Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees (4 page)

She
imagined what a graduation party for Vince might look like.  Frank would
be drunk and determined to make trouble.  He would show his blatant
favoritism towards Angie in hopes of making his other children resent her.
 He would make Donna extremely tense and uncomfortable.  He would
remind Cosmo of what a failure he was for dropping out of University of
Pennsylvania.  And he would remind Vince of how he had better be on his
best behavior if he wanted help with his tuition.  Angie would brag about
how her family lived in a three million dollar home in the same neighborhood as
Bruce Springsteen.  Vince did not like her husband Doug because he worked
as an investor for Goldman Sachs.  Cosmo and Angie's bad feelings towards
each other, which stemmed back to their childhoods, could have an opportunity
to be further nurtured.  Donna and Angie could feel their distance from
each other, and Silvia would dream about leaving this mess of a family once and
for all.

Yet,
Silvia noticed a shining light in the darkness of imagining.  Since she
began thinking about the gathering, she had not been thinking about her own
problems.  She felt good for the first time in a long time.  She was
now a person with a purpose, and an altruistic purpose at that.  She was
looking out for her mother and her little brother.  And in getting
everyone together, she was attempting to make peace in a family that had never
known peace.

She
then noticed the way her body lightened and her stomach opened and was crying
out for food.  She craved a big bowl of
pastina
with butter and salt. 
Pastina
was what she ate
whenever she was getting over
a stomach
flu. 
Pastina
was what she ate when she could not eat anything
else. 
Pastina
was one of the things that
Grandma
Tucci
used to make for her when she was a
child.  Entering the kitchen, Silvia felt ecstatic to find a half full box
of De
Cecco
stellette
pasta
sitting in one of the cupboards and was even more ecstatic that Frank was out
of the house.  Although she continued to be apprehensive about him barging
in at any second while she ate her
pastina
, she was
able to taste her food and enjoy the act of eating for the first time in a long
time.

CHAPTER TWO: WHAT’S WRONG WITH HERE?

Factory
smoke puffed into the gray sky that hung over Philadelphia as Silvia drove over
the Ben Franklin Bridge.  The sun had been trying to peak through all
morning and it finally gave up.  But today, Silvia did not need the sun.
 She felt bright and shiny enough inside herself since her phone
conversation with Donna last night.  She now had a whole new sense of
purpose and did not care that she was on her way to one of her art school
modeling jobs, which usually depressed her.  Such jobs were fine when she
was a student, but now that she had graduated and had a degree, it was beneath
her.  In addition to it requiring no skill, it was not very dignified or
interesting to be standing naked in front of a bunch of art students, who she
now perceived as overly privileged and sheltered despite the fact that she was
one of them not so long ago.  It was, however, the only job she had until
something else came up.  She was afraid that that ‘something else’ would
probably end up being a job near her father’s house.  

 She
drove to south Philly to park her car.  This section of the city was
easily over two miles from the art college, but it did have street parking
spots that, while not ample, were free.  The college itself was in the
downtown section of the city that only had paid lots that Silvia could not
afford.  She tapped the bumpers of the cars in front and in back of her as
she crammed into a space that was way too small for her car.  Her
hatchback had faded to the palest shade of yellow from the Tucson sun, was
covered with dents and scratches, and had one mismatched panel colored
off-white on the front left hand side.  She was not concerned with the
looks of her car and thought its shabby appearance as a good thing for
deterring potential thieves.  Internally, the car was fit, and that was
what mattered most.  She did whatever maintenance she could do on her own,
for Frank had instilled within her a mistrust of auto-mechanics and warned her,
that as a young woman, she was extremely susceptible to their tricks. 

After
parking her car, she began on her long walk to the college.  In south
Philly, she passed row homes, corner bodegas, and people who looked like they
might have lived on the same street for their entire lives.  As she got
closer to the downtown, the space surrounding her gradually filling with
skyscrapers, Starbucks, sidewalk preachers, people sleeping on the street, and
fast walking professionals.  As she got into the downtown, the smell of
cheese steaks, that permeated the air in south Philly, changed into a less
distinct flavor of urban stench.

When
she was only a couple of blocks from the college, she heard someone scream her
name and she was happily surprised to see it was
Rafa
,
a guy she met at an anti-war protest a few years back.  He was a thin
fellow with brown skin, black almond eyes, and a head of afro-hair that made
him look like he belonged in the seventies.

