Streetlights (5) "Mija, I forgot to give you this this morning! Mira, a present." He reached into a drawer and handed me a blue hairbrush still in its package. "You have pretty hair. You must not waste it." I raised an eyebrow at him. I'd had a glimpse of my pretty hair in the damn bank camera. I felt touched and embarrassed. "Jesus, Vidal. Geraniums and hair-styling. What next?" I took the brush, and slowly opened it, while he gave way to chortling at me. "Scuse me a moment. I'm going in for my makeover," I said, heading toward the restroom in spite of its lack of mirrors, or probably because of it. I didn't feel like running it through my hair in front of him. My locks smelt of diesel and Mores, but I liked the feel of the brush moving through the dark brown tangles. I bent at the waist and backbrushed it the way I used to, forcing it through the matted jungle. It was down to the middle of my back by now. No more Super Cuts for me. I thought about submitting Alex's name for sainthood, but as I recalled, they had to dig you back up and see if part of you hadn't decomposed to qualify for that, and that sounded just plain gross. I walked back out to the front and was greeted with cries of "Bellisima! Bella dona!" "Thought that was a sleeping aid," I muttered, in a vain attempt to cover my embarrassment. "Truly, Helena, you look lovely," Alex assured me, jumping up to make coffee in his gurgling excitement. The bell on his front door jangled, and he looked up expectantly, his eyes gleaming at the prospect of an actual customer. Those seemed to be pretty few and far between. "Uh, Alex, I don't think she's here to pawn anything," I said, as the rotund elderly lady came through the door, looking nervously around. "Yvonne, what on earth..?" "Oh, Helen. Forgive me, my dear, but I saw you in the bank earlier, and I followed you here. I've been sitting outside in my car trying to decide if I should come in." She was literally wringing her hands, and looked so miserable that I walked over to her and patted her on the shoulder. "It's ok. Yvonne, this is my friend, Alex. Alex, Yvonne." I clumsily made introductions with a sinking feeling deep in my gut. This was too weird. Was Jamal going to breeze on in next, crooning, Can't Get Enough Of Your Love? Alex and Yvonne shook hands, Alex beaming, happy as a clam, however happy clams are supposed to be. Yvonne, on the other hand, collapsed into the armchair and promptly burst into tears. Clucking like a concerned hen, Alex handed her a mug of coffee and raced into the bathroom to bring her a box of Kleenex. She thanked him for both, wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. "Helen, sweetie, I've been so worried about you. And as it happens, I have a proposition for you. Don't say no right away, please please don't." I nodded at her, signaling with my hand for her to continue, wondering what the hell had induced me to wander in here in the middle of the day. Alex was perched on his desk, looking intrigued. Yvonne gave him an apologetic look, took a sip of her coffee, and cleared her throat. "You know my daughter Suzanna lives in San Diego with her husband, right?" she began, looking pleadingly at me. This was getting stranger by the minute, but I nodded encouragingly at her. "Well, you see, dear, she's been asking me for several years now to come and live down there. Not actually with her, of course, like some sort of invalid parent. I'm in perfect shape." Her plump little arm jiggled as she raised the mug to her lips, and I had to stifle a smile. "But you know, to be near her and all that," she went on. "And she's pregnant, and so, well, I've decided to do it. They have a small house they use as income property, and I could rent it from her. And I'll still work, of course. Plenty more YMCA's in the sea. And I could use a temporary housekeeper. I'm perfectly healthy, but I do get tired, and well, it could all just work out. I want you to come with me, if you're willing to live with an old lady for a while. And oh, blast it all, Helen, I've failed in my promise to your mother. I don't know what happened, but I've done nothing, nothing to help you. And this isn't pity. You'd be helping me in the meantime. And maybe you could go back to finish your masters. Or maybe you could teach math in a private school. I don't think you need a masters for that, maybe not even a credential." She paused for breath, and I glanced across at Alex, whose mouth was just about reaching the floor. I put my hand up to Yvonne, mumbled "Just give me a minute," and hightailed it for the bathroom. I could hear Yvonne still talking away as if a dam had burst. Heard murmurings about my mother and the university. Heard the word breakdown. So now Alex had my sorry life story in a nutshell. I felt resentful, exposed. Once I opened that bathroom door I could never be anonymous homeless Helen again. San Diego? What did I want with San Diego? Nice beaches, but Christ, this was all too much. I wondered how long Yvonne had been plotting this. I needed to walk really badly, wishing I could squish myself out through the bathroom window. I felt like a bitch, but I was madder than hell that Yvonne had found me. Breakdowns and teaching