When Love Finds a Home (5 page)

During the first few weeks on
the street, she tried to find work and had occasionally found an odd job, but
as her appearance and clothes began to deteriorate so did the employment
opportunities. At first, she had refused to steal. When the odd jobs
disappeared, she had gotten so desperate that she stood on a corner of a busy
Austin street and begged. It was the most humiliating experience of her life,
and she swore she'd die before she did it again. She still drew the line at
physically hurting anyone, but if a woman was careless enough to leave her
purse open, she wasn't above lifting a wallet. Tourists were the easiest marks.
Most of them were ridiculously careless with their money or shopping bags.
Recently, however, times had been tougher than normal. The cold weather was
keeping people at home.

After the dizziness passed,
Rona sat up.

"Feeling better?"
Tammy asked.

Rona nodded.

The girls were wandering
around the room. "What do you think about this woman?" Tammy asked in
a low voice. "Do you think we can trust her not to call the
authorities?"

"She seems okay, but in
case there's trouble and the cops show
up,
I'll do something to cause a ruckus. You grab the girls and try to make your
way back downtown. You'll have to be careful, because people in these
neighborhoods will notice you fast."

Tammy agreed.

"If you see Malcolm, let
him know where you're staying and I'll catch up to you eventually." She
stood up. "Let's check this place out."

Together the little band of
four slowly walked around the room, careful not to touch anything. She wondered
what Anna's real motive was. No one opened their home to strangers. Her resolve
wavered. Maybe it would be better to leave now. Even one night within these
walls would make returning to the streets harder. She hadn't forgotten those
first few days on the street—the gnawing hunger, the humiliation and discomfort
of never being able to bathe properly and the constant fear of not finding
food, dodging the sporadic police raids, fear of going to sleep and never
waking up, or worse, waking up and finding that the nightmare was real.

They stepped into a spacious
bathroom that was also completely white—the walls, tiled floor, rugs and
linens.

"Isn't it
beautiful?" Tammy whispered.

"It doesn't do much for
me," Rona said, shivering at the coldness of the room. "Why don't you
take this room?"

"Mama, can we take a
bath?" Karla asked.

Tammy looked at Rona, who
shrugged and said, "She said to make ourselves at home." She suddenly
remembered the clothes Anna had mentioned. "I'll be right back."

At the end of the hallway, she
found the closet. There, exactly as Anna had described it, was a cardboard box
with the word
bitch
spelled out in large black letters.

Rona grinned as she dug
through the clothing and wondered what the story was behind it. Inside she
found several T-shirts, a few sweatshirts, a bright yellow sweater and two
pairs of sweatpants. She pulled out the black sweatpants, a couple of the
T-shirts and a faded red Texas Tech sweatshirt. At the bottom of the carton,
she found a pair of thick wool socks and added them to her small stack. She
returned the remaining items to the box and carried it down the hall to Tammy
before leaving to explore the other two doorways. The room next to Tammy's
bedroom was much smaller. There was a bed and dresser. The back wall was
stacked high with brown moving boxes. Across the hallway, she found another
bedroom very different from the white mausoleum. She flipped on the overhead
light. This room was much smaller and held a hodgepodge of mismatched
furniture. Several gold-framed, brightly colored Fiesta posters softened the
white walls. This room was awash with vibrant colors and the fragrant scent of
lavender. Everywhere she looked, there was color, from the pink and blue floral
comforter to the rich cobalt blue carpet. The faint fresh smell of furniture
polish teased her nostrils as she approached the bed. The rich tones of the
maple headboard glowed beneath the overhead light. Rona laid the clothes from
the box on the bed and prodded the mattress with her fingertips. The bed was
soft and warm to the touch, as she remembered a bed being. Across the room,
several lively-looking black and white porcelain kittens posed in playful
settings across the top of an old scarred dresser. Rona went over to look at
them. There were six figurines, each approximately three inches tall. One of
them had a small butterfly perched upon the tip of its paw. The expression of
sheer pleasure on the kitten's face brought tears to Rona's eyes. She rubbed a
shaking, cracked fingertip across the kitten's face and marveled at the
uncomplicated beauty of the scene. She tried to remember the last time she'd
seen a kitten. Or even a butterfly. Embarrassed by the sudden rush of emotion,
she quickly set the figurine down.

Unable to stop herself, Rona
looked into the wide mirror above the dresser. On the streets, she was careful
never to look at her own reflection in store windows. On the rare occasions she
was able to slip into public restrooms, she religiously avoided looking into
the tiny mirrors above the sinks. To do so would reveal what she had become,
and to see that was to admit all she had lost. She stared at the disheveled
woman staring back at her. The once short brown hair was now long and lifeless.
She touched a rough fingertip to the dark hollows around her eyes. Mary had
called her beautiful. What would she say if she could see her now? She moved
away from the mirror.

A doorway beside the dresser
led into a small bathroom sporting a seascape motif. She quickly grabbed the
clothes from the bed and carried them into the bathroom where she stripped off
clothes that had gone far too long without being washed. She rolled the
stale-smelling clothes in the smallest wad she could and set them on the light
green tile floor before stepping into the shower. She moaned in pleasure as the
water poured over her. She had once thought the hardest aspect of poverty would
be the lack of food and shelter, but she now knew it was the loss of dignity.
It hadn't taken her long to learn that being homeless quickly robbed her of the
most basic of human need—privacy. Of all the things she no longer possessed,
privacy was the most dear. She ate, slept, bathed and relieved herself in
public. During her first few days on the street, she had tried to maintain the
same sense of propriety and uphold the social mores instilled in her as a
child. She soon learned the streets had an entirely different set of rules.

