A Room on Lorelei Street (5 page)

Zoe paces the porch.

Walks in small circles.

Pulls in careful breaths.

Jiggles her hands to shake out trembling fingers.

It's 8:20, dark, much too late to be knocking on an old woman's door to take a room. She might scare the hell out of her if she rings the bell now. And after paying the electric bill today, she only has a hundred and thirty-six dollars left. Not even enough for a full month's rent. But tomorrow night she works, and she can usually count on her Thursday shift to bring in fifteen or sixteen in tips. She'll be extra nice to the customers. Her words will be all sugar—Y
es, ma'am
and
No problem, sir
—even if they ask for a thousand fucking substitutions. She'll squeeze twenty bucks out of tomorrow night. Will Opal wait until then?

The bulb to the right of the door glows a soft yellow, washing the gray-blue slats of the porch in a warm golden haze, blotting out the rest of Ruby, the world, in a safe circle of light that holds Zoe in. There is nowhere else to go. The room is already hers in her heart. She puts her finger to the bell, and with a jerky movement she forces it forward before she can change her mind. She hears a muted buzz, soft humming, and then the door swings open wide. Opal is smiling, her hair wrapped in a jeweled orange turban, a few stray curls spinning out near her ears, and a flowing purple caftan lapping near her ankles. She pushes open the screen door, waving Zoe in. “Ah, yes, yes,” she warbles in her birdlike voice. “You made it. I was wondering when you'd get here.”

Zoe steps inside. She tries to think back to her conversation with Opal. She is sure she never said anything about coming. “You knew I was coming?”

“Oh, not tonight. But I knew. I can read people's eyes. I read yours. They said today or tomorrow. Friday afternoon at the latest.” Opal winks, and Zoe isn't sure if Opal is teasing or if she's a brick short of a load, but she likes the idea that someone could know what lives behind her eyes. She's not sure anyone has ever done that before. Opal guides her along by her elbow to a small table in the entryway, still humming her tuneless song. She opens its single shallow drawer and shuffles some papers aside. “Here we go.” She places a small silver key in Zoe's palm, tweaks her head to the side, and says, “Welcome, Zoe Beth Buckman, to Opal's Lorelei Oasis.” Opal looks up at the ceiling, squints her eyes, and then nods her head. “Yes. Yes. I like that. Though I did consider Opal's Lorelei Hideout, too. Sounds dangerous and exciting. What do you think?”

“I—” Zoe is drawn to Opal's eyes. Can she read what lies behind them, too? For this moment, it seems she can. Wrinkled flesh gathers in folds around the old woman's eyes, circling the amber pools, the black pupils, the flecks of faded green, and Zoe sees…she is not sure she can put a name to it yet, but she recognizes it. It stirs up images…
searching beneath a pillow for a quarter that has replaced a tooth…sitting frozen for half an hour with a few bread crumbs in her cupped palm, barely breathing as a mourning dove steps closer and closer…driving home from Wal-Mart in the front seat of a jostling truck, stroking a brand new tennis racket laid across her lap
…a word something like
hope
…or maybe
possibility
is the better choice…possibility…the word she reads in Opal's eyes. “I like them both,” she says.

Opal claps her hands and cackles. “Well, we'll stick with oasis—for today. Who knows about tomorrow!”

Yes,
Zoe thinks.
Possibility is the word
. She reaches into her purse and takes out all her cash—one hundred and thirty-six dollars, most of it in bulky singles from her tips. Opal wrinkles up her nose and, still smiling, waves Zoe's fistful of money away.

“Oh, no, no. Let's not spoil our celebration by counting out that tonight. You can pay me tomorrow, and since we are already a week into September, let's make it an even hundred, shall we?” Before she has finished her last sentence, she is floating up the stairs, her caftan billowing behind her like a purple cloud, calling back to Zoe, “Might as well go in this way tonight. I'll show you where the bathroom is and then we can get your things. You did bring things, didn't you? Can't nest without your own things. Hurry, dear, the moon is almost up. You won't want to miss it! And you still have to meet the Count.”

Zoe follows, suspecting that it may be more than a brick that Opal is missing, but she doesn't care. The room is finally in her grasp. The idea squeezes away her breath.
Is it really? And with money to spare? How can this be happening?
The room she thought could never be, the room that holds all her hopes, the room that holds possibility, is now steps away. Her lungs feel clamped and she gasps short, shallow breaths.
It's just the stairs,
she thinks, and she forces a deep, even breath.

