“Then do you have any change?”
I believed that homeless people were homeless because they had lost something. I’d lost a few things in my life too. “I’ll see what I have when I get across the street,” I said.
I let go of my suitcase handles to check my watch—12:30. I was sure Eric must have been having a fit by now. I stood in front of the pier and unzipped my carry-on while the man waited. He stood close to me, and I could smell his scent. It reminded me of meatloaf. I hunched over, trying to ignore it, and kept digging. Eventually I found a dollar, and as I stood straight up to give it to him my head bumped his chin because he’d moved in even closer to have a look in my pocketbook with me. I was a bit startled. Okay, I was scared, but I looked at him and said in my best don’t-fool-with-me tone, “Could you get your nose out my purse?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. I handed him the dollar.
“Thank you,” he said and went on his way.
I ran over to the pier. I checked my watch—12:37. Dang it. Where there once had been a big crowd of people, there was now only a short line left waiting to board the ship. I couldn’t see Eric anymore. I walked in baby steps toward the ship, thinking of my daydream about leaving Eric on the pier as I and my other shipmates set sail. I thought of my talk with the therapist about feeling my feelings. What did I want? Was I being true to myself?
I walked through the boarding area and continued my self- examination. In the past, I’d felt a sense of pride when guys came on to me, and I would always smile when I saw women envying my legs, or my waist. And if the truth were told, I even used to giggle when women came on to Eric, because this showed me that it was always my grass that looked greener than my neighbor’s. That all seemed trivial now.
What was my and Eric’s relationship really about? We’d been together a long time, yet we spoke maybe twice a week. And when we talked, it was only about where we were going that week. Or to confirm which one of us was to come over. I wasn’t happy. Then I thought about the dream I’d had of my mother and father dancing. What was that about? Had I learned anything at all from the stories my dad told me about Zarina?
I approached the ramp to board the ship. “May I see your ticket?” said a woman in a white uniform with black bars on the shoulders. Then a man’s voice called over the speaker system, “Last call for cruise number 754 to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, and Puerto Vallarta. Again, Crystal Cruises number 754 will be departing in ten minutes.”
There was so much going on in my life right now. The truth was, I didn’t know what the truth was because I didn’t know what I wanted out of life. I’d put so much energy into my image and into Eric and me. But was it positive energy? Truthfully, I was obsessed. I did not want to be ignored. I wanted to be as beautiful and carefree as the starlets I saw on television. I wanted children that looked handsome like Eric. But right then, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. What was it all supposed to prove, and who was I trying to prove it to?
“Ma’am, may I have your ticket?” the woman repeated.
I looked down at my bag, then up at her.
“I—I don’t have a ticket.”
The lady looked at me strangely. She glanced down at my big suitcases and the black bag slung over my shoulder.
“Where are you going, then?”
I mumbled, “To get a life I guess.”
I turned around and lugged my stuff back to the car.
The parking attendant who had liked my sweater looked surprised to see me back so soon. “Miss your ship?” he asked.
“No,” I said. He looked like he was waiting for me to say what happened. “How much is it?” I asked.
“Daily rate is forty dollars.”
“What? That’s robbery! I just left the car not even thirty minutes ago.”
“Look, ma’am, I don’t make up the prices. The standard daily rate was posted on the sign when you drove in. I can’t give you your keys until you give me forty bucks.”
I looked in my bag, found a fifty-dollar American Express traveler’s check, and held it out to him. In an instant I’d forgotten my personal inward journey. “Here!”
“Sorry, ma’am, we don’t take traveler’s checks.”
Was he just having fun at my expense? I wasn’t in the mood. “What do you mean you don’t take traveler’s checks? They are the same as cash!”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Well, can I leave my bags here while I go to the ATM machine?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Now he was smirking.
“You know what? You need to get a life too,” I said and walked out of the garage with my three now very heavy bags on me.
That guy really got on my nerves, to the point that my newly forming perspective just went right out the window and I watched it go. Maybe I’d join that yoga class at the Y; I kept seeing flyers posted all over our building about it, and maybe it would help me to put things into perspective again.
