She slid the shiny, smooth stockings over her long, lean legs. She shivered as she felt the satin of her corseted bodice hug her curves. She gasped for air as each closing inch of the zipper forced what breath she had left in her frail, shaking body outward. The yellow toe-pinching pumps stared at her from the corner. The fluffy feather boa rested on her chair like a python awaiting its next victim, and the elaborate head dress onto which she had painstakingly sewn four thousand twenty two shimmering sequins sat waiting in its garish oppression. She had waited for this moment, but this was not how she had pictured her debut at all. She had wanted the luxurious dressing room of Hollywood starlets with the multi-bulbed lighted vanity mirror and sumptuous costumes draped around the room. Instead, she was in the sketchy bathroom of the bar down the street from the looming Washington Heights apartment building. Faucet-dripping, light-flickering, dirty, smelly, gray insanity was closing in around her. She opened the creaking door into the rancid bar smelling of spilled beer and wasted hope. The lurid light flooded into the bathroom and she slammed the door closed strangled with anxiety.
Lola snapped out of her dreamy flashback as the imitation rain shower began to drip brown, cloudy water on the fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle of Manny’s Grocery. She was picking yellow pears, or at least what was supposed to be yellow pears, and she watched curiously as a woman she knew from her apartment building, Delilah Plunk, delicately selected five and only five red apples. Lola had never heard this woman speak, but she seemed so lovely. To Lola, everyone seemed lovely. Lola marveled at her adorably plump fingers as they caressed each red apple before gingerly placing them into the bag. Delilah glanced Lola’s way, but Lola quickly averted her eyes, batting her long lashes. Lola grabbed her grimy pears, and scampered away to pay for them.
Lola made the short trek from the Manny’s back to Washington Heights avoiding the strange and disturbing stand housing a stuffed tabby cat. She waited on the uncertain elevator, optimistic that today it would not stall in between two floors. The doors opened, already this was a good sign. Standing there in the elevator was another lovely person. Lola was speechless. This woman was breathtaking. Her bright red lips, full and pouty, matched perfectly her beautiful red pumps. Lola had to know this woman’s name... and perhaps where she had purchased such gorgeous shoes.
"Hello there... um my name is Lola," she said sheepishly."
"Lemme guess. Are you a showgirl?" the woman said with a smirk as a flood of wine-scented fragrance filled the elevator.
"Oh my goodness gracious, however did you know?" Lola giggled.
"Lucky guess, I suppose," the woman said rolling her eyes. "Anyway, my name is Nicole Lee Carmine," she slurred.
"What an absolutely lovely name," said Lola as she clapped giddily.
The elevator screeched and lurched to Lola’s floor, and as she bounced off with her yellow pears in one hand, she excitedly waved goodbye to Nicole. "Wow." Lola thought. "What an interesting woman, and she seems ever so friendly. I bet she’s a movie star. Oh fiddledede, I forgot to ask her where her shoes were from."
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Delilah's five fat fingers clutched the edge of the immaculate bathroom sink. With the door open, she could hear the rain pelting the window as if it wanted to shatter the glass and take the place of the tears that would not fall, that had not fallen. Her head hung helplessly, hopelessly towards her chest. Her long brown hair barely grazed the snowy porcelain as she tried to avoid choking on the unforgiving smell of Clorox. Her knees were shaking.
It had been so long.
The porch swing creaked, harmonizing with the cicadas hidden in the small garden. His garden. His lips brushed her ear as He sang softly, His hands gently plucking the guitar. His guitar. Her dress shivered in the nighttime breeze. The stars danced.
His hands stopped. The three words. His words. Then no pen. No paper. The three words. Her words. From her lips. They met midair.
The stars exploded.
She ran her fingers through His hair. The kitchen scissors steadied despite her shaking hands. Her tears mingled with the homeless locks as they fell into the dark garden. His garden. She cut His hair.
The next morning she was gone.
Delilah raised her head and found her dry eyes staring back at her. Dry since then. Two years dry.
I am free.
Free from what?
I am free.
He loved you.
I am free.
Who do you have now? The ex-Vegas performer? That creepy girl with the stand? The crack whores and gangsters and hobos and con artists? The murderers and thieves and motherless children?
I am free.
The rain continued to pelt the dark windows. The florescent light above the mirror flickered. The rest of the apartment was dark.
Delilah walked carefully to the shower. She pushed the red shower curtain aside, stepped in and out of the bathtub five times, and then turned the water on. The cold water slid down her spine like winter rain. She lathered her long, brown hair five times. Her fat fingers wrinkled like linen. She got out.
Forgetting her nightly routine, Delilah went shivering in the dark to her small bedroom. Hair dripping like a faucet, she slipped into crisp pajamas and sank into the expensive mattress. She fluffed her pillow five times before dampening it with her sopping head.
She lay awake with her dry eyes open. Her mind wandered to Sunday school in Annapolis.
He had been there.
God grant me the seren–
Enough.
"Ya gettin ready for ya big night there Leroy?" Cullen asked as he walked in on Leroy who'd been tuning his guitar for what seemed like an hour and a half. "Justa let ya know, don't think they'll notice much if yer strings aren't tuned to a T. Ya are playin for a buncha drunks aint ya?" They both laughed.
"You got a point...but hey. May as well practice fer my big concerts. Ya know like when catch my break and stuff... go on tour an all that. Can't be outa tune then!" Leroy continued to tune and practice his guitar until nine when it was time for him to head down to the bar. Along the way he was sure to tell everyone he saw -on the sidewalk, in the elevator- about his "concert" that night. He was sure there'd be a crowd anyway but more folks couldn't hurt! Besides it was already drizzling outside and was only supposed to get worse. Surely folks would need something to do to keep dry.
