The Laundress

by Barbara Sapienza

  She never intended to do laundry for a living; she wanted to teach first graders at the elementary school on Bryant Street where she did her student teaching, where her friend Kinky Montoya teaches third grade now. But everything happened so fast. Soon after Aunt Rose died, Uncle Sal got it into his head to move back to Naples, which meant he wouldn’t be at her graduation. No sooner did she drop him off at SFO than she cut her hair, sold the car, and withdrew from her last semester at San Francisco State. If he didn’t care enough to see her through, why should she care enough to finish? After all, he’s her only family. Sal scooped her away from Naples before she was five, brought her to San Francisco to live with him and Aunt Rose—the jealous stepmother—and now he left without a qualm. What kind of uncle is he to abandon her like that?

  Some part of her knows that Sal loves her. After all, he set her up to be okay, took care of her needs all these years, even redid her studio apartment with her tastes in mind before he left—but it’s just all too much. She seems to lack the resilience needed to be completely on her own, and she’s been grieving ever since he left a year ago. She feels like she’s lost her home, even though she still lives in the same place; she feels like an orphan.

  At first, the laundry soothed her and provided a respite from the gnawing estrangement. She found the circling of the water and the way the stains just wash away to be quite comforting. The fresh smell of the bleach cleanses; the methodical folding straightens; the rhythmic ironing smooths the wrinkles. That it has turned into a steady income still surprises her; that so many clients have come to her through Dr. Brady confounds her. First Nina, followed by George, and now in a year’s time, Mr. Luce.

  The hill is steep, so she watches her feet. Stretching her calves gives her strength. She pushes on toward Russian Hill, telling herself that if she decides to take the job working for Mr. Luce, she’ll combine it with this client, Nina. But that will take some maneuvering. Changing someone’s standing time is never easy, and Nina is particular.

  Lavinia loves seeing how other people arrange their personal things, which wasn’t anything she anticipated about laundering for others before she began. Take Mr. Luce, with his pressed blue linen tablecloth and yellow roses sitting nearby and his many clocks chiming, calling to be noticed. Such a unique blending of choices—blue for his wife and the yellow roses for Margaret. As for the clocks, she’s not certain. Some weird ritual, she guesses.

  She’s pulled away from her thoughts when a trolley heading toward Fisherman’s Wharf screeches nearby. She stops in her own tracks, a bit woozy. Trolleys make her shudder—the way the metallic wheels scrape along the tracks. When she regains her composure, she sees tourists shining their big smiles and calling her to the moment. She waves to them, then takes her next right, up a steep hill.

  She stops in front of a large apartment complex that’s built right into the hill, maximizing the views of the Bay Bridge and Coit Tower. She walks through the complex’s lush garden and looks up toward a large eucalyptus tree, where a flock of green parrots is perched. She seems to have entered the Garden of Eden, and for a minute she feels as though she is Eve, the first woman, stepping into paradise. But then a parrot with a cherry-colored head brings her back to the present with a loud squawk. He must be one of the wild San Francisco parrot population she’s read about—abandoned pets whose numbers have now grown to near three hundred. She feels happy they found their freedom.

  She rings Nina’s doorbell and waits. Nina’s a lawyer who works from home on laundry days until Lavinia gets there. Lavinia has only met her husband, Don, once in the year she has worked for them—a day when Nina was out of town. Remembering how Don stared at her, making her aware of the mole she has on her upper lip, still gives her the creeps. His gaze felt visceral, like metal claws attaching to her birthmark. She scratches at her jaw.

  Lavinia slips her gum back into its small wrapper, knowing Nina wouldn’t approve, and checks her watch. She hears footsteps behind the heavy wooden door, and then Nina appears, neatly coiffed, dressed in a long-sleeved silk blouse and beige slacks.

  “Come in—right on time, too. Let me show you a silk blouse. You’ve got to get rid of these incredible stains on it.”

  Lavinia follows her into the bedroom just opposite the hallway. On the closet door hangs a blue silk blouse with stains that definitely call attention. Lavinia gently grasps one of the spots between her fingers, letting the fabric slide, noting that the spot is a darker blue than the pale fabric.