The next ten minutes go by in a slow-motion dream. Zoe is watching from somewhere outside herself as she listens to instructions about jiggling the toilet handle, as she follows Opal to the room and is shown a closet with sheets and blankets, as she is introduced to Count Basil, an aging rottweiler who spends most of his time on the screened back porch. She continues to watch as if from a distant vantage point when she returns to her car and removes her duffel and returns again for the overflowing pillowcases. She listens and she watches like this is all happening to someone else.

As Opal leads her from one place to the next, Zoe takes in glimpses of the house. Its furnishings are eclectic, painting Opal as a knitting grandmother in one corner and as a freakish collector in the next. A wine-colored overstuffed chair with delicate tatted arm coverings sits next to an ornately papered wall decorated with two curved, very lethal, four-foot sabers. Nearby, a life-size snarling grizzly carved from dark wood towers over a petite, doily-covered table holding a vase of fresh yellow snapdragons. It is a house of contradictions.

And finally the slow-motion lifetime that has passed in ten minutes is over, and Opal is saying good night, sweet dreams, don't forget the moon, and is shutting the door, and Zoe is alone. Alone, staring at her duffel on a bed, in a room, in a house, on a street named Lorelei.
Lorelei
. She runs her hand along the top of the duffel.

It is real.

She's here in a room that terrifies her but at the same time fills her with unspeakable lightness. Her hand passes over the duffel again; this time the zipper severing the silence. She takes her things from the bag and begins to nest, as Opal puts it. The picture of her and Kyle goes on the dresser, next to the ticking brass panther. Her clock radio is plugged in and set on the small table by the bed. Her jeans are placed in the dresser drawers, her other clothes hung in the large walk-in closet, her shoes placed neatly below them. Her jewelry box with the broken ballerina is set on the small half table by the front door. She pulls the heavy stone bulldog out from underneath the table to the middle of the room and faces it toward the door, on guard. In the dim light, it almost looks real.
It is my room,
she thinks, and the thought catches in her chest.
I can put it wherever I want. I don't have to worry about anyone tripping over it or calling it foolish, because it is my room.

She closes her eyes, her throat constricts, and she swallows. She swipes her fingers across her wet lashes, and when she opens her eyes, she is caught by surprise. An unexpected laugh escapes her throat. She walks over to her bed and sits down on the edge, looking out her large-paned window at the moon Opal hurried her along for, mesmerized by the monstrous orange globe hanging just above the rooftops. It fills her window, like it is looking in, watching her, a smoky harvest moon there to welcome her to Opal's Lorelei Oasis.

It is only nine o'clock, and there are still things to put away, but instead she puts on her pajamas, brushes her teeth in the small kitchen sink, and crawls into bed. The springs creak softly under her weight, but it's not an unpleasant sound, more like satisfied sighs, and it hits her again that she is home. A home with a Count, an old lady, and a moon large and golden filling her window. The moon, she thinks, is probably looking in on Mama now, too. But Mama doesn't see. Not even if she is wide awake and gazing out the window.
What will happen to Mama?

Zoe leans over to turn out the light, and when she lies back down in the darkness, she gasps. Hovering over her in the velvet sky are hundreds of stars. The faint spots on the indigo blue ceiling are transformed into hundreds of glowing stars.

The angels threw glitter up there just for you, Zoe…. Remember how special you are….

But she knows it isn't true. If she were special, she would be home now, wrapped in Mama's arms, or room would be found at Clint and Patsy's. When you are really special, you are ranked first, not fourth on a team. And if you are truly special, people remember your name and know how to pronounce it.

She lets the thought roll into a place of numbness. A safe place she saves for it. It is a thought that has consumed her too many times, over and over again, until it is as old and lifeless as a joke that has been told too often. Something you can't laugh at—or cry at—anymore.

Zoe stretches her legs across her bed and tucks her hands behind her head. A light breeze catches the gathered sheers at the edge of the window, making them billow out like a graceful, long-legged ghost. The breeze reaches her face, fresh and cool, carrying the scent of night jasmine. She breathes it in. She can't let herself care about worn-thin thoughts, because she has moved on. She is in a room of her own with a brass panther, a stone bulldog, a moon, stars, and an indigo sky full of possibility.

