A Woman Apart - Part 1

The cat would not let me near my toothbrush.  He stared at me with a fierce gaze, daring me to reach past him.  As if I was going to try that maneuver again. I was holding a wad of wet toilet paper to my wrist where the beast had already slashed me.  I strategized.  Maybe if I flushed the toilet, he’d be scared away.   He was big beast, with long, dark gray  hair, that Christine regularly combed through tenderly so he wouldn’t be matted.  Maybe I could shoo him away with the toilet plunger.  His lids lowered and his hair raised up as if he could tell what I was thinking.  Maybe I could ask Kristen to call him away.  A low growl came from deep in his throat.  Maybe I could just have my cavities filled later.  I backed out of the bathroom and headed up to bed.

I was staying in small portion of the attic, not much larger than an exaggerated closet.  I had my foam pad I’d purchased at Fred Meyer for $15.00 to sleep on, and had a few blankets.  I kept a few boxes of clothes in the room, but most of my things were in the back of my dirty Plymouth truck parked in front of the conservative suburban house in which I was now staying.  The truck still had Indiana plates on it.  I couldn’t afford to get the truck registered in Texas, and really, I wasn’t sure I was going to stay here anyway.

I curled up in the corner of my closet and looked through the most recent letter from my sister, Leah.  She wrote about how stupid everyone in middle school was.  How she had borrowed a sophomore physics book and was reading it cover to cover.  She was trying to figure out how to skip high school and go straight to college.  She was raising a jar of black widows out in the barn.  She wished she had someone to talk to.  When was I going to get my own phone?

I set the letter down and felt the familiar pang loneliness.  I didn’t miss my family’s home, since it wasn’t really mine.  They’d moved there after I left the house, but I missed my sisters and my brother.  Missed Leah’s devastatingly sarcastic wit, usually leveled at our stepdad, who rarely understood the thinly veiled insults.  Missed Tanya’s early morning attempts at breakfast, resulting in watery eggs, blackened toast, and untrustworthy bacon.  Missed Ila’s newest redecoration of her bedroom, now splattered in black and red paint, now done in a lavender harlequin pattern.  Missed Adrian’s incessant talk about the University of Oregon Ducks, and how he couldn’t wait to get graduated and get of the house.

I wondered if I should tell him to slow down.  I was out of the house, but it didn’t seem to be working out so great right now.  I wasn’t just a third wheel in this Texas household, I was the 7^th.  I still recalled how thin Christine’s lips became when Charlene told her that I would be staying.  Charlene and I were sitting on the couch, across from Christine, who held baby Judah in one hand.  Little Christine sat on the floor next to her, putting together a puzzle of a Disney princess.

“Naomi actually has a degree in English and a degree in Philosophy!  She’ll be a great help with Charlene’s schooling.”

“I don’t need any help with Christine’s schooling,” snapped the larger Christine, who seemed even larger to me now.  “She’s learning just fine. I’ve been doing this for eight years, you know.”

“I didn’t mean she wasn’t learning,” Charlene said in a placating tone.  I suddenly had the sense they’d had this conversation before.  A hundred times.  Over different subjects, but the same conversation.  “I just meant she could be helpful.”

I felt like I should say something, but they didn’t seem to be talking to me.

“Of course, I’m sure she could be helpful,” said Christine shortly.  She had a furrow in her forehead that deepened, just under a ringlet of hair that escaped her barrette that held the rest of her flowing curls back tidily.  “I just don’t know how much room you think we have around here.  You’re staying in my project room already.”

The fact that I was a surprise to Christine was very much a surprise to me.  Charlene had told me this was all arranged.   That Christine was happy for the help and was looking forward to having me stay in the house as long as I needed to before I found a job and my own place. I really didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I’d just driven three days from Indiana, nearly losing my kitten, Simon, in Houston just yesterday, and was now in Austin, exhausted and at the mercy of this angry woman who was clearly unprepared for even her mother, let alone me. 

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” I said.  “I could . . .” I trailed off.

“It’s fine,” both women said at the same time. 

“I guess we’ll just figure it out,” said Christine. 

            “It’s never a bad thing to have another strong female role model for the girls,” stated Charlene.  “Especially in our society which is inundated with images like Disney princesses.”

            There was a brief frozen moment, while Charlene looked out the window and Christine and I looked at little Christine’s Disney puzzle.  Christine then sharply plopped Baby Judah on a blanket on the floor and stormed into the kitchen. 

Baby Judah reached out to me and said “Boof!” and laughed happily.  I smiled at him. 

I heard a great banging of pots and pans from the kitchen.  “Don’t worry about her,” said Charlene with her usual determined smile. “She’ll adjust.  She’s adaptable.”

I tried to make myself useful.  I pushed Charlene’s granddaughters on the swings.  Little Christine was eight years old and beautiful, like her mother.  Long, curly hair, very tall, and gave me sharp orders from her swing.  “Higher!”  “Swing me higher!”  “Stop!  Not so high, you’re scaring me!”  I saw mother Christine looking from the kitchen window where she was creating a five seed Indian curry dish with fresh herbs from the garden. 

