Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  She said, “Hey, there.”

  “I’m visiting Lalena,” I said.

  “I don’t think anyone is home up there,” Lady Jane said.

  I said, “Maybe the buzzer doesn’t work.”

  She said, “It’s freezing out here.”

  I said, “Does the buzzer get frozen?”

  Lady Jane said, “Want to come in and have bagels?”

  She put her hand in her pocket and took out a long tassel of keys and beads and a bell.

  I said, “What’s that?”

  “It’s my keychain,” she said. “I bought it at Bead Here Now. Isn’t it pretty?”

  “No,” I said. “Bagels. What’s bagels?”

  Lady Jane said, “Jewish donuts.”

  Lady Jane’s apartment was crazy inside. The walls were all shiny yellow just like the hallway door. Little round windows were painted on, with fish looking in, and an octopus, and little bubbles going up from their mouths. The real window was the one with the colored lights, by the table of where the kitchen part was.

  Lady Jane didn’t wear army boots or hiking boots or even sneakers. Lady Jane wore wooden Dutch-girl shoes, and she just stepped out of them backward. Then she was just in her red socks and her Dutch-girl shoes stayed by the door.

  She cut the Jewish donuts in half, and she put each half in the toaster. When they came up she put on butter and gave me both halves. She put two more halves in the toaster, and while they were toasting she put on a record, kind of loud weird singing and a harmonica, and then she sat across from me at her table by the colored lights. It got warm enough to take off my coat. Lady Jane smiled a lot while we ate the donuts, and she danced in her chair at the table while she was sitting.

  She said, “So, Sarajean, tell me a story.”

  “I don’t know a story,” I said.

  “Everyone knows a story,” she said. “A story is just who you are at that particular moment.”

  “Well, I’m just Sarajean Henry,” I said.

  She said, “Sarajean Henry, huh?”

  I said, “Do you think Lalena is there yet?”

  She said, “You can go knock if you want.”

  It was dark up the stairs to Lalena’s door, and my knocks sounded loud and empty. I went back down to Lady Jane’s yellow door, which was open, and she was dancing all around in there.

  She said, “Like to dance?”

  I said, “I don’t think so.”

  She kept dancing around, and I stayed standing by the yellow door. When the music stopped she said, “Dancing is just another way to tell a story.”

  Another song started, and Lady Jane went away around the floor, all her beads around her neck jingling and clicking. She danced up on her toes and around in circles a lot, her skirt going around, her long hair going around. I was getting warm and sleepy. The record came to its end and stopped.

  Lady Jane said, “Now will you dance with me?”

  “I can’t dance like that,” I said.

  She said, “We can dance anyway you like. Here. We’ll slow dance, like olden times.”

  She put on another record and the song was slow, like one of the sad songs when Sasha was singing. Lady Jane took my hands, one of my hands in each one of her hands, her warm fingers wrapping around my fingers still cold. She stepped a big step back and pulled me with her. She stepped a wide step sideways and with two smaller steps I caught up. We went in slow circles like that around the yellow room, turning and turning, so that sometimes it was the fish and octopus looking in at us and sometimes it was the colored lights and mostly I watched Lady Jane’s red socks to see where they would go next. At the end of the slow song Lady Jane let go of my fingers and clapped her hands above her head and then she bowed to me and her long blond hair touched the floor. I sat down on her bed and pulled up my Jimmy Henry socks.

  Lady Jane said, “See, you can dance. Dancing is just moving to the music.”

  I said, “You said dancing is just another way to tell a story.”

  “Well, it is,” she said. “It’s both.”

  I hate it when things are both. Like two-fourths and three-sixths both being one-half.

  Lady Jane said, “Want to dance some more?”

  I said, “Can we have some more of those donuts?”

  We ate donuts, and Lady Jane made tea in a white teapot shaped like an elephant. The tea came out his trunk. She lit a long stick of incense and stuck it in the crack in the middle of the table so that the smoke, strawberry, floated around between us.

  She said, “So, what do you like to do, besides eat bagels and not dance?”

  “Read,” I said.

  “What’s your favorite book?” she said.

  I said, “Peter Pan.”

  “Second favorite?” she said.

  Little Women. Nancy Drew. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  She said, “I’ll show you my favorite book.”

  On a tall shelf by the door was a big book covered in dark leather and designs all in the leather. Lady Jane brought the book to the table. She wiped crumbs off the table with the long edge of her skirt and she moved the tea cups to the middle and she set the big book down in front of me. Loopy gold letters said Birds of the World on the front.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Open it.”

  The book squeaked when I opened it, like the squeaky steps of the house. The inside of the cover was beautiful paper made of swirly colors, gold and red and brown. The first page was empty, dark white paper, and then the next page was thin and see-through, thin tissue paper. After the tissue paper page was a big photograph of an old man and under, in fancy swirly letters, John James Audubon, his name.

  After that every page was a bird in all beautiful colors of feathers and branches with a bird name at the bottom in beautiful writing. Every picture was sky and tree and one bird each. Every bird in the world had its own page.

