Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories (4 page)

NORMA JEANE BAKER:

In the Top Hat I waited for Betty & she did not come.

Oh gosh I was getting mad at Betty!

Ohhh damn you Betty I was thinking!

& my heart hardened against her for Betty had promised she would join me—there were two guys wanting to buy me drinks—& I needed to get home because I wanted to wash out some things & dry them on the radiator & in the morning iron—my flannel skirt & my white cotton eyelet blouse—I would wear these to acting class, the others wore slacks & cheap sweaters—I had the philosophy
It is always an audition, you don’t know who is observing you
& so I needed to be in bed by midnight & needed at least seven hours sleep or there would be blue shadows beneath my eyes but damn Betty would come into the room later, I knew—for Betty was always coming home late & stumbling-drunk—& if you scolded her she would cry
Go to hell! Screw you!
like she did not even know me & did not care for me any more than she did for the other girls in the Buena Vista.

For her heart was broken Betty had said, she’d been engaged to a wonderful man she had loved so much, Major Matt Gordon of the U.S. Army Air Corps & they were to be married several years before but Major Gordon died in a plane crash far away in India & his body never recovered & Betty confessed she’d been so broken-hearted & a little crazed she had told her fiancé’s family that they had actually been married—in secret—& had had a little baby that had died at birth; & the family refused to believe this & scorned her & kept her from them & finally pretended that “Elizabeth Short” did not exist—so she had ruined her chances with the Gordon family, & was sick to think of it—
So much that I have lost, I hate God sometimes He has cursed me
. & I said to Betty
Don’t ever say that! Don’t give God any reason to hurt you more.

& Betty cried in my arms like a little girl as no one had ever seen her except me—for Betty did not wish anyone to know her weakness, she said—& swore me to secrecy, I would never tell; & I held her & said
We can help each other, Betty. We will!

But then, you could not trust her. My new lipstick missing, & one of my good blouses—& I knew it was Betty doing what Betty did which was take advantage of a friend. & I knew a time was coming when we would split up—& Betty would have no place to stay for the girls of Buena Vista were getting sick of her & then what? Where would she go?

That January night it was cold & rainy & I came back to the Buena Vista finally in a taxi by 1
A.M.
& climbed the stairs to the second floor & there was the door to our room shut & I thought
Maybe Betty is here: maybe Betty did not feel well & did not go out at all tonight—
& when I came inside I stumbled in the darkness & groped for the light switch & I could see someone in Betty’s bed sprawled & helpless-seeming—limp & not-breathing—I was so scared!—then managed to switch on the light & saw that it was just bedclothes twisted in Betty’s messy bed, coiled together like a human body.

“Oh Betty! Gosh I thought it was
you
.”

I.D.

F
or
eiii-dee
they were saying.

If your name is
Lisette.

This was weird! This was unexpected.

In second-period class, 9:40
A.M.
, some damn Monday in some damn winter month she’d lost track of and even the year—a “new” year—was weird to her, like a movie set in a faraway galaxy.

It was one of those school mornings—some older guys had got her high on beer, for a joke. Well, it was funny—not just the guys laughing at her but Lisette laughing at herself—not mean-laughing—she didn’t think so—but, like, they
liked her.
“Liz-zette”—“Lizzzz-ette”—was their name for her, high-pitched piping like bats, and they’d touch her—run their fingers, fast, along her arms, her back—like she was scalding-hot to the touch.

Picked her up on the way to school. The middle school was on the way to the high school. This wasn’t the first time. Most times, she was with a girlfriend—Keisha, or Tanya. They were mature girls for their age—Keisha especially—and not shy like other middle-school girls—they knew how to talk to guys, and guys knew how to talk to them, but it was just talk mostly, the girls were so young, just eighth graders.

Funny to see the young girls swilling beer out of cans, taking a drag from a cigarette, or a joint trying not to cough till they were red-faced.
Funny!

Now this was—math?—damn math class Lisette hated—made her feel so stupid—not that she was
stupid
—only just, sometimes, her thoughts were snarled bad as her hair—eyes leaking tears behind her dark-purple-tinted glasses—
pres-ciption
lenses
—so she couldn’t see what the hell the teacher was scribbling on the board, even the shape of it—“triangle”—“rectangle”—was fuzzy to her. And Mz. Nowicki would say in her bright hopeful voice
Who can help me here? Who can tell us what the next step is here?

Most of the class just sat on their asses, staring. Smirking. Not wanting to be called on—but then, Lisette was rarely called on in math class—Lisette might shut her eyes pretending she was thinking really hard—frowning and thinking really really hard—and when she opened her eyes there was one of the three or four smart kids in the class at the board taking the chalk from Nowicki.

She tried to watch, and she tried to comprehend. Something about the chalk clicking on the board—not a
blackboard
, for it was
green
—and the numerals she was expected to make sense of—she’d begin to feel dizzy, sickish.

Math, mathematics.
Just the sound made her feel funny. Like when you know you’re going to fuck up, and you’re going to feel bad, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Her mother, Yvette Mueller, was a blackjack dealer at the Tropicana.

