Esmerelda began shouting and stamping, and waving her arms. All around Edith people were talking and she could catch nobody’s eye. It wasn’t easy to ignore Esmerelda all by yourself, and Edith rummaged in her bag for her compact. She snapped it open and looked at herself in the mirror. There you are, she said under her breath, there you are. Edith applied a few dabs of powder to her nose and chin. It was so difficult to appear normal at times like these. And nearly impossible not to stare, but who knew? You might go crazy yourself. You might break into song, or pull off your garments. You might run naked down Broadway baying at the moon, or start directing traffic. Yesterday she had caught herself talking out loud to no one at the bus stop. “Lovely, lovely day,” were the words Edith had heard herself saying. Innocent enough, but once you began, where might it end? Well, thought Edith, putting her powder back in her bag and glancing at Esmerelda. She would certainly never be crazy enough to wear that coat. Of course, maybe it was all the poor thing had. Maybe underneath that coat Esmerelda was wearing nothing at all. Edith shivered. She touched the top button of her nice silk blouse for reassurance. She smoothed her skirt. What would Edith do under those circumstances? Would Edith be able to stick her nice plump clean arms down those filthy sleeves to cover her nakedness? If she were thrown out on the streets could she wear filthy skins? Edith herself had never been dirty. During one regrettable period Edith had spent several days in her nightgown. It was after her mother died. She had felt odd for a day or two. Maybe a week or two. Edith didn’t want to think about the odd feeling. It might come back.
Because who knew where crazy came from? It might just drop out of the sky.
“May I take this chair?” A young woman spoke to Edith. “Or are you waiting for someone?” She hovered politely at the edge of Edith’s table. Startled, Edith jumped. She had been trying to remember whether it was locusts that John the Baptist had eaten.
“Oh no,” said Edith, “I’m not waiting for anybody. Well, not anybody in particular,” she said. “I mean, I think we’re all waiting for somebody or other,” Edith went on. “We just don’t know who it is.” Edith shrugged helplessly. “You can take the chair,” she added, as the girl remained poised with her hands on the back of it.
“Thanks,” was all the girl said in reply, and she dragged the chair to a table nearby at which two and now three students were sitting. “He hates my guts,” Edith heard one of them say. “He loves my guts,” said another. Edith wondered of whom they were speaking. Could it be her Pablo? Edith glanced at him. He stood against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, ready to do battle with the crazy lady if need be. That seemed to Edith almost as terrible as being crazy. Why would you look forward to trouble?
Esmerelda began to sing. She started so softly that at first Edith couldn’t be sure but she concentrated, and she turned her head in Esmerelda’s direction, and yes, that soft crooning was Esmerelda singing. And she had really a surprisingly lovely voice. This was turning out to be an extraordinary morning, most extraordinary. Edith almost closed her eyes. And then Esmerelda ruined it with another shout. Edith pushed her chair back and signaled to Pablo for her check. Pablo misunderstood, bringing Edith another cup of coffee. “The check,” she said to Pablo, “l’addition,” and she scribbled in the air with an imaginary pen.
And then Esmerelda began singing again, but this time she kept it up, and her body began to move with the song and Edith felt like swaying too, like a big top-heavy flower on a stem. She could hear bits and pieces of “Blue Moon” riding somewhere under the surface of Esmerelda’s voice, like something borne along by water. Edith found herself gripping the plastic arms of her chair, holding her breath, so as not to be carried away. It was a most unexpectedly pleasant feeling.
(For a time after Edith’s mother’s death, Edith had sat and clung to the arms of the old green chair, as if otherwise she might blow away, or be carried upward on a draft, as if she had no gravity of her own anymore, and when she had spoken out loud in the empty room her voice had seemed to come from a corner of the ceiling instead of her own body. She had been unable to move and had wondered briefly if it might not be due to the woodwork, which was so very dark, and she made plans to have it painted as soon as she could speak.)