Little Minnie was all heart. Soft, sweet, prone to tears when Christine said something sharp to her.  She had soft brown eyes, and was happy to have an additional adult around for cuddling.  She picked dandelions from the backyard and brought them to me.  Christine home-schooled both the children, staying up late into the evening creating lessons for them that would provide a strong foundation in all subjects, and also would develop auditory and kinesthetic learning methods as well as reading, and writing.  Christine would frequently have large bags under her eyes.

But the one I loved the most here was Judah.  Judah was eight months old.  He cupped my face in his hands when I held his chubby body and said, “Omi,” which was a valiant attempt at my name.  I held him on my hip as I pushed Minnie on the swings in their wooded backyard, and Charlene climbed trees and chattered to herself.  These were the times I felt the most comfortable. The most at home.  The most loved.

Every evening, I spent time with Charlene, in her room, which was still home to Christine’s sewing machine and half a dozen projects that she had left undone, since she now had a permanent guest in sewing room.  Charlene had moved aside the stacks of McCalls patterns for little girls’ dresses.  Little Christine and Minnie usually always wore home made dresses in matching floral patterns. Flimsy brown pattern paper was still pinned to a fabric of pink ice cream cones, and was moved to a corner with several patterns for baby boy outfits that were clearly too small now for any baby boy in this household. 

I brought my kitten, Simon, to visit, and he would bat at Charlene’s cat, Sophie, who blinked at him with clear blue eyes. 

“You know,” she said, as she stroked Simon’s orange fur.  “You have to purr your cats for at least 20 minutes a day,” She broke off a chunk of McDonalds hamburger and fed it to Simon who gulped it down eagerly.  She had given me $2.00 to purchase the burger and sneak it back in the house.  Christine wouldn’t approve of McDonalds, even if we were just feeding the cats.   I suspected the $2.00 had come from Christine’s purse, but I didn’t say anything.  I didn’t have $2.00. 

“Cats need at least 20 minutes a day of purring,” she continued. 

“I suspect Sophie gets quite a bit more than that,” I responded, as Sophie climbed into Charlene’s lap and nosed at the cheeseburger.  

Charlene had acquired her purebred Persian cat during out road trip to New York City.  We spent a few hours visiting with one of Charlene’s friends, who was looking for a new home for Sophie.  Sophie had a heart condition, and needed to handled delicately.  Charlene fell in love with her, and talked to her in a gentle singsong voice the whole 20 hours back home. 

Sophie actually reminded me of Charlene, who had long, striking, light grey hair, and carried herself regally.  She wore mismatched clothing, and funny hats – berets, bowlers, even a top hat.  She was in her late fifties, and had sparkling blue eyes that looked out at the world expecting it to amuse and delight her, and it did.  She also expected it to conform to her wishes.  And it did.  If there were such a thing as wizards in our time, in our world, I believed Charlene would be one.  She was wickedly intelligent, making a mockery of the dull-witted, she was creative, and full of life. She was demanding and terrifying.  It was no wonder Christine resented her presence.  She was a force to be reckoned with.  I was enthralled with her.  I’d moved here because of her.  And because I didn’t have anything better to do.  So, in the evenings, we petted our cats and talked about the novel Charlene was writing, and I read her the poetry I’d written, and we talked about what we wanted to do with our futures.  Charlene wanted to publish her book, buy an RV, and drive until she felt like stopping, then stop for a while, and write another book.  She did not want to ever have to telemarket again, and did not plan to stoop so low now, and was not looking for a job.  She and I had met at Dialamerica Marketing, where we both sold Timelife books.  As I droned on about the benefits of TimeLife books into the phone, I could hear Charlene from across the room, laughing wildly with her customer, and then ringing the bell to indicate she’d made another sale.  Kathleeen did not want to live a boring life. 

I also did not want to live a boring life, so I just stayed with Charlene.  I briefly dated her youngest son, Byron, who she named after the poet.  Byron was sweet and full of heart, like little Minnie.  His soft brown eyes were full of kindness when I ran my hands through his wavy dark hair.  He played jazz music, and when we drove him to New York City and Charlene went home without him, but with Sophie, we left him to pursue his dreams of following his music career.  Charlene didn’t mention my relationship with Byron, but I suspected she was glad when his choices took him way from me.  I cried when we said goodbye, although I didn’t realize then how much I would miss him.  He gave Charlene a softer edge.  His selflessness and gentleness softened the women of his family.  Made them less terrifying.  Without him, I struggled to find that softness and struggled to keep myself safe from the venom that could fly from these women at a moment’s notice. 

But even without Byron, I was drawn to Charlene’s wildness and I followed her to Austin, where I now tried to make myself appear at least half as creative, talented and intelligent as any of the members of this family, and failing that, I tried to be helpful around the house, and failing that, I tried to be invisible.

Audition - Part 2

During my next shift at the bookstore, in between selling John Irving books, I scribbled down the number listed in the want ads and shoved it into my pants pocket.  I thought about the number in my pocket as I sat ripping covers off the “mass market” romance and western novels with Michael.  There was something satisfying about ripping off the covers.  Busty women with flowing dresses falling off of their white shoulders being bent over backward by a swarthy long haired man, with a sword at his side.  Rip, and the cover was added to a stack of others in a box, and the pulp fiction flew into another much larger box overflowing with cheap print.  Although the job kept Michael from scowling at customers, just being surrounded by so much bad writing seemed to aggravate him even more.  Michael’s real love was loud, raucous music, and he wrote regular reviews for several music related ‘zines.  He despised mediocrity.  I never read any of this crap either, but there we were, both of us with bachelor’s degrees, literally surrounded by crap fiction. 