You had to be smart, and you had to think fast—you had to know what the hell you were doing—to be a blackjack dealer.

Counting cards.
This was forbidden. If you caught somebody
counting cards
you signaled for help. Yvette liked to say how one day soon she would change her name, her hair color, all that she could about herself, drive out to Vegas, or some lesser place, like Reno, and play blackjack in such a way they’d never catch on—
counting cards
like no amateur could do.

But if Lisette said
Any time you’re going take me with you Momma, OK?
her mother would frown as if Lisette had said something really stupid, and laugh—
Sweetie I am joking. Obviously—you don’t fuck with these casino guys—I am
JOKING.

Vegas or Reno wasn’t where she’d gone. Lisette was certain. She’d gone so far away, where it wasn’t winter the way it was in New Jersey, she’d have taken lots more clothes, and a different kind of clothes.

In seventh grade the previous year Lisette hadn’t had trouble with
arithmetic.
She hadn’t had trouble with any of her school subjects, she’d gotten mostly B’s and her mother had placed her report card, opened like a greeting card, on top of the refrigerator. All that seemed long ago like in another galaxy.

She was having a hard time sitting still. Like red ants were crawling inside her clothes, in her armpits, groin, and between her legs. Stinging, and tickling. Making her itch. Except she couldn’t scratch as she wanted, with her fingernails really hard, to draw blood, so there was no point in just touching where her skin itched. That would only make it worse.

And her eye—her left eye. And the ridge of her nose where the cartilage/bone had been “rebuilt.” A numb sensation there, except the eye leaked tears continuously.
Liz-zette’s cry-ing! Hey—Liz-zette’s cry-ing! Why’re you cry-ing Liz-zz-zette—hey?

They liked her, the older guys. That was why they teased her. Like she was some kind of cute little animal
,
like—
mascot
?

First time she’d seen J-C—(he’d transferred into their class in sixth grade)—she’d nudged Keisha saying
Ohhhh—
like in some MTV video, a moan to signal
sex-pain.

She didn’t know what it was, exactly. She had an idea.

Her mother’s favorite music videos were
soft rock, retro rock, country and western, disco.
You’d hear her in the shower singing-moaning in a way you couldn’t decipher was it angry, or happy—outside the bathroom Lisette listened transfixed. Momma never revealed such a raw yearning secret-self to
her.

Oh she hated math class! Hated this place! Her school desk in the outside row by the windows, at the front of the classroom, made Lisette feel like she was at the edge of the glarey-bright-lit room looking
in
—like she wasn’t a part of the class—Nowicki said it’s to keep you involved, up close like this, so Lisette wouldn’t daydream or lose her way but just the opposite was true, most days Lisette felt like she wasn’t there at all.

Swiped at her eyes. Shifted her buttocks hoping to alleviate the red-stinging-ants. Nearly fifteen damn minutes she’d been waiting for their teacher to turn her fat back so Lisette could flip the folded-over note across the aisle to her friend Keisha—for Keisha to flip over to J-C—(Jimmy Chang)—who sat across the aisle from Keisha—this note that wasn’t paper but a Kleenex—and on the Kleenex a lipstick-kiss—luscious grape-colored lipstick-kiss for J-C from Lisette.

She’d felt so dreamy blotting her lips on the Kleenex. A brand-new lipstick
Deep Purple
which her mother knew nothing about for like her girlfriends Lisette wore lipstick only away from home, giggling together they smeared lipstick on their lips and it was startling how different they looked within seconds, how mature and how
sexy.

Out of the corner of her eye she was watching Keisha in the desk beside her and past Keisha’s head there was J-C in the next row—J-C seemingly oblivious of either girl, or indifferent—stretching his long legs in the aisle, silky black hair falling across his forehead and when J-C’s eyes moved onto Lisette—which happened sometimes, like by accident—(but it couldn’t always be just accident)—she felt a sensation in her lower belly like you feel when there’s a lightning flash and deafening thunder a second later—you’re OK, you didn’t get killed, but almost not.

J-C wasn’t a guy you trifled with. That was a fact. Not J-C or his friends—his “posse.” She’d been told. She’d been warned. These were older guys by a year or maybe two—they’d been kept back in school, or had started school later than their classmates. Except the beer-buzz at the back of Lisette’s head—that made her careless, reckless. Or could be, a few drags from some guy’s joint, or a diet pill, or two—or glue sniffing—(which was what little kids did, younger than eighth grade)—Lisette would blurt out some word she shouldn’t know—or she’d do some weird impulsive thing to make her girlfriends scream with laughter, like waving to get the attention of a stranger driving a car, or actually running out into the street, narrowly missing being hit; lately, it seemed to be happening more frequently—making people laugh, and making them stare.

From older girls at the high school she’d picked up the trick of pursing her lips tight like for kissing—
Kiss-kiss!—
poking her pink tongue out—just a peep of her tongue—
Look look look at me damn you
. But J-C wouldn’t glance at her—no matter how hard she tried.

I can make you look at me. I can make you love me. Look!

