MOSTLY WHITE
It was my big sister Joan who taught me how to get back up no matter what. She took care of the neighbor’s horses and she taught me how to ride. We’d ride through the trails and inevitably I’d get bucked off and crash down on my bottom in the dirt. Joan would tell me to get back on the horse and I’d cry and carry on, tell her it hurt, and she’d demand, “El, get back on the horse now!” And I’d get back on, sore bottom and all, and finish the trail ride. I’d forget about the fall until the next time. Nothing like riding through the woods. It was so freeing, and I felt as powerful as my big sister who knew how to tame the great horse beasts.
In the summer we ran barefoot. The first couple of days the soles of my feet were tender, and after a few days they hardened. All five of us, Joan, Adam, Helen, Claude, and I, would tear up the neighborhood. With our brown skin, wild hair, and bare feet, we waded in brooks across the street searching for crayfish and played endless games of pickle on soft grass. Claude and I always ended up in the middle. Kick the can, flashlight tag, ding-dong ditch it—those were the best times, when all five of us were free like a tribe until the sun went down.
We stayed outside as much as possible, away from our father and his unpredictable moods. My mom was busy getting her Master’s; she was rarely home. He threw Claude once, clear across the yard. Claude was just a little boy, four years old. We were all outside and Dad was fixing a bike near the shed. Claude must have gotten in his way and he hurled him across the patch of garden. Claude cried and we all rushed to help him. We surrounded Dad. Adam was ready to strike him and I picked up a stick. Dad held the bicycle wheel in his hand. Adam confronted him. “Why’d you throw him?”
“Yeah, why, Dad?” Joan added. It was the first time I ever saw fear in his eyes. Now I was on the other side of fear; all of us together, we were formidable.
My dad held his hands up in the air, “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.” He shuffled past us in his uneven gait, back to the house.
In the spring I ran in the woods before the mosquitos got bad. If I was quiet enough I’d see deer. I had a staring contest with one. It lasted a while. I was afraid of her and maybe she was afraid of me too. She leaped into the woods before I got too close to her. I never saw her again.
My secret place was the roof outside my window. At night I’d sit out there to sneak a cigarette and watch the stars. Nobody ever found out.
I had a big voice and I didn’t know it until I got a part in the school play. I was the only one the audience could hear. After that, I decided I wanted to be an actress so I could take up all the space I wanted on stage and people would listen to me. My mother told me I could be anything I wanted, and I believed her. So here I am in New York City, here I am. The first thing I noticed about the city is that there are no stars in the sky. I know they’re there, you just can’t see them.
* * *
I feel ridiculous in this neon pink T-shirt with “Auntie Pasta” across my chest, black pants, and a black apron, well, at least I match the pink and green tablecloths covered with plastic surrounding me. The manager, Tom, hisses, “You need to go faster, faster!” I call in an order to the kitchen, where they all speak Spanish; I rush to the bar to get table five’s drinks. Keren, the other waitress on the floor, is Israeli. She looks like her name: elegant, cropped black bangs frame her heart-shaped face and full red lips. A beauty. I struggle to get my orders in, add up my checks correctly, serve customers the right food—
“Go faster!” Tom yells as I pass by.
Keren whispers, “Just ignore him.” She walks cat-like to a new table to take their order.
There’s a lull in the night and only a few tables remain. I’m exhausted: it’s close to eleven p.m. I write on the back of the dessert list a snippet of a poem, feeling—
“What are you doing?” Tom roars at me. “You think you gonna be a writer? Famous? Hah!” He snatches the paper from my hand and throws it on the floor. “Get busy and clear your tables.” My body stiffens; I can’t move or breathe.
Keren passes by me and whispers, “Asshole,” under her breath.
“What did you say?” Tom’s face turns red.
Keren faces him. “I said you’re an asshole.”
Tom picks up a knife off the bar. “You called me what?” He points the knife at Keren.
As he lurches towards her, she screams, “Run!” We fly out the door, cold air hitting our faces.
We run down 6th Avenue. “You better run, you bitches, you better run, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!” Tom raises the knife in the air. Keren grabs my hand—we can no longer hear him and we run as if he’s right behind us—until we reach 10th Street. We stop at the doorstep of the women’s residency where I live, catching our breath.
Keren gets out a cigarette, hands me one. We smoke in silence. My hand starts to tremble; I can’t stop shaking. I drop the cigarette.
“You okay?” Keren asks. I crouch on the stairs.
“He could have—he was coming right at you—us.”
“Yeah, I know.” Keren takes a sharp inhale of her cigarette.
“Shit. I still have my apron on.” I untie the black straps from my waist.
Keren takes the apron and holds it with her fist in the air. “A souvenir from the asshole!” And we bust out laughing so hard, I almost fall off the stairs.
“So, tell me, what is it that you want to do in New York?” she says curiously. I’m embarrassed to answer the most obvious answer, the most predictable—
“An actress, I want to be an actress like everyone else.”
“Ah, an actress, of course! You know what I think you are?” She reminds me of a femme fatale from a film noir, the street light leaves her face half in shadow. She pauses dramatically, “You are an undiscovered princess.”
“What?”
“An undiscovered princess, that’s what you are.” A princess? Where’s my knight in shining armor? I laugh and take it as a compliment, coming from Keren. She puts her cigarette butt out on the step. “I’m meeting my boyfriend at Mars, you wanna come?”
“Mars?”
“Yes, you know the club Mars.”
“Oh yeah, Mars.” I don’t know the club but I act like I do, just to appear cool. My nerves are shot, don’t think I can handle a crowded place. I make up the excuse that I’m tired and Keren strolls down 10th street. I call after her, “Sorry we lost our jobs.”
“Eh, there will be another one.” Keren answers nonchalantly, I hope she’s right.
That night I had a dream I was running in the woods, brown leaves on the ground. A boy behind me fell and I had to leave him there on the trail. I had to keep running. I was cold and dug in the ground for something to eat. I felt so bad that I left him on the trail, I kept moving … I woke up in a sweat.
Rent is due in a week. I need to find another job. I pick a direction: uptown. Walking up 3rd Avenue, past 14th Street, 34th Street, 54th Street, I stop at a restaurant on 72nd. Jan’s. The doors are open. A thin blond woman with straight hair and a sharp nose sits at the bar sizing me up.
“I’m wondering if you’re hiring, are you the manager?”
“You have a resume?” I hand her mine, and she peruses it. “Well, we don’t have any waiting jobs open but we could use another coat check girl.” She points to a small closet. “Come in tonight at 6:30. The other girl will be here to train you.”
“Okay, thanks.” Mission accomplished.
Coat check girl—check your ego at the door. Oh, the glamour of New York. I sigh and fumble in my pockets for cigarettes—found a pack. Take one, light it; it’s getting cold, even a little dark. The first inhale soothes me, the tobacco an offering to the sky. The smoke swirls above people’s heads unnoticed—as unnoticeable as me. I’m at the corner of Bloomingdale’s. No point in going in there, I have no money. I catch the 6 train downtown; got to get ready for my new job, new career.
At Jan’s I meet the girl who’s training me—beautiful, tall, long hair—must be a model. Her name is Lauren and her white teeth sparkle as she smiles at me. Lauren seems to have it together, looks and confidence, and to top it off she’s kind. I immediately decide I’d like to be her, except I’m too short. On a good night we can make $100, not bad, and a bad night $30, still not too bad. Lauren shows me the closet and the numbered hooks and tickets for the customers. I need to memorize where each number is because the coats pile up in there.
She goes off talking to some guy she knows. I stand in this closet staring at the numbers underneath the hooks, trying to concentrate: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 … here I am at another dead end job. Maybe I should have stayed in college, but I just want to be an actress. I’m barely making it now. I need to master these numbers, these hooks, so I can be a successful coat check girl! 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 …
Nancy, the red-faced, steel-blue-eyed manager, peeks her head in the closet. Lauren halts her conversation when Nancy motions her over.
“Is she getting the hang of it?”
“Yeah, she’s a natural.” Lauren nods towards me.
“Yeah,” I answer. “I found my new calling.” Nancy doesn’t laugh. I guess she doesn’t like jokes.
People come in: ladies with furs, guys with long woolen coats, leather jackets, nothing unsophisticated. Soon, the jackets pile up on top of each other and you cannot see any original hooks. Lauren points to the pile. “Now you understand why you need to know where the numbers are.” She flirts effortlessly with the customers. A stylish older guy gives her a ticket, and she dives into the coats and disappears.
“Where did she go?” He winks at me.
“It’s her magic trick.” She comes out with his leather jacket.
“How did you do that?”
Lauren smiles. “I’m an expert.” He steps towards her.
A woman comes up from behind him. “There you are, are you ready?” She purses her red lips. He shakes himself out of Lauren’s beauty spell.
“Oh yes.” He fumbles through his wallet and drops a twenty into the tip jar. It’s Lauren magic.
My turn to dive into the coats and retrieve the right one. Customers are charmed by the pretty young coat check girls disappearing into layers of coats, emerging with static hair, proud smiles, and the correct garment. What a scene, what a treasure, look at all that New York can offer.
“Why are you so sad?” An older man approaches me, salt and pepper curly hair, blue eyes. “You’re much too beautiful to be so sad.”
I try to smile. “Gotta ticket?” He places his ticket into my hand. I expertly dive into the coats feeling for number 23. Got it. I pull it out.
“I’m a professional.”
“I can see that. What are you really? An actress?”
“Isn’t everybody?”
“You have a look. I’m an agent, here’s my card. You should give me a call.”
“Thanks.” I take the card.
“I’m Bruce.” We shake hands.
“Ella.” He puts his other hand on top of mine.
“Be sure to call me, Ella.” He releases his hand slowly, and winks at me before he leaves.
Lauren comes back from the bar. “Almost over.”
“Yeah,” I say. She dumps over the tip jar and begins counting. We had a good night.
It’s one o’clock by the time my shift is over. Nancy, red-faced and angry, chastises a waitress at the end of the bar. I say goodbye to Lauren, who is talking up some guy in a suit at the bar. I put on my coat and open the door; cold night air hits my face. I reach into my pocket. The card, oh yeah, the card. I think of hope.
The rent line is long at the Katherine House Women’s Residency. Girls ahead of me clutch check books and shift their weight. The air is stuffy, tight, like you’re not supposed to breathe. The drama queen stands in front of me, silky light brown hair, porcelain skin. She always scowls at me. She takes up the phone in the hall; I can hear her yelling at her boyfriend with my door closed. Her nickname: “DQ.” The owner of the Katherine House sits regally at her desk. She wears her hair piled up on top of her head in curls. There are rules in her house, the number one being no male guests in your rooms at night. A picture of Jesus hangs to the right of her desk, reminding us this place is owned by Catholics and Jesus is watching us.
To kill time, I leave the line to play the piano in the living room. It’s a bit out of tune, and every so often when no one is there I sing and play. I lose myself in some music, then get back in line—it’s much shorter now. The landlady takes my check. “Was that you playing the piano?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you are not allowed to play it after nine.” She speaks in an authoritative clipped tone, like a school teacher. She writes a receipt in perfect cursive. Relieved I paid rent, though my room with its linoleum floor reminds me of a hospital, and I know someone stole my bike I had in storage downstairs—Jesus, are you watching? I rush to the phone in the hall only to find DQ in the phone booth—it’s the make-up call—better than the breakup call with all the yelling and crying.
“I know, I miss you too … what am I wearing? Stop!” She giggles into the phone and shoots me one of her perfect scowls. I wait with folded arms. Finally, she gets off the phone—kissing her goodbyes—and walks out, tossing her silky hair behind her. I dial Bruce’s number.
“Stage Door Talent, can I help you?” She has a distinct nasal tone to her voice.
“Yes, I’d like to speak to Bruce please.” I articulate my words as much as possible to sound professional.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Ella, the coat check girl.” Why did I say that? There’s a pause and muffled sounds. My heart pounds in my chest, he remembers me. Phew! We make an afternoon appointment. I scribble down the address on a corner of the telephone book, 459 33rd Street, thank him and hang up the phone. This could be my big chance, my big break, my—I suck in my gut feeling a little fat, decide to go with a tank top, big sweater, and jeans.
I catch the R train and get off at 36th street. I feel like throwing up—lightheaded, not real. I feel pretty enough, I think.
I take the elevator up to the 7th floor, to Stage Door Talent. The office is small and cramped. A man yells on the phone in the back room: “I tell you I will never let my daughter be an actress, never, no way. This shit is—” he shuts the door.
The receptionist, a mousy girl with glasses, plays it off like we hadn’t heard a thing. “May I help you?” She has a nasal sound when speaking on the phone and in person.
“Yes.” I manage to speak. “I’m here to see Bruce.”
