Read by Sarah Feathers
“She’s perfect! And you know how I searched, Maria.”
It’s Wednesday, and I’m over doing Mrs. A’s house. I’m done scrubbing the tub, and I’m waiting for her to stop talking so I can turn on the faucets. She’s going on about her new boarder, Dara, who, like me, is attending college.
“Absolutely brilliant! A European from Spain. I believe her family’s quite wealthy. Oh, dear, make sure to get the soap scum from the little ledge there. Last time you left quite a bit.”
“What’s she studying?” I ask, but Mrs. doesn’t know. I’m studying English literature, even though my sister says that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard of. “Who do you think you are, gomela? You gotta make money when you come out. You got loans.” She acts like I don’t feel the pressure, too, living with her and her three kids in that miniscule two-bedroom way up in East Harlem.
If you would like to read the rest of this story, please check out Lovers' Lies, the Arachne Press anthology in which it, and many other sexy and lovable stories from the League archives, appears.
Next time I’m over there, Dara’s out again. Mrs. owns a four-floor townhouse in Chelsea, and Dara’s got the parlor off the kitchen. I ask whether I’ll be cleaning it, too.
“No. Dara said that wouldn’t be necessary.” As if they’re both doing me a favor.
She now knows Dara’s major: Biology. Also, Dara has a steady boyfriend in Paris and her mother is dead. She keeps referring to Dara as an “orphan.” Her following me around like this is reminding me of the old days, when she was afraid I was going to steal something and used to lock up her fancy silver when I was around.
Just as Mrs. is telling me how Dara plays both bridge and cribbage, Dara herself comes in the door. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t this. Mami is beautiful. She has this shiny dark hair and a little porcelain face like a doll I used to have. She’s got style, too, rocking the thigh-high boots. I’m struck stupid and feeling super embarrassed of my scrubs. I wear ’em so as not to get my other stuff dirty, and also because although Mrs. would never say, I know she likes the idea of her employees in uniforms.
Mrs. introduces us, and we shake hands real proper. I get a flash of brilliance to impress her with my Castilian Spanish. “Encantada, Dara. Que tal?”
She looks at me like I just released frogs out of my mouth. “Sí,” she says, in the most Anglo accent you ever heard, then bolts into her room.
Mrs. is still smiling. “I forgot you speak Spanish, too,” she says to me, her Colombian maid.
After this Dara avoids me. Her and Mrs. can usually be found together, laughing their asses off over a game of gin rummy. Mrs. teasing her, “Oh, no you don’t, you sly thing!” I’ve never heard her talk this way, like she’s flirting. I admit I’m a little jealous of the friendship. It doesn’t help that they giggle about me whenever I leave the room.
I’m still trying to figure Dara out. She acts all up-class Rockefeller but there’s something real slick about her. She’s got the look of some of the hustlers in my neighborhood.
“Are you like crushin’ on her or something?” my girlfriend says to me. “You can’t shut up about it.”
It’s true—I’m seriously fascinated. The lies just keep coming. Dara doesn’t drink alcohol according to Mrs., but last week she’s in the kitchen reeking of tequila, filling up her plastic jug with Gatorade. “Dara’s ill, today,” Mrs. says behind her. “No running the vacuum cleaner on the first floor. She needs rest.” Then, from where Mrs. can’t see, Dara winks at me. I’m so surprised I almost drop the Clorox.
“I don’t know why you still working for that racist old bitch, anyway,” Trina says. “Pavo told you he could get you work at the Starbucks he’s at. With benefits.”
“Once Pavo does you a favor, you gotta hear about it for the next forty years. And I’m happy where I’m at now.”
I actually like my afternoons at Mrs.’s, especially when I’m alone—just the ticking clock, and her books, and the sun on the hardwood floors. So pretty. You don’t even hear traffic because the windows are double-paned. No one I know lives like this. It’s like one of the houses in my Austen novels for class. And I like Mrs., too, in a weird way. Even though she’s a little racist and she’s definitely a homophobe. One of her favorite topics is “the homosexuals urge to marry” as if it’s a sexual urge. I’ve heard it before. Hell my own mamá’s said worse. But for a while it was making me self-conscious how she kept bringing it up, as if this was her way of letting me know she was on to me. She’s dropped it since, so maybe it was just me being paranoid.
To make Trina feel better I say, “Maybe next semester I’ll get a different job.”
“Stay away from Dara. I wouldn’t be surprised if she likes girls, too.”
“Nah,” I say.
Two weeks later, Dara’s appears behind me when I’m looking at one of Mrs.’s books. I nearly jump out of my skin.
She laughs. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say back.
I wait to see if there’s more. She’s lounging on the sofa arm in a pair of cut-offs and no bra, asking me about school. Then she says, “I saw you a couple nights ago.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, kind of flirty. “Where was that?”
“At the Kitty Kat. On 4th.”
I freeze. There’s strippers and a lot of coke and fucked-up girls pass through there. It’s not a good place. I wound up doing lines and totally regretting the entire night. I’m still ashamed—that was supposed to be the life I left behind now that I’m in school. In fact the shame’s so strong, I don’t even think to wonder what Dara was doing at a dyke bar.
She seems to get this. “I would have said hi, but you looked trashed.” She saunters out of the room. Even has the nerve to shake her ass.
That’s when I started to sour on Dara.
