Chapter 3
Meli
She opened the door as I trekked up the third flight of stairs and my sister hugged me, reeking of pot and beer.
“Meli!” she cried a little, happy to see me.
“Hey, Jill,” I hugged her back and looked over her shoulder to see utter chaos in the tiny apartment. Empty food packages, dirty clothes, and any number of empty whiskey bottles seemed to be her preferred decorating scheme.”
“What happened in here?” I asked with the mockery she knew I could do so well.
“Whaddaya mean?” she slurped and I realized she was very, very drunk.
“Jill! Really? Pull yourself together and let’s get this place cleaned up!”
“Well, you just go right ahead,” she shot back and, grabbing a half-empty bottle, went into a room I assumed held her bed and slammed the door behind herself.
I stood there, my mouth hanging open at my reception and finally set my bags next to the door and sat down to decide what to do. There was nowhere else for me to go. I couldn’t afford a room more than a night or two and really needed to save that money for food. I walked over and peeked into Jill’s fridge and almost threw up at the sight of it.
Resigned, I pulled out my grunge t-shirt and shorts and set about cleaning up the space. I needed garbage bags more than anything else. Bottle after bottle fought for space in the bags. I filled two bags with dirty laundry, realizing I was headed for a laundromat when I looked around for a washer or dryer.
I opened the fridge and literally scraped the entire contents into another garbage bag and dragged these out to the dumpster at the side of the building. Next came hot water and luckily I found a small bottle of bleach beneath the kitchen sink. I added dish soap and set about scrubbing everything in sight.
The sofa, aka my bed, was nasty. I began by turning the cushions and then found some sheets in a linen closet and add those to the wash. I found Jill’s purse and dug out enough money to launder her things and a bit extra for something to cook for dinner.
Two hours later, the sofa was made up for me to sleep on, the fridge sparkled, and the floors were swept. Jill’s clothes were neatly folded and sitting on the floor next to her bedroom door. The garbage was gone and there was a pot of chili happily simmering on the stove.
Her door opened and Jill staggered out, wiping the dried spittle from the corner of her mouth. Her hair should have been shampooed a week before and I wanted to pick her up and shove her into a washing machine, whole.
“Something smells good,” she muttered.
“Chili.”
“Oh, god!” she uttered and ran for the bathroom. I heard her get sick and knew she would be eventually hungry, but in the meantime, I would help myself.
I had washed the dishes and found my way to the sofa and the remote for the 13” television sitting on a stack of books nearby. I turned it on and found about six channels total. This was fine. I had no time to be watching television. I had to find work—and fast. Once again I cursed Jeremy and his wandering penis.
“How long you staying?” Jill asked.
“Only until I get enough money to find a place of my own.”
“Oh, okay. Place looks nice. Thanks for cleaning up,” she had the grace to say.
“When did you start this drinking? And pot?”
“Don’t get all high and mighty on me, Meli. You don’t understand what it’s like down here. It’s not like home. Everything is big this and big that. You can’t compete with that shit, you know?”
“I don’t ever remember you having a problem competing with me,” I pointed out.
“That was different. This is survival.”
“I see. There’s chili on the stove for you.”
She looked a bit green at the idea but eventually went over and filled a small coffee mug with some. She sat cross-legged on the end of the sofa and began watching television with me.
“Kind of nice to have you here,” she finally offered up as a token of peace.
“Thanks, but I won’t stay any longer than necessary.”
“No, I mean it. It’s nice. Like when we were kids,” she added, turning to look straight at me as if to make the point more believable. “Maybe, if you get a job, you could just kick in on the rent and like stay here with me permanently?”
I looked at her with incredulity. “And share a bed?”
“Oh, yeah, there is that.” She was silent for a few more minutes and then tried again. “We could switch to a two-bedroom model.”
“Jill, you know I love you, but I’m not going to clean up after you like I had to today. If I’d had anywhere else to go, I would have. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but it has got to stop. You’re going to get in over your head.” I hated being tough with her, but Jill never did have any self-control when it came to her lifestyle. We fought about it when we were girls and the argument had never been won—by either side. She lived in the moment and took whatever was closest at hand, whether it belonged to her or not. The problem was, it often belonged to me.
She looked a little hurt by my words but I was used to that. She went into her wounded little girl mode when I shook her up. I knew I couldn’t live with Jill—it would never be peaceful. I needed to write and to work with my stories. For that I needed silence and plenty of sleep.