“Oh yes, just a minute.” She picks up the phone, the yelling stops. My hands sweat and Bruce swings in, all smiles.
“Great you made it, come on in. Meet my partner Andy.”
Andy grimaces while on the phone. “Where’d you find her?”
“Underneath a pile of coats.” Bruce winks at me.
Andy’s expression doesn’t change. “Take off your sweater.”
“Huh?”
“It’s okay,” Bruce reassures me. “He just wants to know what parts you’d be good for.”
They both wait. I take off my big sweater. Andy says, “Turn around.” I turn around. “You need to lose five pounds, but you’ve got something exotic.” Andy scans up and down my body.
“You know, she’d be good for that Coca-Cola spot.” He and Bruce exchange silent approval. I suck in my gut.
“Oh yeah, I’ll take care of it,” Bruce responds.
Bruce puts his arm around me and guides me towards the door. I put my sweater back on. “I need to take some shots of you at the studio. Let’s catch a cab uptown.” My stomach feels queasy—just nerves? We take the elevator down and I’m glad to get out of there, away from “take off your sweater” guy. Bruce hails a cab and we’re off.
“So, you need photos? I have an eight-by-ten here.” I start taking it out of my bag.
“It’s standard,” Bruce answers. “We need to get as many shots as possible to get you out there. You are beautiful, you know that?” He strokes my hand. “A young Natalie Wood.” We get out of the cab at his building, pass his doorman and take the elevator to the 11th floor.
“This is your studio?” I ask nervously.
“Yes, I live here too.” My heart races. He turns the key in the door. White plush carpeting, a view from the window, city lights—
“Where’s the studio?”
“Just relax, sweetheart, I’m not going to bite.” He flops his briefcase and coat down on the couch. “You want a drink? I’m going to make a drink.”
“No, thanks.”
Ice clinks against his glass as he takes a sip. “Ahhhh. Okay, come this way.” He takes my hand and leads me through a short hallway into a room with wood floors, a black umbrella and lights in front of a backdrop.
“Here it is. Take off your sweater.” I take it off, stand in front of him, he flashes the camera over and over. “Lift your chin—smile now—okay, like you want something—show me desire—oh honey, beautiful.” I feel hot with lights on me. I feel like a star.
“What are you, Puerto Rican?”
“No, I’m mixed. Well, white, Native American, and a little black …”
“Oooh, how exotic, a hybrid. Hybrids are the most beautiful flowers, you know.” The camera flashes stop and he caresses my face. I am a flower in a glass case—trapped. “You’re a real natural, you know.” He slides his hand down my neck, down my shirt, over my breasts. I don’t stop him—I am frozen, a frozen exotic flower, a natural, a star, he unzips my jeans, takes off my shirt, bra—
“Oh honey, you are so hot, let me take you.” He thrusts himself into me, pinning me down. “Come on, baby, come on.” I am still a flower, I am still exotic.
“Are you hungry?” He puts his pants on, I pull my shirt to my chest. He leaves me on the floor. I put my clothes on. Wow, so this is “standard.” I walk into the living room, and he’s lying on the couch.
“Baby, I’m beat. You don’t mind making me a sandwich.”
“No, that’s fine.” I don’t know who’s talking, who’s speaking. He lights a cigarette, and I go into the kitchen, open the fridge and make him a tuna fish sandwich. I place it on the coffee table. He scrutinizes me. “You’re one of the givers, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Givers, you’re a giver like Jesus Christ.”
“Huh, I don’t know.” What does the picture of Jesus hanging in the landlady’s office have to do with me? I don’t get the connection. I take a cigarette out of my bag and light it.
“You know, you have a Coke commercial tomorrow.”
I inhale, my head feels light. I exhale. “Okay.”
Bruce walks me to the elevator, kisses me on the forehead and embraces me. “Oh, my little Natalie Wood.” The elevator door closes, his hands search all over my body. “My exotic flower.” The door opens, he takes my hand, the doorman nods at him—where am I? Bruce hails a cab, whispers into my ear, “Come to my place after the Coke audition. Good luck.” He pats me on my butt, I get in the cab. The cab driver asks me “Where to?”
“One eighteen west Thirteenth Street.” My voice feels far away from my body. I can’t feel my arms or my legs: it’s like they belong to somebody else.
Hot shower hot shower hot shower, middle of the day, no one else there. I rock back and forth in the hot water and steam. What’s happening to me? I’m a good girl, grew up in the suburbs, had piano lessons, went to college—well, for a while. I start to crack, break—got to pull it together for work, for diving into coats tonight.
* * *
My audition is at 12:30. I’m five minutes early. I hand the receptionist my headshot. She gestures me to a chair. I try and feel something. All those acting classes: Meisner, Strasberg, Chekhov—here’s my moment: Coca-Cola.
Two handsome, dark-haired men greet me and tell me to go into a room for a screening. I take off my coat and enter the room. It’s sealed off, I am in a box—they can see me but I can’t see them. I can only hear them. “Okay, so we’re going to play some music and as soon as you hear the music, dance.”
Weird for a Coke commercial. Fast-paced music blares. I can’t make it out, it’s not in English but Spanish. The only word I catch is “Coca-Cola.” They yell at me, “Dance! Dance! Dance!”
I jump up and down a little, sway my hips. The music stops. I freeze. Silence. Hmmm. Not a good sign. A voice: “Okay, that’s it, you can go.”
I get my coat and leave. No one says goodbye. I walk out of the building and sunlight bounces off cars. I head uptown. I don’t feel my feet on the ground—like I am hovering above myself. Woah, what was that? I jump back as a hummingbird flutters in front of me and flies off. A hummingbird on 3rd Avenue? For a moment I feel possibilities, beauty in this concrete world.
My body takes me to Bruce’s apartment, like he told me to do. The doorman lets me in. I take the elevator up to Bruce’s place. I knock, he opens the door.
“How’d it go?”
I cry. I just cry and I let him embrace me. “Why didn’t you tell me it was in Spanish?”
“Well, we wouldn’t send you to a regular commercial—they want the girl next door, white girls.”
I can’t believe he’s saying this. I am the girl next door—aren’t I? Mostly—
“Check out these photos, baby.” He picks up glossy black and white eight-by-tens from the counter and hands them to me.
My face is white enough—isn’t it? Well, compared to Drama Queen with her silky hair and porcelain skin—nah. So, who is that Hawaiian girl in that photo? And it hits me. It hits me like it never has before: I AM NOT WHITE.
Bruce leads me to the couch. “Come on, baby, come here.” He opens his arms, and I know my body will follow him, know it. I sit on his lap.
“I want to be a real actress …”
“Of course you do, baby, you could do the soaps—with that face.” His fingers gently trace my cheeks, chin, down my neck, down my shirt. I let him. He takes my hand, leads me to his bedroom. I am nobody.
“Now let me see you.” He brushes my hair back with his hand, kisses my mouth, my hands are around his neck pulling his hair. He unbuttons my blouse, takes off my bra, cups my breasts in his hands, kissing them—he unzips my jeans and places me on the bed. “Let me see you.” His hands run up and down my body. I am some body, I am his. All that is going through my head is that music from the Coke commercial.
I wake up in the middle of the night, “Dance! Dance! Dance!” blaring in my head—where am I? Bruce snores. I find my underwear, crawl under the covers to get my bra, blouse, jeans and put myself back together. What am I doing? Tuna fish sandwiches, Natalie Wood, exotic flower, let me see you let me see you I’d never let my daughter be an actress take off your sweater turn around you’d never get cast for the girl next door ooh baby does it feel good does it? Dance! Dance! Dance!
I want to shut off my brain. I examine my face in the bathroom mirror and remind myself: I’m not white. Creeping out of Bruce’s apartment, I can’t help myself. I make him a tuna fish sandwich. Yeah, I guess he’s right—I am a giver.
INXS blares in my ears as I jog around Washington Park with my Walkman. Around and around the park, the only place downtown to jog and not have to stop for traffic. I don’t mind the circles, breathing in, breathing out, trying to shake off last night—the surrender of myself to that man and that ridiculous audition. Who am I? Oh yeah, apparently not white … enough—breathing in breathing out, I swerve in between students, lovers holding hands, people walking with direction, fortitude, like their steps belong to the earth. Where’s my ground? Where’s my ground?
I thought I was white, growing up in New England. I asked my mom in the car driving me home from a friend’s house. “What am I, Mom?”
“What do you mean?” My mother responded in her soft-spoken way.
“What race? Am I black, white, Indian? People ask me, I don’t know what to say.” She paused for a long time.
“Well, you are mostly white.”
“White?”
“Yes, Irish … mostly white.”
I accepted her answer although it confused me. I didn’t fit into this version of myself. I put clothespins on my nose overnight because I thought it would make it thinner. No one at school looked like me. I needed to look like them. They were the beautiful people in movies and on TV. They were like Dad.
I only met his relatives once, in Arkansas. All seven of us flew in an airplane down south. Mom bought me a new dress and red and white canvas pump sandals to match. We all got something new to wear to meet our relatives. I was excited to wear my new outfit on the plane. I hoped they liked us.
The sky was bright blue, the air thick and hot when we got off the plane. We rented a car and drove a long way, passing wooden shacks every so often with black people staring back at us with resentful eyes. Nobody said anything in the car. We just passed by, all five of us children curious about this new land, Arkansas. I spotted a dead carcass on the road.
“What was that?” I asked Dad.
“Oh, probably an armadillo, we have lots of them here. We are almost at the ranch, Uncle Ray’s—your great uncle, my father’s brother—and Elsie’s, his wife. My mother will be there, your grandmother Maribelle, and my father Edward. Very nice people, children, so be on your best behavior, you all understand?” We responded in silence. I couldn’t keep all those names straight in my head.
Our red rent-a-car sedan turned into a long dirt driveway, flat land, the trees tired and heavy from the heat. We stopped at a white modern house that reminded me of the Brady Bunch house, on sprawling land.
“I have to go to the bathroom!” Claude whined, as he wiggled in his seat.
“You’ll have to wait till we get inside,” my father snapped back.
“Honey, just get out of the car and you can go inside, okay?” My mother calmed him with her voice. The hot air assaulted us as we piled out of the car. My father rang the doorbell. My mother held onto Claude’s hand. A big burly white man with balding gray hair answered the door.
“Why R.J., come on in, so glad you made it!” He patted Dad’s back.
“Uncle Ray, thank you for the invitation.” They shook hands, grinning at each other.
“Come on now, come in and get out of the heat. We have air conditioning on.” Great Uncle Ray gestured at us to come inside. The house was comfortable, an open kitchen and living room. Sliding glass doors led to the outside, a fenced-in pasture. Joan, the eldest, Adam, Helen, me, and Claude walked cautiously into the living room. Mom rushed Claude to the bathroom.
“Well, these must be R.J.’s children!” An older woman in glasses got up off a lazy chair to greet us.
“Yes, Aunt Elsie, these are my children. Joan, Adam, Helen, Ella, and Claude, the little one, is in the bathroom with Margaret.”
“Well, y’all must be thirsty after that long drive, would y’all like some lemonade?” We nodded our heads politely. “Come into the kitchen now. I’ll pour you a glass.”
“That’s mighty kind of you, Elsie, mighty kind,” my father replied for us. We followed our Great Aunt Elsie into the kitchen.
“Now, if you children want to go outside and meet our cows, they are right there beyond the glass door.” The doorbell rang. Great Uncle Ray answered it.
“There you two are! R.J. and his crew just came in. R.J., your parents are here.”
My father greeted his parents. “Mama, Papa. Come on in.”
“Now, I don’t have to be invited into my brother’s house, I come in here all the time.” A tall, bald, white man holding a hat walked briskly past my father.
“Oh don’t mind him, R.J. Oh my, you are getting old, aren’t you?” An older woman embraced my dad.
“Mama, we all are, we all are. Come meet Margaret and the children.” She was friendlier than her husband, her hair snow white with a tint of blue, styled in curls.
“Why, you must be Margaret?” She held her hand out to my mother, who had come out of the bathroom with Claude.
“Yes, and you must be Maribelle.” My mother smiled graciously and took her hand.
“I’m so glad you and Papa came out today,” my father interjected. “Come meet the rest.” As we sipped our lemonade in the kitchen, the tall, angry bald man talked with Uncle Ray in the living room. I could tell they were having a heated discussion.
“Come on, you all, come meet your Grandma Maribelle, my mother.”
We crowded around her and she said, “Jesus loves you, every one of you very much. Know that, he loves you so much!” She had tears in her light blue eyes as she spoke. We all just shrugged our shoulders and tried to smile and be polite.
“Maribelle, come get some lemonade, sure is hot enough. There is a pool for you children, but that’s where them niggers swim, it’s awful. I wouldn’t go in that pool.” Elsie handed Grandma Maribelle a glass of lemonade.