“Hey
Rafa
,” she said. “It’s great to see you.”

“You
too.
What are you doing downtown?” he said while
inconspicuously inspecting her from head to toe.

“Oh,
just meeting a friend for lunch,” she said, still reluctant to talk about her
current life situation to anyone.  She was quick to ask him about himself
in hopes of diverting any attention away from
herself
.

“I’m
bartending at Dirty Frank’s up the street.  And I’ve been going to the
Occupy rallies when I can.  And, oh, you’ll love this.  I took a
couple of woodworking classes and I‘ve been building all kinds of stuff. 
Chairs and tables and boxes.”

“Wow
that’s great,” said Silvia feeling slightly envious of him for his apparent
happiness.  She tried to think of some kind of follow up question to ask
him about his newfound craft, but her mind was blank. 

“How’s
your little brother doing?” said
Rafa
squinting into
the sun. “I remember you brought him to a couple of the protests.”

This
question spurred a mini conversation about Vince and college and Berkeley, and
ended with
Rafa
giving Silvia his phone number and
telling her to give him a call some time if she wanted to go for coffee.
 She said that she would, but thought that she would not.  He was
certainly cute and nice enough.  There was just something about him that
seemed boring.  In addition to that excuse, she was sure that she would be
moving to Portland soon and did not want to get involved with anyone in this
area.

She
wasn’t expecting to run into anyone else from her past, but as she was about to
enter the college, she unluckily ran into a former classmate, Kayla, who
studied graphic design, the practical art major.  Silvia had trouble
relating to the graphic design majors, as they were too modern for her.
 She preferred vinyl records to CDs, print books to e-books, and
paintbrushes and canvas to a computer.  Kayla was long and narrow and had
her hair tied in a knot that sat perfectly on the top of her pointy-head. 
She was always stylish and elegant, even dressed down in jeans and sneakers
like she was today.  Silvia tried to dodge her by pretending that she did
not see her, but her efforts were in vain.

“Hi
Silvia,” Kayla said, smiling with eyes open wide. “What you are doing here?”

“Just
visiting,” Silvia said, wondering when she would be able to stop lying to
people about herself.  “And you?”

“Just
had to pick up some transcripts,” she said with a smile that showcased her
super straight and sparkling teeth. “I'm starting grad school in the
fall.”  Her rich parents would undoubtedly be paying, Silvia thought.

“That's
great,” said Silvia smiling fraudulently.

Kayla
then proceeded to update her on the current status of various other students in
their class who were all doing “really well.”  Some were earning good
salaries, others pursuing their life-long dreams.  Others were working in
jobs that, while not well paying, were internally rewarding.  Silvia's
state of hopelessness, that had lessened only just last night, was now rising
fast and steep.  She was relieved when Kayla said that she had to
go. 

**********

The
classroom where Silvia was modeling was big and white and full of students,
most dressed in faded jeans and paint covered clothing.  In the room were
dusty tables, clay for
sculpting,
and a variety of
other supplies scattered messily and piled high on any available shelves.
 She would be modeling for a very long and boring anatomy class with all
of the students examining her little body like it was some sort of lab
specimen.  She greeted the professor and quickly went down the hall to a
bathroom to undress and put on a terry cloth bathrobe to wear in the classroom
during her few short breaks. 

Standing
naked in front of a bunch of strangers did not bother Silvia in the
slightest.  But she was bothered by the strain of holding one position for
an extended period of time, sometimes as much as twenty minutes. Anatomy was a
required course for sophomores. As it did not interest her, she had ample
opportunity to contemplate her problems, to hear Kayla’s annoyingly cheerful
voice saying that their class mates were doing “really well” along with her
father’s beaten down grumbling voice saying, “It’s no wonder you can’t do
anything with your life.”  Maybe he was right.  She stared back at
the art students resentfully for having no missed opportunities and no regrets
at this point in their young lives.   

She
was descending into that dark hole once again, and with time moving
excruciatingly slow, she found it difficult to not look at the clock every two
minutes.  To make the minutes pass faster, she thought about her move to
Portland.  She had decided that Portland was the most perfect place for
her, and she had come to this decision by using process of elimination. 
She broke the country into major sections, eliminated them one by one, and was
left with the northwest.  She could hear Cosmo telling her that it was
absurd to evaluate an entire region as one place instead of breaking it down
city-by-city or even state-by-state.

