TERI HEIN
IT WAS PERHAPS SEVEN THOUSAND times a day that Alexis wondered what it would be like to have a slightly different life—you know, one with things more . . . well, routine or normal. Whatever that was—presumably something she would never quite know, not at the rate things were happening these days. There was too much to keep up with to manage normal at the same time. Alexis lived for the little moments she could steal just for herself, between school and duties at the hotel. Moments with Linda, especially.
Alexis glanced at the clock. Linda was late, as Linda always was. Linda, who always assumed forgiveness and Linda, who always got it. She said it was because she was Puerto Rican that she was always late. It was genetic or something. And Alexis said fine, because it meant she got to be with Linda. It was just another thing to get used to. Alexis’s mother’s code was punctuality and she had drilled it into her daughter. Sometimes it could even mean jumping the gun a bit in certain circumstances. Alexis smiled at the irony of this and fingered the bottom button on her blouse. She bit down on her tongue at the feeling that welled up—the feeling that couldn’t be described. It was the thing that reminded her she wasn’t a hundred percent in control, and it was the thing that every now and again made her wonder if she really could pull this whole landlady thing off.
Damn that crow, she thought, letting go of the button.
“Yoo-hoo, señorita,” she heard someone call through the crack of the front door. Linda was there, having shoved the door open to where the floor had warped. Couldn’t her mother have found someone with a planer to shear off the bottom of the door so it could swing open again freely? Now who was going to be doing that? LJ? Yo lo dudo, as Linda said, her favorite expression: I doubt it. Quite certainly Donald wasn’t going to leap to the cause, and neither would Ursula. And so the door stuck anytime anyone opened it, halfway trapping people in or halfway trapping people out, depending on how you looked at it. Someone of Herculean strength could push it all the way open on the first shove, but Alexis needed a shoulder and a minimum of three pushes.
Linda slid in through the door neatly, knowing better than to put her shoulder to it. Behind her she pulled in the worn backpack she carried everywhere. Alexis’s heart skipped a beat.
Like Alexis, Linda was brown, and like Alexis, she didn’t know her father, although she knew more about him than Alexis knew about hers. How else could they have landed in Seattle if her father hadn’t been chasing his dream of making it big in the music world? He was a big fish/small pond kind of guy who played the trumpet à la King Garcia (or so he thought). And he also thought that in order to get noticed, he should play where they least expected him—not in New Orleans, or in New York but, of all places, Seattle, Washington. Why not? So they left New York behind and ended up living in White Center, south of Seattle. It was a full two years before Linda’s father riffed his way right out of town and Linda and her mother were on their own.
So much in common: absent fathers, present mothers, and that stupid governing committee they were both put on at John Marshall Alternative School before it was closed down. Their teacher Audra said the two of them could run that school if left to their own devices. The transition back to the “normal” Garfield High had been tough on both of them.
Maybe that was why they gravitated together—because things just didn’t work the same for them as for other kids. Or maybe it was something else.
“Hey,” Alexis said with a little wave, trying to act casual.
“Hey, sorry I’m late.” Linda brushed her hair away from her eyes. “I hope you weren’t waiting.”
“No—”
“You want to head downstairs and fold some laundry? There must be some sheets and towels down there that need a bit of attention, yes?”
Linda’s “fold some laundry” was really a euphemism for something else. Something else was really the thing that in some ways was the most important thing to her these days, the thing that made everything else OK. When they had come upstairs after that first time, they told her mother they were down there folding laundry. Now they folded one, maybe two sheets or towels—almost as foreplay—and would carry them upstairs, part of the ritual. Some might call the coffin thing sick but they called it just fine. And maybe even good clean fun.
But they wouldn’t be going to the basement. That was certain. In spite of how much fun they’d had in the coffins that one time—OK, more than one time—today was not the day for anyone to go down there. Especially not to do that.
“We can’t,” Alexis said, trying to think of an excuse. “My mom’s down there.”
“No problem.” Linda shrugged. “She won’t be down there all day. We can just sit here and wait.” She slumped down on the first step of the staircase and unzipped her backpack, extracting a pack of Marlboros.
“Hey!” Alexis said, almost glad for the distraction. “You can’t smoke in here. You shouldn’t even smoke anyway. It’s disgusting. Nobody will kiss you, you know.”
“Meaning you?” Linda took a smoke from the pack, tapped it on the hard case, stuck it between her lips. It bobbed there, unlit, as she spoke. “You saying you don’t want to kiss me anymore, Alexis? Is that what this is all about? Because, you know, other people think I’m fine.” She stood, shouldered her pack.
“No,” Alexis said, “that’s not what I’m saying, but—”
“But nothing, girlfriend. You don’t want me around. I can take a hint.” When she walked out, she left the door ajar.
Alexis hated it when she and Linda were fighting.
“Linda,” Alexis called after her as she slung on her bag. “Wait up! Maybe we can find some sheets that need folding somewhere else!” She ran out the door and down the steps, then back up to slam the door closed. It took three hard pulls before the latch clicked.
Alexis turned to run after Linda, but there the girl stood at the bottom of the stoop, cigarette now sticking out from behind her ear.