It was break time for Kevin, as we could hear by the rhythmic tapping of his drumsticks.  He kept them nearby at all times, and would regularly beat out a rhythm whenever he had a chance.  We once caravanned to Galveston together for a weekend with friends.  He drove behind me and each time during the three hour drive I looked into the rearview mirror, he was tapping out rhythms with his drumsticks on the steering wheel.  I wasn’t sure how he actually drove the car. 

            “Michael,” I said, as I ripped the cover of a Western off.  The sunset and horse joined the busty women in the ripped covers box.  “Have you ever known any dancers?  I mean, you know, stripper dancers?”

            Michael stopped for a minute and pushed his glasses back up on his face.  “I was friends with a girl for a while who did that.  And Shanda, from The Blaxx, used to be a stripper before The Blaxx made it big and so now she doesn’t need to anymore.”

            “Is it good money, do you think?” 

            “I guess so.  Seriously,” he said, holding up a true crime book titled All the Wilted Flowers, “who reads this fucking shit?”  He ripped the cover off violently and slammed the book into the pile of paperbacks.  “I hate this goddamned job, sometimes.” 

            Kevin’s tapping had stopped.  I heard him negotiating with a creditor on the break phone.  His creditors were always calling him at work.  I wondered how much money the author of All the Wilted Flowers made on that book.

            That night, I sat on my apartment floor next to the phone, looking at the number I’d scribbled down.  I could hear Mary, Blake, Cat and Brad down below me, drinking Miekey’s.  It was hot in the apartment, since I didn’t have air conditioning.  I was in shorts and a half shirt.  My cat, Simon, came over and rubbed against my leg. I picked up the phone and dialed.

            On the third ring, someone picked up.  “Devil’s Cave,” said a man’s voice.  I heard voices in the background.  I tried to sound confident.  Like they would be freaking lucky to get such a sexy thing as I. Simon tried to curl into my lap, and I shoved him off.

            “Hi, I was calling about the ad in the paper for dancers.”

            “Oh great,” said the man, who didn’t sound like I thought he would.  I had expected an old voice, gritty and slimy.  This voice was young, and seemed to be in a pretty good mood.  “Do you have any experience?”

            A tricky question right off the bat.  “I have 4 years of experience in dance,” I replied, “but I’ve never danced in a club.”  Suddenly, I felt like I was applying for a college scholarship.  It was all about selling myself.  “But,” I went on, “I have lots of experience performing in front of people.”  I was really sweating now.  I pushed my sweaty hair back from my forehead and I felt I trickle of sweat roll down between my breasts. 

            “How old are you?” replied the man, and I heard someone in the background whoop loudly.

            “Twenty-three”.

            “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being good, how would you rate your body?”

            There was an interview question I’d never heard before.  An image of my naked body flashed in my mind.  110 pounds, skinny, knobby knees, pale skin that never tanned, even in Texas weather, small breasts.  “Eight and a half” I heard myself say in a confident tone.  I was nothing if not competitive.

            “Well,” said the man.  “Why don’t you come down here and audition for us.  Can you come Friday night?  8:30?”

            “Sure,” I said, feeling triumphant and terrified.  Friday night was two nights from now.  “Where are you located?”

            He gave me directions and told me to park next to the green dumpster in the back.  “And,” he said, “wear lingerie.”

            “Um, okay”.

            I hung up the phone and my hands were shaking.  I had an audition.  Or something.  I had one piece of lingerie, which no one had ever seen before.  It was a one piece baby doll shift of red lace.  It would have to work.  I couldn’t afford anything else.  I went to the cardboard box that held my pajamas and underwear.  The box said “Penguin Publishing” on it.  I dug out my red lace and looked at it.  Then I stripped off my clothes, emptied the milk crate that held my shirts, turned it upside-down and stood on it in the bathroom, so I could look at myself in the bathroom mirror.  If I stood on the crate, I could see my head and most of my torso.  It felt good to take off my sweaty shirt.  I leaned forward and looked at my face critically.  I had a small mole on the side of my nose, but with makeup no one would notice.  The Texas sun had brought my freckles out, but they were just a small smattering, and I thought they looked okay.  I let my red hair down.  It was long and fell down over my back and shoulders.  Definitely a high point.  I heard Mary laughing downstairs.  I was wearing my glasses.  I took them off and I couldn’t see, so I put them back on.  But behind them, my eyes were a pale blue, although sometimes they were more green.  They were okay, I guessed.  I licked my lips.  Sexy enough.  I looked down at my breasts and upper body.  Arms were decent, although I wished I had more arm muscles.  I’d never been overweight, and certainly wasn’t now, since none of us ate very much.  We mainly drank beer and Crown Royal and smoked cigarettes.  My breasts were small. They’d be okay if they weren’t so small.  I figured that was a drawback, but what the hell.  Really, I was pretty hot and I decided eight and a half was an exaggeration, but not by that much.   I pulled my sweaty half shirt back on, poured Simon another bowl of water, took my cigarettes and a beer from the fridge, and went downstairs.

