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…
And as my hand opened the book I’d been quieted ever more.
Now, staring at the first page as I’d been doing for many moments before the bird in the clock chimed, I had no words for it. I’d been met with four pictures on the front page, staring up at me. Clearly here, Paulie had aged rapidly in the fourteen years between 1968 and 1982. I couldn’t guess why at first. But a second glance at that letter, open for me always…I’d gotten a hint.
Heroin makes you age. Cocaine…makes you age. Its not apparent at first, but with prolonged use… He’d looked older than his early thirties when I’d known him last. At a glance, he’d looked to be in his early forties instead. But he’d always looked older than his age. It was his face, his hands. His hands were not youthful. And when he didn’t wear long opera gloves or didn’t wear long sleeves, I could see his tracks. They were a constant reminder. He could hardly even cover them with make-up when in drag. So he had to wear long sleeves or the gloves or he’d embarrass himself.
How long had he been using since I’d seen him? How long had he been using again in these pictures? It brought questions together that I didn’t want to admit. Couldn’t muster while I was staring at his face. Now seeing these, it wasn’t hard to believe how old and destroyed he’d looked in the pictures from 1991. Here, it was clear how far he’d gotten on that journey.
Turning the page, my eyes were instantly caught by an image on the adjoining page. Underneath the black page I’d just been staring at. Page three.
It was clear now that these images must be out of order, because the person I was staring at seemed a little impossible.
Paulie seemed much older in this picture. But his arm was around someone who looked so young. That smile on this person’s face. It looked almost forced, but I couldn’t tell. Next to them was Kitty, overweight and sweating it was clear, sweat stains at the armpits of his t-shirt. This was outside. Who was taking the picture? All three of them were outside somewhere I didn’t recognize. The start of a sign was on top of the picture, but there were no words evident. And this person Paulie was smiling at, wrinkles crinkling the edges of his eyes, his mouth…smiling at this young person. It couldn’t be a young Ambrose, could it?
This young man was dressed to the nines in drag, even having a feather boa. He was dressed in a lavender sequined dress, padded to within an inch of his life. And around him was a sash, on his head was a glittering crown.
Before I could stop myself, I’d peeled the photograph out of its four secured corners on the page. Flipped to the back. Here it was revealed what I wondered. There was the same looping letters from the desperate letter, but now more solid, composed maybe. Miss Newcomer New York, New York, 1987. Me, Paulie, Ambrose –A Midsummer Night’s Dream Ball.
I put my hand over my mouth. The only person not smiling in this photo was Kitty. He just looked exhausted, maybe even agitated if I read too much into it. Why?
I placed this photo down, and my eyes washed over the other images. It was overwhelming. They all seemed to be from different years. All in color. And there was one here, that caught my eye as well. Stranger, still.
I peeled it out of its corners, brought it up to my face.
In this photo, there were two lovers. Or so it looked. Embraced, a blue glow on the blankets so what was the time of day? Or was it caused by curtains, drinking in the sun or the moon…
It was immediately evident here, these two people. The picture was taken from the bottom edge of a queen sized bed, tall overlooking view. Paulie was curled there with the covers at his waist. And curled softly against him like a puppy, Paulie’s thin arm around him, was a young Ambrose...same age from that drag picture, had to be. Both were sleeping. But it was clear, both were naked.
I didn’t know what to make of this picture. Ambrose’s mouth was slightly open, as if snoring maybe. Paulie’s face looked so content, pressed against the back of Ambrose’s long black hair…
As I realized what I was looking at I became more confused. Couldn’t make any words for what I was glimpsing.
A key biting into the front door’s lock made me jump, drop the photograph. Surges of nerves flew up into my chest, caught feeling. As if I shouldn’t be looking at these photographs. But looking down at the one now obscuring the third page, landed right in the middle on a tilt, that scandalous one. It looked so calm despite the nervousness going through me to my very fingertips. My head whipped around.
The door squealed open, and in came Ruiz. She was smiling, turning back where she came and waving. Her loud words startled me, made me jump again. It had been so quiet.
“Thank you for the ride, Veronixxxa! Bye! Good-bye!” She called out behind her, through the doorway. Ve-ron-ika…I didn’t know who that was.
My eyes fell on the page again, and I gasped inside of myself. The blue tinted picture. I let the heavy black cover fall over onto the page, sealing it away. But the letter. I held the letter in my hands, then peeled the cover back and slipped it inside to the sounds of Ruiz’s footsteps in the hallway, now falling on the soft carpet of the living room.
“Good afternoon,” she said warmly. I saw her going around the edge of the couch to join me.
Somehow, something inside of me didn’t want her to look inside of this book. Something, creeping like a whisper. But had she seen this book before? That picture…Ambrose was her boyfriend. What was Paulie…why had they been in bed like that?
As I stared at her face, smiling at me, I realized she’d greeted me and I hadn’t greeted her back.
“Good afternoon,” I repeated to the best of my ability. I studied her face, hoping she’d gotten what I’d said. She smiled back warmly at me, so I supposed she did.
“Do you want a sandwich for lunch? Did you eat? I was going to make a ham sandwich, lettuce and stuff. Do you want one? Are you hungry?” She looked so content…but nowhere near as content as Ambrose had in that photograph…pressed against Paulie’s body…
I could feel myself blushing, a small hook of shaking nervousness behind my belly button. “Yes,” I said simply, trying to answer all of her questions at once. But that photograph seemed to be burned in my brain. I could see it, though it was tucked away.
“Okay,” she smiled at me. “Let me put this photo book away. I know Miss Cha Cha would have a fit if I left it here like this.”
With starting horror, I saw her start to lift the book. I could do nothing to stop it. Had she seen those photos before? Surely she had. They’d been right there on the book shelf all this time.
But still, that photograph…
“Let me do it,” I said as calmly as I could muster. “I’ll put it away.”
“Hmm? What?” Ruiz asked, picking up the book loosely, starting to get up.
She went quickly across the room, and I just watched her. She lifted the photo album up above her head to put it away, and it caught one of the other albums’ spines as she shoved it up there. “Oh,” she sighed, heaving it up again.
And here it opened a little bit. I saw the edge of the letter come down, peeking out. Slowly, the hook behind my bellybutton ascended upwards beyond my gut, worrying for the letter. My mouth opened to say something.
“Oh wait, let me put that back inside,” she sighed again, clearly wishing to get this over with. She looked tired, but of course she was having just gotten off of work. My lips pressed together as she flipped open the book in her hands, and she paused as she stared at the page it had opened to.
I watched in a pause, too. There was no feeling in my bones as she stared at the page.
Too quick, she flipped to the front page and shoved the letter back inside. The front cover snapped closed, and with mighty strength she heaved the book up above her head and this time it caught. The book slid back into its home, secure between the two adjoining photo albums in its series.
But the disturbed look on her face was all I’d needed to know she’d seen that photo I hadn’t wanted her to see. This look, told me she’d never seen that photo before.
Despite it, everything despite, she smiled at me, erasing that look. But Kitty’s face in the Miss Newcomer New York picture flashed in my mind, unsmiling and agitated, for some reason that I could not place.
“Um, I’ll make some coffee, too. Do you like coffee? Or do you want…tea? Like old times, we could have tea. I think Miss Cha Cha has that orange tea you always had. Same brand. We could have orange tea. Yeah, and ham sandwiches. I’ll go make it.” She was talking way too fast, gesturing with her hands wildly.
And as I watched her continue to smile, going so fast into the hallway towards the kitchen, I recognized that fake smile of her’s. It made my heart descend into my gut, dread filling me from an emotion that I could not place.