Somebody applauded when Esmerelda finished her song. Edith saw Pablo, a sarcastic smile on his face, clapping in the doorway. Oh dear, thought Edith, but fortunately Esmerelda paid no attention. She turned to leave, blowing a kiss at the flower store, waving good-bye. Maybe she is in love with the flowers, thought Edith. Maybe it isn’t Hector at all. As Esmerelda drew near the café again Edith picked up her coffee. She held the cup halfway to her lips, elbows resting on the table. She sat perfectly still, so as to be invisible. Esmerelda stopped right next to Edith’s table. Edith could see the dangling lining of her terrible coat. “Miedabee,” said Esmerelda. Her voice was hoarse. Miedabee? Edith began to lift the cup to her lips with an air of what she hoped was nonchalance, but her hands were shaking. “Miedabee,” Esmerelda repeated, more urgently, and Edith found herself turning to look directly at Esmerelda and into her eyes, which were dark as cherries. “Mind the bee,” said Esmerelda, pointing to Edith’s cup. A yellow jacket sat on the rim, interested perhaps in Edith’s lipstick.
“Oh,” cried Edith, dropping everything. “Oh!” she cried, getting up from the table and waving her hands about, making a small commotion. Esmerelda nodded her head several times and then continued on her way. “Thank you very much,” called Edith, but Esmerelda did not turn around. From the back, Esmerelda’s coat looked almost jaunty. It rode up a bit, giving her an incongruously schoolgirl look. Half a block away, Esmerelda started shouting. “Well, that would have been really quite nasty,” said Edith right out loud. “How terribly nice of that woman,” Edith said next, somewhat more insistently, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. How pathetic the young are, thought Edith, so self-absorbed.
Hector now returned to his store, nodding and chatting with a few people who called out to him. He waved at Edith and she waved back. Everything seemed refreshed, like after a good rain. Edith paid her bill, leaving Pablo a good tip as usual, although he had fairly thrown the check on the table, scolding her, Edith knew, for speaking to the no-good lady. Edith strolled over to the flower store and bent down on the sidewalk and stuck her face in the flowers. She bought a large bouquet. Some of these she deposited carefully in the trashbasket on the corner where Esmerelda would be sure to find them. Lilacs. But there were still a great many flowers left, and these Edith carried home in her arms, already singing under her breath.
LEOPARD-SKIN SKIRT
THERE WAS THE sound of something ripping as Edith sat down, and each adjustment of her body produced further ripping sounds. Could it possibly be the material of the banquette on which she was now sitting? Edith very much hoped so. She tried a tiny experiment with her left leg, moving it infinitesimally to the right, really almost no more than flexing her thigh, and she heard material tear again. This was very bad. It was not the furniture.
Edith was thus paralyzed. She was sitting in the downstairs lobby of the Angelika Theater, where she did not belong and should never have come, and now could not possibly leave. Ever. To make matters worse, there, across the room, she was quite sure, wait, she would put her glasses on, yes, she was certain she saw Ronald Colman, who had been an old beau of her mother’s (or perhaps this was his son or grandson, Edith realized), but whoever he was he would be certain to have heard of her mother, and perhaps remember Edith herself, Edith as a small child, and Edith called out as genteelly as she could, “Mr. Colman?” and as he seemed to turn slightly at the sound of his name, and although she did not like to raise her voice she did, calling again, “Mr. Colman? Ronald? Is that you?” and then he disappeared with a tall woman wearing a green shawl.
The movie was about to begin and everyone but Edith rose to enter the small dark theater. The usher looked over at Edith and raised his eyebrows, holding open the door, and she
had to shake her head with as much sophistication as she could, trying to imply with one brief shake that she had already seen the opening moments of this film and shared what was possibly his view that it wasn’t worth seeing twice. Certainly not worth hurrying up off this nice comfy banquette to see twice. The usher waited another fraction of an instant and then he shrugged and stepped into the theater himself. Good. Edith was now alone. Bravely she put her hand round the back of her skirt, hoping it had been simply a belt loop tearing, that would be the best, the only acceptable damage, but alas her belt and both back loops were secure. But what they were holding up now seemed to Edith’s timid explorations the equivalent of a grass skirt. The whole thing seemed to have disintegrated on Edith’s body, every possible seam and dart. The material of the skirt itself was fast disappearing, like something in a laboratory experiment, as if Edith’s skin and this particular fabric were at war and one must destroy the other. Some chemical reaction. Well, at least it was she who was winning because everywhere that Edith should have encountered skirt, Edith now felt only Edith.