            Brad was really drunk tonight.  A pile of empty Mickey’s was next to his lawnchair.  Mary handed him another cigarette from her pack, lighting it for him.  He leaned over to reach it, and nearly toppled from his chair.  I figured Mary had bought him the beers.  Brad never had any money. 

I’d never even been in a strip club.  I had a general idea of what went on from watching TV shows, or hearing about it, but I hadn’t actually seen it for myself.  I didn’t know what part of town Devil’s Cave was in, but I figured I’d find it somehow.  I guessed I’d just stand around in my lingerie and they’d decide if they wanted to hire me or not.  I thought about saying something to Mary about my audition, but then Blake jumped up and howled again, then slammed his fist into the side of the apartment, so the moment passed.  Part of me didn’t want to hear what they’d say.  Which was probably that this was a stupid idea.  I’d tell them after I’d been dancing for a while and was making a ton of money.  

            The next day I started getting nervous.  As I rang up the now discounted Son of a Circus books, I felt a nagging fear that it might not be a good idea to drive to a strip club by myself in an unknown part of town wearing lingerie.  I rang up a self help book titled, Loving and Leaving Myself:  A Guide for the Lost.  I wished I had a gun.  My stepfather had tried to give me one once, but since I didn’t know how to use it, I refused.  This was a great excuse for him to force me to endure a shooting lesson, but this only reinforced my ineptitude with firearms, as I couldn’t hit any of the cans he’d put out for me, and the kickback from the rifle had given me a monstrous bruise on my shoulder.  I rang up a large stack of “Cliff Notes” books on major works in English literature for a young man who looked like he was born in a fraternity house, and I sneered at him internally.  I told Michael about it, and he threw a book across the back room in rage.  I thought about snuff box films I’d heard about and thought about myself in red lingerie.

            On Friday, all I could think about was my audition.  I’d been practicing undulating around my apartment in what I supposed was a sexy way, but my apartment was small and I only had book boxes and milk crates for props, and I didn’t quite know what to do.  I’d tried to incorporate some of my ballet training, but I didn’t think that was helping me.  I’d brought two potatoes with me for lunch to heat up in the microwave, but I wasn’t hungry.  I was going to need a drink before I went, that’s for sure. 

            On the way home, I smoked a cigarette and tried to feel confident.  Smoking in the car never worked for me, though.  The smoke would just fill up the cab of the truck, even if the windows were down, and my eyes would water.  If I held my cigarette out the window, the ash would fly back into the cab and land on me somewhere.  I found it hard to shift and steer at the same time when I was holding a cigarette.  I didn’t feel very sexy.

            I was hoping I would leave for my audition before everyone started sitting around drinking like usual.  Blake would be off work where he was a prep cook at a Cajun restaurant around 7, but he’d have to stop by and get alcohol and cigarettes.  Mary was working the late shift at the bookstore, so she wouldn’t be back until after 10:00.  Brad was home, but he was always confused and never really paid any attention to what I was doing anyway, unless I was buying him beer.  Mary was really the catalyst that made our little group come together every night, so I figured I was safe.

            I took my shower at 6:30.  I shaved meticulously, trying to get every errant hair.  I dried myself carefully, and applied lotion to my entire body.  I thought about the man on the other end of the line.  He didn’t sound like an ax murderer.  But I guess I didn’t know what one sounded like.  I didn’t want to sweat in my lingerie, so I left it off and dried my hair with my blow dryer, fluffing it up and away from my face.  I curled it with my curling iron until it fell in red curls around my face.  I pictured a dark parking lot and a green dumpster.   I opened a beer and drank half.  I decided I needed some protection. 

            I threw on shorts and a T-shirt and went downstairs to see Brad.  His door was open.  “Brad?” I called, sticking my head in and bracing myself for the stench.  Brad’s place smelled atrocious.  It was because he adopted cats.  He had 20 or so of them now who came and went through the open door as they pleased.  So it smelled like cat and pee, and since Brad wasn’t fond of showering, also of stinky man. “Brad!  Are you in there?”

            He stepped in from his back patio holding a black short haired cat, wearing his ripped jean shorts and tank top.  His sweaty hair flopped in his face.  “Oh, hey, Naomi!  What’s up? Come on in.  Hey, you don’t have a beer do you?”

            Brad was happy to see me.  He was happy to see everyone who would stop by.  Other than us, he pretty much just talked to his cats.  I stepped in and stood in front of the fan, next to three cats who had flopped down in front of the fan, their fur rustling in the blowing air. 

            “No, sorry.  Hey, I know this is a weird question, but do you have a gun or something?”

            It was an odd question, but nothing really phased Brad.  He shook his floppy bangs out of his eyes.  “No, I used to, but someone stole it.  You know, when they robbed my place a few months ago.”

            I didn’t actually remember this, but it sounded like a long story and I didn’t want a long story right now.  So I didn’t ask. 

            “Why do you want a gun?” said Brad, setting down the black cat and picking up an orange tabby with a ragged patch in her fur.  All Brad’s cats looked terrible.  He couldn’t afford to take them to the vet or have them groomed, or to give them anti-flea medication or anything.  They just ate and slept there, a motley collection of unkempt and matted fur, cat dandruff, limping wounds, raccoon bites, and deteriorating teeth.  They whined frequently.  But he loved them all. 

            I gave up and told Brad what I was going to do.  He petted his cat and listened.