Uncle Ray came over with his empty glass, “Them niggers are everywhere now, can’t get rid of them.” He filled up his glass. My mother’s face hardened. She stood clasping her glass of lemonade so I hard I thought it was gonna break. I waited for her to say something, to tell them to stop. She didn’t say a word. My father coughed nervously.
The angry bald man, Grandpa Edward, joined in. “They don’t know their place anymore. These niggers think they can do what they want now. Just anything they want.” He gulped down his lemonade and stepped in front of my father to pour himself another glass. I’m confused. Don’t they know we are part black? Don’t they know my mother is part black? Why are they talking like this? Why doesn’t Mom or Dad say anything?
“Edward, come meet your grandchildren,” Maribelle cut in, her voice shaking.
The angry bald man grimaced at us, his knuckles white from gripping his hat as if he were going to rip it. “These are a bunch of bastards, that’s what they are.”
All five of us, without saying a word, headed for the sliding glass doors. Outside, the stench of cow dung immediately hit our noses, we didn’t care. The cows, stoic and silent, stood in the mud and manure, pacified by the intense heat of the sun. “It’s not right, this mixing is not right. Those children are not my kin, I tell you they are bastards!” It was Grandpa Edward’s voice. “A bunch of nigger children you have brought here—it’s not natural.”
“That’s enough, Edward, they are your grandchildren!” Grandma Maribelle reprimanded him. A door slammed. I stepped farther out in the pasture. My red and white sandals sunk deep in the muck and my brothers and sisters petted the cows, waiting until it was time to go.
It is my last time around the park. I want to believe desperately, believe in something. Yes, I am an actress, I am—
I run back down 5th Avenue and take a left on 13th Street to the Katherine House, I keep going. Rage fills my chest as my feet pound the pavement all the way down 13th Street to the Hudson River. At the edge of the pier seagulls dip in and out of clouds. I hunch over, trying to catch my breath. The seagulls caw above. Something shiny and gray comes to the surface—a dead body? I move closer and a creature leaps out of the water in front of me. I stumble and almost fall in the river. Was it a dolphin or maybe a porpoise? I search the water. Nothing’s there, but I know I saw something. I brush it off and jog back to the Katherine House to jump in the shower before taking the 6 train uptown.
At Jan’s restaurant, Nancy is at the bar, flipping pages of a magazine. She barely acknowledges me. “Oh, we only need one coat check girl now.” I stop in my tracks.
“Why?”
“Spring, less jackets.” She lights a cigarette.
“Well fuck you then!” I say, and turn around before she can say anything back, greeting the uncertainty of the outside air. Okay, I won’t use her for a referral. Something will work out, just pick a direction. This time I decide south. I take the 6 train back downtown and get off at Astor Place.
I drop off my resume at a few places, no luck. I’m almost in Soho when I spot a sign: “Fine Italian Cuisine.” Maybe they’re hiring. It’s a fancy place with a piano in front of dining tables. I ask a stocky man with curly brown hair if they are hiring. He sizes me up from head to toe. “You sing?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good, ’cause we need waitresses that sing.” He checks out my body once more. I squeeze in my stomach and hand him my resume. “Good, good. I’m Joey, one of the managers here.” He offers his hand and sniffs. His eyes shift as he speaks. Hmm, I wonder, cocaine?
“I’m Ella.” I shake his hand. He abruptly lets his hand go.
“Let’s find Tony.” He walks fast, I can barely keep up. We enter an office. “Tony, we need a new waitress?”
Tony shuffles his papers. “Yeah, Joey, who’s this?” Tony is identical to Joey; I can only tell them apart because Joey wears a tie.
“I’m Ella.” I offer my hand, he doesn’t take it.
“She’ll do. Show her around.” He goes back to his papers.
“This way.” Joey motions me. He takes me to the staff room, a narrow hall with gray lockers and a time card punch. “This is where you’ll punch in. You can start training tonight trailing Michael, our head waiter.” I follow him out to the dining room. He stops at the piano. “Let’s hear you sing.” He folds his arms in front of him. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart, the mic is right here.”
“Oh, okay, um, I’ll play the piano.”
“Whatever you want.”
I sit down and start playing “I’m Wishing on a Star.” I let the music take me, throwing sound into space. Joey places his hand on my shoulder. I stop singing, and he whispers, “You make me hard.”
“Does that mean I get the job?” Another replica of Tony walks towards us. I know it’s not Tony because this man has a blue shirt on, not white.
“Ah, Vinnie, meet Ella, our new waitress.” He offers me his hand, and I take it. I smile nervously; he doesn’t smile back.
Joey touches my back. “Here, let me walk you out.” Joey leads me to the door, “Wear black and whites tonight and be here at five sharp.” He opens the door. “See you tonight, beautiful.” His hand trails down my back, gliding over my bottom as I walk out.
Okay, I get it—triplets. Vinnie, Tony, and Joey. Joey, what am I going to do about that one? I’ll just try and stay away from him. Only problem is I won’t know which one he is. At least I have a job now. I walk, singing all the way home.
* * *
Michael, the head waiter, is tall, with black hair, long delicate fingers, and crooked teeth. He’s a musician. “Make sure you put the salad fork here. If you make a mistake, watch out for Vinnie. Vinnie will have a fit.” He places the silverware down gently with precision. He’s patient with me as I memorize the proper settings for the salad forks, dinner forks, knives, spoons, water glasses, and wine glasses. I follow him with a stack of bread plates; a triplet appears out of nowhere,
“How’s she doing?” his nose is red and his head darts from side to side as he talks.
“Oh fine, fine, she’s a quick learner.” Michael smiles.
“Good, I’m expecting a lot out of you.” He winks at me. Joey? Or Vinnie? I have no idea.
I trail Michael the whole night, studying his every move, until one of the triplets tells me to meet him in the office to finish some paperwork. They all wear the same white shirt, blue tie, and gray blazer. I wasn’t sure who it was. I enter the office, he sits on a desk holding a folder.
“How’s it going?” He gets up and closes the door behind me.
“Fine, you said there was some paperwork?” Why did he close the door?
“Yes, just forms, on the desk.” He points to the papers, I walk to the desk to pick up the forms. He blocks my hand, holds my wrists up, and yanks me to him.
“Come on, aren’t you turned on?” I try to push him away.
“I just came here for some paperwork.” I shove him, and rush to the door.
“You’re a fucking tease!” He slams his fists down on the desk. I can guess that one is Joey.
I try to collect myself and head to the staff lockers. Michael stops me. “There you are. Where’d you disappear to?”
“Oh, ah, paperwork, filling out, you know, papers …” I open my locker and get my leather coat. Michael jingles his car keys and offers me a ride home. I need air, I need to feel my feet on the ground, even though it’s, late I don’t care. I need to walk, I need to get away from all these men, groping at me.
“Ah, no, no, I like to walk.” I answer as we punch out our time cards, and head outside.
“Sure you don’t need a ride?” No don’t cry, don’t cry Ella. “You okay?” Michael touches my shoulder. I flinch.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just a long day, so see you tomorrow.” Michael lingers a while, waiting for me to change my mind. He gets the hint and continues down the street.
A barrage of men run through my head: Bruce with his quick hands and false promises, Joey and his rough touch. Why can’t I stop these men? I need this job, I’m just going to make it work—what the hell am I doing? Michael is sweet. How gently he placed silverware on the table, how kind he was to me, I can’t stop crying.
I wait at the curb for the light to change, tell myself, “Get ahold of yourself, Ella!” I walk to the nearest deli and buy the latest Backstage. I spot an open audition, a cattle call for a movie: “Looking for young ethnic girls for the lead role, B movie.” I rip out the section and put it in my back pocket.
My first night waiting tables at my new job, at every turn Joey, Vinnie, or Tony barks orders at me, yet I never know who, I can’t keep them straight—
“Make sure you comp table ten’s drink, tell them it’s on me!”
“Excuse me, you are …?” And he zips away before I can find out.
Another triplet rushes past me. “Keep up the pace, you just got a new table!”
I quickly attend to them. I hurry to the kitchen, ring the bell, and tell them to fire table eight. The cooks are sweating and stressed; it’s a busy night. I’m in the weeds with a full section. A triplet stops me.
“Go to table ten, they’ve been waiting.” I take their order and another table’s drink order.
Another triplet accosts me. “How’s it going? Did you push the specials? We need to push our lasagna tonight, got it? Push!” He brushes past me and I forget what drinks my new table ordered.
I approach the elderly white couple. The husband has a frown on his face, and the wife holds her head erect so as not to topple the red hair piled on her head—a wig? “Excuse me, sir, could you please repeat your drink order for me?”
“Hmmmm, what?”
“I’m sorry, could you please repeat your drink order for me? I seem to have forgotten.”
“Aren’t you a professional?”
“Yes, well, this is my first night here.”
“Come on, Alan, don’t be cruel, just tell her!” his wife pipes in with a thick New York accent. He reluctantly complies.
“A gin and tonic for the lady and a vodka martini for me. Can you remember that?” He sneers at me.
“Oh yes, sir, so sorry.” I hurry to the bar, pick up their drinks, and take their dinner order. I want to smash something. I want to pick up a plate and smash it to the ground—time to clear table seven and take the dessert order. In the corner of my eye I spot the elderly couple conversing with one of the triplets and gesturing towards me. Uh oh. I quickly engage in conversation with customers, write down their dessert order, and attempt to circumvent a triplet on the way to the bar, too late. He stops me abruptly like a bull.
“They tell me you forgot their drink order. That table is a regular here, you understand? We don’t allow mistakes here!” Veins pop out on the sides of his neck. Vinnie? Tony? He grips my arm, pulling me to the hallway. “You better be careful, because I’ve got my eyes on you.” I break away. Joey, that was Joey.
I push my tears down. Michael stops me. “You okay? Joey really gave it to you.” He gently touches my back. “Brush it off, he does it to everyone.”
“I bet he does,” I say inaudibly. Joey barrels through Michael and me.
“There’s no time for flirting, get to your stations!” We hurry to the dining room like obedient children. Damn! I forgot to drop the order for table ten, the drink mishap table. Oh boy. I ring the kitchen bell; the cook wipes his brow and takes the ticket.
There is a lull in the restaurant, a rarity: you can feel your feet on the ground. One of the waitstaff takes this opportunity to sing. She cues the piano player and performs a Broadway tune; the crowd loves it. She beams at the applause and the pianist takes the mic. “Anyone else want to sing?”
One of the staff suggests, “What about the new girl?”
The waitstaff urges me on and I feel my face redden. Michael nods at me. I sit at the piano and play the introduction to “The Greatest Love off All.” All the rage, pain, and sadness I feel in the pit of my stomach pushes out in sound. I can’t stop it, as if I am a volcano and have no choice but to erupt at this moment—
I can’t finish the song. I start crying at the piano. A man clears his throat. Michael touches my back and guides me out of the dining room into the staff room. I’m still sobbing, this volcano of grief outpours. Michael asks another waiter to cover his tables, helps me put my coat on, and leads me out the door.
“Wait, I forgot to fire table ten!” I start laughing and crying. “I guess the triplets won’t want me back.” I try to compose myself, take out a cigarette. Michael lights it.
“You okay?” He has kind brown eyes, and he’s tall—I have to tilt my neck up to talk to him.
“Every once in a while, I need to have a public breakdown.” I laugh.
“Come on, I’ll take you home.” Home, home—where the hell is home? A tiny room with a linoleum floor, bed, and dresser, home? The shouts of the DQ on the phone in the hallway, the stale smell of the living room, the “no men allowed in your rooms” rule? No, I don’t want to go home.
“I can’t go there … not now.”
Michael takes my arm. “Okay, how do you feel about Queens?” I shrug my shoulders, take the last drag of my cigarette, flick it on the sidewalk, and squash it with my heel. Queens sounds fine. We head for the subway. Michael has his arm around me like I’m some fragile thing that will break again if not careful. We walk up the subway steps into Queens. It’s quieter than the city, fewer people on the street. “Let’s go in here for a drink.” As Michael opens the door for me, a bell rings. It’s a dive: a few people sit at the bar nursing drinks, a stone-faced bartender cleans a glass and nods at us. We sit down; Michael orders tequila shots. We drink, a lot. I feel delirious. Michael kisses me—he tells me he loves me. I believe him. Every so often I catch scorn on the bartender’s face, nearly imperceptible but there, as if he’s witnessed thousands of couples like Michael and me. Maybe it’s boredom. After the fourth shot Michael embraces me. “Let’s get married.” My drunken stupor matches his and I agree. We wobble out together, Michael shouting, “We’re getting married!” The bartender doesn’t change his expression. His dull eyes follow us as we leave.
