After Delores (12 page)

“Stop staring at me all the time, it's boring as hell.”

For one minute I thought she might be serious and I felt so bad I wanted to say “shit” but instead I said, “Charlotte.”

“You want to look at me?” she said. “All right, all right, goddamn it, I'll let you look. Look!” And she sat down next to me and waited.

I could smell her. She was almost rotten. I could hear her breathing and watch her chest puff up and down. I saw dirt in her ears. I saw a neck like a mountain and hands that were dangerous. They were murder weapons. Charlotte could kill me easily. It wouldn't take a thing.

“Let me see your legs,” I said, and she lifted up her skirt. They were chimneys.

“Finished?”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm finished.”

So she became Charlotte again and turned up the house lights.

“There's that strange moment in rehearsal,” she said, “where a good actor tries something new and it looks silly. Then all her moments seem suddenly transparent as though she's just a fake, not an artist. I love when that happens to me because then I have to start all over again.”

Fuck you, Charlotte
, I thought.
This is no goddamn rehearsal. This is true
. But I didn't tell her the truth. I hid it in a statement designed to contain both undying loyalty and bratty insolence.

“Beatriz knows all about you and Marianne. I didn't tell her.”

“What did Marianne say about me?”

She watched me very carefully.

“Marianne told me that she loved you, and she really wanted things to work out. She felt lonely when she couldn't be with you. She told me some things that you like to say.”

“Like what?”

“She told me that you said there was a palm at the end of the mind and it's on fire.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “It's burning. And there's a bird. Its fire-fangled feathers dangle down.”

“What?”

“Its fire-fangled feathers dangle down.”

“Do you know Coco Flores?”

“Who?”

“She said that same thing to me just the other day.”

“It's a famous poem by Wallace Stevens. A lot of people know it. What else did Marianne tell you?”

“She didn't tell me anything else. Charlotte, I don't think I know what you think I know. I just don't think so.”

She was sitting on her knees with her hands folded in her lap, looking like a middle-aged nun. She had knees like the man in the moon. When she knelt before me, they were as large as my face. I could lick them for an hour and still not cross all the mountains. Here's how I would make love with Charlotte. I would dress her up in feathers and have her hold me by the ass, carrying me around the room. I'd squeeze her waist tight with my legs and bury my face into the stone of her neck.

“Beatriz does know about Marianne,” Charlotte said. “I just don't want her to know that Marianne was on junk. That's something Beatriz is not capable of understanding. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I knew Marianne was not on junk.

“Can I trust you?” Charlotte asked, turning her head so fast her hair flew. “No, I don't think so.”

“I'm sorry, Charlotte,” I said, deeply ashamed. “Do you want me to go away?”

As soon as I said it, I remembered that that's exactly what Delores used to say whenever we'd have a little spat. She'd say, “Do you want me to go away?”

And I'd say, “No, Delores. I love you. We're just having a fight. It's no big thing.”

I'd say that because I wanted to be able to persevere with people, to have faith in them. But I was so, so stupid. Thank you, Delores, for showing me how stupid I've been.

“Yes, I want you to go away,” Charlotte said, laughing, as if she could have, just as easily, asked me to stay.

16

ALL THE WAY HOME
, people were asking for money. Some were young, sane, and homeless. Some were boozers, stumbling in speech and movement with swollen lips and gray faces. Some were psychotic and poisoned. I believed every word they said. Each one wanted money from me. When I gave, I was blessed, and when I refused, they cursed me. I stopped giving then, just to see how many curses I could accommodate in one city block.

I didn't want to go home but I didn't know how to find anyone to talk to, so at least at home I could talk to myself. Sometimes on the street, waiting for the light, I'd try to talk to somebody but nobody wanted to except some sleazy guys. I got as far as my front steps when someone called out, expressly for me. I turned around and saw Charlotte, running to catch up. My eyes opened so wide and happy that the night came inside.

Oh God, she knows my name
.

I was breathless and my skin began to burn with joy. She followed me upstairs and didn't mention all the fire around my couch, where we both sat, right on top of the sleeping bag and rolled-up towel.

“You know,” she said, “it's wonderful to have a crush on someone but it can get frustrating when you can't do anything about it. When it's impossible.”

That shamed me into looking down at the floor, and then was embarrassed for that, so looked at the wall instead.

“Do they always know about it?” I mumbled.

“They know,” she said. “They know when you're sitting across a table and you want to kiss their neck. They can always tell.”

“Well, if that's the way it goes,” I said, “then no one's ever had a crush on me because I've never felt a woman kissing my neck across a table if she hasn't already done it in real life.”

Then Charlotte looked at me and I looked at her. She let me look for much too long. She let me look at her huge legs with their beautiful bruises. Then she let me look at the skyscraper that was her neck. And I was so thankful she had taken the time to let me admire her like that.

“In my drawer are two nightgowns,” I said. But I wasn't being sexy. I was being overwhelmed and looking down too much. “One is silky, light green. One is pink and frilly. They're both for summer. I pretend that different women come to sleep in my bed and we wear these nightgowns talking like high school girls and looking at the moon outside the window. After we giggle and snuggle down cozy under the quilt, they run their hands along my bare skin and we sleep so soundly, with our arms around each other, that no dream can disturb us.”

“Do it to me,” she said.

“What? What do you mean?”

She looked like a maniac. She was strange.

“Charlotte? What are you doing? Are you acting?”

“I'm going to do it to you,” she said.