“Well,” he said when I’d finished.  “Do you think that’s safe, Snackicat?” he whispered to the orange tabby.  “What does Snackicat think about that?”

            Great, now this jobless, stinky man who talked to cats was going to tell me I wasn’t being safe.  Or Snackicat was going to.

            “I’ll be fine!” protested.  “It’s no big deal.  I was just thinking it would be good if I had something, you know, just in case.”

            Snackicat started meowing as if to protest my determination.  Brad set him gently down on the floor.  “Sounds a little sketchy to me,” he said.

            “But Brad, I need to make money!  And I can do this without it interfering with Bookstop, and I think I could make a lot of money.”  I noticed him perk up a little at this.  Probably thinking of the cases of beer I could supply.

            “You know, I do have something.  Hold on.”  He disappeared into the bathroom, where I heard a great deal of rummaging around.  Snackicat looked up at me with watery eyes and meowed painfully.  I started to lean down to pet him, but thought better of it.  I was always worried Brad’s cats were spreading some kind of disease.  Brad emerged with a small canister.  “Mace!” he announced proudly.

            I took the Mace canister in my hands.  “See,” he said, you just flick this switch, point and spray.  That should do it.

            “Why does it have electrical tape over the spout?”  There was a small strip of black tape right over the spout where the Mace should squirt out.

            “Oh, that’s because I lost the safety cover.  But don’t worry, it’s really powerful.  If you shoot it, it’s going to shoot right through the tape.”

            I needed to get going.  I still had to get my lingerie on and my contacts and eye make up done, so I decided not to discuss this.  I thanked Brad, who gave me a big stinky hug, and I headed back upstairs.

            I pulled on my lingerie.  The lace against my skin felt good.  I looked at the Mace.  I wasn’t so sure about it shooting through the electrical tape.  I pointed it into the sink and pushed hard on the trigger.  The Mace dribbled out from under the tape in rivulets and covered my hand, dripping into the sink. Clearly, this was not going to keep me from being snuff boxed.  I decided to forget the Mace.  I had to finish getting ready and go.  I washed my hands quickly.  It was 7:45. 

            At first, I couldn’t figure out why my eye was burning.  I had just put my clean contact in my eye, and now I was on fire.  I bent over the sink, and pulled my eye open with one hand so I could scrape my contact lens out with the other.  It felt like my whole face was swelling.  Tears were streaming down my face, and I couldn’t open my eye.  “Brad!” I screamed. 

            I made my way down the stairs, not bothering to find anything to put over my lingerie.  I could see out of the eye I hadn’t maced, but my whole face hurt.  “Brad!” I screeched as I stumbled into his apartment.

            “Naomi!” I heard him shout.  I stepped onto a soft furry thing that howled as I crashed down onto the floor, landing in a pile of cat vomit.  I felt Brad’s arms under mine as he hauled me up. 

            “What happened?  Are you okay?!”

            “The mace!” I cried.  He pulled me over to the sink and held my head down over it and ran water.  He splashed it up into my face, and I tried to hold my swollen eyelids open. 

            “Oh my god, what did you do?”

            “It doesn’t shoot right through” I gurgled through a mouthful of water.

            A few minutes later, I sagged on Brad’s flea ridden couch with a wet cloth over my eye.  I had reviewed the damage in Brad’s bathroom mirror.  My eye would not open.  It was swollen and red. In fact, most of my face was now blotchy and red.  My lingerie was soggy.  A long haired gray cat with matted fur and a limp sat on my foot.  I was not  feeling sexy. 

            “Well,” I said heavily.  I guess I’m not going to that audition.”

            Brad sat across from me, holding Snackicat.  “You could reschedule,” he said helpfully.

            “I guess so,” I replied. 

            “Let me rewet that,” said Brad, taking the cloth from me.  As I handed it to him, I felt a sense of relief.  The image of the dark parking lot and the green dumpster faded.  “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”  Maybe I didn’t need any more adventure for a while.

            Brad returned and handed me the cool, wet washcloth.  And then he handed me a cold beer.  I held it for a moment against my hot cheek. 

            “Thanks,” I said.  He smiled at me.  “Here’s to staying home tonight” and we clinked our bottles. 

           

Audition - Part 1

“But Maam,” I said for the fourth time, “A Son of a Circus is not on the bestseller list”. 

The woman looked at me as if I had creamed peas for brains, and cocked her head a bit to the side.  Her long brown hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in two days.  She tossed it back over the bright velvet patches of her multicolored jacket.  For the third time, she said, “But you know it WILL be, so why can’t you just give me the 10% off now?”  

She was looking at me as if it was impossible to reason with someone so vapid.  “Because,” I said, “if I did that, then it would cause books to become bestsellers when they might not have become one.”  It was impossible to reason with someone so vapid. 

“Every John Irving book is a bestseller,” she argued.  There was a line forming behind her.  I noticed two of the four of them were holding Son of a Circus.   As usual, I was the only one at the register at Bookstop.  All books on the New York bestseller list were automatically 10% off.  The much awaited Son of a Circus had arrived this morning.  

“It’s not my decision,” I finally caved, just to get this crazy hippie loon off my back so I could go back to ringing up self-help books and helping ring up enough John Irving books to shoot his new book up to bestseller status where I would actually be required to give a 10% discount.  “It’s just the rules.”  

