Chapter 409: Jo XX—Don’t Know
“I’m sorry to bother you; it’s just that, I didn’t, I couldn’t think of what else to do.” Jo didn’t look up, she stared at the coffee in her hands, the white of the milk swirling in it, the steam rising and wafting around the shiny silver spoon in the cup. She didn’t like coffee, never had.
“You’re not a bother,” Michele said in a soft, silky-kind voice. She sat down next to her on the couch and stirred cream into her own cup of coffee. “It’s best to talk to someone else you know during times like these, yes? Being alone is horrible. Now, Peter he can be horrible too yes? That is why you come here?”
“No,” Jo said and she looked at Michele’s smooth face, powdered perfectly, touched up perfectly with slight color, her hair highlighted sunny but with amber honey showing through. Her throat tickled. “No Peter wasn’t horrible, not at all,” she looked away from those pale blue eyes, bright and innocent in a way, “I was.”
“You?” Wispy worry, uncertain, as if she were feeling her way around this problem. “How could you have been horrible? With these men, they are the horrible ones, you do not need to blame yourself for them, that is a bottomless pit, yes?” A slight line creased between her eyebrows, her chin pointed and set a throat far too thin to hold up that head, a pulse at the base of it. Women starved themselves to death to attain that waifish look Michele seemed to carry as if she’d trademarked, it made Jo feel suddenly overbearing and clunky. “What could you have done?”
“I left him, I’m leaving him, I think,” Jo said and she picked up the coffee and looked at it. “You know I really don’t like coffee.”
“Not your cup of tea?” Michele asked.
“No not at…” Jo looked at Michele who had a jaunty half smile on her face, a wink roguish and startling, and she realized the intended absurdity of the statement. She laughed. “Actually I prefer an actual cup of tea, yeah.”
Michele giggled, and she sounded almost sad and girlish, like a woman unsure of how to laugh. “Well, I can make some tea if you like, let me take that.”
“Oh no,” Jo said and she held onto it. “I’ll just, I do like the smell just not the taste, and it’s warm, I don’t need to drink anything right now.” She looked back at the cup and had a feeling of awkward familiarity, clear water and floating greenish brown, muddied leaves, swirling and settling. She put it on the table and her hands trembled. She clasped them in her lap and curled her fingers.
“Why are you leaving?”
Jo shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Michele put her cup down; it clinked against the silver tray with a sharp sound, a rich expensive sound. “Well that is a terrible reason to do some things, especially leaving someone who is not horrible, this I don’t know, nes pas?”
Jo shrugged one of her shoulders, she felt put on the spot, almost like a kid in school being interrogated. “I don’t know.”
“Pssht!” Michele said sharply, not meanly, but a little impatiently. “If that is all you have to say, then yes you are wasting my time, do not sound like Jonathan put upon the spot, eh, talk to me! You want me to validate this I don’t know, is that it? Well I won’t, there are enough stupid women in this world without having to add you to them, sulking and saying I don’t know, is stupid.”
“Well it’s true!” Jo said and she felt her cheeks burn, and true, she did feel pouty.
“This is what you are doing, eh, leaving Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“Well are you bored of him? You just want to move on? You’ve taken what you needed, none of this is a crime, Josefina, you’re a free woman you do not need me justi..jutee.., Mon Dieu, validation, eh?”
Josefina closed her eyes. No perfume, no sweet or sharp scent came from Michele, which was odd, she usually smelled like something expensive and fragile. “I…”
“Oo don’t say it again, I hate hearing those three words,” Michele replied arrogantly. “I won’t hear them from you, tell me something else, give me another reason than this. We all adore you, well most of us. You’re wonderful here; you and Peter are beautiful together. Why are you leaving?”
Jo looked at her, and her hands trembled again. Michele had a placid, smooth look on her face, like a woman completely in control, completely assured. A woman with a husband, piles of money to play with, gorgeous children, and everything else she could ever want. Scowling didn’t seem effective enough to express how that annoyed her, and she imagined herself with Peter, and couldn’t see any of that stability, and that stability equaled into permanence and she couldn’t see any of that happening for them either. What did they have left when raw sex had lost its flavor? But none of this came to the tip of her tongue, so she could tell Michele.