“Look,” I said, “I’ve got a gig on Saturday. I’m shooting a wedding.”
She looked surprised. “How the hell did you get that?”
“Long story and a well-meaning cab driver. I’m shooting his daughter’s wedding and he’s going to cart me around town to see the sights for a day so I can get some story ideas.”
“Oh.”
Jill was not the writer in the family.
“How did you wangle that?” she wanted to know. “You always do shit like that … figure out how to get what you want without lifting a finger.”
“What do you mean? I figure out how to work for it, unlike some people in this room,” I muttered beneath my breath. I had to control myself, to remember that I had nowhere else to go. “The cabbie and I got to talking and he suggested I try to start my career by doing some human interest pieces on local sights. I have no car and no idea where they are, so we traded time and expertise.”
“Cool,” she allowed and we dropped the subject.
“Hey, I need to get some rest,” I started and she nodded, licking her spoon and tossing the mug and spoon into the freshly scrubbed sink. Without another word, she disappeared back into her room and I laid down and fell asleep.
* * *
The sun burned through the cheap drapes into my eyes. This felt rather shocking as you had to be a millionaire to live high enough to see the sun in New York City. Here, I’d finally gotten it and didn’t even want it. Just my luck.
I went to turn over and rolled right off the sofa. Disoriented, I struggled to sit up and found myself staring at a man with scraggly hair and wearing nothing more than a pair of boxer shorts. I screamed. Jill came running out of her bedroom. “What the hell?”
“There’s a man in here! Are you blind?”
“That’s Tommy. He’s with me.”
It took me a minute to organize my thoughts and my words. “How? I never heard him come in.”
“That was the whole idea. We tried not to make any noise and wake you up. I knew you’d had a long day.”
“Whatever,” I said in a somewhat rude voice and pushed past the quivering Tommy to get to the bathroom. When I emerged, he was gone.
“Tommy have to get back?”
“Meli, it’s my place. Don’t judge.”
“Just another reason for me to get on my own,” I said uncharitably.
“I can’t wait,” Jill muttered and padded back to her bedroom, closing the door just one step shy of a slam.
I pulled the lone box of cereal and quart of milk I’d bought the night before and quietly ate from a chipped coffee mug while watching the morning news. When they broke to the sports segments, I saw none of the elegance of tennis or even the white shorts and muscled calves of world soccer. What I saw were horses, monster trucks, and rodeos. Suddenly I knew what I wanted to write about. I would write about the contrast between Texas sports and those of the large, metro areas. It would make for a nice human-interest piece as sports were always an easy sell.
After breakfast, I decided to take a walk and get to know the lay of the land. I cut the walk short as the land seemed to be teeming with junk cars, growling dogs on long chains, and young males in jackets with colorful insignia on their backside. I wished I’d brought my camera so I could do a companion piece comparing the hood of Dallas with those in the city. Then the more I looked, the more I realized that there really wasn’t any difference between them. One was just tanner and sweatier.
When I got back to the apartment, Jill was gone. Thankfully she’d left the door unlocked, and while I was concerned that something would be stolen, I took a serious look around and decided that other than my camera, there wasn’t a thing in there worth stealing. Well, they might come in with muddy shoes and make a mess of my clean floor, I allowed myself and watched some television until I fell asleep.
Jill woke me up as she came in, arms loaded with bags of groceries. “I bought, you cook,” she bargained and I happily agreed. I made us a huge feast that night. We had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and green peas, with chocolate cake for dessert.
Jill was generous in her praise. “You always were the better cook,” she allowed and I beamed as I covered dishes with leftovers for the next day’s meal.
“What is today?” I asked, suddenly confused.
“Friday.”
“Oh, gee, Bob is picking me up at noon. Glad you said something,” I jumped up and dug out my camera, polishing the lenses, and checking to make sure everything was in order.
“What are you going to wear?” Jill asked, always the more fashion conscious of the two of us, even if she’d been wearing the same pair of khaki shorts and nasty t-shirt since I’d arrived.
“He said it’s casual, so I have some white jeans and a navy tunic,” I told her.
“Huh. Okay. Well, night.” She went into her room to sleep even though it wasn’t even yet fully dark.
I shrugged, found an old movie on the set and eventually shut it off and settled in for a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was going to be the start of something big and I wanted to be alert for it.
