These Women

by Ivy Pochoda

  “Something wrong?” Dorian asks.

  “It just can’t hold a candle to yours. Your fish is the best on Western. Everyone knows.”

  “Do they?” Dorian can’t remember the last time Julianna had been in the fish shack.

  “I tell everyone, I’ve been going to the R&C since I was too little to see over the counter.”

  “So how come you don’t come by anymore?”

  “Life,” Julianna says, “it gets mad busy.” She glances around the restaurant. “I need a cigarette.”

  Dorian opens her mouth to object.

  “Did I say I need a cigarette or a lecture?” Julianna asks. She gathers her bag and steps out onto Western. Dorian watches her glance up and down the street. There’s a gas station and a minimart on the corner. But Julianna stays put, waiting.

  Dorian signals for the check and drops forty bucks without doing the math.

  Julianna flags a middle-aged man passing by. Dorian can guess at their exchange—Julianna flirting, asking for a cigarette, asking for a light, giving the man the time of day for a second, then sending him on his way so she can smoke in peace.

  The waitress is at Dorian’s side. “You want change?”

  Julianna steps closer to the curb to smoke. The wind lifts her curls, making them fly back from her head like a cape. From a distance, last night doesn’t show.

  “You want change?”

  Dorian nods, waves her hand, a noncommittal gesture.

  “Yes or no?” The waitress leaves.

  A car approaches, slowing as it passes Julianna. The window rolls down. Julianna tosses her smoke.

  “Here you go.” The waitress is back with a pile of ones and a heap of loose change. “I was out of bigger bills,” she says. “And now I’m almost out of singles. Excuse the coins.” She puts the tray with the check and the money on the table. A handful of change tumbles onto Dorian’s lap and then ricochets onto the floor. She stoops, colliding with the waitress on her way down.

  She gathers the change and rights herself. The car and Julianna are gone.

  Dorian had her and she lost her. She bolts from the table to the street and looks south where a sedan is speeding off—too far for the make, model, and license. She’s alone with the wind on Western.

  6.

  WEEKENDS ARE FOR LARGE PARTIES—BIRTHDAYS, QUINCEAÑERAS, baby showers, family get-togethers, postchurch meals, and lazy suppers—which means Dorian can lose herself in the all-day routine of battering, frying, baking. It takes her mind off Julianna. Because Julianna was there one minute, smoking her bummed cigarette, tapping her impossible heels on the sidewalk, and the next she was gone, vanished into a passing car like she’d been waiting for it all along.

  The kitchen is a comfort, a place to hide. By the time the first lunch orders come in, the fryer is bubbling. There’s a rhythm to it—the dip, shake, and fry. The way the chicken or fish spins to the surface of the oil when it’s battered perfectly and the temperature is just right. Dorian can lose herself in the details, the ideal cut of the fish to make it curve slightly when crisped, the uniform golden brown of each strip of chicken, the way to make shrimp retain their shape when battered.

  At six o’clock Willie, who helps her out on the weekends, sticks his head into the kitchen. “Time to get the big one going.”

  For nearly as long as the fish shack has been running, or as long as Dorian has been working it, an order has come in on Saturdays for a long-standing dice game. Twenty dinners, shrimp, catfish, whiting, sand dabs, and chicken with assorted sides. Everything except french fries, because everyone knows they don’t travel.

  Willie cocks his head. “You forgot?”

  Instead of responding, Dorian pulls down twenty Styrofoam containers.

  Willie taps the doorframe. “I’ll tell ’em food’s gonna be late.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Dorian says.

  She works hard. It’s tempting to crowd the oil to get the fish done faster. Dorian knows adding even one extra piece will result in a mess as the fillets bump against each other and the breading falls off. Eventually, with loose coating and fish overcrowding the fryer, the temperature of the oil will fall and she’ll have to clear the whole thing out, change the oil, and start over. So she works slow, one dinner order at a time in the four fryers. Everyone knows fried food is better hot, but for nearly two decades the dice game hasn’t complained about delivery.

