These last few days, I’ve been living off the oranges growing in the front yard of our bungalow. They hang heavy on the trees before littering the ground, like fallen worlds. You peel them and find roads running through their flesh—white veins as thin as thread. The kids across the street at Bronson Middle School gorge on them. They lean over the gutter with shoulders hunched as if they’ve already grown old and crippled and let the juice drip down their fingers, lick the sticky rivers of sweetness trickling off their wrists before going back to sharing cigarettes with one another—shoulders bouncing with the music blaring out of passing cars—patched up and sputtering, pounding with bass.
Jacob and I don’t have much of anything else to eat. We’re both out of work, but Jacob’s not fueled by hunger. He spends his energy trying to wrangle us up more gigs, while calling Lady Dame over and over to get us the grand she still owes us for playing with her at this festival out in Indio, a few months ago. And when Jacob’s not doing both of those things, he’s emailing this Russian dude he’s fallen in love with over the internet at the Hollywood library, some crazy guy he met on this website where you post a picture of yourself and ask people: Am I hot or not? On a scale from 1-10.
“I’m probably starting to look like an orange,” I tell Jacob, searching around the living room for my purse, so I can head out for a walk to the grocery store to pick up more oatmeal. It’s easy to mix the fruit in with the oatmeal. It can fill us up for hours, like stones weighing us down.
“Oh, please,” Jacob says. He’s lying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, the back of his head resting on the end table underneath the glow of the lamp, holding a compact and tweezers above him, ready to pluck the wild hairs of his unibrow. “Lourdes, you’ll get another retail job and we’ll get another gig soon. It could be worse—oranges and oatmeal don’t mean the end of the world. You’ve gotta stop being defiant. Change your hair color or something. You know, try not to go off on the customers. Maybe take out a few of those piercings.”
“I like my piercings,” I say. “And I don’t know what drugs you’re taking, but I’m hungry.”
I want to remind Jacob that when we were both working at Top Fuel Kawfee House on Sunset a few years back, before Top Fuel closed down, and we became roommates to save money, that he loved my look. “If wasn’t into dudes, I’d totally wanna bang you,” he’d always say.
***
I walk down Fountain, past the nicer bungalows occupied with Armenian and Mexican families, artists and musicians—people like Jacob and me. The nicer bungalows have Spanish-tiled roofs, dripping with purple morning glories. Front porches with room for a couple of folding chairs, a few pots to grow tomatoes, a bird cage to keep a couple of canaries. Porches with enough room to make you feel hopeful, while you sit and look out at the street. It’s hotter than usual today, and the sun bakes down heavy in a glittering desperate heat. The smog hovers over the hills. Waiting for the light to turn on Sunset, I look up at the sky—palm tree heads against the blue. When it’s safe to cross I spot Marilyn Monroe hopping out of her red Datsun, wearing her white halter dress. Her breasts bounce, and she smiles as she walks past me. An embarrassed smile. Red lipstick on her teeth. Off to work in front of the Chinese Mann with the others—Audrey, Frank, Charlie Chaplin. Even Superman. I turn around to catch another look at her, from the back. Her hips shake side to side, and her blonde wig blinds, like a lemon in the sun. She looks beautiful—untouchable from far away, like when you drive by a row of apartment complexes with names like The Fountain Arms or Casa Royale or La Brea Towers and you’re able to catch a quick splash of sun glinting off the pools inside those complexes, and driving real fast, you feel like those courtyards shaded with date palms just might be a slice of heaven. But step inside The Fountain Arms, the Casa Bonita, the La Brea Towers, step closer, and you’ll make out the desert dust on the surface of those pools—orangey-brown, the color of crème brulée. And you’ll see that no one ever jumps off those diving boards.
***
It’s as cold as Alaska inside Vallarta, crowded with Saturday shoppers. I maneuver around the aisles, run my fingertips along the cans of Goya beans, bags of rice, and fish heads wrapped in plastic. I palm the mangoes so ripe, they’re ready to pop out of their skin. Mothers clutch grocery lists and coupons, while children hang out of shopping carts in sagging diapers, crying for candies. The fluorescent lights buzz above us like flies, keeping time with Los Lobos’ version of “La Bamba”.
I take my oatmeal to one of the many long lines at the checkout. A guy stands in front of me, arguing with his wife over what they can’t afford. He sends her back to the aisles to return a box of cereal and a tub of ice cream, while he counts and recounts the bills inside his wallet with fingers that look like they could scratch the skin off your face, as rough as sandpaper. Piñatas dangle from the windows, along with triangle-colored flags that look like they belong at a used car dealership. The flags flap back and forth against the glass windowpanes, hounded by the breeze blasting from the air conditioner.
“You’ve won. You’re a winner. A Vallarta winner,” the cashier says, shaking my receipt in her hand. She blows a bored looking bubble, raises her painted eyebrows, and lets her bubble pop, slurping the gum back into her mouth, then picks up the phone next to the cash register and says: “Aisle four. Aisle four. Manager to Aisle four. Richard, we’ve got a winner.”
