Chapter 5: Spaces

...the new friends consider what's missing...


Lola didn’t think it’d be a problem. But when quitting time came Thursday, she felt the empty space where Sherry had been. She was the only one she told about not drinking and so served as constant reminder and excuse. When friends said to meet at Stephen’s Place, she’d say she was going to dinner or a movie with Sherry. They wouldn’t question when you had something else. Neither would she.

But Sherry flew out Wednesday and was to return late Sunday and she didn’t have any place she needed to be. Her mouth felt dry as her mind raced. This was, she realized, her first true test alone.

Once, twice and three times she considered dropping by Stephen’s, because having one wouldn’t be the same as being drunk. But it wasn’t not drinking, either. She picked up her pace, walking quickly, hoping to tire herself. The March weather helped. Gray clouds and gusty winds chilled her and she wanted to be warm. She could turn on the heater as soon as she got home, she thought as incentive. But she couldn’t help thinking, while crossing Taylor, where she’d end up if she went right and who’d be there. She kept walking straight to her apartment.

A small studio on Polk, it overlooked the busy street of shops, restaurants and bars. None of her friends drank there, but the loud boisterous two a.m. talk outside sounded familiar. She shut the blinds and turned on the TV and tried not to think, because when she did anxiety for the next few days competed with thoughts of the summer ahead.

Since she stopped drinking there’d been more money and more time. The money was like a miracle. She could afford to eat out, make a dent in her credit card bill and still have something left. The extra time was more a burden, because it proved she hadn’t been doing much besides working, going out and sleeping. Was that a life?

Friday, she woke early and felt rested. Sherry sent a text message to boost her spirits. “Be Strong,” it read. She repeated the words throughout the day. It wasn’t hard to be strong on payday when she was happy. She joined a group for sandwiches at lunch. Everyone had plans for the weekend. Hers was to “Be Strong”.

Early that evening, Sherry called and suggested a movie. Maybe tomorrow, she told her, not wanting to go out alone at night when she might be in a dangerous mood. She tried reading a book but the antics in a Friends rerun captured her attention before drifting off to sleep.

She woke early the next day and, anxious to do something, quickly dressed to go for coffee and a walk. Sherry’s text that day read “Stay Strong!” She asked about the movie and mentioned her birthday party was that day. Lola wished her the best.

Not finding a movie she liked, she spent the day walking and testing the adage that San Francisco had more bars than laundromats. (It was true). Saturday night was like the night before and she was growing restless.

The next day Sherry’s message read “Forever Strong”. If forever were as long as the last few days, she was in trouble because Sunday was a repeat of Saturday. Monday found her glad to go to work, a very strange sensation indeed.

*

Soon after returning from Riverside, Sherry witnessed a fire not far from Lola’s apartment. Orange and yellow flames engulfed the building and lit the dark night, searing her mind and leaving an impression days afterward. Thick python-like hoses extended from fire hydrants and trucks and streets were wet with water. As firefighters sought to contain the blaze a crowd of onlookers gawked, like people watching the sun set on the ocean horizon. Some, though, reveled as at a bonfire.

She recalled there’d been a mom-and-pop grocery, dry cleaners and other shops on the street level and apartments on the upper ones. A group of people, faces filled with terror, clustered nearby. Some were barefoot and wore jeans, shorts or whatever else they had on before escaping. One trembling woman clutched a calico cat as though it were the only thing she had in the world.

Those people lost their home, Sherry thought, through no choice of their own. She felt blessed for never having been put in such need.

She went out of her way to go by the fallen structure, which smoldered for days. Contractors erected a chain link fence and where strollers once glanced through doors and windows there was nothing but debris. What had been home and business to so many was now an empty space. The contrast fascinated her and she felt guilty. Was she like those revelers, thrilled despite the pain to others?

One day when passing she studied the bare foundation whose concrete insets and buttresses were like the contours of a giant cookie cutter. When she raised her gaze to the building behind, with walls like skin newly exposed to the sun and windows climbing one over the other to the top, a movement caught her eye.

A white cloth fluttered right to left across a pane, starting at the top and progressing to the bottom, removing film and restoring clarity. A woman’s face popped into the frame and looked in all directions before disappearing.

There was a spring in her step when Sherry walked home.


The persons and events in this story are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event.

The next chapter will be posted September 5.

Chapter 4: Walls

...Sherry learns more about Lola...

One day Sherry realized that she and Lola were friends. She would not have predicted it, but as she got to know her, she realized they were on the same journey traveling on different roads.

The expense of lunch in the Financial District brought them together. Sherry had determined early on that she’d have to be frugal. So, every morning she prepared salad, which she carried in a plastic container in her bag. Dessert was usually sliced fruit.