Zoe slides into a middle seat in Mrs. Garrett's classroom.

A carefully chosen middle seat because it means nothing.

A back-row seat can say two things:
I am afraid of you
or, more often,
I hate you and this fucking class and I want to be the first one out of here
. A front-row seat can say two things:
I am
not
afraid of you
or, more often,
I want to be as close as I can to kiss your A-giving ass
. But the middle gives the teacher no fuel. Nothing to work with. That's what Zoe wants. To say nothing. If Mrs. Garrett wants a battle, she will have to drag Zoe out of the nothing-middle to get it. She has paid penance. She forged Mama's signature on the permission form for counseling and gave it to Mrs. Farantino. In return she got an admission slip back into class. Mrs. Garrett has already won. What more could she want?

Zoe is early. Her last class was just across the hall. She should have gone to the bathroom for a quick smoke, to smooth some of the tension out, but the first few days they are still watchful and teachers hover. She can't afford to get busted now. She remembers Mrs. Farantino's warning about good citizenship. It is four minutes until the bell rings, and the room is nearly empty, except for a few front-row types. Mrs. Garrett still hasn't made her appearance. One more period after this and Zoe can go home. Home. It is still such a strange new word. This morning when her alarm went off, she forgot for a few seconds where she was. She expected to hear Mama and the drone of a TV that was never turned off, or Mama opening a medicine cabinet searching for something to calm her stomach, or Mama shaking painkillers from a bottle for the cramping in her legs, or Mama and silence, the usual sound she heard.

Instead she heard the ruckus of bird chatter drifting through her open window. She crawled out of bed and looked out the window but couldn't see a single bird in the fig trees that lined the parkway. Still in her pajamas, she went to the outside landing of her stairs. She could see nothing except the edge of Opal's garden, but the sound was growing louder. She tiptoed down the stairs and walked to the backyard, her bare feet cold on the cement path. Turning the corner of the house, the deep backyard opened up to view and she saw the source of the commotion.

Opal, wearing a large straw hat tied to her head with a flowing green sash, was filling dish-shaped bird feeders hanging from trees. There had to be at least a dozen dishes. As Opal filled one and moved on to the next, the birds would flit back and forth, taking turns at the edge of the feeders and chirping their satisfaction. Zoe watched the look of exasperation and pride on Opal's wrinkled face as she warbled along with the birds, assuring them there was enough for all. She moved from one dish to the next with sweeping, dancing movements, confirming to Zoe that Opal didn't have her belt through all her loops.

But later, as Zoe walked downstairs to go to school and waved good-bye to Opal already working in her garden, she was stung by the clearness of Opal's eyes, and she knew Opal was anything but crazy.

A whispered “You rule, woman” fills Zoe's ear, and she jumps back from Opal's Lorelei Oasis to Mrs. Garrett's classroom. Monica, the girl half of the Hernandez twins, is squeezing past and taking the seat next to her. She adjusts a tight black skirt across her chubby thighs and pulls her bra down through her shirt as she leans over like a seven-year-old with a big secret. “You've already become a classic. Everyone is spelling their names for their teachers. Don't bet on anyone doing it in here, though. Garrett would have killed anyone who so much as sneezed after you left.”

Monica takes out a mirror and begins pulling at the hair piled on top of her head. Monica is efficient with her time, Zoe thinks—no moment wasted. Her brother, Jorge, is the same way. Fraternal or not, their minds think alike.

The classroom is nearly full now, and still no sign of Mrs. Garrett. More students walk by and give Zoe approving pats on her back or shoulders. A few give her a thumbs-up sign. They are careful though, looking over their shoulders to be sure Mrs. Garrett hasn't come into the classroom yet. Zoe restrains a smile.

Another student she doesn't know comes in and faces her. She thinks he is going to acknowledge her, too, but instead says, “You're in my seat.”

Zoe doesn't understand, but Monica snaps her mirror shut and quickly whispers, “I forgot to tell you! We have assigned seats now. I don't know where you're at.”

Seniors never have assigned seats,
Zoe thinks. She gathers her notebook and books and stands in the center aisle just as the bell rings and Mrs. Garrett enters the classroom. Standing alone, she feels like she's the center of a target and Mrs. Garrett is a poisonous dart heading her way. She freezes.