“What?” I say. “Won?”
“Yes, ma’am! You’ve won our Saturday special. Fifty whole dollars in grocery cash to spend here at Vallarta.”
“Ay dios mio,” the woman says, standing behind me wearing a see-through shower cap over her pink rubber curlers. She shakes her head from side to side. “If only I hadn’t gone back for the cinnamon. All this time coming here, and I never get anything. What kind of business is that?” she asks the cashier. “I mean, come on I’m a regular here. A regular.”
“Hey lady,” the cashier says. “I just work here. I don’t make the rules.”
“Wow,” I say. “What do I do?”
The cashier snaps her gum, hands me the receipt and my bagged-up oatmeal, then pushes her curls behind her hoop heavy ears with both hands. “Spend it, she says. “What else would you do? Now, please if you could wait off to the side for the manager. He’ll want to shake your hand. I need to take care of the other customers.”
I walk towards the piñatas and look out the window at the cars in the parking lot, at the Home Depot across the street, where men are loading planks of wood into trucks. Fifty bucks will get us real groceries for a couple of weeks, if we spend it right. If Jacob and I plan it out correctly. I’m going to need him to come back with me. I’m feeling too shaky and excited to spend it now. I put the receipt in the front pocket of my jeans. We can get peanut butter—a big jar—a bag of rice, load up on pasta. Pasta’s only two bucks a box. The manager limps towards me, like one of his legs doesn’t work too well. He hands me a green balloon. “Congratulations,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Today must be your lucky day. Like when a ladybug lands on your shoulder or you find a four-leaf clover. Well, what do you know? That rhymes,” he grins, adjusting the turquoise stone hanging off his bolo tie. “I’ve actually got a four-leaf clover in my wallet. Wanna see?” he asks. “Got it at Mac Arthur Park last weekend with my family. Can you believe it? Like a signal from God or something. Flash!” He throws his arms up over his head, mimicking an explosion.
“Sure. Okay,” I say. “I’ve never seen a four-leaf clover in the flesh.”
The manager pulls out his wallet. The clover’s wrapped in toilet tissue. He holds it out for me to see. A helpless green looking weed. No bigger than an inch. I can only count three leaves, but I don’t tell him this when he points out four. People push their shopping carts around us. “Mommy, look! A balloon,” a shirtless boy cries. The sides of his mouth and the top of his chest are stained in fruit punch. I thank the manager again, hand the balloon to the little boy and step back into the arms of beating sun, and continue to invent possible grocery list scenarios in my head to share with Jacob:
Meat. Spinach. A tin of coffee. Maybe some cream. English muffins. Refried beans. Bananas. I’ve really missed eating bananas. Corn flakes. Carrot sticks. Carrot sticks last a long time. You can eat them raw. Cook them to serve with meat. We could make a big pot of rice with chunks of chicken, stewed carrots with spices. A big pot that can last for weeks.
“Hey, metal face, you’re the chick who just won the fifty, no?”
I look up and see this bearded man sitting on the trunk of a Corolla, parked near the exit. “You heard me,” he says, hopping down off the trunk, as I walk by. “You’re the chick who just won the fifty?”
I throw a quick smile over my shoulder, but he starts to follow me. Normally, I’d mumble something smart-ass sounding, but I’m feeling too hungry to think of anything rude, yet witty.
“Well, are you?” he says.
Who is this douche bag? I turn around to face him. “I guess,” I say. “What’s it to you? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“What’s it to me?” he snorts. A couple pushes an empty shopping cart past us. The wheels screech and they keep their eyes towards the ground. They probably assume he’s my boyfriend, that I know him, that we’re having a fight. They don’t want to get involved, and I don’t blame them.
I look around for other possible witnesses. It’s broad daylight, but this guy—this guy’s big. Huge, I realize, sizing him up. A goddamn Neanderthal. He’s wearing a wife beater two sizes too small. His sunburned belly’s peeking out, and the red curls leaking out from under his Dodgers baseball cap match the color of his beard. I’ve got no witnesses. People are loading up their trunks with groceries or else circling around trying to find a good parking space. The traffic down Sunset keeps moving along.
“I know it was you. So quit bullshitting,” he says.
I try to walk around him, but he blocks me. He blocks my left. Blocks my right, and everything begins to spin. I drop my bag of oatmeal. I hear it roll down the parking lot. “You see,” he says, getting real close to my face. So close, I can feel his lips on my mine. “My old lady, she’s inside, and she called me from her cell phone, told me all about it. So, you ain’t gonna scream. You ain’t gonna say one more damn word, metal face. You’re just gonna give me that paper. Real nice. Real slow and calm-like. You got it?”
“It’s mine,” I tell him. I feel myself tremble. “You don’t have the right.”
“The right? Please, metal face. I’m serious as a heart attack. You’re gonna quit that mumbling,” he says. He grabs my shoulder with one large hand, and places his other large hand around my waist, like we’re lovers. “You feel this?” he whispers.
