Dirty Laundry (continued)

"I guess I got a little distracted today, Ms. Vladko, seeing that my sister is getting married, and I'm not invited to be in it because I'm a fucking dyke. I'm so, so sorry that your hideously ugly dress, which I am sure you were planning on fucking that asshole in, doesn't meet expectations. So sorry that I even bothered to come here." Jane stands and throws the beer bottle across the kitchen where it breaks against my wall. I watch the foamy liquid slide down the white plaster and listen to her low-pitched, perfectly American voice and wonder how she developed her speech faculties without acquiring her parents' native accent.

"You're the epitome of the unexamined fucking life. You don't think about anything except your lab. Most of all, you don't think anything about me! I deserve better from you Andy, but the part that really sucks is that you don't have any better to give." Jane raises her arms with her palms stretched toward me. "You're like this, with your arms in front of you, pouring out chemicals. Look at my hands, Andy."

I see her palms, they are chapped and rough and I remember that she has been working in the laundry alone. Her parents have been arranging her younger sister's wedding and have left Jane to direct the operations. I feel ashamed that I spoke poorly of the laundry because I know the volumes she handles each day. She should not be there. She was born with a higher intelligence, for better things.

"Jane, let's talk about your career. I can secure a place in my lab, with certain restrictions and you can become part of our team." I watch her hands lower to her side. They brush against the orange canvas pants she wears and hang, limply. She does not respond and turns her back to me. "Jane, we can talk about this later if you like. I am sorry." Jane does not speak and I notice the two paintings that she had turned upside down nearly two weeks earlier. I had forgotten and had not rectified their situation. From my perspective the paintings are partially blocked by the two braids from Jane's head of black hair and seem to be enlarging as she moves away from me. I believe the paintings look better and more natural as they hang upside down. I think that I may leave them as they are.

Jane gives my front door a terrific slam. I walk to my street window and see Jane gesturing and mumbling. Her thin arms wave as if she was swiping gnats circling her head and I believe that she is proselytizing to nobody in particular but everyone in general as she walks toward her laundry.

* * * *

Ivan is charming me at dinner. He knows the manner in which to make a plain woman feel beautiful. He compliments my black dress with its white piping on the sleeves and the collar. It fits me as well as it might, with my firmly set hips and the legs that are too long to comport well with my torso. My hair is pulled into a bun behind my neck that gives angles to my face. My features are round without the illusion of spatial contrast. I order a martini and then another, although I know that I should not drink too much in his presence. As in science, I feel there is little room for error with him.

I feel that he acts in opposition to me. He abstains from drinking when I raise my glass and he taps the table when I rest my hands in my lap. We are discussing his role in the laboratory. He is explaining why he should be given a larger budget. While I can make suggestions, I do not have authority with regard to budgeting and Ivan knows this limitation of mine. He is only talking in the general sense to me, about his problems with science, and his disgust with the politics necessary to conduct research in the lab. I remain silent during his soliloquy and wish he would stop talking about the lab. It happens when his entrée arrives at the table.

"Androika, why do you avoid me?" It's been weeks since we talked. Have you found someone else?" Ivan clinks his glass of wine to mine and laughs in a conspiratorial fashion. As with his attempts to speak to me in Russian, he acts under the impression that I enjoy his familiarity. Four months ago I did. Tonight, his thoughtless remarks assault my pride and cause me to become angry.

"You must ask? Ivan, that is an expression of ignorance that I do not believe you entertain. After what has happened to me?" I am certain that Jane would describe my emotional state as "blown away." It is the only appropriate label that I can attach to my feelings.

"You must know how much I care for you. I support your decision and will always support you. I want you to be happy." Ivan rests his utensils beside his plate, obligingly, though I know from the nervous twitch in his knee that he would rather attend to his meal. Ivan is clever at adopting an attitude, but certainly not expert at concealing all of his sentiments. I wonder which emotion he will assume next for me, which tactic he will deem appropriate.

"It wasn't only my decision Ivan. You had a part in it too. I do not believe you would have wanted me to continue."