“Fine,” she huffed, exasperated.  She slammed her credit card down on counter, and I rang up $24.99.  What a rip off.  In just a day or two, it would be $20.00.  I glanced over at her multicolored felt coat disappearing out the glass doors as I rang up the next Son of a Circus.  I wondered what she did for work.  She was probably a social worker.  Or a non-profit organizer.  Or she did “freelance” work.  In something undefined.  She thought she was better than me.  She probably made more money than me, that was for sure.  I would never have bought a hardback book at retail price, even John Irving, and even though A Prayer for Owen Meany was my all time favorite book in the whole world.  But she wasn’t smarter than me.  She just thought she was because I was working behind a cash register.  The people who pay the money always think they’re better than the ones who take the money.  So ironic, really.

John suddenly appeared at my side, startling me with his bright red tie.  “Hey,” he said, “brought you your check”.  

“Thanks,” I said, folding the envelope and sticking it into my jacket pocket.  “I was looking forward to my down payment on my house out in downtown.”.  

“Funny”, he said dryly.  “You’ve got 10 minutes and then Mary will break you”

“I thought Michael was coming up”.   

“You know I can’t have Michael interacting with the public” he said and gave me a quick couple pats on the back and headed to the back office.  On the way, he did a quick step up on a display of Texas recipe books, and wiggled his hips wildy, then jumped down and headed on back.  It was just out of sight of any customers.  This was why I loved John.  That and the fact that he lied on my verification of income statement I needed to rent my apartment, saying I made twice as much as did.  It was the only reason I could rent my apartment.  Of course, since I only made $150.00 more a month than my rent, I was having a bit of a hard time.

In fact, I was having a lot of hard time. It was slow at the front, so after I cleaned up all the stray paperclips, and straightened up the special order shelf where people’s special order books were held, I pulled out the want ads that we all kept under the counter for slow times.  I saw that my co-workers had circled a couple ads.  “Front of the house server wanted.  Ready to handle happy customers.  Ready for loud music.”  I figured the circler there was my best friend, Mary.  Of course “happy” meant “drunk”.  She could handle drunk customers.  Unless she was one of them.  “Front desk at busy hotel.  Graveyard shift.  Must be self motivated.”  I figured Michael had circled this one.  John had sequestered him to the back of the store ripping off the covers of crappy paperback novels no one wanted to buy, just so that he and his simmering rage at the injustice of the world could be kept away from the customers.  So, a graveyard shift was probably a good fit.  

Here was one no one had circled.  “Are you ready to show your talent? Dancers needed.  Popular nightclub.  Make serious money.”  I skipped past it and read a few others.  I had one more hour on shift, and then I’d head back to the apartment where I’d sit and drink Mickey’s wide mouth beers with Blake and Cat and Brad and Mary, when she was off her shift.  Since it was Mary’s and my payday, we’d be in charge of buying beers.  

“Excuse me,” I heard a voice.  I looked up to see a woman with round John Lennon glasses and a long flowing peasant skirt.  “Why isn’t Son of a Circus 10% off yet?  You know it’s going to be a bestseller.”

As I drove home later, I thought about a book I’d seen at the store.  It was a memoir of a woman who put herself through medical school stripping.  Apparently, she was a doctor or something now, and had suffered no emotional scars as a result of her stripping.  I stopped by convenience store on my way home.

“Hi Sabib,” I said, as I walked in, setting off a loud beep from the glass doors which were weighed down with metal bars.

“Ah, Naomi!” said Sabib.  “And how was your day with books?”  

“It was edifying, as usual,“ I replied, headed for the beer cooler.

“And did you learn something new?” asked Sabib.  Sabib was really quite a good looking guy.  I didn’t know how old he was, maybe 30 or so, tops.  I took my case of Mickey’s and my bottle of Crown Royal to the counter.  I loved that convenience stores in Texas sold liquor.

“I was enlightened.”  I replied.  “Sabib, have you ever known any dancers?”  

“Dancers?  Oh yes!  I love the Bollywood dancers.  They are so lovely and fun, and so dead sexy.  They celebrate life.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I smiled at him.  He had sweet deep brown eyes like chocolates I could drink up.  

Later, I sat in the entryway of Brad’s apartment with Blake, Mary and the others.  We popped the caps off the Mickey’s wide mouth beers so that they spread around us in the dirt on the ground.  Brad’s cats sulked in the darkness, rubbing in the night against our legs.  We passed the bottle of Crown Royal around and the deep liquor burned down my throat.  Mary passed me a cigarette, then lit it for me, her flaming red hair falling into her face.  Blake stood suddenly and screamed into the dark sky, the sound of cars on Kearney Avenue coursing along.  “Shut the fuck up!” screamed Cat, although between her Philippino accent and her drunker slur, it was a little hard to understand what she said.

“Mary,” I said, as I took another swallow of the rapidly dwindling Crown Royal.  Mary was watching Blake.  

“Sit the fuck down, you dumbass!” she said, laughing, to him.  

“Mary,” I said again.  My feet slipped in the dirt as I leaned over to her.

“What” she said leaning into me, her bright, dark eyes on mine.

“Do you think I could be a dancer?”

“Why the fuck would you want to do that?”