We walk up to his flat; he carries me into his bedroom and flops me on his bed. I laugh, we kiss, he unbuttons my shirt, unhooks my bra, shoves his tongue in my mouth. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” His long fingers run over my body. He unwraps a condom and swears as he comes. Maybe he should have at least said my name.
It’s morning. I don’t know where I am—and I half remember something about getting married. I crawl out from underneath Michael’s arms; he’s passed out. Here I go trying to find my underwear again in some man’s bed. Shit! When will things change? My head feels like a knife is going through it—shit, shit, what am I doing here? Digging under the covers, I find them. Careful not to wake him, I dress and use the bathroom.
I whisper to Michael and tell him I have to go, he pulls my arms and kisses me, trying to get me in bed again. “I can’t stay, I got an audition.” He reluctantly releases me.
“Ella, call me later?” He says it like a question, he must sense I’m not going to.
“Okay.” I walk out the door, down the steps, head throbbing, spot the subway and take the R train back downtown.
NOSE HAIR
I throw off my clothes and jump in the shower. I have forty-five minutes to get to the audition. I decide on a black mini skirt and a bright green t-shirt with pumps—casual, sexy. My hair is good enough. I head out the door, take the subway uptown, and fumble for the address in my pocket. Get off uptown—ouch, my head still hurts a little. I feel dull from the tequila last night. It’s a place on Broadway, an older building. I enter a room full of long-haired beauties. I’m not late. A man with a clipboard assesses everyone in the room, whispering to a woman in a pantsuit, pointing discreetly at our bodies. “Okay,” the man with the clipboard says authoritatively. “If I point to you, go to the front.” He ponders a minute and points his finger. “You, you, you—” and he pauses and points to me. “You.”
My face flushes. “Really, me?” I join the line of the lucky girls, about ten of us, all legs and long brown hair.
“The rest of you can go.” Sighs permeate the room and the unlucky girls tread out with heavy limbs and rounded shoulders. We, the triumphant, wait for our cue from the important, clipboard-wielding man. “All right, we will meet you one at a time. Form a line here.” We shuffle into a line; the energy thickens between us. We’re the chosen, but only one can be the star of—
Wait, what movie is this? Well, whatever, there can only be one star. It’s my turn. I shake hands with the clipboard man and smile.
“Name please.” He doesn’t smile back.
“Ella.”
“Stand on this mark, and get your photo taken.” I walk to the X taped on the floor, stand on it, and pose as the photographer takes the Polaroid.
“Come back tomorrow at four for your screening. Here’s the address.” He hands me a sheet of paper and motions a girl to come forward. “Next.”
They chose me. A callback from a cattle call, a rarity. I grasp the paper in my hand as I descend the subway stairs.
It is a cheap hotel room, everything beige and gray. I check in with the receptionist, the same woman from the cattle call, and she hands me the scene. I sit in a chair facing the door with the other anxious girls, and begin studying the script:
(ANGELINA and FREDDIE are in bed, FREDDIE is on top of her. Camera closeup of ANGELINA’s chest. Cut away to door opening. A man in a black hat enters with gun, points it at FREDDIE. FREDDIE reaches for his gun on the dresser, the man shoots him in the head. ANGELINA screams. Camera pans to closeup of brain splatter on shoe.)
SCENE II: The Confession
(ANGELINA walks into church and enters the confessional. Camera closeup of her face.)
ANGELINA—Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
PRIEST—How long has it been since your last confession, my child?
ANGELINA—Father, I, I—(She starts to cry.)
PRIEST—What is it, my child?
ANGELINA—Father, forgive me, Father—(Crying.)
PRIEST—Yes, child, yes, what is it?
ANGELINA—I have been sleeping with a married man and, and, (Sobs.) he was shot, killed, we were in bed and he was shot!
PRIEST—(Wipes his brow.) My child! This is very grave indeed!
ANGELINA—I loved him!!! And we were punished by God because we committed a sin and now he’s gone, he’s gone … murdered!
PRIEST—(Wipes brow again.) Child, this may not be because of your actions. He may have been shot because of something he did. You could be in danger, my child. Who is this man? Did the shooter see you?
ANGELINA—Yes, I’m sure of it. The shooter saw me. He was my love, my love, Antonio, he owns the bar on the corner. Antonio, my love!
PRIEST—(Shocked.) You are in grave danger, my child, grave danger … (Cut to ANGELINA sobbing, fade out.)
Who wrote this crap? “Brain splatter on shoe.” High art. This is what you have to do as an actress—get exposure. Can’t start at the top, or with your clothes on, right? B movie, okay, okay, how am I going to get into this character?
They call my name. I stand up and enter a small room, white walls and a plush gray carpet. A tall, older white man smiles at me, and a black woman with dreads introduces herself as the director and the man as Mike, who will play the priest.
The cameraman stands by his equipment with coffee cup in hand. His blond hair sticks up in the front—gel, probably. He smiles at me. I turn the other way. The priest actor puts his hand on my shoulder and makes eye contact.
“Ella, I just want you to know I’m going to be right here for you, even though in the scene we can’t see each other,” he says fervently like a serious actor. Meisner method, I think.
The director motions me over to my mark.
“Ella, enter here, sit there, remember you don’t really see the priest since you are in a confessional. Take your time.” She signals the cameraman. He nods. I stand on my mark trying to memorize the first line. The director focuses on me intently. I search for something sad to take me into this character, and all that comes up is the cutaway to brain splatter on the shoe, and I want to laugh. The priest leans back in his chair. I dive in.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Halfway through the scene the director yells, “Cut!” I stop. I blew it. The priest runs his fingers through his hair. The cute blond cameraman stands up and takes a sip of coffee. The director takes me aside. “Nice, but we need tears, okay? Try again.” I diligently go back to my spot; the priest readjusts his seat. Okay, pressure—tears on demand. I got nothing. I step off my mark, begin again. No tears. We do two more takes, still I’m not crying. The director takes me aside once more. “We really want you for this role. All we need are tears, so why don’t you take a break, and we’ll try again. Do what you need to do.”
The priest chimes in, “I know it’s hard to find the right way.”
“Yeah, uh, is there a bathroom?”
“Sure, the door on the left.”
“Thanks.” I’m embarrassed I can’t find tears. What kind of actress am I? I open the door to the bathroom. The sink is solid porcelain with a stain down the middle, the mirror has a crack on the side. I give myself a pep talk. “Come on, Ella, come on.” Maybe I should put water on my eyes for fake tears, but would Meryl Streep do that? The sex scene, the brain splatter: she would never be asked to do any of this. And I don’t care. I don’t care about this film or this poorly written script—not enough to cry, anyways. I open the door and the director smiles.
“Ready?”
“I’m sorry but this isn’t for me.”
Her mouth gapes open in amazement; the priest clears his throat.
She tries to reassure me. “Come on, you are really great for this role.”
“It’s just not for me.”
“You couldn’t get to tears, why don’t you try what he does?” She points to the priest.
“What do you do?” I ask him.
“I pull out a nose hair,” he says proudly.
“Oh no, no. I’m not doing that.” I hand the director the script. She is speechless.
“Okay, everybody take five.” She drops the script on the table.
I walk out the door, glad to get out of the room, and sigh loudly in the lobby.
“That was quite an exit.” I turn around—it’s the blond cameraman. I push the down button for the elevator. “You got class.” He smells like fresh soap and hair gel.
“Why, ’cause I won’t pull out a nose hair?”
“Obviously that script sucks.”
“Yes, yes, it really does.” I like his wide shoulders, leather jacket, slight goatee. He’s probably mid-twenties.
“Hey, if you ever want to have dinner or something, give me a call. I’m Chad.” He hands me his card. I take it as the elevator arrives. “Wait, what’s your name?”
“Ella.”
“Okay, Ella, call me.”
I don’t think I want to be an actress anymore. Why work so hard? Any roles I land are prostitutes or sluts. I fell in love with words—Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard, Shakespeare—words that could live in my body and come out and all I get is “Dance! Dance!” or “Pull out a nose hair.” I feel old, like I’m too old for this world that bats me around aimlessly. And I still don’t have a job yet. Rent is due soon. The subway platform smells like a mixture of grime and urine. I step on the subway heading downtown, trying to steady myself as the train hurls forward.
* * *
I’m caught inbetween selves, not this one or that one. Michael’s girlfriend? An actress? A waitress? I want a fixed identity I can hold onto, I can call mine. My dream was acting, that was everything, but now—
What is all this struggle for? I’ve hit my wall again and I know the only way to go is down.
The floor is cold in my room. Tears roll down my face—now they come! Where were they when I needed them? The feeling comes again, the heaviness of belonging to nothing. I want to float away from this pain. I can’t move—the white ceiling—I can’t move—
Someone bangs on my door. “You in there? The phone is for you.” It’s the DQ.
“Okay, okay, just a sec.” I wipe my tears. A miracle? To get me off the floor? The DQ flips her hair back and turns around before I can say thanks. The phone receiver swings from side to side. I catch it. “Hello?”
“Hello, Ella?” It’s a man.
“Michael?”
“No, this is Chad.”
“Chad?” My brain races back to faces and names.
“Yeah, the camera guy?” Oh, the blond guy with the goatee at the audition.
“How’d you get my number?” “I have my ways.”
There’s an awkward silence. Chad jumps in and compliments me for walking out on the audition, that most actresses would never turn down a part. He asks me to meet him at Café de L’Artiste, on 6th avenue. Sure, I’ll meet him, he was hot, and a cameraman.
“See you then.” I hang up the phone. What am I getting myself into? Oh well, at least it got me off the floor.
I spot him in the back of the café, pen in hand sketching something, blond hair, spiked in front. He grins at me.
“There you are.” He slides out the chair for me.
“You draw?” The table is round, white, and smooth marble; it’s a stark contrast to the dark, warm wooden floor and walls.
“Yes, sometimes.” He puts his pencil down.
“That’s cool.” I take off my blazer and hang it on the back of my chair. He motions the waiter over, a skinny guy with black-rimmed glasses. I order a mocha. I’m nervous, trying to find something to say. His arms are thick and sturdy; I wonder what it would be like sitting on his lap, with those arms around me.
“So, you’re a cameraman.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did they cast the part?”
“Another girl—you know, you were the first choice.”
“Really? Oh well. Looks like I lost my chance for stardom.
Hah.”
“You know, there is something special about you.” He studies me like I’m a new specimen he’s stumbled upon. “Did you know that?” I shrug my shoulders. The waiter places my mocha on the table. He asks how long I’ve been in the city. My mind scans over my recent flailing about, and I want to lie and provide a glamorous version of my life—but the truth? Too many jobs, too many auditions, too many men …
“Almost three years.” I take a sip of the mocha.
“Came to make it in the big apple, huh?”
“Yeah, like everyone else. I was in school but dropped out ’cause I couldn’t pay for it anymore. I thought, what the heck, I may as well try and make it.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“You were at my last audition.”
“For now. I don’t know.” Sadness overcomes me. I feel so alone, who has my back? Could he?
He takes my hand. “Let’s get out of here.” He pays the bill and leads me out of the café into his BMW parked on the street. He swerves in and out of traffic like a seasoned New Yorker. He suggests a movie; sure, that sounds fine.
He parks, opens my door, and helps me out of the car. We sit in the back of the theater; I don’t care what movie it is with this man. He puts his arm around me and every so often places his other hand inside my thigh.
I make him drop me off two blocks from the Katherine House. I’m too embarrassed to let him know I live in a women’s residence. He double parks the car. “You know, you’re exotic, in a good way.”
“Good?” I wonder, what is “exotic bad?”
“Yes. What are you?” There it is, the all-too-familiar question.
“Well, I’m mixed.”
“With what?”
“Black, American Indian, and Irish.”
“Oh.” He frowns slightly. “I don’t really see the black.”
“My grandfather was black.” I try and remember my grandfather’s face,
“Come here, you’re so sexy.” He kisses me and runs his hands all over me. “When do I get to see you again?”
“Friday?”
“Okay, Friday it is. I’ll call you.” I slip out of the car and he drives off.
My mother rarely mentioned my grandfather. I have a faint image of him, a tall man with a deep voice and a big presence.
My brothers and sisters all waited up for him, hoping he would come this time. Many times he said he would come and he didn’t, and my mother would say, “I’m sorry your grandfather can’t make it.” I didn’t like the sadness it left in her eyes. The day he came I was five. He looked like the man in the photo posing with the car he made: tall, elegant, handsome, even at his age.
“Margaret, Margaret.” He embraced my mother and she stepped back a little. I could sense the distance between them.
My father, much smaller in stature compared to my grandfather, greeted him with his polite southern accent. “Henry, mighty fine seeing you. How was your trip?”
“Fine, fine, no problem at all.” All five of us stood in awe of our grandfather: smooth black skin, large brown eyes, dressed in a smart gray linen suit with a hint of gray in his curly hair.