Mrs. Garrett walks past—slowly—her eyes briefly resting on Zoe. She speaks to the air as she passes, “When the bell rings, I expect
all
students to be in their seats.” Zoe looks around. All students are in their seats—except her. She knows now, with certainty, that Mrs. Garrett has not moved on.

Zoe does not want to aggravate the situation. She wants to try. She says softly, in the most unaggressive voice she can muster, “I don't know where I sit.”

Mrs. Garrett is now standing behind her lectern and pointing to a poster on the wall. “Can you read a seating chart, Miss Buckman?”

So it's Miss Buckman now. She's never going to say my name—not correctly or any other way.
Zoe takes a few steps forward so she can read the tiny lettering in each square. Everyone's names are listed first and last. Except hers. She is listed as Miss Buckman. The seat she is assigned to is in the first row, right beneath Mrs. Garrett's nose. Zoe looks over at Mrs. Garrett. Her gray eyes are unwavering and her jaw is set, the lines hard, intimidating, and full of knowing, just like Grandma's. Zoe's trying will not be enough for Mrs. Garrett. Not ever. She wishes now she hadn't forged Mama's name on that form, but there are still no other options for her.

Zoe hears every scuff of her shoes on the gritty linoleum as she steps forward and slides into the front and center seat, and she knows with every muffled cough and sideways glance from other students: Mrs. Garrett wants to throw her out of the classroom. There are no “sorry”s or counseling sessions in Mrs. Garrett's controlling, know-it-all world. But protocol must be followed. The rules. Forms have been signed. Now it is up to Zoe to blow it again. Mrs. Garrett probably thinks it will be easy. But Mrs. Garrett doesn't know her. Compared to the rest of Zoe's life, Mrs. Garrett is a cakewalk.

Zoe will wait her out.

The fifty-five-minute class moves along at an excruciatingly slow pace. Zoe raises her hand twice to offer answers. Mrs. Garrett looks over her head and calls on other students. Zoe wonders why Mrs. Garrett put her front and center if she only plans to ignore her.
What is her fucking point?
The bell rings, and Zoe has not said a word the entire period. God, she needs a cigarette. But her next class is on the other side of campus and there really isn't time to sneak out to the parking lot. “C'mon,” she says to Monica, tugging on her sleeve, “I need a lookout.”

They slip into the bathroom at the end of the hall, and Zoe disappears into the last stall. Between the flushing toilets and the tinny sound of paper towel dispensers, Zoe listens for Monica's voice. She lights her cigarette and takes a deep drag, one that she pulls all the way down to her toes. She's only been smoking for a year, only half a pack a day—maybe a little more. She doesn't think she is addicted, physically, that is. It's more of a mental thing. Like polishing off a dozen Hershey's kisses when she is stiffed twice for tips in one night or eating a carton of pralines and cream when the guy who felt you up the night before is rubbing someone else's ass the next day. It is a gnawing that you have to satisfy, and cigarettes are a lot less fattening. Of course they'll turn your lungs to a tar pit—not good for tennis—but she only smokes half a pack. It isn't much. Just half a pack to get her through the day. And she has a lot of days she needs getting through.

She takes another deep drag and hears Monica blurt out in song, “L is for the way you LOOK at me!” The signal. She drops her cigarette in the toilet, flushes, and waves her hand to clear the air. Monica sings on. “O is for the only one I SEE!” Her voice echoes in the concrete cavern like she is auditioning for a musical. Zoe has the feeling that Monica enjoys the role of lookout. She steps out before Monica can go on to the next line. A faint haze of smoke follows her. She looks across the bathroom and decides she can finish the next line herself—V is for VERY bad timing.

Mrs. Garrett is staring at her again, looking down her nose, her head tilted slightly to the side, like she is looking at a useless bug. Zoe looks away and continues the bathroom act, swishing her hands under the faucet and reaching for a paper towel. Her mind races under the silent stare.
Shit. She can't prove anything. It's only a damn cigarette. What's her problem?
Zoe throws her towel away, and she and Monica walk out without a word from Mrs. Garrett, but Zoe stills feels the heaviness of the stare and wonders how a simple look could make her feel like so much less than everyone else.