  “Oil,” she says.

  “Hummus, last night. I’m glad you’re here. It’s my favorite blouse. I bought it in Southeast Asia. I tried dabbing baby powder on it to soak up the grease . . .” She frowns. “Something my mother used to do. But . . .”

  “I have a remedy, you know, so don’t worry. It will be as good as new.” Lavinia swallows hard, not knowing for sure if her small soil stick will do the job, but she wants to sound confident.

  “I feel better already,” Nina says. “And how are you?”

  “I’m doing great. You know, I . . .” She wants to ask Nina if she can change her day to Wednesday to accommodate Mr. Luce, but figures she’ll wait to see if she can get the stain out first. “Oh, never mind, actually. Yes, I’m doing just fine, thank you.”

  “Good to hear. Just the usual today. Sheets, towels, and my personals. Oh, and the new silk pajamas. They’re red.” She raises her eyebrows at their mention and Lavinia nods her understanding that they must be hand washed. “And Don’s clothes are in his special hamper and his shirts are hanging in his closet. Nothing fussy, but he likes the navy blue shirt pressed.”

  “Not to worry.”

  Nina gathers her papers off the desk, showing off long, unpainted fingernails as she snaps her briefcase closed. Once Lavinia hears the door close, she unwraps her gum, sits by the great windows on the indoor patio, and meditates on the view: a crooked street below lined with tourists, the Bay Bridge in the distance, and city streets down below. What would it be like to live in an exquisite apartment like this? she wonders, staring at some tourists who jumped out of their car to walk the crooked street. Could a place like this ever feel like home?

  People like Nina seem to have it all together—silk blouses, travel to Cambodia and Laos, good jobs. She considers what Nina said about Don’s clothes preferences when she left—“Nothing fussy”—implying that Don’s clothes will be simple. Lavinia has found that laundering for men is, in fact, easier. Rarely is hand washing involved, and no consideration of loose colorants running during laundering—as with Nina’s red silk, which must be washed separately and by hand—is necessary.

  But her feelings about Don, after that single meeting, are anything but simple. When he opened the door that day, he nervously swiped his falling bangs from his eyes, straightened out the knot of his navy tie, and just stared at Lavinia’s birthmark—a small, dark mole on her upper lip. Most people are polite enough to move their eyes quickly from that spot as they greet her, but Don lingered there like a sneak thief, stealing something from her.

  Lavinia chews her gum more furiously and fights the urge to snap a bubble to break the tension.

  Maybe laundering men’s clothing is simpler, but are men simpler than women? It certainly seemed simple for Andy, Lavinia’s boyfriend of five years, to leave her. One morning—a year ago, just before Uncle Sal left—she and Andy lay in bed at his place, where they lived together for a year. He casually got out of bed in his underwear, holding his pillow, and left the house. She imagined he dressed first. The note she found in the morning said, “I don’t love you anymore.”

  The previous night, before he left, she’d been sobbing next to him, comforted by his arm stretched across her navel and chest. She was dreading Rose’s impending death, which scared the hell out of her—and, worse, made her feel guilty for their rocky relationship. Sadness had bitten her, and she’d cried until her nose and tears were so full they’d dripped on Andy’s shoulder, slipping down his arm. He’d gotten soak
ed!

  After finding the note, she gathered her stuff in a large black duffel bag and headed back to Sal and Rose’s place, just in time for Rose’s death. Her aunt was dying and she couldn’t stand watching it, but there she was! She closed the door and never looked back, and never once thought it strange that she never tried to get back together with Andy.

  All she can see now is how funny he looked sneaking out in his undies with a pillow under his long arm. She knew in that moment that he was gone. He slipped away as easily as her tears had drained out from her eyes, as easily as Rose died, and as easily as Sal left soon after.

  She watches the wispy clouds above Coit Tower, flowing like a white banner above the city and the bay. The house creaks, prompting her to get to work.