* * *
Bob gave the familiar taxicab honk precisely at noon the next day. I was ready and snatched up my camera as I headed out the door. I stopped the thought to say, “Jill, if you leave, don’t forget to leave the door unlocked. I don’t have keys.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she waved me off and went back to drinking her coffee, which I suspected had a liberal dose of liquor in it. She’s going to end up just like Mom, I thought to myself.
Bob was holding the door open for me and as I approached, he took me by surprise and threw his arms around me. “Thank ya for this,” he said in an animated voice.
I was a little flustered by this by covered it by saying, “You’re looking pretty spiffy today, Bob.” He really did look the part of father of the bride. His hair was neatly trimmed and he’d put away the bolo tie for the day. He was dressed in a dark suit with neatly starched cuffs and collar on his shirt. I figured his wife had her work cut out for her to fix him up like this.
“Thank ya,” he bowed from the waist and shut my door.
We were soon at the site of the wedding: a large park filled with trees, a small fountain, and lots and lots of picnic tables which evidently Bob had commandeered for the day since they were sitting in neat rows around the fountain. He was definitely right about one thing: it was informal. I found a place at one of the tables and began assembling my camera, testing the light, and looking around to determine the best backdrops for the shots. Bob had left to pick up the bride.
Guests were assembling. Some evidently lived close enough to walk while other pulled up in pickups and cars, angle parking around the perimeter of the park. I recognized then that the shots were all going to need to be close-ups because there really weren’t any suitable backgrounds that weren’t cluttered with cars.
The tables were fairly filled and we were awaiting the arrival of the bride. I introduced myself to a woman named Lucy and asked her if she would point out the mother of the bride.
“Oh, there ain’t no mother of the bride, dearie. She died last year.”
I looked at Lucy’s calm face and suddenly so much fell into place about Bob. He was doing the best he could under the circumstances—and his gregarious attitude as he drove was simply because he was lonely and had no one else to talk to. It made total sense.
There was a sudden, loud chorus of screams and I turned to see twenty or thirty young women, most of whom were dressed in Daisy Dukes and either cut off t-shirts or midriff blouses, clustered around a tall man. He raised his arm in greeting to them and they screamed as loudly as if Elvis had again entered the building.
I was instantly irritated. This was Bob’s day, with his daughter, and that other group would ruin it. I figured I could make it to them and back in two minutes; hopefully the bride wouldn’t arrive in the meantime.
I sort of jogged toward the group and had to leap up in the air to get attention over the throng. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” I shouted. The man looked over at me.
“Wait your turn, baby,” he said and the throng screamed again at the innuendo.
“No, no! That’s not why I’m here, cowboy. You have to go away!”
“Well, now,” he reached up to resettle his hat with fingers pinching the crown and grinned. “Why would that be?”
The rest of the crowd, irritated that I’d stolen their chance, muttered and grew a bit less enthusiastic. I took advantage of the lull and called out, “There’s a wedding, see, just over there. I’m the photographer and the bride is about to arrive. You’ll ruin things for her. Please. Could you all quietly move to the other side of the park?” I was pointing and a bit frantic as I watched for Bob to show up.
“Why certainly, Silver,” he said, tipping his hat. I assumed he was making reference to my silvery-blonde hair, a phrase I’d heard a couple of times in the past.
“Thank you very much. Now move along, move along …” I gestured with my hands to push the crowd along.
“Now, Silver, these ladies have come a long way to see me today. Don’t you think that deserves a bit more respect than to treat them like a herd of heifers?”
I frowned, not able to understand what the man’s problem was. Evidently he was so self-centered he couldn’t understand that a bride only has one day and he, by the looks of things, would have repeat performances many times ahead.
“Just leave, please?” My voice was angry and I turned to trot back to the wedding just in time to see Bob’s yellow cab pull up to the curb.
I stopped to set up and take a shot as the bride emerged from the back seat, her father helping her out and then straightening the short, white veil on her head. She didn’t appear to have any attendants, so I just started shooting their progression as she and Bob walked solemnly along the pitted sidewalk toward the cluster of picnic tables. The bride’s face was flushed but Bob’s was gleaming in pride.
She was wearing a white mini-dress with an empire waist and it was apparent that the bride was with child. I flushed when I realized this and tried to move so I could take as many front-on shots as possible. It was another suffocatingly hot day and Bob’s face was slick with perspiration. I even saw it dripping off the end of his nose and down onto his starched, white collar.
I was amazed at how just days before Bob had been a mild irritant to me and here I was, feeling abject pity for him and his daughter and the makeshift setup of this wedding. Then I realized how terribly arrogant that sounded and made a mental note to leave my New York City attitudes where they belonged.
