Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl (12 page)

When I get back and ring the intercom, it takes at least five minutes for her to answer.

“It’s Faye,” I say. “I got the stuff you needed from the store.” The door buzzes and I walk into the hallway. But when I get to her door, she doesn’t open it.

“I have your groceries.” I wait and wait and wait.

“Leave them right there at the door,” she finally says. “You can go now.”

“Okay?” I say as I put the bag down. “Well then, I’m off. You can get it when you’re ready.” I walk away, making sure to stomp as I do so, but then I tiptoe back until I’m standing right near the door, on the opposite side from where it opens. After about ten minutes, I hear a couple of clicks. The door opens a little, but not all the way. I see this old
white hand with brown spots come forward and latch on to the handle of the shopping bag. It pulls the bag in and the door starts to close, only I swoop in and shove my schoolbag forward so it can’t. The old lady backs up a few steps and I walk in. It’s really weird. I’m looking at her and she’s looking at me. She has this cane in her left hand, and in her right one she’s holding the Key Food bag. Maybe she doesn’t remember me. It has been three days since I was last here. And maybe that amount of time to an old person is like three years to a regular person.

“I got you your groceries,” I say. “You didn’t even say thank you. You didn’t even open the door to me. And it cost me five dollars and twenty-eight cents.” And as soon as I say that, I feel a little strange. Telling her she owes me this minuscule amount of money when we took nearly three hundred dollars from her. But maybe if I didn’t say it, it would seem even more odd.

“I don’t have money to pay you with. Some bad little girls broke in and stole it from me,” she says. And I can’t tell whether she’s just saying this or whether there’s something behind her words.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Forget about it.” But she doesn’t move. She’s still in her ruffly nightgown, and she looks even smaller than she did that day we busted into her apartment.

“Maybe you don’t remember me. But I’m the one who found you lying on your kitchen floor, barely moving. And I helped get you out of your clothes and into your bed.”

“Oh, I remember you.”

Okay, it’s confirmed. She’s definitely making me
uncomfortable. I just stare at her. Only, she doesn’t look away—she stares right back with those lizard eyes of hers. And there’s so much weight in that stare.

“Are you alone, or do you have any friends today?” she asks.

“What?” is all I can come up with.

“You can take what you want,” she says. “But I have no money for you.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I fib. Only, I stumble a little over the words.

“Because a body is old doesn’t mean a mind has to be too,” she says. And she’s still staring dead into my eyes.

I decide to give up the innocent act. It’s wasting too much energy.

“Aren’t you scared of me?” I ask. “I’m young and strong.”

“You’re not strong,” she says. “You’re like a scrawny little blade of grass in the wind.”

“Well, that’s better than being old. Look at you with your cane. You’re weak.”

“There was a time in my life when I was said to have power, when people cared about the clothes I wore, the food I ate, the places I went, and the people I went there with, when whatever I requested would be gotten for me, no questions asked. And now, today, I could go dancing naked in the streets and no one would even look twice. I’ve lost all the money I made and all the people I cared most about. So am I scared of a thirteen-year-old girl—”

“Fourteen, if you don’t mind.”

“And I’ll be eighty-one,” she says. “And I’m going into my
kitchen. You can go wherever you please.” She uses her cane to waddle slowly down the hall. I don’t know what to do or what to say, so I just stand there frozen for a minute, looking off at her as she makes it into the kitchen and starts unloading the groceries.

I feel so stupid standing there doing nothing, so I move toward the kitchen. All the broken stuff is still there, but now it sits in one big pile in the center of the floor. I unzip my coat, walk over to the old lady, and try to help her with the groceries. Only, everything I take out and hand to her, she just sorta snatches. What a jerk.

I stand away from her and watch as she opens the loaf of bread and sticks two slices in the toaster. When they pop up, she puts two more slices in. She maneuvers around the pile of broken glass pretty well as she goes into the fridge for a jar of orange marmalade, which she sets down on the table along with the butter I just bought her. She does all this without saying a word to me. Then she gets two dishes and two teacups, puts them down on the table, and sits. She pushes one of the teacups and one of the dishes toward me, then begins spreading butter on her bread. I keep waiting and waiting, but all she does is take a bite of her toast.

“If you’re not going to leave, might as well do something with yourself,” she says when the next two slices of bread pop up from the toaster.

Once I pull them out, I try handing them to her.

“I’ve already got what I need,” she says. “Besides, I don’t know where your hands have been.”

I stare daggers at her, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care, and I finally just give in. I place the two slices of bread on the plate in front of me and settle onto the wooden dining chair.

“You go to Catholic school?” she asks. I forgot about my uniform.

“So, what of it?”

“It’s a little ironic, don’t you think?”

“How do you mean?”

“Think about it. You’ll get it.”

I just ignore her and spread the marmalade across my toast. I’m feeling really weird, but I manage to take a bite. The jam is sweet and tangy at the same time. I put on a little more and steal glimpses of her hands as we eat in silence. I notice how they shake as she puts her teacup down. I wonder if that’s how my hands will look when I’m eighty-one, all trembling and fragile, like old paper blowing in the wind. I wonder what would happen if she tried to undo a top that was too tightly screwed onto a jar. Would her bones all crack into pieces and crumble into a mound of powder?

“So you do remember me?” I ask.

She doesn’t say anything, just brings the slice of toast back up to her lips with her feeble little hand.

“Did you—did you know who I was when I came in the other day?”

“No, but I wasn’t thinking about it. At the time I just needed someone to help me. I was more concerned with that.”