Ivan decides which emotion he will don. I think that Jane would say he "decides to run with hurt."

"Not fair Androika, not fair at all, my love. We, together, are of mutual admiration and sympathetic companionship. We, together, are dedicated to discovery and advancement!" He decides to relinquish the stage and slices his thin steak. "Time heals all wounds and we too, shall heal."

I eat the food in front of me, but without any enjoyment in the nutrients that support my complex biology. I am unable to direct my anger toward Ivan for his foolish and inaccurate description of me as part of his "we" that would "heal." I am angry at Jane for causing me to care about this meal and this date with Ivan, for causing me to try and look better than I normally do, for taking more care with my appearance than I normally should. I realize that Jane, being more intelligent than even I give her credit for, has convinced me to place importance on this meeting with him when it should not be important to me. I have allowed her to put inject herself into me when she has no business being here. I drink one more martini and find it easy to ignore Ivan for the remainder of the evening. Instead, I concentrate on how I will confront Jane.

Ivan kisses me goodnight as he hails a taxicab and says, "I still believe you made the best decision." Why do I hesitate to confront Ivan about this so-called decision? What decision was there to be made, when only two days before the decision, I saw him put his hand under a laboratory assistant's jacket in the same fashion he had done with me? Unlike pure research, there are uncertain moral consequences associated with human behavior, but I believe that I decided appropriately with the evidence that I had.

* * * *
I see Jane seated on my front steps, staring into a laundry basket nestled between her knees. I pay my taxi fare and open the door, carefully. I do not believe I am fully drunk but my synapses have not ceased their misfiring from the gin. I hold closely to the railing of the steps to my house before I attempt to climb them. Jane is crying. I cannot speak, because I do not know why she is here.

"I didn't know you would take so long Andy. I waited for two hours. I'm cold."

"Have you brought some laundry for me?" Jane slumps and her braids droop across her breast. I wonder, in my alcoholic uncertainty, if they droop with sorrow.

"Not your laundry...maybe a dead cat. I think my parents shut my sister's cat in the cellar...it may be dead." Her voice cracks into a wail.

My perspective changes as my body climbs to Jane's level. I see the contents of the basket underneath the light of my porch. The form of the cat is there, yes, with a fuzzy gray and black coat. The white towel underneath the small animal appears bloody. I put my hand to the animal's stomach and feel an irregular rise and fall.

"Jane, it's not dead. Look here, underneath her belly." As I turn the panting female's belly aside, three small blind faces shift their slight mass to follow the heat of their mother's moving form. "She gave birth and she may be dehydrated and malnourished. She's not dead, not yet anyway." I am surprised how gently my hand runs across three tiny noses. I pull back, and put my hand on Jane's shoulder. Her body, despite her assertion, feels warm to my touch and I wish I could lean into the heat that she denies herself.

Jane shudders and continues to lose her energies into the cold night and I become sad. Sad with the realization that I live where the kindness to rescue a birthing cat will go unnoticed, where the rescuer must wait for someone to aid her in the attempt. It is a loneliness that comes between us, like the shoppers so famous in our city, the ones with a great deal of time and money but for whom the object of desire is behind the window or hidden away. I feel cold, in this moment, as I relate the story that springs from the destruction I can cause with my slight indifference. Or perhaps there is no slight indifference and this moment, like all cold ones, will fade under the warmth from my hand but will not pass without leaving its mark.

She whispers to me. "I don't know what to do." My heart tightens with a feeling I am not ready to describe. My hand moves to her hot breast. She frightens me with her warmth.

I do not let go of Jane as I unlock my front door and lift the basket of breathing life. I will bathe and nourish them to health. I will make a place in my kitchen and I will prepare warm milk and feed them, drop by silky drop, as I pet their soft fur and developing eyes.

But all of these things I will do with my other hand. For I plan to continue to touch and then hold Jane, tightly, and to put myself between her and the steam that will circle from the gutters to steal her warmth.


Contributor: Krista McGruder