She enjoyed eating at Jackson Square. A small park a few blocks away, it was about two-hundred steps wide in any direction and contained some tall pine trees, a fountain and a hillock of green grass. The pace of the day slowed whenever she entered its confines. Sitting by the fountain, she listened to the musical articulation of falling water and watched the treetops swaying in the wind. She might have been on a mountaintop for the sensations she felt.

While her routine rarely varied, she observed that Lola’s did. After payday, she took lunch at the sandwich shop across from the office, then, half way through the two-week period, disappeared. Her moods followed a similar pattern: happy and animated after payday, sullen and sluggish later on.

One day, she found Lola seated on a bench at the Square, staring into the screen of her cell. She sat without waiting for acknowledgment. Lola looked over and nodded and Sherry prepared her lunch.

After a while, Lola palmed her cell and gazed ahead. Sherry tried to draw her into conversation. When she didn’t pick up on it, she asked if she’d eaten. Lola didn’t want to talk about food, but Sherry offered some salad. When Lola declined, she pushed an apple at her, which she took. She admitted she’d rather sleep in than make lunch and didn’t eat much when money ran out. Sherry learned that was the least of her problems.

“I got into some really bad habits over the summer,” she said, tilting her head up at the sky. “The days were so long, it seemed you got off work early because there was so much time before dark.

“I’d meet friends at a place we went to and we talked and laughed over drinks. One drink led to more and, sometimes, when I tried to remember the night before, I counted drinks instead of time. Of course when the money ran out, it was time to go. Unless someone else was paying…

“As the days grew longer, they got drunker, too. And the nights! When I stepped outside, every light was winking. If I wasn’t just going home, and had money and friends, those winking lights were so alluring. Well, the lights weren’t the only things winking.”

Lola looked over to Sherry who’d stopped eating and was holding her breath.

“Have you ever been drunk?” Sherry shook her head.

“Sometimes you get to a point where every word sounds funny and every thought you think sounds funny. Everyone’s drunk and agreeing with each other, making everything funnier.

“When the group breaks apart, you’re still in that drunk funny agreeable mood and that’s when the winking is so seductive.”

“Winking?”

“Boys. Sometimes I can’t remember agreeing to it—- but it’s one thing to wake up beside someone you know and quite another when it’s a stranger.

“When I can reach over and touch him as he sleeps, and I don’t know his name or remember where we met, lying there, hoping I remember before he wakes, hoping he’s nice.”

“You have to stop!”

“I know.”

“What if he’s not nice? What if he’s—“

“Jack the Ripper. Yeah, I thought about it.”

Sherry sat on the edge of the bench, turning to face Lola squarely. As she did she felt she was filling a mold someone else had occupied.

“What steps have you taken?”

Lola crossed her arms and looked away, sliding down in the bench. Sherry held her position five counts before speaking.

“You have to think hard about what’s right, then draw a line. There you build a wall. On one side are the things you keep. Everything else, you toss over.”

Sherry started bringing extra salad and making a point of inviting Lola to lunch. At first, she resisted but then joined in, contributing to the meals by bringing things like bread or chocolate. Encouraged, but mindful of her diet, Sherry nibbled judiciously at the offerings.

She learned that Lola came from Red Bluff, about two hundred miles north of the city, where her parents and a younger brother lived. She had no religious beliefs, which disturbed her.

Sherry became Lola’s companion, directing her to less destructive pursuits, like the low cost activities she’d discovered. She took her up on a few, but shied from church meetings and lectures. Their lunches were the routine. They even met on weekends. That’s when she realized they’d become friends.

*

Lola was on her mind when she went home to celebrate her 21st. She’d taken a first big step by deciding not to drink. She believed her presence made a difference and worried about a relapse, but maybe that was pride; maybe Lola would be all right. She wanted to tell her mother about Lola, but wouldn’t share everything.

Her birthday was a festive event. Not only had immediate family been there, but streams of aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces and Roger. She felt the warm, happy emotions she’d anticipated.

She hadn’t expected, though, comments about her physical appearance. She had lost weight and dressed differently, mostly because her old clothes were looser. She was paler, too, she was told. It amused her, because everyone acted as if she’d accomplished something. All the while, she thought how much more she was changed inside.

Roger hovered on the edges. She could read the anxiety on his face. He thought he might be losing her. For her part, she worried he was unhappy. She calmed and unnerved him when she kissed him on the lips. The younger people whooped and he blushed. She reveled in her boldness, though felt, from somewhere, her mother’s eyes.