And I feel it. A blade on my back, against my skin, he’s pushed it under my t- shirt. Everything slows down. I hear an ambulance in the distance. I hear the bells of a paleta cart. Car alarms going off. I’m the only one frozen.
“All right. You got it. You got it,” I say. “Please, please don’t hurt me.”
“Now, that’s better. That’s more like it,” he says. He pinches my ass. “I want you to take that receipt out of your pocket and place it into my pocket, then turn around and keep walking. Don’t look back. Not even for a fucking second. Keep walking. You don’t know me. You never did.”
I nod weakly. I do what he says. I walk fast. I don’t look back. I can’t believe this is happening, like I’m some scared bimbo in the movies. A goddamn little bitch. I let my walking turn to running. I run across Sunset Blvd, run across the 101-freeway overpass, run down and around blocks of quieter streets, streets with the fancier apartment buildings, advertising move-in specials. I run past people walking dogs, through a park, past old Armenian men playing games of chess sitting on milk crates, run past a homeless woman wearing a dress made out of a trash bag. I run past a drag queen wearing black holy fishnets. Run, until I find myself on Hollywood Blvd—the tourist part of Hollywood Blvd. The Hollywood Walk of Fame, where the streets are lined with stars, out in front of the Chinese Mann Theatre, where the tourists squeeze their feet into concrete prints of famous actor feet. Marilyn’s standing out front of the Mann, her arms around Superman, posing for photos. She’s flawless.
I run through the crowd, clicking their cameras, and in one quick swoop I tear off Marilyn’s wig and keep running. I hear people shouting behind me. Running, running, running, with her blonde wig in my hand, running until I make it to the front of our bungalow, where Jacob’s sitting outside on our steps strumming his acoustic guitar.
“Good news,” Jacob says, looking up. “Lady Dame just came by with our envelope. We’re paid up for the gig. We’ve got to go out tonight. Do it up right. Feel like Thai? I’ve been craving Thai. Whoah. Whoah. Whoah, Lourdes, what the fuck are you doing? What the fuck?”
But I’m not listening. I’ve dropped the wig and am now grabbing oranges off the tree, throwing them around, in every possible direction. Like baseballs. I’m hitting the front of our house. I’m hitting the side of our house. I’m scared I might break a window, but I keeping on throwing the oranges anyway, one after another.
“Stop. You’re gonna break something. Geez, what’s going on, Lourdes? What happened?” Jacob shouts. “What is this?” he says, bending down to pick up the wig.
“That’s mine. That’s mine,” I scream, tearing it out of his hands.
“Okay. All right. All right. Suit yourself,” he says. “Just tell me what’s happened. What the hell is going on?”
“It was my peanut butter. My peanut butter. My pasta.” I say as I tear the hairs out of Marilyn’s wig. I pull out chunks of synthetic hair in clumps, dropping them onto the ground, until there’s nothing left in my hands, except a flesh colored cap, as thin as a nylon stocking.
The next-door neighbor walks out of his bungalow, waving a Corona, the screen door banging behind him. “Yo, you better calm down your girl, dawg. I’m trying to watch the game, dawg. I’m trying to watch the mother fucking game. Take care of your lady, man. Put that girl on notice. Whatever you gotta do—just hush that girl up.”
“I’m sorry. You got it. I apologize, man,” Jacob says. “Come on Lourdes, let’s sit down, right here. Sit down, right where you’re standing. You’re making a scene. Someone’s gonna call the cops.”
“The cops don’t come,” I whimper. “They never show.”
Jacob sits in front of me underneath the tree. The shade feels good on my flushed face and staring at Jacob, I start to feel myself calm down. His perfect dark eyebrows. The way his front teeth rest on his bottom lip in contemplation. He places his hands on my knees. He brushes the sweaty bangs off my face. He wipes the bleeding mascara from underneath my eyes with his thumbs, and in sharp quick breaths, I tell him what happened.
***
Weeks later, Jacob takes me out to the front yard. He tells me there’s something I’ve got to see. We’ve been inside all day—practicing my new bass lines for the gig happening later that evening. “What?” I say. “What do you got up your sleeve?” I kid. Jacob guides me underneath the orange tree, and points up towards a branch, where a little nest is filled with cream-colored blue eggs. “Those little mourning doves are gonna hatch in the comfort of Marilyn’s hair,” he says laughing. “I saw that shit this morning, walking back from buying us groceries and new strings, and I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“The mama bird’s gone and used Marilyn’s wig,” he says.
And sure enough, Jacob’s right. Woven through the nest of sticks and leaves, twisted around the cream-colored eggs are pieces of blonde hair.
*****
Zoë Rachel Miller grew up in Los Angeles. She earned her BA at The New School University as a Riggio Honors Fellow and her MFA at the University of Minnesota. Her writing has appeared in 12th Street, Front Porch Journal, fields magazine, and Novus Literary Arts Journal. Zoë has finished a collection of stories, and is currently writing more stories, and a novel. She currently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, artist, Jonas Criscoe, their child, and two cats.
