“One other thing. Do you know if Puma’s dating anyone?”
I sighed. “I met her for the first time when you did, Jeff. How would I know?”
“I’m thinking of asking her out.”
“Whatever.”
“The voodoo stuff’s a little strange, I admit. But I’m pretty open-minded about religion.” He added slyly, “I used to be involved with a Jewish girl, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyhow, I like Puma. She’s got something. You know what I mean?”
I did, but his comments about Lopez had annoyed me. So all I said was, “Can I hang up now?”
“You’re not jealous are you?”
“Jealous?
I
dumped
you,
” I reminded him.
“No regrets?”
“Certainly not since you shaved your head,” I said.
“That’s harsh.”
“I have to go now. I’ve got calls to return. There are other people besides you who want to belittle and abuse me today, Jeff.”
“Hey, how
is
your mom?”
“Good-bye.”
Jeff had guessed right again. As soon as I ended my call with him, I phoned my mother. I told her I was fine, and that I hadn’t returned her (as she told me) cell phone messages because I’d lost the phone. Then I said that I was on my way out the door and couldn’t talk now. Naturally, this didn’t work.
“How on
earth
did you manage to lose your cell phone?” Her tone implied it must be my fault.
“I had a fight with a gargoyle,” I said wearily.
“I don’t like ethnic slurs, dear.”
“Did you call for any particular reason, Mom?”
She wanted to know when my episode of
D30
would air. “Although I’ve recommended that they not let their children watch it, based on what you’ve told me about your role, some of our friends and relatives would like to see it.”
I explained, as briefly as possible, why the episode was in limbo at the moment. “So I don’t know when it’s going to be on television.”
“Ah! Well, perhaps it’s all working out for the best,” she said.
It was so unlike my mother to see the bright side of a bad situation, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Presumably you’ll get paid for your work, even though the episode hasn’t been completed?”
“Yes.”
“But since it’s incomplete, maybe it won’t be aired.” Her tone was bright with relief and satisfaction as she concluded, “So you’ll earn a nice paycheck, but you won’t actually appear on TV as a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute.”
“My episode might never air. Gee, I hadn’t thought of that, Mom.” I felt like going back to bed and pulling the covers over my head. “I’m so glad you called.”
“So am I, dear.”
“I have to go.”
“Have you met any nice young men lately?”
“Bye, Mom.”
Next, figuring I might as well get it over with, I called Lopez. To my relief, I got his voice mail. I left a message thanking him for retrieving my purse and asking him, whenever it was convenient for him, to leave it with the receptionist at the Livingston Foundation.
Since I really didn’t want to discuss the foundation, Darius Phelps, Biko, or anything related to these subjects with Lopez, I was hoping I could get my purse back without actually having to talk to him. After all, this was already turning into a trying day for me, and I hadn’t even left my apartment yet.
Jilly C-Note’s costume was still lying on the floor where I had dropped it last night. I picked up the purple fishnet stockings and the push-up brassiere, and I put them into a bucket with cold water and a generous dollop of soap for hand laundry. I would let the items soak until late tonight, and then rinse them when I returned from my shift at Bella Stella, which is where I would go directly from the Livingston Foundation later today.
I sniffed Jilly’s boots, inside of which my abused feet had been sweating too much lately. I made a face as I discovered that the boots needed a serious remedy. Using a trick I had learned from another actress, I put a solid air freshener inside each boot to absorb the unpleasant odor. The boots should smell fine by the time I had to put them on again.
Then I put the leopard-print shirt and red vinyl skirt into a bag. I would drop them off at a dry cleaner while doing my errands today, and I’d request twenty-four-hour service. That cost more, but I wanted to be sure of having the outfit in hand by the time I got rescheduled for filming.
I had a spare set of keys I could take with me today, and I could use my Equity card as my ID to cash a check at the bank, so that I’d have some cash on me until I got my purse back. I got my daypack out of the closet and packed these things into it, as well as some other supplies I’d need for the day, including bottled water and some healthy snacks. This was cheaper than buying food and beverages while I was out and about. Besides, if I was going to wear Jilly’s outfit on camera again, I shouldn’t indulge in any more fried chicken.
I decided to wear the same sleeveless white blouse, black capri pants, and sensible shoes to the foundation that I would also wear to work at the restaurant tonight; that way I wouldn’t need to bring a change of clothes with me or need to return to home later.
Before I finally left the apartment that day, my gaze fell on the two books that Puma had given me. I shrugged and packed them into the daypack, too, figuring I might as well get some reading done on the subway ride to Harlem.
Today’s acting class at the foundation involved rehearsing two- and three-person scenes from various plays. Some of the kids were ambitious enough to tackle Shakespeare, and we worked on articulating the text and exploring the rhythms, as well as examining some of the more unfamiliar vocabulary. Another of the challenges for an actor doing Shakespeare is figuring out what to do while the
other
guy in the scene has a speech that lasts for thirty lines—which happens often in Will’s work.
“You’ve probably already heard Jeff say that acting is reacting?” I said to the kids. “Well, onstage, as in life, you’re not doing
nothing
when someone is talking. You’re listening. Or refusing to listen. You’re thinking about what the other person is saying. Or trying to ignore it and not let it get to you. Or . . .” I glanced at a girl whose eyes were barely open. I remembered her name from yesterday, since she had given me a couple of painkillers for my aching head. “Or maybe, like Shondolyn, you’re struggling not to fall asleep while someone else is doing all the talking.”