credentials and San Diego, oh my. I was royally pissed. I slowly opened the door and walked back out to them. Alex turned to me, his eyes looking like ebony saucers. "Stop staring at me, Mr. Coffee," I ordered him. "I'll be back in a few minutes." I walked to the front door, passing Yvonne who was ripping apart her Kleenex in her lap. I thought for a moment about how difficult this must have been for her, too, forced my righteous indignation aside. "You're wrong, Yvonne. You've done a lot for me. You gave me vanilla conditioner for my hair. My bellisima hair, if I do say so myself." This won a chortle from Alex, but goddamit, there were tears in his eyes, and I was outta there. I opened the front door, and walked blindly down the steps, turning right. I always seem to turn right in moments of crisis. I found myself heading for Nell's corner, and plopped myself down next to her. She was happily munching on a pretzel, and offered me a bite. I shook my head, taking one of the Mores out of my dufflebag. The good thing about these hideous brown cigarettes is that they burn really slowly, taking forever to finish, which seemed like a good thing right now. I told Nell an old friend wanted me to move with her to San Diego, wanted to help me. "Whoo dawgie, girlie. San Daygo! Yeah!" she hollered, punching me in the arm. "Sounds fine to me. You do it, Hell...you do it. Yeah..San Daygo..yeah." Her eyes got a faraway look, and I figured she was imagining all the cigarette boxes on towels waiting to be scooped up. I took another drag, looking up at the sky. Still so blue the buildings in the distance looked like pictures in those Magic Eye books, where you cross your eyes until a perfectly-silhouetted image appears out of what looks like a jumble of nothing. I looked at Nell who was still dreamily smiling, showing all her teeth, which wasn't a huge feat. I thought about the moment outside the bank this afternoon, when I suddenly couldn't walk anymore. And Yvonne appearing minutes later, begging me to stop walking. I tried to think deep thoughts about fate and synchronicity and coincidence, but all I could think was how tired I was. I thought about the fact that I was only 34, and that no semi had shown up yet to mow me down. I thought about what Yvonne had called to me as I'd escaped into the bathroom. "Your mother..this isn't what she'd want, sweetie. Come with me." I stubbed out my cigarette, and stood up, feeling as if I had marionette strings attached to me. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was apparently going to do something. "You be ok, Nell?" I asked her, tweaking her rainbow hat. "Sure as shooting, Helly Bell," she cackled. I nodded, believing her, and turned around, heading back to the pawnshop. Yvonne was sitting in her little gray Corolla outside. I walked over to her window, and she told me to go on in, that Alex wanted to talk to me. She still looked utterly distressed, so I patted her arm, nodded, and went inside. I smiled as he handed me the inevitable cup of coffee, waving me towards the chair. I sat down, deciding this whole afternoon had been far too strange, and I wasn't sure I'd liked it so far. "Go, mija," he said. "Go." "I smell that bad, huh?" I responded. He didn't smile this time, just kept looking at me. I was having trouble reading his face. I wasn't used to seeing anything there other than his exhausting cheerfulness. He walked over to me, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking into my eyes. "You go, dulcita. You go. You will be all right. I promise you that on my mother's grave." "Your mom's still alive, Alex," I reminded him. He winced, evidently remembering something or other Yvonne had told him about my mother. I stood up. I had come to the conclusion that it wasn't a good idea to ponder anything for any length of time. I nodded at him. We can go through our lives on autopilot, the patterns as familiar and predictable as the interlocking gears of a well-oiled machine. Sometimes a tiny section of a gear will start to erode, hampering the smooth motion. We might not realize anything has changed at first, adjusting ourselves to the irregular rhythm, so that what might once have felt off, begins to feel normal. But there can come a time when the gears, tired of trying to get our attention with their increasingly grating noise, simply stop. At that point we are presented with several choices. We can remain motionless, even while walking through miles and miles of city streets. We can repair the gears until they interlock exactly as before, perhaps in this way remaining no less motionless by doing so. Or we can decide we didn't need the gears in the first place, and begin at the beginning, taking with us whatever we might have learned, borrowing from the lights of the people we may have encountered in the fog. And maybe, just maybe, start to heal. I walked to the front door, and looked back at Alex, who was smiling and giving me a thumbs up sign. I stood there a moment, memorizing his dimples. "You...are wonderful," I told him. "As are you, Helena azucena, as are you," he answered. I opened the front door and went down the steps to Yvonne and her waiting car.
Copyright © 2000 Annie Van Dalsem |