Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 97.1: 1995, Georgina

Chapter 97.1: 1995, Georgina

The clock over the phone in the kitchen was chiming. That could only mean it was 12 o’clock. Noontime.

Ruiz would be home soon. She got off work at 12. Cha Cha was going to her advanced class tonight, always learning more dance even though she was an expert. She would not be home until 8 or more. I would miss her terribly.

This morning I had cried about her. I couldn’t tell her why, my words only gibberish through my tears. But she’d listened to me. Tried to find the words. She’d wanted to stay, but I practically shoved her through the door with encouragement. She hadn’t wanted to leave. Stared at me as if…but I couldn’t say.

Now here I was, still in my robe and nightgown. Comfortable, but embarrassed because who is in their nightgown at 12 o’clock in the middle of the week? Before, in my apartment, I hadn’t minded being in a nightgown as such because to be honest I’d lost count of the days. I didn’t know if it was a Sunday or a Wednesday and I was better for it. It wasn’t until Ruiz…started to visit me did I get my clothing in order. Too embarrassed to be seen in a nightgown. But now, here… She’d seen me in a nightgown. But maybe that was okay. She understood.

The little bird inside the clock stopped its calling, and my eyes looked down at the pictures in the book on the table. Strange pictures.

Somehow, I’d managed to get a photo album down. Pried it down, let it drop to the floor but it survived. No pictures out of place, but for a note in thinly looped cursive that I didn’t recognize. It had exploded from the book, and I’d struggled to read it as a precious thing just like looking at any of the pictures.

The date had been 1979. But this book was from the 80’s. Misplaced? I wasn’t sure. And definitely wasn’t sure why the letter would be misplaced if it were.

But the strangest thing about it was…it had been addressed to me.

I hadn’t recognized the writing. It wasn’t Paulie’s. So, why? Who would want to write to me in 1979? So I’d taken it back with me to the couch. Sat there, struggling to read the looping handwriting. I hadn’t read cursive in many years, and did not know how to write it myself. But still, these words. When read slowly, the impact was… I was so shocked by them that I’d become speechless. Stunned out of words.

Desperate words. Begging. Demanding at times, but then soft and pleading. Pleading…for me to come out of hiding, to talk to this man’s boyfriend and shake him into sense. How I’d done it before, so surely I could do it again, but please…please make Paulie stop doing drugs. Please, please make Paulie see some sense, that he was killing himself and this man writing the letter could not stop him, could not make him see. That Paulie…wanted to die. He’d wanted to die for a long time. 

I couldn’t read the entire letter at first. I got to the middle, and I had to stop. Somehow, this man had known me. But I didn’t recognize the way he was speaking to me. I did not know him. And as I breathed and dared go on, it became clear.

This letter. Received sixteen years too late. Yellowing at the edges, small blue lined note paper folded once in the middle neatly. So neat, though so desperate the individual…

This letter was from Kitty, Paulie’s boyfriend. His life partner. That small signature at the bottom, the opposite of a John Hancock, small and shy.

Quieted, I’d put down the letter on the table next to the photo album. The black cover was like a memorial, I thought. Somber. On the front was silver ink, handwritten in Paulie’s hand. As like the spine, the years here were clear. 1982-1987. So why had the letter been in this book…and why had it been in a book at all? Who would want to save…