  In the living room, she places her jacket on the silk couch that sits across from a Japanese tansu step chest, which in turn sits next to a small French commode with a trellis motif. Beyond this ornate piece is a regular-looking CD player with a stack of CDs. She places one of Nina and Don’s CDs, an opera, into the player, admiring the polished hardwood floors and the Turkish kilims as she does. The richness of the sounds and the textures of the rugs lift her spirits. Something about the beauty of it all and the way one thing relates to another intrigues her. Who would put Asian furniture next to a classical period piece? This is part of the allure of working in homes.

  The music flows from the tenor’s voice through her, following her into the bathroom, where the his-and-hers hampers wait. As she begins sorting the whites from the darks, she revels in the music. Dramatically and deeply, the tenor sings an Italian aria, “Nessun Dorma.” He’s singing about a princess in a cold room. The Italian words are magically familiar to her ears. “Vincero, vincero, vincero” fills an ache in her soul. When he sings these words, Lavinia sings them out loud, too, while she piles underwear in the center of the bathroom and then loads them into the washer. She adds one cup of eco-bleach to the cold-water wash, then a cup of liquid detergent.

  The aria takes her right through to the beautiful blue blouse and its center stain. She finds the silk stain remover tucked in her jeans pocket and first dabs it lightly into the fabric hem with a soft cloth from the hamper. If it works, she’ll apply it to the actual stain. She watches the material as it sucks the chemical up, spreading and growing in size, responding to the substance.

  Will it dry without leaving a deeper stain? Can one actually get rid of stains? Doubt fills her. She worries, but she dumps the stains of her life—Rose’s putrid death, Sal leaving for Italy, Andy’s escape with his pillow, Don’s disgusting staring, quitting school—together in the cold-water wash and leaves the room with the question hovering. A stain is a stain is a stain, she tells herself as she turns on the taps to run cool water into the double sinks. She rinses the light lingerie in one and then the red pajamas in the other. As she suspected, the pajamas turn the water rosy, then deep pink, and finally red.

  Lavinia checks the soiled blouse and feels a kind of reprieve in finding that her stain remover didn’t leave a watermark on the hem. Feeling safe, she dabs directly onto oil blotches with the magic potion, blotting gently from the center outwards. When the spot is entirely covered she lets it sit to dry. All at once, she feels free to dance across the large living room, and does, pausing for a moment to look at the photo of the couple on the mantle, holding their surfboards, before twirling away.

  The pulse of the music rises up through her feet and ankles and through her thighs into her very core as she glides around the great room. She holds one hand on her tummy, anchoring herself, while she circles the space, dancing toward the master bedroom where the master’s shirts hang on a hook in his closet. As is his habit, he hasn’t dumped them into the hamper but on the floor, so she collects the four shirts, checking the pockets for paper tissues. She never wants paper lint in the wash cycle.

  Her hands stop on a folded piece of paper that looks like origami. She opens it. She tells herself she must read it to see whether it’s something of value to Don. He works in financial services and holds a prominent position with a large firm. Yes, it might be something of importance, she convinces herself.

  As the paper crinkles in her hand, a creepy feeling takes hold. Oh, how she hated the way he stared at her! She can’t imagine how Nina puts up with him. She carefully opens the origami and reads, “Meet me at Velo Rouge on Saturday.”

  Lavinia looks around the room to see if she’s truly alone, somehow feeling his presence. What if he intended for her to find this note? What if it’s for her?

  She dismisses the thought as outlandish. She’s only met the man once, and yet the memory of him causes her to chew her gum more furiously. What an idiot!

  She hides the note in her pocket, trying to decide what she should do with it. In the bathroom, the precious silk pajamas still sit in the blood-red water, waiting for rinsing. The pajamas and the lingerie will be hung separately on the retractable line she’s set up in the shower stall. Lavinia watches the dripping water flow onto the plastic cover she’s placed on the floor.

  She checks the stains on the blue silk. Satisfied they’re gone, she rubs off the white residue of the chemicals, steam irons the blouse with a fabric steamer to refresh the silk, and then places it back on a hanger in Nina’s closet.