“I didn’t mean to push you, you know.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry. And look, I’m here again. I came back to check on you.”

“Three days after leaving me helpless and alone. If I was going to die, I would have been dead already.”

“Geez, you must be Catholic,” I say under my breath. “Like I need any more guilt.”

“I guess I just don’t understand why such nice little girls would do such things. Is it because you needed the money?”

I shrug. “No … I don’t know. I guess it’s just something to do. And I guess we’re not really that nice.”

“But you could get into a lot of trouble for it.”

“What do you mean? You’re gonna tell?”

But she doesn’t say anything else.

“You shouldn’t say that. ’Cause, like I said, I’m stronger than you.…”

“You’re scrawny,” she says again, but I ignore her.

“And I could still do something to you right now.”

But she just stares at me and keeps eating. “So do it.”

And I’m thinking maybe this lady is not all there, and everyone knows you’re not supposed to look crazy people in the eye, so I turn away. When I finally glance in her direction again, I notice that she’s focused on the faded black-and-white photo, which is back up on the counter—the one with some woman holding a baby. The one the old lady attacked me over.

I start looking at the photo, too. The woman in it is standing in the light, but she seems to be casting a shadow over
the baby. Maybe she’s trying to protect it from the sun. Or maybe it’s not a shadow at all but just some kind of smudge over the kid’s face. It’s hard to tell.

“Why does that picture mean so much to you? Who are the people in it?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

“So when you were talking about power, is it because you were famous? I mean, I heard you used to be a movie star or a singer or something,” I say next.

Still no answer.

“If you have so much money,” I try again, “how come you don’t live in a mansion? I mean, this apartment’s nice and all, but it’s still an apartment. In Brooklyn.”

When she still doesn’t answer, I slam my teacup against the saucer.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to me. Nothing new. Same treatment I get at home. But I don’t get it. You were so desperate for company, you gave me, some random kid, your phone number so I could check in on you. And even today, when you knew who I was, you still gave me toast and seemed to want me to sit here with you. But now that I’m doing that, you don’t talk to me. What’s with that?”

The old lady looks over at me with those eyes and searches my face; then she stands and leans on her cane.

“I was probably just delirious,” she says.

“Fine,” I say. “If we’re gonna be honest, then you should know that the only reason I’m here now is because I cut school and needed a place to go. Our Easter break starts tomorrow, and I just needed to fill the time.”

“Then you can leave, because I’m not about to shelter a truant little child.”

“Fine!” I just about yell. “It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends.”

“It’s true. And you remember that. Because what you do in life, how you treat people, it always comes back around. You keep it up and one day you’ll be my age, and you’ll be just like me. With no one there for you. And you’ll spend your days going over all the mistakes you ever made. Over all the terrible things you ever did. And all the people you did them to.”

And her eyes suddenly look glassy, like she’s about to cry or something. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for her or to hate her. But I figure she’s just a nutty old crone, so I grab my bag and take off. I don’t say good-bye; I don’t say anything. And as an exclamation point, I put some extra oomph into slamming the door. There’s no way I’m going to be like her when I get older. And under no circumstance will I ever waste my time on this woman again.

After leaving
that crazy old woman’s apartment, I wander around for a while. Thank goodness I stumble onto the Kenmore Theatre, where I’m able to buy one ticket for
Footloose
, then afterward sneak into
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
.

When I get back to my building, Caroline and Gillian are in the lobby doing what they do best—loitering. Caroline is slouched against the old musty gray couch in there, the one no sane or hygiene-conscious person ever sits on. I don’t know if the thing was always gray, or if it just turned that color from all the dirt and grime it’s soaked up. Anyway, she’s looking over a supermarket circular, while Gillian is sitting on the equally musty armchair next to the couch doing nothing in particular.

“There she is,” Caroline says as I walk through the door. “We were just about to leave. Kept ringing your bell, but there was no answer.”

I don’t say anything.

“ ’Cause we haven’t seen you since our little disagreement. You know, when you vomited all over me,” she says as she stands.

I sense Gillian sizing me up.

“Why the attitude?” Caroline continues.

That’s when I decide to slide my hat off my head.

“Oh my God, Faye. You look like a man,” Gillian says with a gasp.

“Thanks.”

“Oh snap” is all that Caroline can come up with. And I just want to ball up my fist, jerk back, and punch her square in the lip.

“That’s all you got?” I ask.

“Faye, I really didn’t mean for you to have to get your hair cut off. It’s just, you were acting up so much. And you vomited all over me. You didn’t even turn away. It’s like you were aiming for me with it, and that’s pretty nasty. But I never imagined this would happen. Look, we’ve had a few days to cool off. Why don’t we just call it even?” She sticks her big man-hand out. But I don’t accept it.

“Look at my hair, Caroline. It’s a disaster. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“It does look terrible,” Gillian volunteers. Caroline waves her off but doesn’t say anything to the contrary.

“Thanks again, Gillian,” I say.

“I didn’t mean for you to have to get it all cut,” Caroline says again. “And we missed hanging out with you this weekend. Seriously. Don’t be mad.”

She extends her hand even more, and I just look at it. I
wonder what she would say if I told her I’d been back to that Parkside Avenue apartment. I wonder how she’d react if I told her the story of helping the old lady off the floor and into her bed and out of her clothes. I wonder how she’d react if she knew I was over there again today. But I’m not eager to see what her wrath might bring about this time around, so I just give in and accept her handshake.

“So, you wanna go up to the corner store and get some snacks?” she asks. “My treat.”