“You
can’t dismiss a whole region just like that!” he would say.

But
once again, she ignored her brother’s advice.  She began with the
northeast section of the country, which she quickly dismissed as old and stale
and boring and filled with too many memories and old associations for her to
start clean.  She dismissed the southeast as creepy and humid and slow and
filled with weird bugs.  She dismissed the southwest for the same reason
that she dismissed the mid-west, that is, she had already lived there.
 Besides, one was too hot and one was too cold.  California just
seemed stupid and expensive and overpopulated.  So that left the
northwest, with Seattle and Portland the only two cities she would consider.
 Seattle was so nineties.  She was normally not concerned with being
fashionable.  She dressed like a sixties chick and listened to British
Invasion bands, but when it came to places, fashion was important.  And
Portland was now recognized as the greenest city in the country, so by moving
there, she might get ahead of Vince in their green competition.

She
was about to imagine how she would get there, when the instructor ordered her
to change positions.  She quickly changed positions and got right back to
her planning.  She would have to drive, but did not want to drive alone.
 She had taken one too many road trips alone.  She had an occasional
driving companion, but her trips were not intended for pleasure and
sightseeing.  They were intended for getting some place.  As she
contemplated the possibility of having to take another solo trip to get to
Portland, her mind got flooded with a bunch of bad memories of previous solo
trips:  A scary stare from some rape artist-looking guy in Birmingham
while at a gas station; camping through a vicious lightning storm outside of
Toledo; the big fat trucker who asked her if she had any plans for the night
while checking into a motel near Dallas; the blow out she got as she was
approaching El Paso; driving through a rain storm in Little Rock while giant
sized droplets banged hard and angrily upon her little car; driving on dead E
for miles and miles in the New Mexican desert before finding a gas station.

“Change
positions,” said the instructor again, forcing her to halt her rambling mind
that went right back into rambling after she changed positions.  She
thought about staying in south Jersey until she had enough money to buy a plane
ticket to Portland and to pay to have her car transported across the county on
a truck.  But who knew when that would be?  It could be well over a
year before she had that kind of money.  The notion of living in south
Jersey for such a long period of time frightened her more than all of her scary
road memories put together.  
Much more.

She
thought that she might ask Cosmo if he would come with her.  Maybe even
move out there with her.  She did not consider the sacrifice he would have
to make in leaving his job and finding a new one.  She was so used to
moving to new places, having to get jobs right away, and finding one within a
few days of her arrival. She thought about what job she might get in Portland.
 She could hear Cosmo saying something about finding a “dead end”
job.  Surely, he was right.  It would be dead end.  As she began
to consider the job that she might have to take in Portland, her head began to
hurt and her stomach felt nauseous.  She looked up at the clock to find
that she had not looked at it in over twenty minutes and felt a great sense of
accomplishment for this.  The class was almost over, so she could get out
of this place soon.  She thought that she would go to Cosmo’s after work.

**********

Cosmo’s
apartment was situated not far from the University he had attended over six
years ago.  He spent two years making good grades in tough courses without
much studying.  Then one day, he just dropped out.  He gave no
reason. 
Just said that he was bored of going to
classes.
  He continued working and living near the college and had
managed to make something of a life.  According to Silvia, it was not much
of one.  She was not exactly sure what he did for a job, but he told her
that monkeys could be trained to do it.  He did, however, seem to like his
monkey work in that it required very little of him.

The
lobby of his apartment building was run down and dingy with lime green carpets
and florescent lights.  When Silvia arrived at his door on the second
floor, Cosmo let her in, sat down, and continued playing some video game that
she apparently had interrupted.  His walls were filled with star maps, his
shelves crammed with beaten up science fiction and astronomy books, his floors
were filled with everything from tattered comic books to video games
consoles.  In one of his corners stood a white and aqua marine colored
electric guitar that he had taught himself to play, with great ease, while
still in high school.  His tables were covered mostly with dirty coffee
cups and little plastic, half painted
Tolkeinesque
figurines.

His
apartment was dark and dreary despite all of the colorful and boyish things
that filled it.  The furniture looked like it came from various dumpster
diving excursions.  The curtains were always drawn tight, making the room dark,
even on the brightest of days. Silvia always opened them as soon as she got
there.  After opening the curtains, she removed a smashed bug on the wall,
which had been there the last time she visited him over a week ago.