  It takes Dorian half an hour to prep all the meals. Willie helps her pack up the sides family style. Together they load everything into the wheeled cart that Willie uses for the delivery.

  The rush of cooking over, the anxious feeling that Dorian has been sidestepping all day is back. She feels jumpy. She needs to do something, to somehow rewind to the morning and instead of letting Julianna vanish, chase her, or even better, keep her at the table, forbid her from getting that smoke. She looks down at the cart full of food.

  “I’ll take it,” she says.

  Willie raises an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

  “I’ll take this.” Dorian grabs the cart. “What’s the address?”

  “How long they’ve been ordering this dinner?” Willie asks. “And you don’t know the address.”

  “I cook it,” Dorian says, “I don’t walk it.”

  He scribbles something on the back of a grease-stained receipt. Dorian squints at his scratchy writing. “Twenty-Ninth Place?”

  “Between Cimarron and St. Andrews.”

  “You sure it’s place not street?”

  “Who’s been making this delivery for the last seventeen years?” Willie looks down at the containers loaded into the cart.

  “But you’re sure it’s place?” Dorian asks again.

  “Place,” Willie says. “Place.”

  Dorian’s staring at him, not because she doesn’t trust him, but because she doesn’t trust herself. Because here’s the past coming charging in, destabilizing her.

  “Dorian? Dorian?”

  Twenty-Ninth Place between Cimarron and St. Andrews is Julianna’s block, the house where Lecia used to babysit. The last place she was seen alive.

  Willie’s shaking her arm. “Dorian, where’d you go?”

  Julianna. Reborn as Jujubee. Julianna whom Dorian lost to the driver of a strange car. A man she chose over Dorian. Danger over safety. Unknown over known. The things that happened on her watch.

  “Why don’t you let me take it,” Willie says.

  “I’m going.” Dorian grips the cart. “I was just thinking it tastes better fresh out of the fryer.” She can already sense the perfectly battered fish going limp.

  “They don’t complain. But they will if you don’t get moving.” Willie holds the gate open so she can wheel the cart out.

  “How come we never got a delivery bike?” she asks.

  “Now you want to ride a bike?” He lets the gate close.

  As Dorian wheels the cart to the corner of Western at Thirty-First she wonders, not for the first time, if Lecia’s death had something to do with Julianna’s transformation from little girl who hid behind stuffed animals into a firecracker bursting high and bright in the night. Not that Dorian knew exactly what Julianna got up to. She’d heard the rumors. She asked around, even knocking on Julianna’s parents’ door once a few years back only to be told by her father, Armando, “She’s gone downtown.”

  Like that was an explanation.

  It’s nearly dark when Dorian turns onto Twenty-Ninth Place. With the light goes the warmth. Thirty-five years in Los Angeles and she still can’t get used to the temperature swings of a SoCal winter day—83 at lunch, 53 by dinner. A city that just can’t make up its mind about anything.

  Only one block off Western and it’s a different world—quiet residential streets lined with colorful Craftsman bungalows cast into shadow by the final stand of the sun. Look close and you can see the change everyone’s been going on about. A few new family cars—silver SUVs and minivans. Freshly landscaped yards in the drought-resistant style
that’s both trendy and necessary. New paint jobs and repointed brick porches.

  It’s not as if Jefferson Park was derelict. People here might not have the cash to restore their houses according to historic standard, but for the most part the houses have always looked neat.

  From the end of the block she can see the red house where Julianna grew up, made all the more visible by its treeless front yard surrounded by a motorized iron fence painted cream.

  Dorian slows as she passes it. Like many families who lived here before the riots, Julianna’s parents still have bars on their windows and a metal gate in front of their door. This must look ugly to the newcomers, who probably think the bars are a sign of bad taste and a bad attitude. But the recently arrived weren’t around for the chaos that tore down Western in the aftermath of Rodney King, or for the mistrust and suspicion that settled in after the fires and gunshots died away. They can’t imagine that this bungalow community was adjacent to a six-day war zone. And they can’t quite see the lingering signs of gang activity that once surged through these seemingly quiet streets.