I wondered where the groom was and swung my head around to see him standing just next to the fountain. He was short and rather round, wiping his forehead frantically with the back of his sleeve. He seemed pleasant in demeanor and this much, at least, made me glad for Bob. I hoped my first glance would not later be proven incorrect. I twirled long enough to snap two quick shots of him and then backed off to the side as the bride was approaching. Kneeling, I got what I thought were great shots of her happy face.
The bride finally reached the fountain and Bob said his, “I do,” at the giving away part and then backed off. It turned out that the bride’s name was Mindy. The vows were soon over and the groom awkwardly pushed the veil around trying to kiss her. Mindy laughed, ripped the headpiece off and threw it into the crowd of well-wishers. I was snapping pictures like crazy and then wondered if there was a reception. There was indeed.
The guests stood and milled around a bit while a dozen or so of the women hurried off to their cars and returned carrying covered dishes and coolers. Tablecloths appeared at the head table and the food was laid out, banquet style. A stack of paper plates and cups holding plastic tableware were added and the women beamed as they gestured for everyone to eat. I noticed there was no wedding cake, but several flat cake pans with white, frosted contents. I wondered whether I should actually take a shot of these and decided that to do otherwise would be a little insulting, so I decided a good compromise was to take plenty of pictures of the entire spread of food before people began to dig in.
Bob was beaming and accepting congratulations from his friends. I snapped many shots of this because I knew these would be something he’d look back on over the years and it would probably be the highlight of his life.
Two men struggled toward the food table carrying a cooler between them. It was opened to reveal ice and a cluster of canned soda and beer. I knelt and got some great shots as tops were popped and there was a spray of icy contents backed by the sunlight.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up to see a young boy dressed in jeans and boots. He was holding out a red kerchief to me. “From Mr. Temple, for the bride, ma’am,” he nodded over his shoulder.
“You should give it to the bride, then,” I smiled, having no idea who Mr. Temple was.
“No, ma’am,” he insisted, “I’m supposed to see to it that you get it personally.”
I stood up and looked in the direction he’d nodded. There was no one there but the cowboy celebrity from earlier, standing on the periphery of the picnic tables. He tipped his hat toward me and gave me an ironic smile.
I smiled back before I could help myself and gave a half wave in thanks for whatever was in the kerchief. I turned back toward the bride and stuffed the kerchief down the front of my blouse for safekeeping; there were too many one-of-a-kind shots to be missed.
As the food gradually disappeared, musical instruments—including guitars, a dobro, violin, bass, and a banjo—materialized and the reception rose into a high as the guests began dancing on the concrete around the fountain. I snapped a few more shots of this and began to put away my camera, recognizing that this was going to be the scene for the better part of the night. The light was dwindling, regardless.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and there stood the cowboy. What was his name? Temple?
“Care to dance, Silver?” he asked, holding out his arms.
I must have looked a bit agog as I realized my mouth had dropped open. “I’m not really a guest,” I started awkwardly, at the same time realizing what an idiot I sounded like.
“I don’t think they’ll notice,” he pointed out in a deeply toned, wry voice.
I looked around and Bob was staring at me. He motioned with his hand to go ahead and accept the dance, so I turned back and nodded. “Thank you,” I offered as an olive branch just as the group began a slow country ballad.
Temple was a good bit taller than I, something I found unusual as I was five foot-ten. He pulled me close, forcing my breasts into his muscled chest, and for a moment I understood what all the girls had wanted. He had more or less folded himself over me and I felt cocooned by his embrace. For a few moments, the world felt perfect.
The song soon ended and Temple stood back, gave me a salute, and walked away, disappearing into the darkness. “Goodnight, Silver,” I heard him call backwards and I felt a tingle low in my belly. I realized I only knew his last name, and he did not know anything about me at all. I would never see him again and I felt a keen disappointment in that realization.
Feeling a bit deflated at the dwindling excitement, I decided to call a cab and find my way back to Jill’s.
I was standing on the sidewalk, waiting, when I remembered the red kerchief I’d shoved down my shirt. I pulled it out and unwrapped in it.
There I found two, one-thousand dollar bills and a piece of paper with a phone number.
I smiled and put the phone number in my purse and ran back long enough to shove the money in Bob’s pocket. “See you next Sunday,” I told him. “I think I know where I want to begin.”