“Margaret, let me meet your beautiful children.” His voice commanded attention. We responded and formed a circle around him as he sat down in the armchair.
“Now, you must be the eldest, Joan, right?” Joan smiled nervously, her black frizzy hair lay tangled against her nightgown. “Hmmm, what do I have for you in my bag, dear?” He displayed a porcelain figure of a horse. “You like horses, don’t you?” She nodded shyly and he placed it in her hands.
“Thank you, Grandpa.” Joan said. My grandfather playfully tousled her frizzy hair.
“And you, young man, must be Adam, right?” My oldest brother, with his hands in his pockets and head down, every so often dared to peek at him. “Here, I have this belt buckle for you.” He handed him a brass buckle of the face of an American Indian. “You’re Indian too, remember that. All of you remember that.” Grandpa placed his palm on Adam’s head. “Don’t forget now, who you are.”
“I won’t,” my brother answered, almost inaudibly. “Thank you.” He stroked the buckle in his hand.
“And you, curly top, you must be Helen. Helen, come here.” He pulled out a fair-skinned doll with jet black curly hair, just like Helen’s. She took the doll without saying thank you.
Mom intervened in her calm way. “Now, Helen, say thank you to your grandfather.”
“Thank you,” she said quickly and ran off to play with the doll.
“And you, you are Ella. Your hair—Deliah.” He whispered the name. “And those eyes.” His expression softened. Grandma Deliah. My sister Helen and I would sit with her on the couch and play a game of hiding her cigarettes. She had light skin and reddish hair, and she laughed loud. When she died I cried even though I really never knew her. As if breaking from a trance, my grandfather motioned me over to him. “Pretty Ella, come here. I have a doll as pretty as you.” He took out a dark-skinned doll with shiny, straight black hair and bangs framing her plump face. I’d never had a black doll before. “Ella, Ella, always be proud of who you are.” The doll’s hair shone in the light; she had a stylish blue minidress on.
I held her carefully. “Thank you, Grandpa.”
“And last, little Claude. Claude, come here.” My little brother wobbled over to him. “Those eyes—like Lloyd’s, Margaret, like Lloyd’s.” He and my mother shared something; the silence told me it was important. “Claude, here, son, a car. Maybe someday you will build a car just like your Grandpa.”
“Vrroooom!” Claude shouted in excitement. Grandpa laughed.
“Claude, say thank you to your grandpa,” my mother insisted.
Claude mumbled the courtesy and raced his car around the room.
I never played with the doll my grandpa gave me like I played with my white dolls. I made sure she was clean and safe, and placed her on a shelf in a special place where she couldn’t be harmed.
* * *
I’m ready, in a tight black minidress, pumps, red lipstick, and short tuxedo jacket. He pulls up in his BMW, double parks, and opens the door for me. “Nice,” he says, checking me out.
“Thank you.” I flash him a smile. He is dressed New York chic: jeans, black shoes, black V-neck shirt, and his signature spiked blond hair. He’s hot. He places his hand on my thigh as he drives, taking it off only to change gears.
“You hungry?”
I want to kiss him all over his face. “Yes.”
“Good.” The restaurant is chic, a not-too-fancy place in the village. I study the menu. I catch him staring at me and pretend not to notice. His beeper goes off. “Ella, I need to make this call—it’s about a job. Can you order for us? I’ll take the steak, medium rare.”
He walks to the back where the pay phones are and I take this time to apply lipstick. I feel pretty. I think I’m pretty—I suck in my gut. The waiter comes and I order chicken for me, steak for him. Sade plays in the background. I get lost in her voice, singing along.
“Don’t stop.” He takes his seat. I laugh and blush a little. “Really, you have a nice voice,” he says.
I change the subject. “Did you get the job?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What is it for?”
“I’ll be shooting a music video this week.”
“Cool.” The waitress serves us, and the food is arranged so artfully, I don’t want to touch it. I can barely eat in front of him with the butterflies in my stomach. I get angry at the table that’s between us—I want to sit on his lap, let him touch me … I manage to get through dinner.
“You want to go to my friend’s art show?”
“Sure.”
He motions to the waiter, pays the check, and we are out the door.
The curator welcomes us. “You must meet Franz.” She is elegant and funky: thigh-high black laced boots, black sequined dress, purple sparkle eye shadow, and fake eyelashes. Her smooth black hair frames her big, brown eyes and red lips—gorgeous. She leads me through the crowd. Chad stops and chats with some friends. Techno music blares, wine glasses clink, smoke lingers in the air. The art is pop abstract installations. People crowd around an installation of plastic bottles, blobs of colorful paint framing the silhouette of a woman’s body. Franz wears black like everyone else, except for his orange high top Converse shoes, just to show he is a little different. He is the artist, after all. “Franz, darling, you must meet someone.” She steps in front of him, blocking enamored guests hanging on his every word. “This is Chad’s new girl.” I smile even though the words stick to me: “new girl.” A no-name new girl.
“Oh, nice to meet you. Where is Chad?” He dismisses me as if talking to a mannequin. I spot Chad walking towards us with a couple, one clearly a model: tall, blond silky hair, in a black evening dress with a slit up the side. Her man is handsome and tall, built, with brown hair, his arm around her tiny waist. “Ella, great, you’ve met Franz.”
“Sort of …”
“These are my friends Eric and Vivien.”
I offer my hand before they can say “new girl.” “I’m Ella.” I shake hands with Eric; Vivien nods at me and smiles. She places her hand on Chad’s shoulder.
“Chad and I go back a long time.” There is a slight unease in Chad’s face.
“Oh really?” I challenge her. “How far?”
“Since high school, right, Chadster? He loves it when you call him that.” She moves closer to me and Chad turns and talks with Franz.
“Huh, well, that’s good to know.”
“So, what do you do, Ella?”
“I do what everyone else does in this town.”
“What’s that?”
“What dream is that?”
“Acting, and yours?”
“I’m a model.”
“Of course.” I nod my head.
“Well, it was nice to meet you. Later, Chadster.” Chad turns and nods towards her as she hooks arms with Eric, perusing more of the exhibit.
“Chadster?” I nudge him teasingly.
“Don’t ask.” He takes my arm and leads me out of the gallery. The beat of the techno music follows us out into the street. I’m glad to get out of there away from the tall, perfect, ex-girlfriend model showdown. “Ella, I don’t know why she said that, we dated a bit after high school. Nothing serious. Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you can see right through me.”
“I’m just looking.”
“Don’t you know what your eyes can do?”
“No.”
“That’s the first thing that struck me about you on camera, your eyes. I had to step back, they were so intense. Didn’t you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, you need to be careful with those eyes.” He caresses my cheek. I wrap my arms around his neck. “They can pierce a man’s soul.” His hands rest on my waist.
“Is this okay?” I kiss his whole face—forehead, cheeks, chin, the stubble of his beard, and his lips. We make out like teenagers on the street in the East Village.
His beeper goes off. He checks out the number, says, “Fuck it,” and pulls me to him. He asks if I want to come home with him to Brooklyn. Queens and now Brooklyn, what borough is next? Staten Island would be interesting. I try not to be too eager and play it cool—oh forget it, of course I want to be with him.
“Brooklyn, huh?” I playfully bite his lip. He slides his hand down my arm. I take it, and we walk to his car.
The B-52s blare out of his car as we speed across the Brooklyn Bridge, which reminds me of a diamond necklace from a distance. I call it the Diamond Necklace Bridge. He parks at a brownstone under a tree. Inside his place is like a castle, white walls and pillars extending up into high ceilings. He takes me to his bedroom. “I want you, I want you so much.” He unzips my dress, kissing my neck, and pulls it over me. We fumble onto his bed. He gets a condom off his nightstand.
“You’re beautiful, you know you are beautiful.” I let him take me. I dissolve into him and feel myself float away into the white ceiling high above.
We are twisted up in sheets, arms and legs all tangled together. Could I love this man? He gets up and his body is like a Roman statue, something you’d find in a museum, damn. “Stay in bed. I’ll make breakfast.” He whistles to Aretha Franklin in the kitchen. I fall back to sleep.
The ground is covered with reddish brown leaves. Trees with bare gray branches encircle us. An Indian with long brown hair is with me; I’m not sure who he is. A deer lowers his gray antlers and chews leaves of plants nearby. His round, red back is so close I could touch it. The Indian man says, “Deer walk in circles.” The deer lifts his head and moves along the sides of the trees in a circle. A family of deer join him. The stag stops and his back quivers. He transforms into a brown man with black hair, wearing a white tunic and stick antlers on his head. The other deer transform into a family of Indians: children and women in white tunics with the same stick antlers on their heads. They circle around looking for food. The band stops by a white man with a long gray mustache and hat; they extend their cupped palms. He tells them he doesn’t have any food but he will get some later. I know he’s lying. A young girl with black hair and jet-black eyes offers me something shredded and brown like bark. I take a pinch; it smells sweet. “Oh, tobacco,” I say to her. She grins and joins the band.
He gently kisses my forehead. “You okay?” He brushes my lips with his fingers.
“Uh huh.” I stretch out my arms and yawn. “Deer, I had a dream about deer.”
“Oh yeah?” He traces his fingers on my face. Red brown leaves in a forest, a circle of bare trees, a brown girl offers me something …
“Tobacco.”
“Huh?”
“A girl gave me tobacco.”
“Who?”
“In my dream.”
“Hungry?” I suck on his fingers; he lies on top of me. “Breakfast will get cold.”
“I don’t care.”
“There you go, with those eyes again …” I smile as he kisses me all over.
The breakfast is cold and we eat it anyways, holding hands and kissing between bites. “So, Ella, what are your plans today?” Chad asks, his round blue eyes like a child’s, innocent and open.
“Well, I really should look for a job.”
“On Saturday?”
“Rent can’t wait.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Rent?”
“Let me take you out.”
“Where?”
“Central Park.”
“Well …”
“Come here.” I sit on his lap. “You’re hot, you know that?” He kisses my neck. “You know that, Ella?” I guess rent can wait.
The lake in Central Park is like a scene from a Monet painting. Lazy trees hang over the shimmering water, which reflects the sky. We rent a boat; Chad helps me in, and we push off into the lake. Two butterflies dance above us, the constant noise of the city ceases, a dove coos. Just relax, Chad tells me. And for a delicious moment, I do. I allow the boat to rock me. I dip my hand in the cool water and let it swirl around my fingertips.
The night sky is lit up by the fire. She sings a song in the old language as we paddle down the river. I grip the side of the canoe. “Papa! Papa!” We left him in the hole. We left him all alone in the hole. The house fades into the black sky as the canoe drifts around the river bend. I trail my hand in the water. My mama paddles.
The boat bumps against the bank of the lake. It startles me. Chad smiles. “You fell asleep.”
“Huh?” I rub my forehead.
“Did you dream?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ella, what’s wrong?” He helps me out of the boat.
“I just didn’t want this to end.”
“It doesn’t have to, Ella, it doesn’t have to.”
“I’m sorry, Chad, it’s just my life is a little fucked up right now.”
We walk to his car and I try to gain my composure. He opens the car door for me and helps me in. “You can talk to me, Ella.” Tears just keep falling; maybe it is his gentleness that brings them out. I don’t have any words; it’s a familiar pain that washes over me, a wave I can’t control. He double parks the car on my block. “You don’t have to go, Ella; you can stay with me. Talk to me, Ella, what’s going on?”
“I uh, I’m …” I feel weight on my shoulders, the weight of rent due, no job …
“Just stay with me, Ella.” He strokes my hair. I want to melt into his existence and forget my own, something in me says no.
“I’ll call you,” I say as I open the door. I get out of his car and walk up the steps to the Katherine House.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. I wanted to help Humpty Dumpty, to glue back the pieces of his smashed head, spilled all over the ground. I wanted to help him. I understood him, his brokenness.
The camp counselor, a stern-faced young woman, was angry all the time. We went for a long walk in the woods and during the start of the walk I stepped on a board and a nail went right through my blue sneakers, into my foot. I didn’t flinch, I didn’t make a sound. I just let the nail slide in and out of me as I walked. Each step I took pushed the nail into my foot a little deeper. I didn’t stop. I obeyed the rules. I kept walking; it was a long walk.
We got back to the camp and we all were excited to go swimming, taking our shoes and clothes off and changing quickly into our swim suits. I forgot about the nail and the blood on my shoe—I was glad to swim with my friends. The counselor told me to get out of the pool. I followed her to the office. She held my blue sneaker to my face, exposing the bloody nail. “Why didn’t you tell us what happened?”
I hunch my shoulders. “I didn’t want you to get mad.”
She rolled her eyes at her co-worker and got on the phone, calling my daddy.