After the party broke up, she and her mother were alone and she felt the weight of what must stay unsaid. She thought her mother sensed it, too, and realized that for all her honesty she hardly spoke of unpleasant things, and didn’t dwell on them when she did. She liked to cite good moral examples in the world, leaving a lot unsaid in between. Their eyes searched each other for clues. But when she asked about her roommates a crush of unhappiness descended.

“Are the girls treating you well?”

“Girls?”

“Mara and Riley.”

Her eyes darted left then down. Again, she wanted to fess up. But a confession would put everything into doubt. Unhappy at the wall between them, she answered.

“They’re fine.”




The persons and events in this story are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event.

The next chapter will be posted August 22.

Chapter 3: Attitude

...Mara strives to make a point...

As soon as they met, Mara vowed to introduce Sherry to the larger world. The right attitude was the difference between a rich life and a poor one, she thought. There were two types: “No” and “Yes” people. The No had to be dragged out of a routine existence, protesting all the while: “No, I can’t go. But if I do, I have to be back early.” That attitude was like a wall obstructing the imagination.

She considered herself a Yes. “Yes, let’s surf in the morning and fly to Las Vegas in the afternoon. Yes, let’s catch a show and gamble all night and see that movie when we get back.” Life was a series of connecting activities that, strung together, stretched into a rainbow arching to a pot of gold.

Sherry was rightly challenging the limits someone else had defined and yes she would help. Riley, though, thought she was meddling, causing Mara's eyes to narrow.

So, Mara observed the new roommate with interest and some amusement. Touching base at evening meals, she prompted her to tell what she’d been doing. One night over macaroni and cheese, she described her confusion at an overdue bus that passed without stopping.

“He just pointed behind him.”

“The hitchhiker thumb--reversed,” Riley laughed.

“But why?”

“He’s saying take the bus behind him.”

“There wasn’t one.”

“Typical Muni.” Mara said.

She shared a small victory when she found a smart wool skirt at the second hand. Happily showing it off, she told Mara how much weight she had to lose; she was almost there.

She mentioned going to a church meeting, but complained later that “They wanted to own her time”, and went less often. Mara nodded knowingly.

Once she brought a friend to a meal. Lola was tall, had pale skin, a crop of short cut brown hair and a gold stud in her nose. Her face was like a mask, hiding her emotions. Sometimes differences attract, Mara thought. Sherry confided Lola was going through a difficulty she was helping her through.

Sherry seemed to be making the adjustments all newcomers make, when discovery and acquired knowledge morph into delighted awareness or stoic endurance. All that was fine and good but Mara wanted to do something. Sherry’s upcoming 21st birthday gave her an idea: dinner and dancing. She agreed, but after she returned from celebrating with her family.

*

“I just want to shake her sometimes.”

Riley rested a hand on Mara’s shoulder. Then, standing behind her, he grabbed her other shoulder and started to shake her. The gray-billed cap teetered on her bobbing head.

“Like this?”

“Stop.”

“Does it make anymore sense?”

“Stop, I said.” He sat back down at the kitchen table, a broad smile on his face. Mara looked glum as she pushed the cap back down on her dark hair.

“She liked dinner. So what if she left after the dancing started?”

“She should’ve given it a chance.”

“But it wasn’t the dancing, she said.”

“Yeah, yeah, the atmosphere.”

“Twisting bodies in the dark and a glowing red background. She didn’t feel comfortable.”

“Yes, and will she spend her life running from things that make her uncomfortable?”

*

Early one morning, when Mara rose from bed for a drink of water, she gravitated to the front window to glance outside. When she turned she was startled to see Sherry curled into a ball on the couch and let out a cry.

“Oh!”

Sherry jerked awake, eyes wide with surprise and blinking awareness, pulling the blanket to her chin.

“Sorry,” she stammered, “I know I shouldn’t sleep here—“

Still half asleep, Mara sat beside her to learn what was wrong. At first Sherry leaned away, as if to curl back into a ball, but Mara rubbed her back, telling her she wanted to help. She loosened up and with averted eyes told her about the knocks in the ceiling. Mara stifled an inclination to laugh.

“Show me.”

She followed her into the room. It was quiet. Sherry frowned.

“Wait.” Mara went into the kitchen and returned with a yellow broom.

Speaking in a loud voice that unsettled the morning stillness, she said, “Here’s what you do.”

Moving a chair to the wall, she stepped onto it with bare feet, then jammed the broom handle into the angle between wall and ceiling.

“When they get noisy, knock back---“

She jammed it three times without any response. Sherry’s eyes widened at the boldness.

“---And let them know you’re here!”

Mara marched back to her room, fully satisfied with her demonstration of the right attitude.



The persons and events in this story are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event.

The next chapter will be posted August 15.