Why did she even come here instead of going straight to the airport?
Michele lifted one eyebrow, her lips pursed out slightly, delicate and soft. Jo felt it lift in her body and she couldn’t stop herself, she went forward and grabbing onto Michele’s bony body she kissed her on the mouth, not chastely, not friendly, she kissed her as she imagined a man would. She expected Michele to pull her hair or kick her or scream or something. Sure as hell, she didn’t expect Michele to become so damn limp and supple under her, a leg to lift around her waist, small breasts to press eagerly into her own and that sweet little mouth to open so instinctively almost, a tongue to flick and tease so expertly. Jo opened her eyes and saw that Michele’s were open as well, narrowed slightly, glinting like something predatory… or male.
Gasping, Jo sat up and pulled away. “I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know why I left him. I don’t know!”
Grinning, leering, completely devoid of that innocent housewife charm, Michele leaned forward, “That could be a reason hm?”
Jo pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, it’s not it’s just me, I don’t know…”
“Oh stop it!” Michele snapped. “You came here for a reason eh? And I think you just tried to make it clear yes?”
“NO!” Jo squeaked but her tummy rushed with warm blood, her skin tickled and tingled wanting just another try, just another kiss. But overall, now she felt a little trapped and scared. “I have to go.”
“Oh pity,” Michele whispered. “So soon?”
Jo shook her head, she felt helpless and wobbly. “No, I guess not… can I have some tea now?”
“Of course,” Michele replied easily and stood up; she took the coffee service easily in her small hands and glided to the doorway, peeking back slyly. “I’m here for your pleasure.”
Jo covered her eyes. I don’t know what I’m doing here.
Smoke, noise, cars zooming and winding so loud, people shouting in the streets, men kicking each other, women waving their hands, loud, loud, loud, cigarettes and noise, stink and smog, Josefina closed her eyes and lying on the smooth covers of her bed she couldn’t quite get the stink from her nose, the stain from her eyes. They were in the country now, things still not quiet, she could hear the men, laughing and drinking and singing loud outside, the women bickering in the kitchen everyone preparing yet another big fat meal of things that had too much garlic or onion or oil.
“Ah isn’t this the beauty, Josefina, this is alive! Why are you lying down like that? Get up, look at the sunset! I brought you here to see the sunset, the beauty!”
Josefina wrinkled her nose and opened her eyes. “Mom?”
“Get up!”
Josefina rolled off the bed, her knees hurt and her ankles and her feet and her chest hurt and she was sick of hard tobacco and wine and olive oil being everywhere. Everyone yelled and laughed and they were just too loud! She looked at Mom, she wore a sundress with large flowers, her arms were ivory and a little plump, her neck long and pretty, everything pretty and pale except her long ebony hair, glistening hair that went to her waist. Josefina looked at her own nut brown skin and scrawny limbs, she looked like Dad’s side of the family, Mom would say sometimes and Jo could never escape that disappointed look in Mom’s eyes.
“Well look at the sunset!” Mom said. Everything Mom said was a command in a way, she was used to being obeyed, all men did it without question, hoping for just a look of gratitude or approval from her, women did to avoid being glared or yelled at.
Josefina
yawned and she hugged Mom who patted her back, and she looked at the vivid
orange-red sunset. A mountain had exploded back home in the
“Isn’t it perfect?” Mom said.
Jo shrugged. “I bet it’s prettier back home right now.”
“Ah!” Mom exclaimed. “Why?” And her voice cut with anger.
“Because of the explosion,” Jo replied, and she wanted to show Mom exactly how smart she was. “The ash from the mountain, it’s in the air and it’s making the sky blood red at home, we’re missing some real good sunsets.”