My father talked with the counselor—they said something about a shot and that I was fine. My father said nothing to me as my brother and sister got in the car and we went home.
I’m still walking with that nail in my foot and I don’t know how to stop and take it out. I don’t know how, I wish I did, I wish I did.
POOL PARTY
I land another waitress job in the Bowery, a bar next to CBGB’s and La MaMa Theatre. It’s mostly the theater crowd before and after shows, and of course the regulars. Middle-aged men sit at the bar with rounded stomachs, exchanging sarcastic and witty banter with the bartender and waitstaff. I get to know them. It’s an old place; the bar is long, dark wood, the dining area packed with small square tables and curved wooden chairs, something you’d find in a 1920s cabaret. I get to know the chairs intimately, all of them. I close the place three times a week, put chairs up on tables at three in the morning. Nobody bothers me there. I just do my shifts, no groping Joey hands.
Chad picks me up most nights after work. I’m barely at the Katherine House, mostly with Chad and his high white ceilings.
“You sure you need that job?” He strokes my hair with questioning eyes.
“I need it.”
“Why? You have me. I can take care of you.”
“It makes me get up—”
“What do you mean?” I’m sprawled on the floor reaching for the ties of my black apron ’cause I know it’s time to go to work: that’s what I mean. I can’t say that to him. I shrug my shoulders.
“Think about it.” He kisses my forehead. “Come on, get up. We’re going to a pool party.”
Oh yeah, at his friends’ in Long Island. I wonder if model girl will be there—probably. My stomach churns.
It’s a modern beach house surrounded by sand and green blades of beach grass. Crows caw angrily at each other in a tree. I wonder what they’re saying? It sounds like an argument—Chad pulls me along. “Come on, we’re already late.”
I squeeze his hand. “Fashionably New York late.”
As we walk through the door, the smell of pot and cigarettes greets us. A cacophony of voices and dance music create a dissonant sound, like a chord in a song you wouldn’t expect. Thin, scantily-dressed models pose with giraffe-like legs in spiked heels, displaying wine glasses and cigarettes. I feel strangely short and fat, that extra five pounds I’m never able to get rid of—I suck in my gut.
“Chadster!” Vivien glides towards us with Eric trailing behind. She embraces Chad with a fake cheek kiss, careful not to singe his hair with her lit cigarette.
Chad steps back. “You remember Ella?”
“Oh yes, Ella.” She gives a fake smile. “Aren’t you a nanny or something?”
Chad’s face turns red. He lowers his voice and moves closer to her. “Vivien, why would you say that?”
“I’m sorry, she is the spitting image of a nanny I met the other day.”
“No. That wasn’t me.” I fold my arms across my chest.
She turns away, laughing. “Of course not, how silly of me. Ella, come, I’ll show you where the powder room is.” Before I can protest, she hooks her arm in mine like we’re best pals and whisks me to the ladies’ room. I try and get Chad’s attention but he’s talking with his buddy Eric. It’s crowded in the powder room with more long-legged women fixing their hair and applying lipstick to already perfect lips.
“Viv!” A thin brunette tosses her sleek hair over her shoulder, kissing Vivien European style. This is getting old. I take my lipstick out of my pocket and smooth it over my lips. A crowd of women surrounds Vivien as she preens in the mirror, carefully administering mascara, answering questions bombarded by the others.
“How’s Eric? He looks great!”
“Yes, yes, good, we’re good, and what about Sam?” Vivien replies to the thin brunette.
“Oh,” the silky-haired brunette pouts, “we broke up, I’m dating someone else.”
“Who?”
Another one chimes in. “Vivien, did you get that Jordache ad?” This one is a shadow version of Vivien, blond and frail, like her bones could crack any minute. She casually waits for Vivien’s answer as she brushes blush on her protruding cheekbones.
“Oh yes, and it’s so exciting. Eric is shooting it!”
“That’s so cool!” the shadow Vivien answers.
The brunette chirps, “This is such a great crowd, isn’t it? I’m glad there aren’t any niggers here.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” the shadow Vivien agrees. Vivien laughs. I slam my lipstick against the counter and cut off the sound of her cackle.
“Well, there is one here, because I’m black. My grandfather was black, I’m black! Black!” I curl my fists, ready to swing at someone. Heads turn with open mouths and astonished faces.
Vivien gives the perfect exit line. “Let’s get something to drink, girls.” They snap their compacts and lipstick cases closed, the clicks audible now in the tense silence. Each one brushes past me with slit eyes and raised noses.
Where the hell am I? My body trembles as I walk out and try to find Chad in the crowd. I can’t find him, so I begin to drink, one champagne glass after another, until I’m numb, can’t feel my anger anymore. A guy offers me a joint. I partake and I am stoned and drunk. I follow the guy to the pool area. What is left for me is delicious water. I take off my dress. I have my bikini underneath, ready to go swimming. The pot guy does a cannonball off the diving board.
I follow him, dizzy from the champagne and pot, and jump into the cool water, my limbs drifting weightless, unencumbered. I submerge, still dizzy, and head towards shallow water. A hand slams my head down. I start to panic and snap out of my drunken state, limbs flailing, trying to escape from arms around my shoulders and hands on my head. Finally, they loosen their grip and let me up. I’m gasping for air, choking. I can make out the girls, the ones in the bathroom, the brunette and two others standing over me as I’m coughing, trying to let in air. “No niggers allowed here,” the brunette says. Shadow Vivien laughs, and a shrill cackle follows—Vivien? They hover above me as I make it to the edge of the pool, gasping for air.
Chad comes towards me. “Ella, you okay?”
I try to talk but keep coughing. “I need to go home.” Chad helps me out of the water and gets a towel, wraps it around me. “I just need to go home!” I am trembling.
He guides me through the crowd. I walk with my head down, passing through high heels and manicured toes. I am breathing, I can breathe. Chad finds my purse and dress. We stop briefly.
“She okay?” It’s Eric.
“Yes, not feeling well. I’m taking her home. See you later, buddy.” I wonder if Vivien is there with him, sneering at the soppy mess I’ve become, or maybe that was her in the pool, holding me down. I start shaking again, I can’t stop. Chad heads for the door as fast as he can and we make it outside. I start to vomit in that lovely tall beach grass. He pulls my hair back until I’m done. “Wow, you really can’t hold your liquor.” I try to stand; my body sways.
“I’m sorry, Chad, I’m sorry.” I start puking again.
After I’m done, he gathers me in his arms. “Let’s get you home now. I’ve got to keep an eye on you from now on.”
We ride in silence for most of the ride home. Every so often Chad takes my hand and I summon a smile to reassure him I’m alright. But I’m not. Images of the night whirl around my brain; I’m trying to make sense of them. “Chad.”
“Yes, honey.”
“I don’t think your friends like black people.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because some girls, they were gonna drown me or try to, because they knew I was black.”
“What? Ella, you’ve been drinking too much. Listen, that’s ridiculous—how would they even know you were black? You don’t even look black.”
“I told them. We were in the bathroom, and some of them, I don’t know who, jumped me in the pool and held me down.”
“No, no, honey, you were drunk, you drank too much.”
“They tried to drown me, called me nigger—”
“Ella, honey, shh, shh.” He strokes my hair. “My friends would never do that; they’re not racist. We’re from Manhattan, we work with black people. You just had too much to drink. Everything’s gonna be alright, okay?” He strokes my cheek. “I’m taking us home.”
Maybe I did make it up—maybe. It was the pot, I was hallucinating, it was like a bad dream; I must have lost balance in the pool. I take in the smell of him, rest my head on his shoulder and fall asleep all the way to Brooklyn. That night he makes love to me hard like he’s trying to hold onto me and he needs my body for certainty. “Those eyes, Ella, what are behind those eyes?” I trace his lips. “You’re mine, aren’t you mine, Ella?” His want makes me alive.
“Yes, I’m yours, I’m yours.” And he comes and I lay my head on his chest. I let myself sink into the warmth of his arms and he cradles me. He kisses my forehead.
“Ella, I want you to meet my parents.” Uh oh, I’m barely making it through meeting his friends—
I nuzzle my head underneath his arm and fall asleep.
I’m sweating I can’t breathe, feel suffocated gasping for air. “Chad! Chad!”
“They were holding me down, they were …” My heart is racing.
“Ella, you just drank too much, shh, baby, I’m here.”
“Chad, they were trying to drown me—”
“Sweetie, my friends would never do that. Here, let me get you something to help you sleep.” He gets up, goes in the bathroom and comes back with two white pills and a glass of water. I swallow each pill. He tells me not to worry, that they’re just jealous, that’s all. The pills take their effect and within minutes I am knocked out.
My head is pounding. Chad is getting ready for a video shoot. What day is it? Do I have to work tonight? My head throbs in my hands.
“That bad, huh?” He kisses my cheek. “I’ve got to go in a few; here’s cab money to get home.”
“Oh, I can take the subway.”
He lets out an exasperated sigh. “Please, take a cab, sweetie. I don’t want to worry.”
“The subway station is right around the block—”
“Promise me you’ll take a cab?”
“Okay.” He kisses me one last time and heads out the door. It’s quiet in here without him. The high white ceilings, white sheets, everything elegant and artsy: just like Chad. Images of last night rush in my head: high heels, long legs, ruby lips, and me talking about my grandfather, my black grandfather. The exodus out of the bathroom, sneers in the mirror. It did happen, right? Right? I start to feel panicky again, try and push the feelings down—I was drunk, high, and they were just jealous of me like Chad said, jealous. After a shower, I put myself together carefully: hair, lipstick, Walkman, sunglasses. I leave the cash Chad left me on the table and decide to take the subway instead.
I’m a dot in the commute crowd, among many hundreds of dots feeding the subway turnstile—how will we all get through? I feel the tiredness of the crowd, the resignation of the nine to five work week. My head’s in a blur.
* * *
We all fight for the window seat. Until Dad stomps down the wooden steps to the garage—then we get quiet. We know better than to bicker in front of him. My mother’s gentle footsteps trail behind him. She is solemn, her large eyes sadder than usual as we pile into the gray station wagon and head north to Maine for her father’s funeral. Since Claude and I are the youngest and smallest we have to sit in the far back in makeshift seats. I feel cheated because I’m ten, almost a teen. Joan, Adam, and Helen sit in the back seats and my parents sit up front. Dad drives. Classical music plays softly on the radio. My parents argue. As usual, my Dad is worried about the time and angry at my mother’s habitual lateness. My mother tells him to calm down. Tension permeates the car.
The church is in a modest neighborhood. It’s hot and muggy as we walk up the steps in silence. A woman dressed in black with a large hat greets us; her skin is coffee brown and she is large boned like my mother.
“Aunt Beah!” My mother embraces her as we all stand around them.
“Little Margaret. Oh, and your brood! Deliah would have been glad you all made it.”
“Yes, yes, she would have been. Aunt Beah, these are my children and this is R.J.” We all smile and nod, and my father offers his hand.
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Yes. Well, here are programs and you all better go in, it already started.” Mom and Dad lead the way down the aisle. Proud afros of every size fill the pews like halos. As we walk to our seats in the front, heads turn with scrutiny like we are a misplaced family at the wrong funeral. Aunt Beah joins us and sits next to Mom. The casket is regal, shiny purple. It’s open, and I can make out my grandfather’s profile. Mom told me he had lots of wives, four to be exact. I turn around: all the black people with the Jackson 5 afros are my relatives. I’ve never met them. I only met my grandfather once before, and now he’s dead.
At the end of the sermon we all stand in line and wait to view the body. The organ music swells as we step slowly in a long line that winds around the church snake-like.
“Henry, Henry, all these people are here for you, just you.”
“Deliah, Deliah—”
“I’m here for you baby, I waited for you, just like I said I would, baby—”
“Deliah, my delight …”
“Yes, darling, yes …”
A woman breaks out in sobs as she crumples over his body. “Henry! Oh, my Henry!” Grasping a tissue, she wails. Another woman gently leads her past the coffin. “Priscilla, come on now, he’s in the Lord’s hands now, come on.”
“That’s Priscilla, my wife, Priscilla. Deliah, she’s calling me!”
“Baby, I’m right here, shh, shh.”
“I need to go to her!”
“Come here, baby, I’m right here, come here.”
“They can’t hear us.”
“No, they can’t.”
“I can’t go back?”
“No, you can’t.”
“Deliah?”
“Yes?”
“Hold me, hold me, Deliah.”
“Yes, baby, yes.”
In the casket, my grandfather’s chocolate brown skin glistens against purple satin. His eyes are closed, he can’t see me. This is how I will remember him, impeccably dressed in a black suit, and I can’t see his eyes, can’t see his eyes.
I’m glad to get out of the church. People gather in groups and my family forms a small circle. No one talks. My mother’s Aunt Beah joins us with a tall black man who approaches my mom.