  Dorian stops in front of the red house. Paint is peeling on the siding and window frames. Strands of Christmas lights sag from the eaves. Unlike the houses on either side, the yard is untidy—there’s a Ford Pinto up on blocks in the driveway and another car behind it that looks stripped bare. There are rusted tools, auto parts, and car mags scattered on the ground. Three folding chairs form a semicircle around a wooden box strewn with beer cans.

  The wind has picked up—a resurgence of the Santa Anas that have been raging all week—knocking the empties to the pavement and turning the pages of the magazines. Dorian cranes her neck, trying to see if there’s any movement in the dark windows behind the bars.

  Someone is approaching from up the block—a light shuffle step. Dorian moves away from the gate. She waits, but no one approaches. She strains to hear—nothing.

  The palms creak overhead.

  There’s a burst of noise from a nearby yard—a group of men ribbing one another in Spanish.

  “Julianna?”

  A radio cranks up, filling the street with classic soul music.

  “Julianna?”

  Something rustles in the tangle of vines and bushes between the faded red house and the one next door. Dorian’s breath catches.

  “Jujubee?”

  A cat dashes out over the uneven sidewalk and into the street.

  Dorian puts a hand to her chest as if to catch her pounding heart. “Jesus.”

  Maybe she is getting old. Maybe too much time alone has made her jumpy. Maybe there’s something in this house that still gets to her. Or maybe she’s started that descent for real, her mind heading for free fall.

  She tugs the cart, jump-starting it over a crack in the pavement. By the time she arrives at the house next door the music has been lowered to a tolerable level.

  The house is on a corner lot with a wraparound porch. It’s well maintained with a fresh coat of dark green paint on the siding. The eaves and trim are sage with red accents on the window frames. The clinker brick on the porch columns is in good condition. If there were once bars on the windows, they are now gone.

  Dorian opens the gate, bumps her cart up the steps, and knocks. She can hear the party going on in the back—waves of Spanish and English mingling with the music. There’s no answer. The door is solid wood with a small window that shows a dark hall. Dorian checks the large picture window; it’s heavily curtained. She knocks again.

  The curtain shifts and a woman looks out. She’s white, about Dorian’s age with a thin face and elegant features. But there’s something disdainful in her eyes. She scowls. The curtain drops.

  Dorian knocks again.

  “Around back. Go around back.”

  If this was the drill, why hadn’t Willie told her?

  Dorian knocks once more. The door swings open.

  “I’m here with the food,” she says.

  “I can see that.”

  Two white women in Jefferson Park—two old-timers. But Dorian’s certain they’ve never met. The woman is wearing a nurse’s uniform, perfectly starched.

  “I’m Dorian,” she says.

  “The food goes around back.”

  “It would be easier if I could bring it through the house.”

  “Lots of things would be easier,” the woman says.

  Dorian has no interest in bumping the cart down the steps and then dragging it over the driveway to the backyard. “The food’s going to get cold.”

  The woman holds the door open. “Since you insist. But normally it goes around back.”

  “You never told me your name,” Dorian says.

  “I didn’t know that was required. Anneke.”

  Dorian eases the cart over the doorstep. The interior of the house is pristine. It has the original built-in cabinetry and even what look like several original light fixtures.

  The furniture is all period, Mission and Arts & Crafts reproductions or perhaps the real thing.

  Anneke eyes the cart as Dorian heads down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “I was studying to be a nurse once,” Dorian says.

  “It’s not a job for everyone.”

  “I had planned to go back to school, but my husband died and I took over the restaurant.”

  “What you learn about nursing is that many people don’t want to be properly cared for.”

  “I guess it’s lucky I stuck with cooking.”

  “Lucky for who?” Anneke says.