  The sun on the table was on the Lady Jane side when I first opened the Birds of the World book. When the sun was shining right onto the pages in front of me, Lady Jane said, “It’s time for me to go to work.”

  She put her finger on the name of the bird on the page. Pileated woodpecker. Big and black and white, and a red head, his crest.

  Pileated woodpecker. She put the Birds of the World back up on the shelf, and she went in the bathroom. The incense stick was all burned down to a curly ash. The elephant teapot was empty. Lady Jane’s leather beaded key-chain was on the table next to her empty cup. The longest string of leather had a bell in the shape of a tiny silver owl. The bell barely made any noise at all, it was so tiny. I untied the knot that held it on there. I put the key-chain back on the table. I put the owl bell in my pocket.

  Lady Jane came out of the bathroom, and she put her coat on and she put the keychain in her coat pocket.

  She said, “You can come back and look at birds whenever you want.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And maybe dance,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  LALENA SAID Lady Jane was an acid head.

  “Fucking acid head,” she said. “That’s what my daddy says. Fucking acid head.”

  I said, “She taught me how to dance like olden times.”

  Lalena said, “Big deal.”

  “She has a beautiful book of all the birds in the world,” I said.

  Lalena said, “Big deal.”

  “She gave me a bell,” I said.

  Lalena said, “Big deal.”

  “Just shut up,” I said.

  The metal stairs in the alley were sunny and not windy. We had to stay outside because Lalena’s daddy was sleeping. I lit a match and when the match went out I touched the hot end to a hair on my arm. The hair turned into a little frizz and made a smell up close.

  “Let’s go over your house,” Lalena said. “I’m freezing.”

  It was dark inside the front door, going up the stairs, dark that made me want to whisper, dark tha
t made me want to be perfectly quiet going up the stairs.

  “Sh,” I said.

  I pushed open our front door into the light and warm, and Jimmy Henry standing there leaning by the kitchen doorway. He turned around when we opened the door.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Sarajean,” he said. “Damn.”

  There were some guys in there, in the kitchen, two guys maybe, sitting at the kitchen table.

  One guy said, “What is this Henry? Kindergarten time?”

  Jimmy Henry said, “Go on back outside. You can come back in a little while.”

  He looked back in the kitchen, he looked at me. I stopped. Lalena pushed in behind me.

  “It’s fucking freezing out,” she said.

  One of the guys in there said, “You want to talk China white or you want to play mommy?”

  “What are you doing?” I said. “We’re going in my room. What do you mean go back outside?”

  Jimmy Henry said, “Damn it.”

  He leaned heavy against the kitchen doorway, rolling down his shirtsleeve, and he said, “Go on outside.”

  Then he turned in to the kitchen and leaned over the sink and threw up in the sink.

  Lalena said, “Uh-oh.”

  “What uh-oh?” I said. “What’s wrong? What are you doing?”

  Jimmy Henry turned on the water in the sink and he said,

  “Damn it, Sarajean, get out of here.”

  He threw up some more in the sink.

  Lalena pulled my arm, pulled me backward out the door.

  “Come on,” she said.

  She pulled me out the door to the top of the stairs, and then she reached behind me and shut the door.

  “What did he do that for?” I said.

  “Are you crying?” she said. “Quit crying.”

  She started down the stairs.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “Where?” I said. “I don’t want to.”

  She grabbed my sleeve of my coat.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’ll go in that place downstairs.”

  “Why?” I said. “Why is he all mad? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Come on,” she said. “You can’t hang around when they’re shooting up. It bugs ‘em.”

  She went down, out the front door, and I went behind her, around back on the skinny sidewalk. Lalena went out in the yard to the garage and dragged one of the trash cans across the grass, and I stood there, at the end of the skinny sidewalk. I wiped my nose on my sleeve of my army coat.

  “Come on,” she said.

  She bumped the trash can up on to the porch, over to the newspaper window. She climbed up there and banged her fist at the top of the window. The window slid down, and she caught it before it banged.

  “Quit crying,” she said. “There’s nothing to cry about.”

  She climbed in and stood on the windowsill inside, looking out at me. I went over there and climbed on to the trash can, all stinky and dented and wobbly under me.

  “I hate these trash cans,” I said.

  Lalena jumped down inside the apartment and I climbed through. I jumped down onto the floor.

  “I hate it in here,” I said.

  I sat down on the floor under the window. Lalena sat down next to me.

  She said, “Listen.”

  Mumbly guy voices, and their feet coming down the stairs.

  “They’re leaving already,” she said.

  Jimmy Henry’s voice was out there. After the feet were gone off the front porch Jimmy Henry called out, “Sarajean? Lalena?”

  He was by the front door, out on the porch.

  I said, “Sh.”

  “Yeah,” Lalena said. “Fuck those guys.”

  Jimmy Henry’s feet went back up the stairs.

  “Want to go back up there?” Lalena said.

  I said, “No.”

  “We can go over my house,” she said.

