Noticing Jamilla
Page 2
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At the beginning of summer vacation, I was pulling clean towels out of the dryer the day old Mrs. Hendricks sashayed into the shop with the news that changed the Diggings forever. Her son, who dabbled in selling vacation lots to the summer folk, had just sold the abandoned mine workings on the bluff to a subdivider. The developer planned to sell lots to rich folk who’d use President Eisenhower’s new interstate to commute down into the Valley to Trebridge.
“That’s not all.” Old Mrs. Hendricks small eyes gleamed in her puffy face. “Some rich woman from Santo Francisco paid cash up front for that ol’ tumble-down owner’s mansion. Didn’t even dicker the price, and the check’s cleared the bank.”
The ladies cooed like a chorus of doves, but GrammyJo stood stock still, her face turning paler than the ice in the drug store. Her trembling hands clutched her hips, and she stared out onto the street as if she expected something nasty to burst through the door. The ladies didn’t notice her acting so strange, but I did.
Young Mrs. Hendricks flashed her huge, new diamond ring in the ladies’ envious faces. “Sam says the lady’s going to hire locals to build a brick wall around the place. All that money’s going to change our town for the better. You mark my words--we’ll be on the map again, like back in the Gold Rush days.”
The ladies murmured about what they’d do with more money, their soft voices rising and falling like a flock of birds. Their guesses swirled around the shop. I wished I could shut my ears. The silly biddies sounded just like Ma she thought she’d have more money next week...or next month…or whenever.
GrammyJo’s hollow harrumph jarred the hopeful twitters and sent pin picks through me. “Be careful what you wish for.”
With her expression turning as sour as an unripe persimmon, GrammyJo’s stare pierced me as if she wanted me to heed what she said. I dropped my own gaze and went back to folding towels, but not before I noticed the crease between her bushy eyebrows deepening. Her eyes turned all blank like they did when she told a fortune, not shiny like they did when she saw the future.
Yeah, GrammyJo saw more than she let on to her customers. We were a pair, even if I refused to study her herbs and stuff.
The progress of the new development enthralled the town. The ladies gossiped in the shop about the happenings on the hill. They sounded like a flock of squabbling finches as each one tried to out-shock the other. Locals did make some bucks building Lydia Markem’s wall--eight feet high with glass shards and electrified razor wire strung across the top. She must of thought the people of the Diggings were robbers or worse.
After the first cat got fried, no one talked about climbing the wall to spy out her secrets. None of the hotshots at the Hardscrabble high school dared try. Not even high-strutting Brian Hendricks, the a-hole who kept picking at me because of my limping. “Zombie girl” was the kindest name he called me. I’d hoped to leave that name back in Santo Francisco.
“The Markem,” as the gossips called her, caused one hell of a commotion the day she strutted into GrammyJo’s shop. Wearing stiletto heels, tight leather pants, and a half-unbuttoned shirt, Lydia Markem surveyed the shop. Her lip curled slightly. She fingered the three teeth hanging from a thick gold chain. The woman flustered more feathers than a hooker at a church social.
The Markem dressed hot, but I couldn’t see how she could make her rent on the streets or avoid a beating from a pimp. Even under their caked makeup, the hookers in the Tenderloin looked fresher than she did. Her dull black hair emphasized her pale, crepe paper skin and the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. If The Markem’s looks didn’t scare a john off, her unnamed companion would’ve sent potential johns running when she smiled, revealing teeth more pointed than straight.
The old woman bent so far over her feet, her spine looked ready to break in two. Her tangled white hair didn’t hide how tight the skin stretched over her skull. Her teeth stood out from her paper-thin lips like crooked tombstones. I shuddered when she scratched her nose with a talon-like fingernail, expecting to see blood flow from the scrape.
The Markem ignored her companion, who hovered by the doorway, as far away from the candles and burning incense as possible. I had a hard time pulling my gaze away from the old woman. The shop ladies’ gazes were fixed on the primadonna.
“Who owns this place?” Her voice was low and gravely.