“Well,” I said, trying to muster up something that sounded intelligent, but my feet slipped in the dirt again, kicking one of the Mickey’s wide mouth caps. “I could make some good money, and it might be, you know, an interesting experience.”  As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew it.  I wanted an interesting experience.  And this would be it.

“Aw fuck,” said Mary and she leaned over with her red hair falling on my face and kissed my cheek.  “You could do anything you want.  If you want to dance, you’d be fucking amazing.  Anything you want to do, you’re going to be fucking amazing.”

Texas Ghost - Part 2

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Texas Ghost - Part I

I was sweating in the evening sun as I hefted the second bag of cat litter up into my arms, and began pouring.  There were still two good sized oil spots on the driveway.  I made a mental note for the 10^th time to only park in one area, so my leaking Plymouth truck could make just one big mess instead of several messes.  As the sun set over the cedar trees outside of the house, a drop of sweat ran down my neck and the middle of my tank top was damp.  My cat, Simon, suddenly bounded out of the bushes, making a beeline for the house.  He stopped short at the driveway and stared at the piles of cat litter.  “Don’t get any ideas,” I said.

The truck was one leaking fluid or rattling part after another, but I didn’t have the money for anything else.  The last issue was the starter, which left me stranded in the parking lot of The Saxon Pub, which actually sported a gigantic statue of a fully armored saxon in the parking lot.  I’d been been shooting pool all evening.   Which led up to why I was about to quit pouring cat litter and pretend like I could cook.  I owed Shawn dinner for replacing the starter.  Not that he really wanted anything in return.  Saving a damsel in distress was what he lived for.  Of course, he did take the time to admonish me for being out in a bar by myself shooting pool.  It wasn’t very ladylike, according to Shawn.  I’m sure I did a lot of things that didn’t fit within Shawn’s definition of ladylike, but he seemed to be willing to entertain the notion that I might change.  That those unladylike parts of me could be sanded down to fit just like the wooden planks he sounded down when he built his little cottage out in the woods.   He was still checking me out.  And I guess, I was checking him out a little.  Otherwise, why did I have a bag full of shrimp in the fridge that I had to shell and de-vein, even though the extent of my seafood cooking in the past involved opening a can of tuna fish?

I flopped the plastic bag of gray, slippery shrimp into the sink and planned my attack.  My roommate, Debbie, handed me a Lonestar beer.  Since moving to Texas, I’d taken up beer drinking with a vengeance.  And wearing cowboy boots.  And saying y’all.  I filled a pan with water to boil for the pasta, and began to shell the shrimp.  

“So, did you see how jealous John got when Ed bought me that drink?” she said.  “I couldn’t believe it!  He looked like he was going to explode!”  Debbie took a sip of her beer, and pulled her curly brown hair up into a ponytail, fastening it with a rubber band.  “He didn’t see that coming, I’ll bet,” she said in a satisfied way.

I decided I didn’t like the smell of raw shrimp, but my pile of shells was getting bigger.  “Yeah,” I said, “but what does he expect?”  Actually, I knew exactly what he expected.  He expected Debbie to return his calls immediately, and to not protest when he disappeared for a couple weeks because he met some big-haired, tight jeaned, loud girl, which, most of the time, was what happened. 

Debbie pulled at the label on her Lonestar.  “I think he gets it now.  I mean, I can’t wait around forever!  I’m going to be thirty two!  Thirty-two! she shrieked. 

“Well, if he doesn’t get it, then definitely don’t wait around,” I said.  I washed my hands, the shrimp all peeled, and read over my recipe for lemon caper sauce.  The capers and the shrimp had been seriously more money than I expected, and I was wishing I’d just taken him out to dinner somewhere, since it probably would have been cheaper. 

“I know”, Debbie said with a little whine, “but I love him, I really do.”  With my back to Debbie, I rolled my eyes.  “And” she said, “I want to have his baby, and I need to do it soon!” 

I opened up another Lonestar, and squeezed two lemons to get as much juice as I could into a small mixing bowl.  “You don’t want to have his baby and then have him acting like a jerk, though”. 

“I know,” Debbie whined.  “I just don’t have much time left.”

Debbie always sounded as though her biological clock was on fast forward.  At twenty-four, I couldn’t relate. I didn’t think I wanted kids at all.  I wanted to be a good pool player, I wanted to learn guitar, I wanted to be in a rock band, and I wanted to make enough money to buy a new truck, or be able to fix my own so I didn’t end up spending $30 on shrimp dinner because someone had to save me.  Unfortunately, all of my goals were going about as well as Debbie’s goal to marry John and have his baby, which was not good.  And like Debbie, I was getting a little tired and frustrated.

