White Oleander

On the other hand, I still went to school, did the work, took the tests. I was going to graduate, for all that meant. Niki thought I was an idiot. Who would know if I went or not, who would care? But it was still something to do. I went and drew the chair legs, the way they looked like the legs of water striders. I could spend an hour exaggerating the perspective of all the desks diminishing toward the blackboard, the backs of heads, necks, hair. Yolanda Collins sat in front of me in math class. I could gaze at the back of her head all period long, the layers of tiny braids laced together in designs intricate as Persian rugs, sometimes with beads or cord woven in.

 

I looked down at the pad in my hands. At least I had this diamond-shaped pattern, the trapezoid of the gate. Wasn't that enough? Did there have to be more?

 

I looked at Rena, slathering on her Tropic Tan, baking to medium-well in the blistering sun, happy as a cupcake in frilled paper. "Rena, you ever wonder why people get out of bed in the morning? Why do they bother? Why not just drink turpentine?"

 

Rena turned her head to the side, shaded her eyes with her hand, glanced at me, then went back to sunny-side up. "You are Russian I think. A Russian always ask, what is meaning of life." She pulled a long, depressed face. "What is meaning of life, maya liubov? Is our bad weather. Here is California, Astrid darling. You don't ask meaning. Too bad Akhmatova, but we got beach volleyball, sports car, tummy tuck. Don't worry, be happy. Buy something."

 

She smiled to herself, arms down at her sides, eyes closed, glistening on her chaise lounge like bacon frying in a pan. Small beads of water clung to the tiny hairs of her upper lip, pooled between her breasts. Maybe she was the lucky one, I thought, a woman who had divested herself of both future and past. No dreams, no standards, a woman who smoked and drank and slept with men like Sergei, men who were spiritually what came up out of the sewers when it rained. I could learn from her. Rena Grushenka didn't worry about her teeth, didn't take vitamin C.

 

She ate salt on everything and was always drunk by three. She certainly didn't feel sick because she wasn't going to college and making something of her life. She lay in the sun and gave the workmen hard-ons while she could.

 

"You get boyfriend, you stop worry," she said.

 

I didn't want to tell her I had a boyfriend. Hers.

 

She turned on her side, her large nippled breast falling out of her bikini top to the workmen's vociferous approval. She hiked her top up, which called forth more excitement. She ignored it all, rested her head on her hand. "I been thinking. Everybody has license plate frame from dealer. Van Nuys Toyota, We're Number 1.1 think, we buy license plate frame, you paint nice, we get maybe ten, fifteen dollars. Cost us dollar."

 

"What's my cut?" I derived a perverse satisfaction in knowing the right moment to say it. I had arrived on Ripple Street, the paradise of my despair.

 

THE DARK GREEN Jaguar sedan parked in front of the plumbing contractor should have tipped me off, but I didn't put it together until I saw her in the living room, the explosion of black curls, her bright red lipstick I recognized from the news. She wore a white-trimmed navy blue Chanel suit that might even have been real. She was sitting on the green couch, writing a check. Rena was talking to her, smoking, laughing, her gold inlays glinting in her mouth. I wanted to run out the door. Only a morbid interest kept me in the room. What could she possibly have to say to me?

 

"She like the salad set." Rena looked at me. "She buy for friend collect Tiki everything."

 

"It's the latest," said the woman, handing the yellow check to Rena. "Tiki restaurants, mai tais, Trader Vic's, you name it." Her voice was higher than you'd think, girlish for a lawyer's.

 

She stood and held out her hand to me, short red nails garish against her white skin. She was shorter than I was. She wore a good, green-scented perfume, a hint of citrus, almost like a man's aftershave. She had on a gold necklace thick as a bike chain, with a square-cut emerald embedded in it. Her teeth were unnaturally white. "Susan D. Valeris."

 

I shook her hand. It was very small and dry. She wore a wide wedding band on her forefinger, and an onyx intaglio signet on the pinky of the other hand.

 

"You mind if Astrid and I. .. ?" she asked Rena, wagging her wedding-banded finger between the two of us. Eeny meeny miney mo.

 

"It's not problem," Rena said, looking at the check again, putting it in her pocket. "You can stay, see if there's anything else you like. Everything for sale."

 

When we were alone, Susan D. gestured to the green couch for me to sit down. I didn't. It was my house, I didn't have to follow instruction. "How much did you give her?"