Thank god she believed in decent underwear. Where had she gotten the idea that she needed to wear something daring, and go someplace different? What had possessed her? Here she was stuck in a disintegrating faux leopard-skin skirt, one hundred and seventy-five blocks from home, while a man who might conceivably have turned into the love of her life had slipped away before Edith had been able to introduce herself. Re-introduce herself. And now, how would she get out of here? Edith looked around to make sure she was alone, to make sure the refreshment stand people were busy with each other, which they were; this was one of the advantages of Edith’s age and, it must be said, of her avoirdupois, and she stood up and tugged what was left of the back of her skirt round to the front. She examined herself and saw that if she held her pocketbook right in front, like one of those Scottish chiefs, and if she affected a sort of limp, she might just make it into the street and thence into the first cab she saw. No matter what kind of driver it was, she would get in. Even if he drove across three lanes of traffic to screech to a halt halfway up the curb, she would get in. She no longer cared. She nearly wept with frustration to think that there, in what she now thought of as the bowels of the earth, sat Ronald Colman, ignorant of Edith Tall-madge and their connection to each other. Edith limped to the glass doors, which she opened with her shoulder, and then she limped down the steps to the street, where she started to laugh, and couldn’t stop, and every fresh burst of laughter created an accompanying sound of material tearing, and the more it tore the more she couldn’t stop laughing, it really was terribly funny, and she hailed a cab and, holding onto what was left of her skirt, she climbed in, gave her address, and continued to laugh for several blocks before she took out her hanky and wiped her eyes. There must be something intrinsically funny about the sound of ripping cloth. First it scares you to death, and then you get used to it. This made Edith start laughing all over again. Then she realized, vexed at herself, that it had not been Ronald Colman at all but David Niven. “Niven, you idiot,” said Edith to herself. Her mother had played opposite him in one of those most obscure British films in which her mother had been cast as a difficult heiress, which was exactly what her mother had been, come to think of it, among other things. Well, it had been David Niven and no wonder he hadn’t come over. Stupidly, she hadn’t recognized him without that little mustache. Or a son, of course, not the man himself. Or a cousin. Niven had become synonymous in Edith’s mind with that pencil-thin mustache, that most discreet of little mustaches, a niven she might have preferred to call it, as mustache was a vulgar bushy word, something vaguely sexual about it, possibly with things stuck there, dangling off. Well, maybe it was all for the best. David Niven would never have looked twice at a ridiculous middle-aged woman in a leopard-skin skirt, although the taxi driver did, lingering while Edith and her bottom disappeared inside the big front door. “They don’t make ‘em like you anymore, lady,” he might have hollered, but she had been too far away to hear. Thank god she was home, even if the old place was big now, and all the rooms echoed with the sound of her heels as she went up the wide front stairs.
TOTES
EDITH’S MOTHER NEVER used the word pocketbook. “It’s a handbag, Edith, a handbag.” But whatever you wanted to call it, Edith’s was broken. The shoulder strap had worn out and broken in two. And it was her favorite pocketbook, roomy enough for ears of corn or cold roast chickens or beach towels, and although Edith did not carry such things, you never knew, and Edith couldn’t part with it. Someday she might go on a picnic. She thought perhaps Rudy Cervantes of Cervantes Shoes might be able to fix it with a few stitches. She liked Rudy. He had said to her, “I was sorry to hear that your mother died.” It was the lovely word died that did it to Edith, and she had found tears in her eyes. “Yes,” Edith had said, “thank you.” Died was a graceful, dignified word, and that was what her mother had done. She had died. My mother died. Edith had written the words on sheets of paper when she couldn’t feel anything. Mother died. And then she could.
It was raining this morning and as Edith placed her bag on the counter she began to hiccup. What is the matter with me now, she thought. She held her breath until her face got red. She pretended to swallow nine times, a sure cure. She searched the bottom of her bag for a packet of sugar. Hic.