  Dorian stops wheeling the cart, causing Anneke to bump into it. She turns so they are face-to-face over the stacked Styrofoam boxes. Anneke’s face is pulled into a pucker. Her eyes narrow as if she’s sucking on something sour.

  “Is there a problem?” Dorian says.

  “I keep my house clean,” Anneke replies. “I tend not to open it to strangers.”

  “I’m not a stranger. I’m delivering food. You called me.”

  “I didn’t call you. My husband called you. Next time around back, please.”

  Dorian continues into the kitchen. Like the dining room and the living room that she’d glimpsed on her way down the hall, it’s pristine. There are few personal touches.

  She opens the door to the garden, eager to get out of the house.

  “Let me tell you something,” Anneke says, as Dorian edges the cart through the doorway. “There’s no such thing as luck. There’s only responsibility.”

  “Noted,” Dorian says.

  “You think you are doing something important, cooking for the neighborhood, right? That you are helping the community.”

  “No,” Dorian says. “I just think I’m getting by.”

  Then she yanks the cart out of the kitchen, down the porch steps to the garden. She stands at the foot of the porch for a minute before anyone notices.

  It’s a mixed crowd—white, black, Latino. All men. Some are Dorian’s age, others in their thirties, and a few just out of their teens. There’s a washtub with beer off to one side next to an empty table, which must be for the food. A boom box is making it difficult for anyone to be heard without shouting. Some of the guys are passing a bottle, others are throwing dice.

  “Yo! Food’s here.” It’s one of the younger guys who flags her down. “Bring it on through.”

  The game stops as Dorian drags the cart to the table. She’s halfway there when a man takes the cart from her. He’s white with a dark beard and hair peppered with gray. He stares at her. One of his eyes is smaller than the other. She knows this man from somewhere. Or perhaps from nowhere in particular besides around. The two of them—white faces from the days when Jefferson Park was predominantly black, just respectful acquaintances—the four-sentence-exchange-at-the-store type, the remark-on-the-weather type, the allied-against-too-much-change type. “Roger, right?” Dorian says, relinquishing the cart. She’s seen his name on the order for years, but never put it to a face until now.

  “Indeed,” Roger says, rattling the c
art across the yard. “He sent a woman to do his job today?” There’s an odd formality to the way he talks.

  “I make the food,” Dorian says. “Willie brings it. Today we switched things up.”

  “He made the food?”

  Dorian has to laugh. Willie could take the reins in a pinch—but he’d be drowning in an order this size. “I cooked it and I brought it.” She begins to unload the containers onto a folding table at the far side of the yard. “You know it tastes better right from the kitchen,” she says. She can’t help herself. She’s proud of her food. It wasn’t what she expected she’d bring to the world but she does a damn good job.

  Roger places a hand on her shoulder. “All these years, have you heard a complaint? But maybe it’s time you get a car.”

  “Maybe,” Dorian says, trying to shake off his hand. She glances around the yard, then up to the second story of the house, where one of the curtains has been pulled back.

  Her eyes meet Anneke’s.

  “You should come around more often,” Roger says. “Old-timers and all.”

  Dorian’s still looking over his shoulder at the window. Roger follows her gaze. Anneke steps back.

  “My wife,” Roger says. “She doesn’t like gambling.”

  “So that’s her problem,” Dorian says. “I thought she didn’t like me.”

  “She’s seen a lot in her life. Her exterior is hard.” He holds out the dice. “You want a turn? If you call the roll, you keep what’s on the floor.”

  Dorian looks at the ground, where there’s about forty bucks in singles and fives. She takes the dice. Ricky had been a dice player—a habit he picked up in the army. “Deuces,” she says. She shakes and tosses. Up comes an easy eight.

  Roger puts a hand on her shoulder. “Better luck next time.”

  7.

  MONDAY AFTER WORK DORIAN CALLS THE FAST RABBIT AND asks for Jujubee. The woman who answers has to shout above the music to be understood. No Jujubee here.