Fuck it. I sat around and felt sorry for myself. The big surprise wasn’t the note. The big surprise was how much I wanted to spend Saturday with Shi. How I kinda took it for granted that she’d be around and that, you know, we’d hang out together or somethin’. Like, even if we went and did some shopping together again. Or she was just around and we had dinner together, like we usually do. I was expectin’ to be with her and I even scheduled myself around it.
I’m such an asshole.
I know that what I’m doin’ is stupid and I’m doin’ it anyway.
I was real happy this week. It was a good week, maybe one of the best weeks I’ve had since I moved out here. I had stuff to do and places to go and it felt like I was on the right road, ya know? It felt like I was alive again, and that maybe I had, Christ, you know, a purpose or somethin’.
And I’m the only one makin’ myself miserable now.
It’s not Shi’s fault, and I have to keep tellin’ that to myself. A lot. ‘Cause it’s easy for me to make it her fault. It’s easy for me to make somethin’ ANYBODY’S fault. But, Jesus, she’s got her, hell, she’s got a kid and this job and some friends and a life. Damn it. She’s got a life and it’s not about my life all the damn time, she’s the fuckin’ HOUSEKEEPER. She’s not my friend. She’s not my, she’s not my anything but the housekeeper.
But I like her so much. I honestly like her. I think I started liking her that night she had to take me to the emergency care place. She never made a big deal about it, about something that could have been a VERY big deal. And she never talked about it, you know, to someone outside this house. Not that I know of and not that I’ve ever seen or heard. And believe me, I would have seen or heard about it. So she’s cool that way, and once I knew she was cool that way and I could really trust her, well, how the hell are you NOT gonna like someone like that?
Shit, I WANT her to be my friend. She can be my friend and work for me, too. Juliette’s my friend, and she works for me. Same way with Marc.
Who the fuck am I kidding?
She’s outside today. I can hear her in the yard for real, no dream. And if I stand at my window, kinda behind the curtain a little, I can see her out there. She’s in a bathing suit and a robe thing that you can see through, a beach cover up thing. So pale. So pretty. Her face is covered by a huge ass hat, a big straw thing. God knows she can’t take the sun much with that white, white skin. She’d fry up out there without about a ton of sunscreen on and a hat and anything else to protect her.
And I’m gonna stand here and watch her. I don’t even know for how long. I don’t really care how long. From up here I can look at her all I want without her lookin’ back at me and seein’ what a freak I am for staring at her. I’ll stand here for as long as it takes me to get a grip on my shit, on my feelings, ‘cause I have a bunch of ‘em right now and I don’t know what to do about them. I can see that it’s gonna be a long afternoon at the shrink’s tomorrow. I can almost hear what he’s gonna say, too. Transference of affection. Big words. Always big words. I guess I’d just call it a crush.
Gotta crush on the housekeeper.
Classic. For me, it’s about par for the course. Not the first time. I fucked two housekeepers outta jobs over the last ten years. Knew what I was doin’, too. They were young. They really shouldn’t a had the jobs to begin with, I guess, ‘cause both of ‘em were pretty eager to play and WAY too inexperienced to do the job. One was my mother’s housekeeper. Wanna give your mother a stroke? Let her catch you screwin’ the housekeeper. Up until the drugs and rehab and shit, that was about as mad as my mother ever got with me.
It’s kinda funny, now, though.
This isn’t. Likin’ Shi, this isn’t funny at all. It’s serious, or it could be, ‘cause I not only like her, she’s the best housekeeper I’ve ever had. And I think she kinda likes me, you know, like the way someone is supposed to like someone they work for. And maybe a little like you’d like a friend.
I’d like to be her friend. I see her with Mickie, see how they are together, how easy they are with each other. That happened fast, too. They clicked. I know that Shi and I haven’t ‘clicked’ like that. Doesn’t work that way when you sign the paychecks. Never does. But, man, you see someone about every day of the week for any length of time and you either can get along with them or you hate them. I think we get along okay. I think we have a good, you know, rapport, that we don’t get on each other’s nerves too bad.
That would be ME gettin’ on HER nerves. I know that I take a lot of puttin’ up with. I know that I’m far from the perfect person, hell, I’m far from the decent person I should be. But I’m not that bad, either.
She could like me. I can be likable.
My cell phone rings. For once in my life I’ve kept the damn thing off, and only just turned it on this morning. It’s been off for days. Weeks. I don’t want people gettin’ in touch with me. People who REALLY need me know another number for another phone that I keep separate from the one that’s ringin’ now. A phone that’s always on and hasn’t taken a call since I don’t know when. I look at the one in my hand.
Damn.
I got calls. Calls I don’t wanna take. I got calls from Sarah, shit, she’s the person who’s callin’ me now. Well, if it was important she’d ring the other number. Might not even be Sarah, might be someone usin’ her phone. Wouldn’t be the first time. She had all kindsa people callin’ me once. Fans. Stupidest thing she ever did, draggin’ me into that shit and puttin’ my back up against the wall with fans. I’m not goin’ there today, and I’m not answering this call. Let it go to the voice mail. Haven’t checked that in a while, either.
Full.
I start deleting anything from Sarah. Not today. Not any day soon. There are other numbers in there, some I don’t recognize. If they ain’t from the LA area, I delete those, too.