Mom shook her head, she had that slightly open mouthed look that she adopted in those fashion ads she posed for years ago and had cut and pasted in a binder of construction paper for people to look at and admire. “Blood red, bah, this is more violence you want eh? Savage, don’t be a savage.”
“Why not, Mom?” Jo grinned and she bounced on her heels and howled like the Indians from the movies, “Dad says I got Apache in my veins.”
“Well you also have mine, and we have none of this nonsense, yelling like Moroccan raiders, stop that yelling.”
At that moment an explosion of human voices cracked outside, men yelling, angry, and roaring. Josefina hung out the window and saw these men, her relatives, uncles and cousins, Italians she did not know, yelling and waving their hands at each other fighting over something that probably didn’t matter at all. “Moroccan raiders huh Mom?”
“Oh!” Mom hissed. “Get away from the window.” She pulled Jo back and hung out herself. “Stop it you donkey’s asses, braying at each other over nothing you dogs! My daughter needs rest before her birthday party tomorrow, don’t be screaming and disturbing her, your blood!”
“AH and how old will she be?” One of the men yelled back, everyone else quieted and jovial once more.
“That is your uncle Giancarlo,” Mom said in soft voice before yelling back. “She will be thirteen!”
“Ah sweet thirteen!” Another man yelled back in a nasal voice, Jo went to the second window in the room to see. He was different than the other men, taller, darker, much darker, brown like her, black eyes and scruffy shoulder length black hair. “She will be a woman soon!” And he looked at her, Jo could tell, he looked right at her and white teeth broke a smile.
Her cheeks burned and she looked at the window sill, reddish dusty clay sprinkled over it, fallen from the plaster walls of her room. It needed repainting in her room, Mom had said, it looked too much like a Spanish ruin.
“That man I do not know who he is,” Mom said.
“Is that her?” the scruffy man yelled. “Is that the little woman.”
Jo half grinned. For one, the man had not even looked at Mom yet, not even glanced. She wondered how Mom felt about that one.
“Get away from the window,” Mom snapped, and then she yelled out the window, “Are you even family?”
Jo rolled her eyes and went back to the bed and looked at her nails, a couple of them dirty. She picked at them before Mom got after her about them.
“Of course I am family!”
“You’re a dog!” Mom yelled back.
“He is my wife’s cousin!” Uncle Giancarlo yelled back. “He is family Monique, Peter apologize to Monique and say hello.”
“Sorry to Monique!” The scruffy man, Peter brayed with no remorse, “And hello!”
“Dog,” Mom muttered and she closed the shutters to the laughter of the men outside. “There is a dog in even the best of family, remember that Josefina. Now take a nap and take off your shoes before dinner, your father worries when you act so sleepy all the time.” With that, Mom left the room, closing the door behind her, leaving behind a scent of flowers and powder.
Josefina curled up on the bed but she kept listening to the men outside, a world of men. It seemed weird that all the women stayed inside the house and in the kitchen when all the men were outside. It annoyed her in fact. Mom never stayed in the house, even here, soon she would be outside with the men, laughing and keeping their attention and Dad would be with her too, holding her hand, sometimes a little too tightly. But Jo, ah no, she knew she wasn’t allowed outside with the men, where it was probably more fun, where no one had to cook or clean anything. Mom told her too dangerous, men were dangerous.
She got back out of bed and peeked through the shutter, opened it a little and she saw him again, Peter, the scruffy one. He had a cigarette in his hand, he had clunky brown shoes covered in dust, he was slim, brown, dark. Maybe he’s a gypsy, Jo thought with some excitement, a gypsy man, brown like me, maybe he would like me and treat me like a grownup, he called me little woman. But he was smiling at Mom now, she had just left the house, joined the group, laughing, hugging kissing, swaying her curved hips, yes even to family. His eyes were only on Mom now.
Josefina rolled her eyes and plopped back onto her bed.
“I don’t
even know what I’m doing here,” she muttered. “I don’t know.” She wanted to be back home, where the sunsets would be blood red and ash
covered car hoods all over