When I got back, the attendant’s radio was blaring classic rock from the 1980s. I walked in to give him the money, and found him in the office where the keys were stored. The song was ending, and the generation X’er was deep into it. He was sitting in a chair, playing his imaginary guitar and shaking his ink black dyed hair everywhere.
“Here,” I said, pushing two twenties across his desk. He pulled my keys out of his coat pocket, and they rattled as he kept playing. He certainly wasn’t trying to please anyone. I got my keys, went to my Jeep, and pulled up to the exit to leave. He smiled and waved good-bye like we’d been the best of friends. “You have a good day, ma’am.”
Off to Darryl’s
I
was back in San Leandro in less than an hour. Filled with both hesitation and adrenaline, I drove down Estudillo Street to Darryl’s Mini Storage. I pulled into a stall and parked. There were two other cars in the lot. I went into my black shoulder bag, found my purse, and headed toward the now open electric gate. Through the big office window I saw a man and woman, both with dark hair, sitting behind their desks reading newspapers. I opened the door to the modern storage facility, and a bell made from noisy metal trinkets let them know someone had entered.
“Hello,” I said. “Can you tell me where storage number seventy-seven is?”
“Hi. Sure, what’s your name?” asked the woman.
“My name is Chantell Meyers, and my father gave me this key.” I held it up.
“Oh, Meyers. Right,” said the man. “I’m Steve Peterson, and this is my wife, Jeanne. We live here on the grounds, and your things are never left unattended.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, and wondered what “things” I had. I wondered if homemade jelly kept for twenty years. Maybe there were photos of me and my mom and dad together. I hoped so. I would love to see her face again. Maybe she’d be in her
Soul Train
wardrobe. Maybe it was pictures of her asleep in the teal casket that I remembered from the funeral. Oh God, please help me get ready for this, I thought.
I followed the Petersons past a long line of orange metal rolling doors. One man had his storage door opened, and I saw an old bike and a badly splintered canoe. He sat in there in a lawn chair with his legs crossed, smoking a pipe, in the midst of elk horns mounted on plaques and fishing poles, like it was his own garage.
“Hello, Mr. Michaels,” said Jeanne.
“Hello,” said the old man.
Jeanne and Steve led me to stall number 77. “Here you are,” said Steve, patting me on my hand before they walked back to the office.
“Thank you,” I called back to them. “I guess.”
Alone again, I wondered if there was something awful in there. If my dad hadn’t been sick he surely would have come here with me. What if there was someone in there? If I thought about it too long, I was liable to turn around and go home. I took a deep breath, found my key, and opened the padlock at the bottom of the roll-up door.
The huge door creaked as it disappeared upward. First I saw what looked like tall packages with sheets over them. It was dim except for the welcomed light from the open door. The place was darn near dustless. I might even have thought that I was in the wrong storage space except that something told me this was where I should be. There was a huge old bookcase filled with books. I walked over to it. It was mahogany, and big and heavy. It had six planks lined with books, mostly authors that I’d never heard of. A few I’d read in college—Phyllis Wheatley, Dorothy West, Harriet Jacobs.
There was a huge old Bible with cracks all over its leather cover, and papers sticking out of it. There were trinkets and a big blue stuffed bear that looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d known it from. There were tons of dried flowers in bunches tied with what looked like strands of straw or hay. I spotted a light switch on the wall. I flicked it and suddenly the dim room was well illuminated. I lowered the rolling door halfway, for a bit of privacy, and continued to look around. The room was neatly kept. There was a beautiful quilt that I definitely remembered from long ago. It was neatly folded and stored in a clear plastic bag. I went over to it and tore open the plastic. It was made of yellow, cream, black, and green scraps of fabric. My mother used to lie under it on the couch. It was folded and tucked so neatly. I put it to my face and inhaled it.
My eyes were busy moving, scanning all of the objects along the wall, and I bumped into a trunk. It was old and black, with metal edges and a big ebony handle. I released the clasps and lifted the lid open. Inside I found old pictures, letters, and postcards. I felt both sad and intrigued. I picked up a postcard that was from my grandmother. She was visiting her sister in Little Rock, Arkansas.