J-C’s father worked at the Trump Taj Mahal. Where he’d come from, somewhere called
Bay-jing,
in China, he’d driven a car for some high government official. Or, he’d been a bodyguard. J-C boasted that his father carried a gun, J-C had held in his hand. Man, he’d fired it!

A girl asked J-C if he’d ever shot anybody and J-C shrugged and laughed.

Lisette’s mother had moved Lisette and herself from Edison, New Jersey, to Atlantic City when Lisette was nine years old. She’d been separated from Lisette’s father but later, Daddy came to stay with them in Atlantic City when he was on leave from the army.

Later, they were separated again. Now, they were
divorced.

Lisette liked to name the places her mother had worked, that had such special names: Trump Taj Mahal—Bally’s Atlantic City—Harrah’s—the Tropicana.

Except it wasn’t certain if Yvette worked at the Tropicana any longer—if she was a blackjack dealer any longer. Could be, Yvette was back to being a cocktail waitress.

It made Lisette so damn—fucking—
angry
!—you could ask her mother the most direct question like
Exactly where the hell are you working now Momma
and her mother would find a way to give an answer that made some kind of sense at the time but afterward you would discover it had melted away like a tissue dipped in water.

But J-C’s father was a security guard at the Taj. That was a fact. J-C and his friends never approached the Taj or any of the new glittery hotel-casinos where security was tight and there were cameras on you every step of the way but hung out instead at the south end of the Strip where there were cheap motels, fast-food restaurants, pawnshops and bail-bond shops and storefront churches, sprawling parking lots and not parking garages so they could cruise the lots and side streets after dark and break into parked vehicles if no one was watching. The guys laughed how easy it was to force open a locked door or a trunk where people left things like for instance a woman’s heavy handbag she didn’t want to carry walking on the boardwalk. Assholes! Some of them were so dumb you almost felt sorry for them.

All this while Lisette had been waiting, for Nowicki to be distracted. The beer-buzz was fading, she was beginning to lose her nerve. Passing a lipstick-kiss to J-C. like saying
All right if you screw me, fuck me—whatever. Hey here I am.

Except maybe it was just a joke—so many things were jokes—you’d have to negotiate the more precise meaning, later.

If there was a
later.
Lisette wasn’t into thinking too seriously about
later.

Wiped her eyes with her fingertips like she wasn’t supposed to do since the surgery—
Your fingers are dirty Lisette you must not touch your eyes with your dirty fingers there is the risk of infection
—oh God she hated how both her eyes filled with tears in cold months and in bright light like this damn fluorescent light in all the school rooms and corridors so her mother had got permission for Lisette to wear dark-purple-tinted sunglasses to school, that made her look—like,
cool
—like she’s in high school not middle school, sixteen or seventeen not thirteen.

Hell you’re not thirteen—are you? You?

One of her mother’s man friends eyeing her suspiciously. Like, why’d she want to play some trick about her
age
?

He’d been mostly an asshole, this friend of her mother’s. Chester—“Chet.” But kind of nice, he’d lent Momma some part of the money she’d needed for Lisette’s eye doctor.

Now Lisette was as tall as her mother. It was hard to get used to seeing Momma just her height—a look of, like, fright in Momma’s face, that her daughter was catching up with her, fast.

They’d said she was
slow. Slow learner.
They’d said
mild dyslexia
. But with glasses, she could read better up close. Except if her eyes watered and she had to keep blinking and blinking and sometimes that didn’t even help.

That morning she’d had to get up by herself. Get her own breakfast—sugar-glaze Wheaties—eating in front of the TV—and she hated morning-TV, cartoons and crap or worse yet “news”—she’d slept in her clothes for the third night—black T-shirt, underwear, wool socks—dragged on her jeans, a scuzzy black-wool sweater of her mother’s with
TAJ
embossed on the back in turquoise satin. And her boots.

Checked the phone messages but there were none new.

Friday night 9
P.M.
her mother had called, Lisette had seen the caller ID and hadn’t picked up.
Fuck you going away, why the fuck should I talk to you
.

Later, feeling kind of scared hearing loud voices out in the street she’d tried to call her mother’s cell phone number. But the call didn’t go through.

Fuck you I hate you anyway. Hate hate hate you!

Unless Momma brought her back something nice—like when she and Lisette’s father went to Fort Lauderdale for their
second honeymoon
and Momma brought Lisette back a pink-coral-colored outfit—tunic top, pants.

Even with all that went wrong in Fort Lauderdale, Momma remembered to bring Lisette a gift.

Now it happened—and it happened fast.

Nowicki went to the door—classroom door—where someone was knocking and quick!—with a pounding heart Lisette leaned over to hand the wadded Kleenex-note to Keisha who tossed it onto J-C’s desk like it was a hot coal—and J-C blinked at the note like it was some weird beetle that had fallen from the ceiling—and without glancing over at Keisha, or at Lisette peering at him through the dark-purple-tinted glasses, with a gesture like shrugging his shoulders—J-C was
so cool
—all he did was shut the wadded Kleenex in his fist and shove it into a pocket of his jeans.