“Margaret.” My mother turns and a warm smile spreads across her face.
“Kenny.” She embraces him. My mother introduces us to our Uncle Kenny and we shyly shake his hand. “Where’s Hank and Sammy?” my mother asks Uncle Kenny.
“They’re at Priscilla’s already.” His voice is soft and low like a double bass.
“Oh, we will meet them there,” my mother responds. There’s a knowing silence between them. A large shadow cast over us. I point to the sky. All heads turn up to a majestic wingspan.
“What kind of bird is that?” Claude asks.
“Why, I believe that is a bald eagle. What on earth is a bald eagle doing over here?” my father says incredulously.
“Maybe it’s hungry,” Joan adds. Soon the whole crowd outside the church cranes their necks to view the grand eagle.
“It’s a sign,” Aunt Beah says.
“A sign of what?” my mother asks.
“Emma is visiting us.” She places her hand on her chest.
“Who’s Emma?” I ask.
“Emma is your great-grandmother, my mother. She was Indian and black.”
“And now she’s an eagle?” Claude jokes. My brothers and sisters try to stifle their laughter.
“Yes, she is giving us a message,” Aunt Beah whispers.
My father shakes his head. The eagle descends one more time towards us and sails above the clouds.
“That was a rare sighting, that eagle, extremely rare. What are the odds of that?” Dad leads the way to the station wagon; we get in the car and head to Priscilla’s house.
Every house has the same layout: one level, with a square patch of grass in front yellowing from the August sun. My father pulls into the driveway. A few men smoke cigarettes, R&B music blares from the open door. I smell pot. As we pile out of the car the woman who broke down in front of the casket gives the same performance as she enters the door.
“OHHHH, my Henry’s gone!” She slouches forward, catches her hat so it doesn’t fall. People gather around her and prop her up as she weeps uncontrollably. I have never experienced this kind of display of emotion in my life. In our house, it’s hush, hush, don’t say a word, especially if you’re sad, go away and hide. I want to scream and cry like her. I want to be held too. We all stand awkwardly on the yellowed lawn, my mother talking with Uncle Kenny and a skinny black man with a big smile. He turns to my mother.
“Margaret, you’ve done well!” He has a jovial demeanor, quite different from Uncle Kenny’s.
“Oh, Sammy!” My mother smiles and introduces us all to Uncle Sammy.
“So, which one of you wants to go for a ride on my scooter?” He points to a blue and white scooter bike parked on the sidewalk. No one answers so I say I’ll go.
I get on the back of the scooter bike, he tells me to hold onto his waist, and we speed off. The wind makes my eyes water a bit, makes my hair flow back, as we speed up and down blocks while Sammy greets people, beeping his horn, announcing: “Hey you all! This is my niece! Say hi to my niece!” I wave and people smile and wave back from their porches. Sammy zooms down another block. I giggle, holding onto this man I just met, my Uncle Sammy, and I feel like a movie star.
Uncle Sammy turns into the driveway and parks his scooter on the side of the road. I thank him. In the yard a skinny man with an afro has a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, talking loudly to my mother. He sways a bit back and forth and slurs his words. “Margaret, Margaret, you got out, didn’t you! Out! I missed you, but I was glad, I am glad, everyone drink to Margaret for getting out!” He takes a swig of his beer. My mom puts her hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him.
“He did nothing for us, Margaret, you remember? Nothing. We begged for food, he left us with nothing, remember, Margaret? Remember …? He was no father. NO FATHER!”
“I know, Hank, I know.” My mom places her hand on his back.
“Margaret, he left us with that crazy woman, you know, and you know who got the worst of it. You know, Francine. She’s locked up! Did you know that? Aw, Margaret, you got out, you got out, I’m so glad you got out!” He’s kneeling on the lawn; my mother has her arms around him trying to get him to stand. Francine, that’s her sister that calls mom every so often. I overheard a conversation and mom was telling her to let it go, it was in the past, that mother is dead now. She was flustered when she got off the phone. Where is Francine locked up? Why can’t we visit her?
“Shh, Hank, that was a long time ago. Let it go, Hank.” And she helps him to his feet.
“Margaret, maybe I’ll get out too, one day.”
Uncle Sammy puts his arm around him. “Come on, brother, let’s get you home.”
“Sammy, you know what? If I could stop drinking, if I could, but this here bottle here has got me wrapped up, wrapped up hard! It’s the Irish in me, right, Margaret?” He takes another swig, laughing. He breaks free from Uncle Sammy’s embrace and steps up to my father, who is trying to herd us all into the car. “Now you all come back soon again. I mean it, you all are welcome here.”
“Okay, that’s mighty nice, now everyone get in the car,” my father frowns.
“Really, really welcome.” He starts to sway again like he’s going to fall smack on my father, Uncle Kenny steadies him.
“Now come on, Hank, it’s time to get you home,” Uncle Kenny says calmly.
“Sammy, I mean Kenny, those are our nephews and nieces, you know? Right there. Isn’t that something?” Hank smiles at us as we wait in the car for Mom.
“Yes, Hank, now come on.” Uncle Kenny is trying to guide him away from the car.
“You all be sure to come back soon!” My father ignores him, gets in the car, slams the door and honks the horn. My mother stands in front of her brother Hank and puts her hand on his cheek.
“Now Hank, you take care of yourself, alright?”
“Margaret, one day I’ll get out, you’ll see.”
“Yes, Hank, yes.” He takes her hand, then lets it go. Uncle Sammy and Uncle Kenny prop him up as we back out of the driveway to go home.
“Astor Place,” the driver announces. I’m jostled awake as the crowd piles out of the open doors. Startled, I get up, and they push me along with them like a herd of sheep. Where am I? Oh yeah, Astor Place. I must have passed out. I head west down 8th Street, my head still pounding, limbs heavy. The heat of the day hasn’t crept over the city yet. The sun waits menacingly, ready to press the air between the buildings, making it unbearable like a sauna. Something familiar creeps inside me, the unnamable sadness.
I feel tears in my throat, why? I need to get home to the Katherine House, get ready for my shift at work. I start to panic as the sepulchral heaviness overwhelms me. I make it home, to my room, the cold linoleum floor. And I break down.
Hands over my head in the pool. Did it happen? Did it? My chest heaves. Chad’s voice comes into my head. “You just drank too much. My friends would never do that.” I want it to stop, I want the pain to stop—
This pain that follows me wherever I go, finds me no matter what, wrestles me to the ground. How long can I exist like this? This fall-down-get-up dance? How long? I need something to stop this pain—to feel another pain—to end this pain to—
I need to get ready for work. I reach for my apron strings on the floor and get up.
At work I hover above myself, trying to keep up the pace of the rush hour, happy hour. Hah, why not call it despair hour? Disgruntled customers with impatient faces, unforgiving faces. “I said a martini on the rocks!” A skinny white man with thick, black-rimmed glasses reprimands me. He tells his friend, talking loud enough so I can hear, “That girl should not be a waitress, she should go back to acting.” And they both laugh. I pretend not to hear and somehow get through my shift. Not bad, not bad, seventy bucks. Considering my state, I call it a success.
Chad is picking me up to meet his parents. I quickly go to the bathroom, change my shirt, redo my lipstick, eyeliner, spray some Ralph Lauren perfume to combat the bar stench and wait for him at the bar. A regular comes in with a tiny gray kitten. “Hey, guys, check this out.” He plops the kitten on the bar. Rough hands grope at the poor thing; it’s terrified.
“Where’d you get this?” the bartender asks.
“It just came to me on the street.” The kitten shivers on the bar. I want to take her away from the loud voices, rough hands, tuck her in my shirt and run. Pure innocence that kitten, pure—and I spot Chad’s BMW and run out to meet him.
“Hey, beautiful!”
“Hey.” We kiss.
“We’re meeting my parents for dinner.”
“I know.”
“You’re wearing that?”
“What’s wrong with this?” He’s never questioned my East Village street-fashion style before.
“My parents, well, they would expect you in something nicer—not that you don’t look nice—just dressier.” I think of all my clothes and can’t summon up anything that’s dressy.
“Chad, I don’t have anything.”
“Don’t worry, I know where to go.” We head uptown. “We’ll get you something, we have time.” We end up at Bloomingdale’s, the one near Jan’s. I almost want to stop in there, then I remember I told the manager to fuck off. Not a good idea. “Come on, come on.” Chad hurries me along; we take the escalator to the women’s department. The bright lights and all the clothes make me feel dizzy: too many choices. He picks out a black fitted dress with a white belt, the kind of outfit a newscaster or politician’s wife would wear. I frown. “Just for tonight, Ella, wear it just for tonight.” I oblige and try it on in the dressing room. I suck in my gut and step out to show Chad. “There’s my girl,” he says, smiling. He buys the dress. I wear it out of the store and bundle my rejected clothes under my arm. Chad, in a blazer, white button-down shirt, and jeans, and I in that trophy-wife dress glide out of Bloomingdale’s like two store mannequins come to life: what a picture.
The doorman greets us as he opens the heavy ornate door.
We walk to the elevator. Inside, Chad presses the button to the eighth floor. “Come here, gorgeous.” He runs his hands up and down my dress, kissing my neck.
I giggle. “Chad, stop!” Not really meaning it. We get to the eighth floor. I straighten my dress out and Chad pats me on the bottom. I playfully punch his arm, smiling.
He knocks on the door. A striking, middle-aged woman with black hair opens the door, smiles. Chad introduces me. “Ella, this is my mother, Adrienne.”
“Hello.” I offer her my hand. She skillfully sizes me up, a slight disdain in her eyes. Dress not up to her standards?
“Very pleased to meet you, Ella.” She drops my hand; her lips form a straight line. I sense she will just tolerate my presence in her home. She motions us to the living room: expensive art dominates the walls, plush carpet on the floor, along with a breathtaking view of the city. Chad’s father walks towards me with a martini glass in his hand. He’s tall with thinning salt and pepper hair, parted on the side to hide a bald spot. His eyes are like Chad’s: watery blue, large, and round.
“You must be Ella, pleased to meet you. I’m Bob.” I smile and shake his hand. “Ella, please sit down.” I feel strangely grateful to Chad that he bought me this dress that fits into the setting of this upscale Eastside apartment. I plant a smile on my face and obediently wait for Chad for the next cue. He hands me a drink, vodka and tonic, sits down, and places his hand on my thigh. Adrienne casts her eyes towards me. Is that a glimmer of disapproval? Or is that disgust? Chad doesn’t remove his hand. I blush.
“So, Ella.” Adrienne takes a sip of her drink, reclines on the couch. “Chad tells me you are from New England.”
“Yes, Boston area, a small town.”
“Well, what brings you to New York?”
“I went to school here, for a while.”
“And what did you study?”
“Theater.”
“And what do you do now?”
“Right now, I’m waitressing.”
“Of course. Chad went through that phase of wanting to be an actor. Didn’t you, honey? It’s a tough business.” She places her drink on the table. “Have you seen his work?”
“No, I haven’t, he hasn’t shown it to me.” I put my hand on his thigh.
“Come on, Mother, you’re embarrassing me.” Chad takes a long sip of his drink.
“Well, you were very good.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re my mother.”
“I’m saying that because I know. After all, I am a casting director.” She slightly lifts her chin in the air, staring at me like a queen in a chess game waiting for the right move. Am I the pawn?
I turn to Chad’s father. “Are you in the same business as well?”
“No, no, nothing exciting like that. I do marketing for Chevron.”
“Well, it’s about time for dinner,” Adrienne announces. Chad leads me into the dining room, pulls out my chair, and scoots me in at the table. “Chad, honey, would you please serve the plates?”
“Sure.” He places a plate of white fish, rice, and green beans in front of me.
“So, Ella, what are your plans?”
“Plans?” I feel flushed again.
“Yes, now that you are no longer in college.”
“Well, I’m an actress.”
“So that’s your plan?”
“Yes, for now.”
“I guess it’s a good time for your type—ethnics are quite in these days.”
“Really?” Bob says, surprised.
“Yes, I’ve noticed it in commercials, a greater need for ethnic types, quite a surge. Someone like Ella is much more sought after now than, let’s say, ten years ago,” Adrienne continues. “It’s definitely not Ozzie and Harriet any more, is it?” She laughs.
“No, it’s not.” Bob chuckles in response.
“Those were the good old days: things were much simpler,” Adrienne says wistfully, emphasizing the word “simpler.”
“Ella and I met during an audition,” Chad chimes in, squeezing my thigh.
“Oh, for what?” Adrienne feigns interest.
“That B movie I told you about?”
“Oh yes, now I recall. And did Ella get the part?”
I don’t know whether to answer or not. I don’t know if I am in the conversation. They seem to have dissolved me; I am only necessary as some prop that can’t talk. My throat constricts. I finish my drink.