Determined to enjoy the first
real shower she'd had in months, Rona pushed away all thoughts and concentrated
on the luxurious pleasure of hot water cascading over her body. She found
shampoo, soap and a razor among the items on the shower shelves and took her
time putting them all to use. After triple washing every square inch of her
body, she reluctantly turned the shower off and wrapped herself in one of the
enormous fluffy sea-green bath towels. In the medicine cabinet, she found a
small plastic comb, deodorant, a new toothbrush and toothpaste. After combing
her hair, she vigorously cleaned her teeth and felt the first shreds of
humanity returning.

Before slipping into the new
clothes, she meticulously cleaned the shower and left everything as tidy as she
had found it. The clothes were meant to fit someone shorter, but they felt
wonderful to her.

Chapter Five

Rona tapped on Tammy's door
and smiled as a freshly scrubbed Katie opened it. She was wearing a T-shirt
from the box. It hung below her knees.

"Mama's still in the
bathroom," she announced as she grabbed Rona's hand and pulled her into
the room.

Karla was sitting on the floor
flipping through a magazine.

Rona sat down beside her.
"What have you got?" As she got a closer look, she realized it was a
flower seed catalog.

Karla scrunched over closer to
her. "A book with pretty flowers." She thrust the catalog into Rona's
hands. "Read it to me."

"Well, it's not really a
reading book. It's a catalog that you order flower seeds from."

"But there's words."
She pointed with her tiny finger. "Read this part here to me."

A fine sweat broke out along
Rona's hairline. She had completed high school, but reading had never been easy
for her, not
like reading music, which
seemed as natural as breathing. The numerous hours she'd spent reading at the
library since she'd been on the streets had helped improve her reading skills,
but she still wasn't comfortable reading aloud. Knowing Karla wouldn't know the
difference, she read the words she knew and made up words for the ones she
didn't recognize. She was saved from her misery when Tammy came out of the
bathroom wearing a dark green sweatshirt and the gray sweatpants.

Rona jumped up. "Are you
ready?"

Tammy looked up, a surprised
expression on her face. "You seem awful eager to get back down
there." She smiled teasingly. "Has something or someone caught your
attention?"

Rona felt the blush run up her
neck and across her face. Tammy knew she was a lesbian, but she had never made
mention of it before. "I don't know what you're talking about," she
sputtered.

Tammy chuckled. "Okay. You're
just hungry."

"You bet I am," Rona
said, stuffing her hands deep into the pockets of the sweatpants.

Tammy moved closer to Rona and
slightly lowered her voice. "Check out the magnets on her refrigerator.
You'll probably find a couple of them interesting." She gave Rona a wry
grin. "Katie, put your shoes back on."

"I don't want to. I like
the way the floor feels," Katie said as she dug her toes into the carpet.

"Well, I would like for
you to put your shoes on," Tammy replied.

Katie gave a great heaving
sigh as she plopped down and put her tennis shoes back on.

They walked back to the
kitchen together. As soon as Rona picked up the smell of food, her stomach
began a wild churning rumble. When Tammy's hand flew to her own stomach, Rona
knew they were all as hungry as she was. It took every ounce of her willpower
not to bolt into the kitchen.

Anna was setting the table
when they entered the room. "Oh, your timing is perfect," she said.
"I was about to take the soup off the stove. I hope everyone likes tomato
soup. Since it's so late, I didn't want to fix anything too heavy, so I made
some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches." She waved to the kitchen
table where plates and bowls waited. "Please, sit down."

"You don't have to feed
us," Rona protested as they sat. A sharp pain radiated up her shin as
Tammy kicked her.

"I told you. I'm Greek.
It's in my blood to want to feed you. Entire cemeteries filled with my Pagonis
ancestors would spin in their graves if I didn't feed you." She began to
ladle soup into the bowls. "Of course, they'd also be spinning over what
I'm serving."

"How's your head?"
Tammy asked.

"A little headache."
Anna returned the pot to the stove, grabbed the plate of sandwiches and sat
down. "I guess they scared me more than they hurt me. They came out of
nowhere. I mean, one minute I'm in the parking lot alone, and the next, they
were right there beside me."

Rona's stomach grumbled
loudly. Karla, who was sitting at the opposite end of the table, grinned. Rona
didn't know if she had heard her or was just being sweet. She almost shouted
with joy when Anna finally stopped talking and passed the plate of sandwiches
to Tammy.

For the next few minutes,
conversation was at a minimum as everyone, Anna included, dug into their food
with relish. Rona couldn't remember a grilled cheese sandwich tasting so good.
When the last of the plates were pushed away, they all leaned back with a
contented collective sigh.

"That was a fine meal.
Thank you, Anna," Tammy said.

Anna smiled. "I just wish
my brothers could have heard you say that. They are forever giving me grief
over my lack of cooking skills."

"My mama cooks
good," Katie said as she gave a large yawn.

"I think someone's about
tuckered out," Anna said as she glanced at the clock. "My gosh, it's
almost one-thirty, no wonder she's so tired."

Tammy stood and started
stacking the dishes.

"I'll do that," Anna
said. "You all go on to bed. You must be exhausted."

Rona took the bowl from
Tammy's hand. "Go ahead. I'll stay and help her." She didn't miss the
mischievous smile Tammy sent her way. It was then that she remembered to check
out the magnets on the refrigerator. Two were rainbow-colored. The one she
could see well enough to read was for the San Antonio Gay and Lesbian Task
Force.

After Tammy and the kids left,
Rona and Anna moved quietly around the table gathering dishes. Rona found
herself watching Anna. Did Tammy think she was attracted to her simply because
she might be gay? Anna was tall with dark hair, and those dark eyes were nice,
but she wasn't Rona's type.
As if I have a type,
she thought as she gave
a small grunt. She carried the dishes to the counter while Anna loaded them
into the dishwasher.