It read:
10/04/74
Dear Zarina,
I hope you’re doing well. Your Aunt Mae is recovering just fine. The doctors said she should be up and about in two weeks or so. I am glad for that. As for you, my beautiful and stubborn daughter—Promise me right now, that you will get at least eight hours of rest every day.
Send everyone my love, and I’ll see you next week.
Love you,
Mom
P.S. How is my little Chantell doing? Tell her not to forget that her Nana is going to take her to Bible study on Wednesday, as soon as I get back.
I sighed and closed my eyes. Putting the postcard to my nose, I inhaled deeply. I thought of them. I remembered my grandmother; she was prim and proper, but feisty. Her hair was never out of place, as she went to the beauty shop every Friday. She was a brown-skinned woman, prone to moles. She had them all over the back of her neck. She had long, thick, coarse hair, which she wore straightened with big soft finger waves in it. Each night she took these huge hair clips and clipped about five of them in her hair, and she slept like that. The next day she’d take them out and magically she would have perfect huge waves in her hair. My grandma liked to look immaculate, and she dressed me that way too. She bought me Carter’s dresses from JCPenney, and Stride Rite leather shoes. My dresses were full of buttons and bows and pink lace and she took me to church with her every Sunday. She never really asked my mother, or my father, or—after my mom died—my stepmother Charlotte. She just said for them to have her little debutante ready by 10 a.m. on Sunday for church. She’d say, “My grandbaby isn’t going to be a heathen for anybody.”
My grandmother’s name was Mrs. Hattie Brumwick, and she died when I was twelve years old, almost exactly seven years after my mom. She was the second big loss in my life. She always used to say that bad luck came in threes. So when she died I knew that it was just a matter of time before I lost someone else. Then Keith left the next year. I sat down on the dusty floor and put the postcard in my purse.
I saw a large brown leather book pressed against the inside of the trunk and pulled it out. I recognized my Grandmother Hattie’s handwriting, and realized it was a logbook that sometimes doubled as her journal. In it, beneath grocery lists, my grandmother had written: “That Zarina is so stubborn. My sister Mae says that we were wrong to tell her that she was too sick to do anything but be conservative. Maybe she was right. I don’t know how to make her be still!”
There were notes like that all through it. Near the back, beside a list of monthly expenses, she had written: “I have tried to do the best that I could for Zarina and her family. She’s just got her own way about her. Always has. I’m so worried about her. All I can do is hold her up to the Lord.”
From what I could make out, my mother, the first big loss, was quite a little rebel. My grandmother had tried to keep her prim and proper but she thought that Zarina acted like an Oakland Raiders fan. It seemed that people, my grandmother included, always told Zarina that because of the sickle-cell, she was too sick to be anything but very conservative. And apparently something happened where my grandfather, her father, had stopped talking to her for two months once he found out she was pregnant with me. Her father, according to my grandmother’s words, was just an ornery and bullheaded man. He flat out told Zarina that she should not try to have children. My mother said that my grandfather was a darn fool, and that people should do what was in their hearts.
I didn’t know him at all, my grandfather. He and my grandmother divorced and he got remarried and moved away. My grandmother wrote that he loved my mom dearly; she said, however, that he was too stubborn to say it, and that Zarina was just as bullheaded as he was. Grandma Hattie said that she knew that the mysterious gifts that my mom received in the mail each year with no return address, up until the day they made amends on his deathbed, were from him.
I placed the book at my side, reached back into the chest past a half-full Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle, and grabbed a handful of pictures. I looked them over. There were pictures of me, my dad, and my mother, standing in front of our new root beer brown van. I recognized myself right off because even in the distance I could see the little black mole above my eyebrow. I must have been a year old, and I stood in front of the two of them leaning against my mom’s leg for support. I had on white sandals and a yellow sundress with big white bloomer underwear showing underneath. My mom looked great. She was younger than my present age, and her black hair was down and hung freely around her shoulders. She wore a gold outfit that looked something like a woman’s space suit. It had gold-flecked trim around the sleeves, and the same shiny ornaments down her pantlegs’ stitching. She had her arm around Dad, who looked ultra-1970s. He wore a black tank top with some letters on it and a pair of jeans. His hair was styled in an Afro parted on the side, with big sideburns, and an Afro pick bearing a fist logo sticking up in the back.