He walked in and introduced himself to the manager and anyone else he happened to see. The manager pointed him to the stage he was going to be playing on- or rather the old platform with a bar stool and a microphone. Within minutes Leroy had his guitar out strumming a few notes as he talked to the measley two people trying to watch the game at a table and the three seemingly depressed people equally spaced two stools apart at the bar. "How is everybody tonight?" He unnecessarily yelled into the microphone. "My first song isa little something I wrote 'bout my hometown Paintlick. That is the fabulous Paintlick, Kentucky. Home of the best BBQ east otha Mississippi! Yall really gotta try it out if your ever passin through. Well yall. Here it is hope ya like it." He stopped strumming for a second to take off his cowboy hat and place it in front of him upside down for tips. Thats what he'd seen folks do before.
He strummed a couple notes and began to belt out his first of many twangy country songs for the night. The people in the bar couldn't hide the dumbfounded looks on their faces. "Who the hell is this guy? And what is he doing here?" One man leaned to ask his fellow drunk at the bar. Leroy wasn't singing to much of anybody but it didn't stop him from singing his best and loudest. The people went from being in shock, to trying to tune him out, to obviously annoyed. Leroy kept on singing. Half the time his eyes were either squinted or closed because he was so into it...he didn't even notice their reactions. People who came in were more than confused. Poor guy, they thought.
"I'll see ya all tomorrow! Enjoy yer night ya hear. Don't drink too many more fellas!" He said as he pointed to the guys at the bar as he walked out of the smoky bar into the drizzling rain. He counted his change he got in tips and realized it was just enough for a bag of pork rinds. He walked in, passed the produce to the chip stand next to the register. It was obvious nobody else cared much for pork rinds judging by the dust on the package. He stood behind two women waiting to check out. One was buying pears and the other apples. He noticed that her fingers weren't much less plump than the apples she was buying when he saw them as she handed the man a five dollar bill. Looked like he had a lot of fives in her wallet when she dropped them on the floor. He reached to pick them up as some woman who looked like she fell into her daughters dress up trunk got to them first.
"Well ya beat me to it miss, I coulda got that! My name's Leroy... Pickler that is. Leroy Pickler's the name." The two women awkwardly said "I'm Lola" and "I'm Delilah" and turned back around. "Ya know...I had a girlfriend back in Paintlick named Delilah." Neither of them turned around and continued to ignore Leroy. They thought he must be crazy or something. Why was he talking so much?
They left. Leroy paid in change and headed back to his apartment, ready to lay back, get out of his wet boots, pop open a beer, and eat his pork rinds.
Marissa Bancroft - Basement
"Rainy day"
It was a rainy day. Marissa didn't particularly mind the rain, but she wasn't about to go outside dancing and singing in it either. She appreciated the refreshing lull around the neighborhood. What was depressing and distressing to some, she found pleasant and tranquil. It was the perfect day to stay inside and look through the basement window as the rain drops plopped on the muddied puddles.
She stretched out on her futon with an inviting tale from William Faulker. Her recent readings had turned southwards, a direction she had never traveled, and she was fascinated. All her life, she had grown up under the might weight of the New England establishment. Baltimore was about as far south as her family had ever traveled - anything farther might as well have been the depths of hell.
The southern landscape was riveting. As the fall chill descended over Washington heights, enshrouded in a mist of Chesapeake rain, Marissa escaped into a Deep South fantasy. Piney woods, lonely highways, and endless fields of cotton and peanuts. This to her was freedom. Freedom from the stresses of the Mid-Atlantic. Freedom from her poverty and her suffering. Freedom from her cuthroat Yankee background.
Of course, it wasn't all for fun. Marissa would not be caught doing anything at least midly productive. The Faulker was a reading assignment for her American Literature class at Johns Hopkins University. She was an English major - pre-med, of course; she would always be tied to financial ambitions - drudging her way through afternoon and evening classes. She loved reading, writing, and most of all, talking about reading and writing - too bad she didn't exactly have too many Faulker scholars around Washington Heights.
Faulker's stream-of-conciousness, riveting her eager soul, sent Marissa's thoughts into a frenzy. After a a full morning of monotonous grocery-bagging at Manny's, her subconcious finally found an outlet to empty its memories. She gradually drifted into events from earlier that day:
She had left her apartment that morning with her face forward, chest held high, eyes straight ahead. Her posture, however, was overshadowed by the man walking beside her. Kevin Lansing, from near the top floor, exploded down the sidewalk with the fire of a madman. Eyes blodshot, sweating and pale, Kevin shocked Marissa's passive morning mentality. She didn't second guess him, though. She, too, was on a mission. Excitement and frills could wait for later - as in post-college, post-kids, post-career life. That's all that lay ahead of her in her mind.
It was a few moments later when she saw Lola Fontaine. Slightly awkward and spritely, Marissa thought she was sweet, in only a mildly condescending way. She had an alluring attractiveness - kind of skanky, kind of cute - that always perplexed Marissa. She had grown up accustomed to the perfectly-manicured-and-always-well-presented New England bombshells. This sort of blue-collar beauty always fascinated her. Along with the South, she had begun to respect a world beyond the white picket fences and fresh green grass of Connecticut. Or maybe that was just her coping mechanism.
Marissa was in Baltimore, rejected by her family, her friends, and the whole society she once held dear. But it didn't matter to her, at least on the surface. As long as she had Faulker and Kevin and Lola to brighten her rainy day - and she had begun to appreciate the little things in life - she could survive any situation. Back to Faulker, she found the descent of the Compton family strinkingly familiar - but she was too busy to care.
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