The sounds of tapping came sporadically from the back room and—could it be possible?—a woman’s laugh. Edith blushed furiously. What was going on here? In a respectable shoemaker’s establishment? Perhaps it was the radio. Then, instead of Rudy another man appeared at the counter.
“Oh,” she said, her hand still rummaging through her pocketbook. What was she thinking? How could she leave her bag with anybody when she had not even cleaned it out? Her fingers encountered pens, paper clips, bus transfers, pennies. A folded copy of the Constitution that she had always meant to read sometime. And some sticky substance that was probably sugar. “Oh,” she repeated.
“I am Rudy’s nephew,” he said, “Luigi. At your service, madam.”
“Well,” said Edith, “How very nice to meet you.” Hic. She blushed. “Dry toast,” she explained, “and it is raining.” Then another hiccup. Edith wished she could disappear, as the last hiccup was one of those loud ones, so surprising that an old man reading the newspaper and having his shoes shined looked up.
Luigi was smiling. “I have just the thing,” he said and produced from behind the counter a jar of murky-looking fluid in which what appeared to be smallish eyeballs were floating. Edith shrank back.
“Cherries,” he said. “For ten years soaked in vodka. Ready today, as luck would have it. They are only for emergencies, special occasions.” And he dipped a small fork in and pulled one out for Edith. “Go ahead,” he said. “Don’t be shy. Eat.” Edith hated to hurt anyone’s feelings. She had good manners. The fire it lit in her mouth was delicious and oily and she thought she might have to sit down. “Oh my,” she said a minute later, opening her eyes again.
“Now there will be no more hiccups,” said Luigi.
Edith showed him the strap of her pocketbook. “I can do this for you while you wait,” he said, his hand resting on one of Edith’s fingertips. She withdrew it, being shy.
“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” she said. “I can come back.”
“Perhaps you want to remove some things? Maybe your wallet and keys?”
“Oh, just my wallet and keys, yes. I forgot, just in case I have to go home, or buy something of course, one of my errands this morning,” she said, blushing again. She didn’t want him to think she thought he might steal something.
Luigi smiled. His teeth were nice. “It will be ready in ten minutes,” he continued. “It is better you stay here— look at the rain and your shoes.” He glanced meaningfully at Edith’s new sandals, which were the Roman-slave type. She had bought them only yesterday. She had never worn anything like them before, although they probably did not go with the rest of her clothes.
&
nbsp; “Oh no, I must fly,” she said, waving her hand meaningfully, suggesting many errands that wouldn’t wait. And then she sneezed.
He handed her a pair of Totes. “At least put these on,” he urged.
“We don’t wear Totes,” her mother might have said. “We have our galoshes.” But Edith thought it might be all right just once. She bought an umbrella too. There was something so nice about Luigi, even though he did smell a lot like aftershave.
Edith walked down the street. There was still a great deal of the day left. She stood in front of the window at La Rosita and watched the big white cakes go round on the revolving dessert stand. The small cups of flan. She held the door open for a young woman with a stroller. It was sunny now and the Totes on her feet felt warm, but she had no wish to hurt Luigi’s feelings and she kept them on. Edith walked toward the decrepit old Woolworth’s, where spring flowers were for sale on the sidewalk, placed on green stands that reminded Edith of baseball bleachers. Edith felt sorry for the plants, all a bit straggly from lack of pruning, and she bought a funny-looking fern. Halfway home, the fern in her arms, she imagined Luigi handing back her handbag all repaired and asking her to marry him in the same breath. She would have to decide in a split second, as such moments did not come twice in a life, but she already knew she would say yes.
FIG LEAF
FIFTY-FOUR AND Edith had never seen a naked man. Even Gloria Harris who was cross-eyed had seen a naked fellow even if he was just running down the street when she took her vacation in Paris. Or so she said, anyway. “It was flapping up and down like a little bitty frankfurter,” Gloria had said to Edith and then giggled while Edith tried to look dignified. But the truth was Edith felt left out. It hit her all of a sudden that she might die without ever seeing how God created Man.