  In the other room, she hears the music click to a stop. She surveys her work progress against the time. A second wash? Yes, she will still make it. She returns to the patio to look over the city scene and the wide-open bay. Then she closes her eyes and dreams her recurring dream of the seaside town near the Bay of Naples where she was born and spent the first four years of her life. The Mediterranean caresses the bustling city on its edge. Lavinia gets lost in the labyrinth of the old neighborhood as she remembers herself as a little girl in T-strap shoes playing in the cobblestone streets across from the grotto garden, delighting in the sounds of other children and women. The old ladies scream from their windows for pane, prosciutto, mozzarella di bufala, the groceries to be hauled up to their second- and third-story apartments. Then she hears her mother call, “Lavinia Lavinia, come home now,” coupled with an insistent phrase that pulses through her: “No, Papa, lasciami.”

  This is the place where Lavinia always awakens from her dream, feeling a rumble in her heart as if a mini tornado has flushed through her. To have her mother’s loving voice calling her to come home fade away to a determined insistence—like she is fighting for her life, refusing someone vehemently—is unsettling. Lavinia feels frightened and confused. She reaches her hand out to catch the meaning, but like her bubbles it breaks apart and disappears.

  When the buzzer rings on the dryer, Lavinia moves to the laundry room to fold Don’s whites—the undershirts, the BVDs, the cotton white socks bundles—with those words still on her lips: Leave me alone, I refuse. Somehow with these words in mind, her workload goes easier. The pile stacks up, with the smaller items—face cloths, dish towels, napkins, pillow cases—first, and towels next. She hangs the final wet garments on the expandable line, where she orders the colors from red to orange to yellow to green (noting that most are beige and coffee tones), a rainbow prayer flag to mark the ritual of this ancient practice.

  Lavinia imagines Nina’s happy face at seeing the spot removed from the precious silk until a darker concern clouds over. What might Nina make of the note in Don’s pocket? It occurs to her that no matter what happens, she now holds it in secret. Another stain.

  She starts in with a light pressing of Don’s shirts, her favorite of all her tasks. Ironing the cotton, pressing away the wrinkles of time, hoping the cloud will pass. She loves the ritual of pressing a shirt. She begins with the front side panels, progresses to the back, and then to the sleeves and the cuffs. Finally, the collar. She lays the shirt flat on the ironing board, buttons every other small button from the top to the waist, and then folds it again into thirds lengthwise, incorporating the sleeves as if the shirt is hugging itself.

  But today she doesn’t love the wa
y the sleeves hug. She fights with them. Is it the note that makes her feel heavy and greasy like the blue stain? A burden she can’t put down? Her heart feels tight, like something is pressing in on her. She can’t get a deep catch on her breath. Repulsive feelings toward Don make her want to tie the sleeves together into a knot.

  Aggressively, she pulls the sheets from the bed and puts them in the wash. Then she surveys the apartment, puts it to rest as she found it, before putting on her jacket.

  She picks up the two hundred dollars in twenties and replaces it with a small fig leaf—to change the negative vibes she feels and to commemorate the ritual. She leaves just five minutes short of four hours.

  The route home involves a shortcut down steps that lead her back to North Beach. She wants another coffee to mask the sour taste in her mouth. As she passes Zack Luce’s house, she smiles at the thought of him. He’s a spritely old gentleman.

  But then, before she can help it, other thoughts creep in. What if something happens to him while she’s working in his home? He’s in his eighties, after all. What if she shows up one day to find him lying on the floor—dead or needing help? She breathes deeply to slow down these fears, reminding herself to simply be grateful for the new client. She reminds herself that she cannot control outcomes, and continues on her way.

  “You’re back.”

  “Yeah, those double espressos are killers. I’m about to explode.” Lavinia clutches her heart, waiting for her breath to regulate.

  He looks at her. “You look frazzled, like you’ve had one too many.”

  “My mind’s playing tricks on me. That’s all.”

  “I got it.” He hands her a small cup of dark coffee.

  “Busy?” she says, regaining some stability.

  “Always busy, especially because of the afternoon tiramisu crowd.”