Shondolyn blinked and jerked herself awake as the other kids laughed. But, to my surprise, instead of laughing with them, or even looking sheepish, she got tearyeyed.
“I’m sorry, Miss Diamond,” she said in a shaky voice.
“Call me Esther.” I hadn’t meant to embarrass her into tears. “Don’t worry about it, Shondolyn. Friday afternoon, hot day, substitute teacher droning on and on . . .” The kids laughed again, but awkwardly this time. “Bound to happen.”
She cleared her throat. “I need to be excused for a minute.”
“Sure,” I said in bewilderment as she fled the room.
I noticed that the boy named Jamal, once again dressed in baggy hip- hop clothing, involuntarily rose from his seat, his expression serious and concerned as he watched her leave. He moved uncertainly, as if wanting to go after her, then stopped himself and sat back down, but his gaze remained fixed on the door through which Shondolyn had departed. I wondered if he was the cause of her tears. A young lovers’ quarrel, perhaps?
“Okay, everyone,” I said to the students, who were restive in response to Shondolyn’s distress. “I want you to think about what I’ve just said as you run through your scenes with each other again. I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll see if what I’ve talked about is helping you.”
I left the room and went directly to the place I thought I was most likely to find Shondolyn. Sure enough, she was in the ladies’ restroom. But she wasn’t crying, as I expected. She was cursing and punching the wall.
Tough girl.
She looked embarrassed when she saw me. “Sorry.” She went to the sink, turned on the tap, and started splashing cold water on her face.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I just came to see how you are.”
“I’ll be okay in a minute.” She sounded tired.
I hadn’t worked with kids before, so I hoped I wasn’t taking the wrong approach. Starting with what seemed to be the most likely cause for her distress, I asked, “Is there someone in the class that you’re uncomfortable with, Shondolyn?”
“What?” She ripped off a paper towel from the dispenser and started patting her face dry. “No.”
She was a very attractive girl, with a lot of poise and style for a teenager. But I noticed now that she looked exhausted and there were dark circles under her eyes.
I said, “You haven’t, uh, quarreled with anyone in the group?”
“No, Miss Dia—Esther. No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just . . .” Tears welled up in her eyes again. She brushed them away angrily. “I just feel like I can’t take it anymore.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Take what, Shondolyn?”
“I’m so tired,” she said, still sounding angry. “I can’t sleep. It’s been bad for weeks, and lately it’s getting worse. So now I’ve got a headache almost all the time. I think it’s just because I’m so
tired
.” She added apologetically, “It makes me pretty bad-tempered, too.”
The headaches must be why she had been carrying that bottle of painkillers yesterday. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but I realized now that not that many teenage girls went around with a jumbo-size bottle of ibuprofen in their purses. “Has your mom taken you to a doctor?”
She nodded. “He gave me some sleeping pills.”
“Did they help?”
She said irritably, “I don’t take them. My mom thinks I do, but I don’t.” She added, “Don’t tell her, okay?”
Worried that I was out of my depth, I nonetheless said, “Okay. But, Shondolyn, why don’t you take the pills?”
“I’m scared I won’t be able to wake up if I do.”
I frowned. “You mean . . . you’re afraid of dying in your sleep?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “No. Why would I die in my sleep?”
Then what are you afraid of?”
She took a breath. “The nightmares.”
“Nightmares?” I repeated.
Considering the hormonal roller coaster that teens experience, the conflicting pressures they feel from their peers and their families, and the way they’re so often forced to straddle the fence between childhood restrictions and adult problems, I thought that nightmares might easily just be a side effect of adolescence.
But as Shondolyn spoke about her dreams in recent weeks, I realized she was experiencing something strange in her sleep. The girl relieved her anxieties in a rush of uninhibited honesty, the words tumbling over each other to get out of her mouth. Maybe it was because I was a stranger who listened without interrupting or judging her, or maybe it was just because she had reached a breaking point. In any case, she told me about her nightmares in vivid detail.
And in her dreams, I discovered, this girl had seen the baka.
Having seen them myself, I recognized them quite clearly from her description—which included their dirty claws and their stinking breath.
She had also seen the walking dead in her dreams: glassy-eyed men with dull, sunken skin who didn’t breathe or talk, and who moved in response to commands from an unseen master.
“It’s freaking me out!” She scowled and kicked the nearby garbage can. “I can’t stand it anymore!”
I could understand why she feared sleep—and why she was forcing herself to stay awake at night, to the point of hurting her health and her temperament. I could also understand why her mother thought that sleeping pills and time were probably the answer to her problem. The images haunting Shondolyn probably convinced her mom that she was a sensitive and impressionable youngster going through a troubled phase, and if her family was supportive and patient, it would pass.
Whereas I feared she was being menaced by the mysterious bokor who was summoning dark forces. And the next thing she said convinced me of it.
“I also hear names in my sleep. I can’t remember most of them, but there’s one that sticks in my head: Mama Brigitte.” Shondolyn looked at me. “I’ve never met anyone with a name like that. Why is it in my dreams?”
Thanks to the reading I had done on my way here, I recognized the name. And because of that, I suddenly felt so cold, I almost wished that Puma hadn’t given me those books.
“I want you to go see a friend of mine. Right now,” I told Shondolyn. “Her name is Puma, and she runs a voodoo shop that’s only a few blocks from here.” I wasn’t sure where Max was, and I thought this girl needed immediate help.
“Whoa!” Shondolyn resisted as I tugged on her arm, trying to drag her out of the bathroom. “No way am I going to some voodoo shop! I’m a good Christian!”