Hmm. Summer called me. I should call her back. She’s cool. I didn’t expect her to call me back. Ever. She’s not the type of girl to, well, I guess I don’t know enough about her to know what type she is. We have some things in common, though. She’s startin’ to get out there and get noticed. She likes bein’ known. Gets off on it. Only, that night at The National, when we left and the flashbulbs were goin’ off in our faces, she didn’t like that too much. I figured it was me, that maybe she didn’t want to be seen with me, but only after it happened and the night ended the way it did and, well, whatever.
But here’s her number.
I look out the window again. Shi is sittin’ on the edge of the pool, her feet in the water, readin’ a book. She reads a lot. Always has a book. I used to read. Not anymore. I got too nervous to sit still and read. Then I was too coked up, talk about not wantin’ to sit still. Ha!
Oh, man, is that pretty, or what? That big hat and her profile against it, all that red hair blowing, a foot making ripples in the water, and her fingers turnin’ the pages as she reads. She looks like somethin’ out of a movie. She doesn’t look real. I poke myself in the leg with my cell phone. Hard. Until it hurts. I’m not dreamin’ this. Shi is real. She’s real and here and she doesn’t even know that I’m watchin’ her. Thinkin’ about her.
I bet she wouldn’t like me to be thinkin’ about her. Not one bit. Not beyond, oh, what’s for dinner. Not in any way that I AM thinkin’ about her. She probably doesn’t even want me for a friend. What kinda friend COULD I be to her? I mean, I guess I could buy her shit; I bought her that necklace. And I’m gonna make sure that Tish has a decent plane ticket when she goes to Florida to visit her dad. Shi’ll take the ticket. Anything for Tish. She didn’t want the necklace. I saw that. Know what else I can see?
She’s wearin’ the necklace right now.
It was meant for her. It looks like her. It looks like somethin’ she would wear. If she’s wearin’ it, then she must like it. So maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to give it to her. I just had to. When I saw it I knew that I was gonna buy it. Buy it and give it to Shi because there’s no one else who could wear it. It’s too, I dunno, elegant for my mother. Too delicate for Sarah. Juliette doesn’t like silver stuff. Who else? I know a lot of other women, but no one I would give a piece of jewelry like that to.
Which is EXACTLY why I shouldn’t have given it to Shi.
And it’s EXACTLY why she should have turned it down, which she did. I just didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, which is what I do all the time. ‘No’ sucks. I don’t like ‘no’. I like ‘yes’. Yes, yes, yes. ‘Yes’ is one of my favorite words.
Do you like me Shi? Lemme hear it.
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Some days I really do wonder about that boy. He’s been up there in his room, hiding behind a curtain for about fifteen minutes, doing what I do not know. In fact, I don’t want to know. I mean, if he doesn’t want me to sit here, I’ll go to the beach. If he wants to come and sit with me he should just come down here and sit with me.
I’m trying to ignore him, but it’s hard to do when I know that he’s up there. When I can see the shadow of his body behind the sheer drapes.
I look up from the paragraph I’ve just finished. I can’t stand it. I wave. The shadow disappears. Well, at least he’s not watching over me now.
Funny. I had the same feeling last night on the beach, that Alex was watching over me as I walked the shoreline with Nyle. That he was watching the both of us. I don’t know why, probably just seeing that one lonely light up there.
I felt sorry for him. I suppose that I had assumed that he would be out, and maybe he was. I certainly didn’t go into the house when I returned home. And even though all the cars were there in their places, that’s never a guarantee that Alex is home. He takes cabs occasionally, and I never know if Rene is lurking somewhere in the background, although Rene has been appearing less and less.
Can’t say that I mind that.
Ah, now my little shadow is in the kitchen. I see him. Yes I do, Alex, I see you. I see you in the window, sipping a cup of coffee and acting like you don’t see me, but you do.
I’m tempted to wave again, but he beats me to it, and I end up waving to him in response. Then the shadow recedes. I hear the back door open. I hear the sound of bare feet on concrete, the soft slap, as Alex comes down the path and joins me beside the pool.
“Good morning,” I say.
“’Mornin’.”
“You’re up early.”
“It’s sunny out, it woke me up,” he says. “You’re gonna burn.”
“I’m covered,” I tell him. I am. I smell like a bottle of sun screen. I’m wearing a rather long beach jacket, too. And the hat. The hat is pure Hollywood. A big, round affair that looks like something circa nineteen forty-seven. “Do you want me to make you ...”
“Nah, I’m cool,” he says.
He is. In his baggy shirt and pants cut off ragged at the calves and his sun glasses he looks the epitome of cool for his age. The day and a half’s worth of unshaved beard just underscores it. In any other day and age the look he’s adopted for this morning would speak of soup kitchens and panhandling. Today, Alex is cool.
“Are you sure? It’s no trouble.”
“Yeah, I’m not even hungry,” he says, and his stomach rumbles to refute his statement. “Well, not much. I’ll grab some...”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell him, shades of Nyle in my voice that make me smile. I get to my feet, close my book, and reach down with my free hand to offer him a boost up. “Come on, you look like a man in need.”
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If she only knew.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