“Ella walked out of the audition.”
“She did? Why?”
“She didn’t like the script. That’s how she got my attention.” Chad turns to me and kisses me. At this point I have no words. I am just a body and he is my spokesperson.
“How unusual, Ella, to walk out.” Adrienne slightly raises her eyebrows.
“Yes, unusual,” Bob agrees.
“I was just playing hard to get.” I break through the silence and Bob and Adrienne laugh.
Chad whispers in my ear, “Well, it worked for me.”
Thankfully, the dinner is almost over. Something is choking inside me and I don’t let it show. I perform the required goodbye rituals, smiles and handshakes, and Chad and I leave the apartment, down to his car and to Brooklyn.
He unzips my dress in the hallway. “I want you. I’ve wanted you all night.” My body is rigid and he stops kissing my neck. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t think your parents like me.”
“Nonsense, why would you think that?’
“I just got that feeling …”
“Of course they like you. Who wouldn’t like you? You’re wonderful!” He pulls down my dress and carries me to his bed.
A streetlight glows through the window. My mind won’t stop. Chad’s mother, her hatred leaked through her eyes—but Chad said they liked me—I’m wonderful. I made them laugh—I’m wonderful—the ethnic type—I’m wonderful—pull off my dress—fuck me—I’m wonderful—
this paper doll this cut-out version of—
where am I?
And I begin to crack and something is unleashed—
and my tears won’t stop.
The bathroom floor is cold. I float above myself. Will I fall? Will I crack into a thousand pieces?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall—
He came after me. I ran through the house up the stairs as fast as I could go got on the top of the bunk bed where he couldn’t get me. His hands caught my pant leg and pulled me down crashing on the floor he pulled off my pants his weight on me a knife through my belly I can’t move knife feels like a knife between my legs, something wet slippery, the light, white glass, with designs on it like a snowflake a flower a flower snowflake—
“No niggers allowed here.” I can’t breathe—
“You’re mine, aren’t you mine, Ella?”
Who’s gonna put me back together? All the pieces I have become?
The light in Chad’s bathroom flickers. How do I stop the pain stop it stop it—Wait till I get your brothers. He leaves me to get my brothers I am broken—
How do I stop this pain. I grab a razor—
“Honey.” Chad knocks on the door. “You in there?’
It’s too late. “Ella!” He comes in. “Ella!”
“I just wanted it to stop the pain to stop stop …” He gets a towel and takes the razor out of my hand.
“What the fuck, Ella! Why’d you do this?” He wraps my wrist in a towel.
“I wanted it to stop.”
“Stop what, Ella? Ella, we gotta get you—let me think, we gotta go.”
He squeezes my wrist as he drives; it’s bleeding through the towel. Over the Diamond Necklace Bridge into Manhattan to a white building on the East Side. “Bellevue.”
“Ha, this is the only time I’ll get to play Blanche DuBois.”
“What?” He slams on the brakes, almost hitting the car in front of us.
“A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche DuBois, the scene at the end when they take her away.”
“Ella, this is no play, this is real life.”
“I know, but think about it, when would I, the ‘ethnic’ type, ever be cast as Blanche?”
“What the hell are you talking about? Jesus Christ! You could bleed to death!” He parks the car and walks me through the emergency doors. A nurse greets us with a clipboard, taking down information. She takes me in a room and bandages my wrist. Chad waits in the waiting room. It’s not too crowded; I suppose they needed to take me first, because of the bleeding. The nurse places a plastic hospital bracelet around my wrist and sends me back to the waiting room. Chad whispers with the nurse. I feel strangely calm, like I’ve stopped fighting—I’ve finally surrendered to this war inside. Chad walks over to me with a clipboard in his hands and touches my shoulder. “Honey, you need to sign this, so they can help you.” He hands me the clipboard and I scribble my signature with my good hand. He returns the clipboard to the desk. “I’m going to go now.” He has tears in his eyes. I want to shout, “No, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, Chad.” I can’t. I have stepped over the sane line to the other side of sanity.
“Thank you,” I say meekly, trying to smile—I break down, collapse to the floor, and the intake guy, a tall black man with gentle eyes, puts his hand on my back, and tenderly lifts me up. I smile at him; I can’t resist—I recite in a perfect Southern accent: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Blanche DuBois’s famous line as she exits the scene gracefully and the two men come to take her away to the funny farm. And I’m laughing and crying simultaneously. The intake man takes my elbow.
Chad tries to console me. “Ella, it’s going to be okay. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
I can’t bear to meet his eyes. Chad, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to fall apart at the seams—didn’t mean to. Come on, get ahold of yourself, Ella, wait—I’m in Bellevue, I don’t have to.
The intake guy leads me to another waiting room, smaller, in front of a large wooden door bearing an official brass-plated sign, “Dr. Simon, Psychiatrist” in black letters. “Wait here, the doctor will meet with you shortly.” The tone of his voice soothes me; I feel instantly grateful for his kindness.
I sit in a hard, plastic white chair in front of a window. It’s raining; droplets form on the glass. My wrist throbs. I feel the pain now, pain I caused myself to stop pain. I am broken, a broken toy Chad dropped off, doesn’t work anymore—take it back take it back.
The door opens and a blond lady appears, young, with bangs and round glasses like John Lennon’s. How’s this white lady gonna help me? She gestures me to sit on a padded chair across from her impressive desk, where she sits and appears even smaller, more childish, like she was playing doctor. Or shrink. “So, tell me, Ella,” she says in a clipped, superior tone as she arranges papers in front of her, “what brings you here?”
“Just trying to beat the holiday crowd.”
She tilts her head, purses her lips, and asks in a serious tone, “Yes, continue, what about the holidays?” Her pen is perched above her paper, ready to strike at any time. I’m disappointed she didn’t get my joke.
“It’s September. Soon the stores will tell us it’s Halloween, they’ll clear the merchandise for Thanksgiving, Christmas, there is no time. So, I just figure I better squeeze my breakdown in there somewhere.” Once I explain it, I realize it’s not funny. She pauses as if deeply concerned. I break the silence. “I was joking.” Wow, I have to spell it out for her.
“This is no joke. Because you cut yourself, didn’t you, Ella?”
My bandaged wrist stings. “Yes. I did.”
“And why, do you know why you cut yourself?” She sounds affected, like she’s a talk show host addressing a contestant on Why Did You Try and Kill Yourself? She raises her pen in the air expectantly.
The cold floor the glass light with flower snowflake the searing pain between my legs
I can’t breathe they’re holding me down, Chad, they tried to drown me, Chad—
“Ethnic types are in now, aren’t they?”
Tears run down my face, words are caught in my throat, I can’t speak.
“We can help you, Ella.” I try to appear stoic, in control. “Although we do not have any beds right now, we can set up a cot in the hallway for you.”
Wait. Beds, hallway, overnight? I snap back into reality, into the moment.
“Overnight? I can’t. I have to work tomorrow.”
“Your boyfriend signed you in, and you signed the papers.”
“What?”
“That means, as long as you are a danger to yourself or others, we can keep you for seventy-two hours.”
“But I have to work tomorrow—”
“We can help you.”
“I can’t lose my job! How is that helping me?” I panic and run to the door. “I’ve got to get out of here!” She pushes a red button on the wall.
“Ella, Ella, calm down, we can help you.” Two nurses appear at the door, one man and one woman with stern faces. “Please set a cot up for Ella in the hallway and make sure she takes these meds.” She hands the male nurse a slip of paper.
“I can’t stay here, please, I have to work tomorrow!” I try and move past them; the nurses take ahold of my arms and lead me down the hall. The doctor’s clipped tone, “Next,” reverberates in the hallway. The woman nurse is middle-aged with tired eyes. She hands me a small white cup with two pills in it and a cup of water.
“Take these,” she says. The male nurse towers over me.
“What is it?” I ask, aware that the male nurse is close by, just in case I refuse.
“It will calm you down, make you feel better.” She turns her wrist and glances at her watch. I bet she can’t wait until work is over. I take a pill, put it in my mouth and take a swig of water, pretending to swallow, and do the same with the second one. I hand the nurse the empty white cup. “Done?” she asks. I nod to her, trying to keep the pills under my tongue. I can taste their bitterness. I stop at the bathroom and the nurse lets me go in alone. I close the door, spit the pills in the toilet, and flush them down. The nurse guards escort me to a hallway and set up a cot near a light-skinned black woman with disheveled hair, pacing, mumbling to herself, unaware of our presence.
“They never let you out of here, they never let you leave, they never let you out, they never let you leave …” The nurse guards hand me a blanket and tell me this is my cot. Muffled screams penetrate the hallway. How am I gonna get out of here? I start to panic, my heart races, the sobs I can’t stop—
“Whose baby are you?” A black woman with a beautiful round face and almond eyes, eyes like mine but bigger, beams down at me.
“Huh?” I try to stifle my crying. How did she get here? I hadn’t seen her before. Maybe a new patient.
“Never mind, chile. You got to get yourself together.” Something in her voice makes me listen, a certainty. “Now, you didn’t swallow any pills, did you?” I shake my head. “Good. Good.” She sits down. “Now listen, chile, you better find out who you are before they take you and you forget everything. Feel the ground, the earth. You’re strong you know, you got ancestors you know, they’re here. You’re strong enough to stand and feel them, I can tell. Get up now and do what I tell you so you can get on out of here.” Her words rush over me like cold water waking me up from some kind of sleep I was in but didn’t know it.
Black curls frame her face and almond eyes. I ask her name.
“Julia, you can call me Julia,” she says.
“I’m Ella.”
“Now get yourself together, girl, the more you fall apart around here, the longer you’ll stay.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Oh, I’m getting out in a few days.”
“You see ancestors?”
“They’ve been waiting for you, Ella, for you to wake up and listen.” With that, Julia stands up, says goodnight, and heads towards the distressed woman pacing in the hall.
“Good night and thank you.” I fall asleep and feel somehow protected.
That night I dreamt I was at the edge of the ocean and a great big porpoise leaped out of the water, spraying me. I walked farther down the beach and Chad was there with a group of friends, laughing and drinking. I tried to get Chad’s attention and tell him about the giant porpoise but he couldn’t see or hear me. I sat down on a large rock. A dark Indian girl basked in the sun on a wide, flat rock. She rose slowly and spread out her arms. Feathers sprouted out of her limbs, face, and body and she soared to the sky. The rock lit up in the sunlight, revealing drawings etched on its surface. I rubbed my fingers over the figures of birdlike men and animals. A red salamander crawled on top of the stone. I picked it up and swallowed it.
Sunlight streaks through the hall. I rub my eyes, forgetting where I am. A pit forms in the bottom of my belly. Oh yeah, the hospital. What a dream I had last night—are these the ancestors Julia is talking about? I want to ask her, I don’t see her anywhere. I get up and her words ring in my ears: “Keep yourself together.”
Three days pass. I continue to pretend to swallow my pills and keep myself intact. Chad doesn’t visit me. I guess it’s over. I just need to focus on getting out of here. It’s almost my turn to meet with the doctor. This is my exit performance, the “I’m well enough to leave” act. I plan on giving the Academy Award-winning performance of my life. The doctor opens her door. “Ella, how are you?” She puts down her papers.
“I’m well.”
“Have you had any more suicidal thoughts?”
“No, no, in fact I feel a lot better. I’m ready to go back to my life, back to work.”
“It’s been a short time here for you. I want to make sure you don’t slip through the cracks.” She looks at me like I am going to fall right now through a crack in the floor. She wants to make sure they haven’t missed anything. She wants to observe me for a bit longer. Hell no, longer? I want to shout, turn over her desk and wipe the smug expression off her face. I don’t—something comes over me and I channel Lauren Bacall, or Katherine Hepburn, or both of them at the same time,
“Doctor, I assure you that is not necessary. I’ve missed far too much work and really want to get back to my life. This has helped me and I thank you for your help. I know I have gotten what I need.” I almost slip into a British accent.
“Hmmmmm.” She pauses. “I’m going to refer you to our outpatient clinic, however you must sign this document stating you will continue care there.” I feel the panic leave me. Outpatient. Anything is better than staying here another minute. The doctor hands me the document and I sign it quickly. She wishes me good luck and I thank her, ending the performance with my best fake smile.
Julia is waiting in the hall. “I’m leaving,” I say.
“I told you.”
“Is this your last day too?”
“Yes, I’ll be gone, I’ll be gone.”
“Thank you, Julia …”
Julia places her palms on my cheeks, cradling my head. “Just remember, Ella, once you let someone define you—you die.” She releases her hands, glances at me one last time, and enters the doctor’s office.
I walk out that door into the sunshine, rip off the plastic bracelet, and head down the street with words, words I can stand on.