It was a couple months ago, in May, that Debbie had introduced me to
Shawn.  We’d spent the day speeding around the bay in his motorboat and yelling things to one another that we couldn’t hear over the noise of the boat.  He had brought a cooler full of Coors Light, and Debbie and I added our Lonestar and we drank beer and baked in the sun all day.  There wasn’t much room on the boat, so we pretty much stayed still and I tried not to get bumped off into the water.  Shawn was a big guy, with beefy arms that looked ready to lift logs or heavy animals or something, and beefy hands that looked right curled around a cold beer, with the other thick hand adeptly navigating the boat to skim slightly to the left or to bounce against the wake of some other boat, causing me to feel certain I would be tossed into the water.  “Yo!” he would shout at us, “Y’all ready?” and then would toss us a cold beer from the cooler.  This would have all been fine and good, had Shawn not insisted on bringing his bull mastiff dog everywhere with him.  So, in addition to the three of us, there was his massive beast, that insisted on sitting up next to Shawn.  This meant that the dog’s copious amount of drool was whipped back from the wind his in face, and into my face.  The dog was sitting on my side of the boat, so Debbie was spared this incessant rampage of saliva, but I received it full on.  By the end of the day, I was drunk, sunburned and covered in drool.  After we docked the boat, I pulled out a cigarette, which caused Shawn to remind me that smoking wasn’t very ladylike.

Debbie had told me that Shawn built his own log cabin.  He and his dog lived happily in it.  But I guess Shawn was looking for Miss Right.  And I guess, he was thinking it could be me, if I stopped playing pool and smoking and drinking, I suppose.  I was petite and blond, so I figured that was appealing.  And my truck was always breaking down, so that was probably a plus too.  I pulled out romaine and spinach leaves, and started running them under the faucet.  I placed each leaf on a plate covered by a paper towel, and then patted it dry with another paper towel.  I thought about Shawn’s big beefy arms.  I thought about what it might feel like to be wrapped in those beefy arms.  Sometimes I looked at the sheer strength of him and wondered if I would feel stronger just by being around him.  If those arms were around me, would I feel more solid, less like the ghost that I felt like most of the time, the ghost of who I wanted to be, things I wanted to do, but could never make happen, but instead, would I feel my edges sharpen and become clearer with those other arms around me?  If there was one thing Shawn had, it was a certainty of who he was and what he valued and he wanted.  Me?  I was just a ghost.

The kitchen smelled of lemon.  I grated some parmesan cheese into a side dish, turned the burner simmering the lemon and caper sauce to low, and removed the cooked pasta and shrimp from the stove.  There was no time for a shower, I quickly added on another layer of deoderant and slipped into a short white sundress that showed a fair amount of leg, but was casual enough that I could be barefoot in the house in it.  It was sexy without looking like I was trying to be sexy.  I brushed my long blond hair out, and swept it up into a clip.  July in Texas was too hot to have anything on my neck, although by the later evening, it would be perfect outside.  The sun would set and the cicadas would sing and we could sit out on the porch like Debbie and I did most nights, and breathe in the cedar trees and look at the stars.  I had lived in downtown Austin for the first two years I was in Texas, but when I moved out to the countryside, I was shocked at how many stars I could see.  Sometimes, as I drove along Bee Caves Road out to Debbie’s house, the moon would hang low in the sky.  Once, I pulled over and sat watching it, huge, yellow and magnificent, like an opening to another world, calling for me, drawing me toward it.

Ruminations on Cake

I have always hated cakes.  When I was growing up, my mother, who was a fount of domestic creativity in all respects, used to make me birthday pie instead of cake.  Usually, I would request chocolate cream.  Once I remember a chocolate mint cream pie, and once I remember a fluffy coconut cream pie, like some kind of divine, edible cloud.  My favorite was the bucket of dirt.  At my 5^th birthday party, she presented me with a bucket of chocolate pudding, crumbled Oreo cookies (the cookie part, not the cream filling – one of my siblings probably got to eat all the cream filling), with gummy worms dangling over the edges.  My mother was creative like that.  All the time.  I find my creative parenting skills stretched when it comes to things like that.  Luckily, my child likes cake, although he tends to request rather complicated cakes (a volcano, a dinosaur, etc). 

Anyway, when I got married, I wanted a gigantic wedding pie.  I modified my request to a “pie tree”.  My husband had carved a wooden “tree” from an actual tree on the property on which we were living at the time.  From the trunk, he fastened hand carved wooden “branches”, and on each branch (there were 7, I think), there was a flat dish that was to have a pie. As it turned out, pies were too flat to have the right visual affect, and we went with 7 different cakes after all.  It was a beautiful cake tree.  I have a Martha Stewart style photograph of a little girl in a dress standing in awe of the cake tree.  The little girl later came up to me and told me I shouldn’t be smoking, since it was bad for me.  I tossed my veil out of my eyes again, and told the girl thank-you for caring about me, and lifted my wedding dress skirts and wandered off, taking another drag.  It was not a Martha Stewart moment, but hey, it was my wedding and I was getting really tipsy.

I think what I don’t like is cheap, stupid cake.  I think I’m a cake snob.  I can’t stand the sheet cakes that come from Albertsons that are always showing up for some work colleague’s birthday or bridal shower, or goodbye, or whatever.  And you have to choke down a hunk of what tastes like a dried up sponge with a pile of sugar paste on top of it.  I really can’t abide cheap frosting.  Lard with sugar and food coloring.  It’s hideous.  But you have to eat a piece because it’s impolite not to, and someone might think you’re trying to lose weight and hate you because you really aren’t even fat, and what do you think you’re doing trying to look so disciplined, you bitch, eat the fucking cake.  Or they might think that you aren’t really happy to celebrate their pregnancy or their birthday or their graduation, since you aren’t actually participating in this bland and tasteless rite of passage, and who do you think you are, Miss High and Mighty, eat the fucking cake.  And so I eat the fucking cake.