I got so angry, I got so furious. Charlotte knew I couldn't have sex with her, I was too crazy. Besides, she had a girlfriend. I would never take love away from another person. What would be the difference between me and Sunshine if I did that? I could have punched Charlotte, I hated her so much.

“No,” I hissed. My teeth were clenched so tight, my face was somebody else's face.

She slapped me. I was crying. I wanted to kill her. Where was my gun? Charlotte didn't kiss me. She pulled down my pants. She pressed her whole body so I couldn't move and jammed her hand inside me. I was pinned by a rock that was Charlotte. I didn't fight her. I wanted her. Tears and snot were everywhere and her breath was dripping wet all over my chest. Her fingers were huge and pried open the muscle. My body was the only thing left to me and now she was breaking that too.

I heard myself whimpering in a way that makes people despise you. Charlotte pushed and pushed until eventually she pushed me into a feverish clarity. I could see everything. I was burning. I could see that there was so much more pain than I had ever imagined and I didn't have to look for it. Those closest to me would bring it with them.

Charlotte was sweating all over me. When she stood, the couch was wet and sticky and smelled foul. I couldn't sit up. I could feel her scratches, the impression of her grip inside me.

“Charlotte,” I said. “You're just what I deserve.”

But she was already bored.

17

EVER SINCE THE
Rambo incident, Dino had been acting sort of hostile toward me. He smiled like he hated me. He was always saying how good I looked and how I should marry him. Instead of saying “Smile” every morning, he'd started saying, “You sure look healthy, Momma.”

“Let's get married,” he'd say about three times a day.

“I don't want to get married, Dino.”

“Oh, come on, Mrs. Monroe.”

He called me “Mrs. Monroe” because his name was Dino Monroe.

“I need a good wife.”

“Good luck,” I'd say three times a day. “Because a good wife is hard to find.”

Charlotte had left three bruises on the insides of my thighs and she'd scratched my cunt so that it stung every time I pissed. It was hard to walk around that restaurant all day because the welts would rub and then start to bleed.

“What's that between your legs?” Dino finally said.

I had to stop serving the blue plate specials and tell him straight to his face.

“Dino, be polite, man, because I want to like you. Be my friend, okay?”

Then he shut up for a minute but came right back to the marriage rap.

Momma was still doing her routine. But since she was too cheap to replace Rambo, she'd started working the register herself. Only she was practically blind, so she'd ask each customer how much the check was and how big a bill they were paying with. When it came time to go to the bank, she'd roll up the deposit in a paper bag and stick it in her girdle before waddling off. Theat's when we'd eat the corned beef.

One day, who comes into the place but Rambo himself. He was weirder than usual, unsettlingly calm. He had the collar of his jacket turned up and the visor of his baseball cap pulled down and he smoked Lucky Strikes very quietly, staring at the ashtray. None of the crew said anything to him. I had to talk to him, though, because I was his waitress.

So I said, “Coffee?”

And he nodded.

Herbie's is one of those places that rich people think are quaint and the poorest people are always welcomed. Anyone who can scrape together one dollar and sixty cents for the breakfast special will be served. It's not the kind of place that anyone gets thrown out of. Even if they can't pay the check, we just let them leave. That's what dive coffee shops are for. So no one thought to throw Rambo out. He just drank and smoked and thought things over.

“Look at that poor boy. He can't get a job,” Joe whispered in the kitchen. I nodded. Most of the crew couldn't get a good job anywhere else. That's why they were all working at Herbie's. Take Joe, for example. Joe is a great chef and a good guy, but he's from Saint Kitts and he doesn't know how to read, so we have to pretend that he can. I put up all my checks with the orders clearly written, hanging on the line, and Joe stares at them all day long, checking back and forth every once in a while. But all the time I'm whispering, “Chopped sirloin, mashed, and string. Burger well, L and T.”

Joe wouldn't last a minute in a fancier place. They'd get someone who knows how to read. He was right about Rambo. The guy probably couldn't find anything else and had to come in to ask for his job back. Joe bet me a joint. He'd get it too.

After a whole hour, Rambo got up and kind of shuffled to the bathroom. The back of his pants were dirty and stained. I could tell he'd been sleeping out on the street, really falling apart and punishing himself.

Rambo would have to hate himself and give up everything he believed in to crawl back to Herbie's and beg Momma for a job. She looked at him conspicuously over her glasses.

“You look like a bum,” she said, too loud. “I can't take you back looking like a bum.”

That did it. I would have done the same thing in his place at the same moment. I mean, I don't like Rambo, but to turn someone down before they ask, when they're just thinking about asking, takes away their dignity to make the decision to ask by themselves. It was unnecessarily gross. When Rambo blew his cool, he did the weirdest thing. He stared at Momma and then he turned around and jumped behind the counter. He leaped, like they do in basic training, and grabbed a big prep knife. He stood there, in battle, pausing for a moment to remember where he was and then plunged the knife into Dino's arm. There was blood everywhere. The customers started screaming and Rambo started running and Joe rushed over to Dino while Momma called the police. In the middle of this, I stood in the corner of the restaurant and thought,
Why Dino?

Then I realized. It's just too damn hard sometimes to give up on somebody. Momma was his boss, telling him what to do for three years. All that time, Rambo had been phony polite to her every day. He couldn't let go of that. Somewhere inside, he thought he still needed her. That's why Rambo took it out on one of us. On Dino. On someone just like him.