointment.
She wasn’t a monster. But the eternal knit of depression on her face caused her to look much uglier and much older than she actually was.
The pad that Russell and his friend John shared was the storefront of an old two-story brick building at the corner of Trolley Way and Mildred Avenue, in what used to be a series of souvenir shops built in the 1920s and was now a collection of rundown apartments.
Josie knocked on the heavy metal door at the entrance. The lower half of the tall windows had been boarded up. The boards were covered with graffiti and advertisements almost a decade old.
She got no response. She knocked again.
“John?” Josie bent her knees and looked through a hole the size of a quarter above the door bolt. “Russell? Is anyone here?” She stuck a finger through the hole and pulled up the latch. “It’s Josie,” she announced as she opened the door. “Can I come in?’
A strong smell of rotten wood, sweat, and tobacco responded. There was no one home.
The girl stepped in.
She pulled the letter out of her pocket. She realized she hadn’t written Russell’s name on the envelope.
If only they could clean, she thought, searching for a pen through a heap of books, empty wine bottles and dirty dishes piled on their breakfast table. She found the stub of a green crayon in the bottom of a fruit bowl. She wrote Russell’s name on the envelope and left it atop the mound.
She gazed at the door. She had to hurry up. Russell or his roommate could be back any minute. But the desolation of the place made her heart shrink a little. The armoire didn’t have a door. Half the windows were broken. A stained sink hanging off the wall full of dirty dishes was all they had for a kitchen. The place was much bigger than hers, closer to the beach, but she wouldn’t want to live there. Hers was ten times more charming. And she didn’t have to share it with a Negro.
Maybe she could clean up a little, she thought. Clear the table, empty the dirty ashtrays. She still had a few minutes. It would make it easier for Russell to find the letter, and if she was to break his heart, the least she could do was to tidy up a little. If she hurried up, she could also do all the dishes. Where could she find a sponge? Soap? Did they ever do the dishes? She had never seen one clean plate in that place.
She finished with the dishes and was now atop a chair struggling to open one of the transom windows to let in some fresh air when she saw Russell coming from across the street. Too late to escape! She jumped off the chair and hid behind an old wooden counter, an original piece of furniture from the time when the place was a candy store and that now served the two men as a cupboard.
Russell entered the room. He was covered in sweat, despite the cool May weather. He looked tired, but his face held the proud expression of a child who had earned a good mark on his first day at school. He took off his hat and dropped an empty courier bag on the floor—he was a mailman. He put out the marijuana butt that he had been smoking and saved it inside his shirt pocket. He cleaned up his nose with the back of his hand and had a gulp from a bottle of cough syrup that he found on the table.
Whether he noticed the changes in his pad or not was unclear. Josie hadn’t performed as good a job as her landlady would have in the same amount of time, merely a brisk cat’s licking, but he did see the letter. He ripped the envelope open and started reading.
Josie crouched lower in her hiding place. She looked towards the back door, wondering if she could escape without him noticing. For a minute, she could hear no other noise but the occasional sound of a car passing outside. Was he still there? Then she heard a deep sigh. Then crying. Softly at first, then louder and louder, until the wail became a painful bray.
It was more that she could bear!
“I was just kidding!” she poked her head out from behind the counter.
“Please don’t leave me!” Russell wailed, falling to his knees, holding his head in both hands. A river of tears and saliva ran down his chin, wetting his shirt. He looked so vulnerable, so sad and pitiful, and yet, so manly, with his jacket from the U.S. Postal Service, his messy hair, and his three-day stubble… What monster could say no to a man with eyes like those? To those lips, to that nose, to those heavy eyelids?
Never had he looked more handsome.
“It was a joke,” Josie said. “You didn’t think it was true, did you?” She forced a giggle. “I thought it would be funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
“It was!’
Russell shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Promise me that you will never leave me. I will kill myself if you leave me. I’ll drink poison!”
“I’ll never leave you,” Josie promised.
9
In which we talk about love
Josie lit up a cigarette, trying to scare off her hunger. The seagulls outside were having a quarrel. She had meant to have dinner with Richard the previous night, not to go to bed on an empty stomach. Make up sex was good, it hurt good, but what she fancied now was a big plate of scrambled eggs and bacon.
Russell slept next to her, with a shirt over his eyes to protect them from the light that came through the window.
Had she gone out with Richard the previous night she could have asked him to take her to Ciro’s or the Mocambo. She had heard wonders of that place. Lobster. Filet mignon. She pushed Russell’s shirt up, uncovering his nose, so he could breathe better. He thanked the gesture, blowing a small peck.
Dinner at Ciro’s could be a good fifteen dollars. That was more than a week’s worth of rent, she reckoned, and because she wouldn’t have paid for it, she could have entered half the amount as an unmade expense in her list of savings. That would have been seven and half dollars that she wouldn’t have spent on food that month, she reckoned, seven and a half dollars that she could have spent instead on perfume or a new pair of shoes or both, she blew out the smoke
peevishly, if she used her employee discount at Sears.
She noticed two moldy spots in the plaster ceiling.
“Shoot,” she complained aloud.
The dark spots reminded her of her landladies’ kitchen, which in turn reminded her that she had promised to pay rent by Monday. She had planned to ask Richard for the money. How on earth was she going to pay now?
Russell lifted up his shirt and winked at Josie. The girl put her cigarette in his mouth. “Good morning,” he mumbled, puffing in.
Josie smiled. The hell with bacon, one gaze from his eyes was worth starvation. She rubbed her feet against his. He was wearing socks. It felt funny. She slid her hand down his neck, all the way to his belly. She squeezed the fat. Rugged and meaty. Russell let out a moan of pleasure. She reached to the side with her other hand. The front was covered in fur, but the flanks were smooth, completely hairless. She bit his shoulder. Russell moaned again. He smelled so good. He looked so good. He tasted so good… Still, Josie couldn’t help but imagine Richard insisting to pay for her rent.
“Let’s go to Disneyland,” she said, all of a sudden. “Don’t go to work today.”
“Okay.”
She put out her cigarette on the floor. “I haven’t been to Disneyland yet.”
“Me neither.”
“You can call in sick. Can’t you?”
“No need to. I’m not going back today,” Russell yawned, stretching his arMs. “Not today or tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday, silly” Josie tittered.
“I quit.”
“What?” Josie sat up with a squeal. “You didn’t tell me last night.”
“I forgot.”
“But you still have your bag—and your uniform!”
“I haven’t told them I quit. I need to return them.”
“But how are you going to pay rent?” Josie cried, horrified. “You need to buy food. You need a job. What are you going to do now?”
“I guess maybe not going Disneyland. Unless you pay—it’s okay, hon. We can go some other time. I’m gonna file for unemployment. And I have gig tonight. I’ll have enough money to buy you a pony.”
Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle Page 12