  “No, we can’t,” I said.

  She said, “My other house, my Corona Street house.”

  I said, “No.”

  “Aren’t you cold?” she said. “We can’t just stay here, can we?”

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  Lalena said, “Well, okay, maybe we can. Are you crying again? Quit crying.”

  She took out the pack of cigarettes and held her hand out to me.

  “Matches,” she said.

  She lit one of the cigarettes, and I took the matches back.

  “We could probably go up there now,” she said. “He said in a little while.”

  I lit one match and it burned, curling down orange and then black. I dropped it on the floor when the hot touched my fingers again, and again, lighting matches until there was a little pile of curled black matches on the floor between my legs.

  When the matches were all gone Lalena said, “Let’s go.”

  She smashed out her cigarette on the floor next to the pile of matches.

  I said, “Where?”

  She said, “I don’t care. To get some more matches.”

  She put the old drawer on its end under the window and stood there, waiting, holding the drawer for me to climb first.

  Outside it was late afternoon winter dark, and cold.

  I said, “Okay, I’ll take you some place secret, but it’s a secret.”

  We went around front and into the front door.

  I said, “Sh.”

  The key of the painted apartment was in my army coat pocket, like it was always in my army coat pocket. I unlocked the door of the painted apartment.

  Lalena said, “God.”

  She said, “It’s beautiful.”

  She said, “It’s just like when that hippie girl used to live here.”

  “Tina Blue,” I said.

  She walked along the wall, looking at the painted shelves, touching her hand along the purple and green. I pulled out the top drawer of the little dresser just enough to reach my hand in and get a candle and the box of stove matches. Not enough for Lalena to see my shoe box.

  She said, “Why doesn’t anybody live here?”

  She said, “I’d live down here if I was you.”

  The candlelight reached up to the purple ceiling. No sound of Jimmy Henry up there.

  “So those guys up there,” I said. “They were shooting up?”

  “Looked like it to me,” Lalena said. “They puke when they shoot up.”

  I said, “What is that? Shooting up?”

  “It’s needle freaks,” she said. “That’s what Margo says, needle freaks. I don’t know, it’s getting high.”

  She took out the pack of cigarettes.

  “Like smoking joints?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I think it’s different.”

  “Like acid?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I think it’s different.”

  I said, “Different how?”

  She lined cigarettes up on the floor end to end.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “When it’s joints or acid they’re always laughing and being stupid or fixing something to eat. When it’s needles they don’t want you to be there. And then they just sit around.”

  Lalena made triangles with the cigarettes on the floor. The candle burned tall and long, until it was the only light there was and it was dark outside.

  “I guess I’ll go,” Lalena said.

  She put all the cigarettes back into the pack.

  “I have to go home,” she said. “Want to come over?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well,” she said. “I think we should hang out in here. I mean sometimes, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, be quiet. Going out, don’t slam the door.”

  She left. Didn’t slam the door. Out the front door, not slamming the front door.

  Our whole house was quiet around me and I sat on the mattress watching the candle flame. Not crying. It was cold and my face hurt from crying. I finally blew out the candle flame and it was completely dark unti
l my eyes could see in the dark, the outline of the tall skinny window and the mattress on the floor. I put the candle back in the drawer.

  Quiet in the stairway.

  Quiet in our front room.

  Jimmy Henry’s bedroom door stayed shut.

  IN THE morning Jimmy Henry was sitting at the kitchen table. I looked away from his face, at the refrigerator door, at the countertop, at the up-high cabinet door.

  He said, “I’m sorry.”

  I went back in my room and shut the door and stood still, stood in the middle of the room, looking at the door.

  “Sarajean?” he said from right outside there.

  He opened the door and I turned away from his face. He came in and sat on the bed in front of me and I turned around so he couldn’t see me again.

  “I’m sorry I was mean,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  I said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  He reached out and pulled me to him, and he was warm in his flannel shirt, but his hands were cold, and my hands were cold. He was holding his breath inside his shirt, and he let it out and he said, “I’ll make us some breakfast?”

  I said, “I don’t care.”

  I said, “Are those guys your friends?”

  “They’re just some guys is all,” he said.

  His shirtsleeve arms were all around me, not holding, just around me.

  “Are they coming back?” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said.

  I pulled away from his arms.

  “Is it needle freaks?” I said.

  “Look,” he said. Breathing out.

  “You shouldn’t say that,” he said. “I won’t let them come over any more okay?”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  THEY DID come over. I could tell. They came over when I wasn’t there, and after they came over there were ripped up balloons in the trash, red, yellow. Junk. Lalena said that’s where they keep their junk, inside balloons. Junkies, she said. I picked the balloons out of the trash and saved them in my drawer under my T-shirts.

  I CAME home from school, and Jimmy Henry was lying on the couch, his T-shirt bluish white in the dark of the front room. I went past him into the kitchen. There was a yellow balloon, not in the trash, just on the counter. Not ripped up. I touched it with one finger. Lumpy inside.