While I leaned against the broom, GrammyJo’s ladies tittered in greeting. The corners of The Markem’s lips twitched as if the good ladies of the Diggings amused her. Her raptor eyes glowed, making me think of an owl scanning for prey.
Her gaze stopped dead when she saw GrammyJo’s stern expression and sign against the evil eye. I blinked. No colors blazed around the woman, not even murky dull ones. The colors about the ladies remained unchanged, but gray and red flowed around GrammyJo. I shivered, feeling unprotected.
“Who makes the appointments around here?” The Markem’s throaty voice sounded like Bette Davis. “I need a trim.”
GrammyJo’s eyes narrowed. “I do, but I do mostly old fashioned stuff. You might want to drive down the highway.”
“I’ll only need the ends trimmed.” Her tight smile made me think she thought GrammyJo was beneath her. “Anyone with a license can manage that. I prefer Tuesdays since I visit the City most week ends.”
“Make sure trimming your hair’s all you get here.” For a moment I wished I had the gumption to stand besides GrammyJo, but I backed into the laundry instead.
GrammyJo glared at The Markem until the woman dropped her gaze. The air shivered, and my skin felt like I’d stuck a wet finger on a live electric wire. In spite of GrammyJo’s surly manner and misgivings, Lydia Markem’s visits to the shop became as regular as a clock tick.
Oh, The Markem made a big show of her hacking cough and cradled a box of tissues for her nose when she came. The extra candles and incense stayed lit. I knew the bossy hag didn’t intimidate GrammyJo. What surprised and scared me was her burning The Markem’s hair outside after the woman left.
“Why are you burning her hair in a circle of salt?” I asked one day when the stink got the better of my reluctance. Even so I didn’t mention the mound of herbs she put under the swept-up hair.
“I want nothing belonging to that woman near us. Not even the ash.” After a long pause, she added, “You might make the effort to learn how to purify a dwelling and build a shield of protection. Might prove useful.”
With a shrug, I limped out of the back to the garden, refusing to have anything to do with her juju. Hiding how strange I was was more important, especially with school starting in a month or so. I wanted no tales about me being weird carried to the joint high school down the highway.
Nothing much about The Markem made much sense to me. I couldn’t see her hair growing enough to be trimmed every week, but then, she did everything regular-like. On Wednesdays she showed up at the Baptist Pentecostal prayer meetings with a smirk on her face. On Thursdays she had the colossal burger and onion ring special at Pete’s, the town’s only bar. In between, she went to every public fundraiser, throwing money around like toilet paper.
At the shop, the ladies started complaining about feeling unnaturally tired after the events The Markem attended. Me and GrammyJo stayed fit, but then, we avoided the woman, except on Tuesdays. GrammyJo started placing bowls of a new, strange- smelling potpourri, made with herbs she bought special from Trebridge, around the shop.
GrammyJo harrumphed at the ladies’ complaints. “Don’t dance around her so much.”
When they persisted with their whining about their aches and pains, she said it plainer. “So, stay away from her. She ain’t goin’ to give you any of her money.”
The ladies who visited GrammyJo’s shop weren’t the only ones in town to notice how sickly the Diggings had become. Old Doc grumbled he never saw so many cases of off-season flu and blamed the commuters occupying the bluff for bringing strange germs to town. He got tired too and ended up retiring, le
aving the Diggings without a doctor. The Markem smirked when she heard that news at the shop.
Mostly, people lost weight, even old Mrs. Hendricks, who wouldn’t move an inch, even when you pushed her. For a couple months, the old lady was happy; until she noticed her wrinkles had dug deep into her flabby skin.
The Markem flourished. Her skin filled out, and her yellowish pallor disappeared. I didn’t know if her companion-housekeeper had also fleshed out in the clear mountain air because she disappeared. The ladies figured The Markem got her face fixed as slick as a movie star on one of her longer visits to Santo Francisco. Thought she had left the companion behind because she was so ugly.
I noticed her necklace now had four teeth. The sight made me shiver from the cold creeps.