I wasn’t the only one. Two days later, I get it from Mrs. that Dara’s months behind on the rent. “I understand how hard it is when you’re in school, but she needs to be more frugal. The phone bill is several hundred dollars this month! She probably lost track of the time, talking to her boyfriend overseas, but still.”
The card games and good cheer have stopped. Dara is never home. The one time I see her, she’s breezing in with Bloomie’s shopping bags, like she’s been on a spree. She passes right in front of Mrs., who’s dying to have it out, and slam! into her room.
Mrs.’s face is red. “The nerve!”
A week later there’s a lock on the outside of Dara’s door. It’s a big-ass lock, too. A Master Bolt. I’m mad curious but don’t want to bring up the subject, since I don’t know who installed it.
Dara. Mrs. is in her bedroom telling me all about it. Huge holes “that she put in the antique molding! Just the thought of it is making me ill!”
“Don’t get yourself worked up or you really will get sick,” I tell her. Dara is enough to do that to anybody.
Mrs. wants me to move her armchair across from Dara’s door. We also move her reading lamp and a small table. It looks like a scene from an Arthur Miller play. Mrs. hands me the keys to the upper two floors. We take a tour with instructions on what doors I need to lock behind me. Meanwhile, she’s whispering her theories, “I bet Dara’s seeing a new boy. That’s why she’s been so distant.”
“Dara doesn’t seem to have many male friends,” I say.
Mrs. is nodding her head enthusiastically, “I know. That’s what makes it so odd.” She returns to the armchair. Both of us stare at Dara’s door and listen to the faint chords of a Liz Phair song.
A week later, Mrs. is still keeping watch. Her hair’s all sticking up in places, and she hasn’t been putting on her makeup, and you can see the age spots on her face. She’s got a notebook set up to record Dara’s movements.
“You been sleeping in this chair?” I ask her, alarmed.
“What’s she doing in there? I heard her yesterday. It sounded like she was moving furniture, but it’s been quiet since morning. ”
“I think it’s time to serve her eviction papers.”
Mrs. doesn’t seem to care about that. Instead she’s worrying, “Do you think she’s sick and that’s why she hasn’t come out?”
“No. She’s not coming out because she knows you’re sitting here. What’re you going to do anyway? Arrest her?”
“Why, have a discussion with her. We’re both reasonable people. If there’s a good reason why she can’t afford her rent, we’ll work something out. A payment plan.”
“We need to call Tony over here.” Tony is her handyman, and generally worthless, but he has a serious toolkit, and he can remove that lock.
“But we can’t! It’s her private space.”
“This is your house,” I remind her and because she’s not getting up, I go and make the call.
Mrs. and I huddle together behind Tony as he works. Her hands are shaking. I’m nervous, too, what if Dara’s sprawled out on the floor? An overdose. Suicide. Or what if she’s waiting for us with a gun, or to throw acid in our faces. Has she been pissing and shitting in there, holed up for so long? Like a horror scene? So when we finally do get the door open, it’s more shocking to see it’s just a room. Exactly as it was before she moved in. The bed’s made. The floor’s washed. It smells like Pine Sol.
The three of us tiptoe in, as if we’re entering a church. In the middle of the floor, there’s a pile of clothes, fancy shoes, some nice editions of books. I recognize Mrs.’s mink. Dara’s stolen these things! But that doesn’t make sense—everything’s gone. This stuff’s been left behind on purpose. And there’s other things in the pile, too, some sexy lingerie that Mrs. would never wear. Then it dawns on me where it all came from. And I think how stupid I can be about the world. About people. It makes me feel bad.
Tony’s crouching down, looking like he wants to touch the underwear, when I become aware of a sound that I haven’t heard since I was a kid. A high-pitched squeal that dying rabbits make. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s coming from Mrs. and by then she’s going ballistic on him, “Don’t touch her things! Leave them alone!” She starts bawling, her hands on her face, and falls down on top of the stuff.
Tony’s out of there, and I’m standing like a statue over this woman, who’s crying as if she’s seconds from going insane. I’m not hesitating because of my job. As I calculate it, I’ve already lost this job. I’m hesitating because I’ve never touched Mrs. before. And these silent arrangements we have with other people about who’s boss, they are very strong.
But in the end, we’re just two women in a room, and one of us is having a meltdown because she’s been betrayed and left behind. I know what that feels like. So I get down on the floor with her and hold her hand. Because if it was me, that’s what I’d want someone to do.
Dara by Jessica Lott was read by Sarah Feathers at the Liars' League Wine, Women & Song event held at The Phoenix, Cavendish Sq., London on Tuesday 11 May 2010
Jessica Lott’s first book was the novella Osin, published in 2007. She is a New York City-based fiction writer and art critic and the recipient of frieze magazine’s 2009 Writer’s Prize. She has just completed her first novel, Rhinehart’s Resurrection, for which she is seeking representation. Her website is www.jessicalott.com.
Sarah Feathers trained at East 15. Theatre work includes Country Magic (The Steam Industry at the Finborough Theatre), All You Ever Needed (Hampstead Theatre), A Hard Day’s Month (Rose Theatre, Kingston), 26 (BAC), Moll Flanders (Southwark Playhouse) and The Winter’s Tale (The Steam Industry at the Courtyard Theatre). Film includes Coulda Woulda Shoulda, Feeling Lucky and More Than Words. Television includes The Real King Herod.
Comments