“This is the hardest part,” he says, whispering in her ear, “hugging all these people. Dancing for two hours will be a piece of cake.”
“I bet!”
Lavinia’s not so sure this venue is for her. Actually, she feels a familiar tension in her gut—the one that makes her want to bolt or make an excuse to get away for a few minutes, like she has to pee—but she thinks of the bull and stands her ground as small groups continue to gather together around Mario. The energy in the line is one of excitement. Everyone but her seems to know each other. She steps closer to Mario as a dramatic-looking woman in a gypsy skirt and a guy wearing soft, flowing pants approach them.
“What a night, like summer,” the woman says, leaning into Mario’s shoulder. “The DJ’s from LA tonight.”
Lavinia feels a pinch in her gut. Maybe she has to shit.
“She’s the best,” the woman continues, “she really cuts it up. Do you know her?” She mentions a name Lavinia doesn’t catch—but then, she wouldn’t recognize the name anyway.
Lavinia stands quietly, twirling her hair with one hand and resting the other on her stomach, which is growling. Mario steps closer as if to shield her, allowing their shoulders to touch, reassuring her as the line moves into a small interior room with bright lighting.
Two people sit behind a small counter, wearing big, smiley faces, collecting money. Mario pays for the two tickets—forty bucks total. Lavinia is surprised by the reasonable entrance fee. He gives her a ticket and they walk arm in arm to the far end of the small room, where a man stands retrieving the tickets.
“Want a hug?” the man at the entranceway asks.
This seems odd to Lavinia—off-putting, or worse. How can I be here in this awful place?
She looks down at her T-straps, avoiding his arms, and pushes into a large room the size of a gymnasium. On the far side from the door, a woman stands with her equipment—a musical console and mixer.
Mario leads Lavinia closer to the DJ and the music center as a slow piece of music fills the room like a billowing cloud. People move slowly, mostly alone, letting their heads sway gently from side to side. “Lets find a place,” he whispers.
She follows him, passing people doing stretches on the floor, some in yoga or meditation poses. Others stand face to face, or alone with their eyes closed. Lavinia wants to find a safe place in the corner and not in the center of the grandsized room. She thinks of the bull, who stays by the gate. As the overhead lights dim, she dares to look into the faces of the dancers. Some seem lost; others seem happy, with wide grins. One woman walks the periphery of the room as if in a trance, eyes down. Lavinia notices a very short man wearing a silver bracelet engaged with the slow beat like a baby fawn with its mother. His rhythm is so grounded, maybe because his center of gravity is closer to the ground. But now everyone is dancing or moving to this slow, even-paced rhythm, their heads swaying ever so gently from side to side. It’s as if the music pulls for a kind of movement. She deduces from what Mario told her outside that this is the first rhythm.
Mario stops in the lower corner of the room, left and center from the DJ. Lavinia stands beside him, beginning to let the beat move though her ever so slowly, allowing her feet to connect with the wooden floor. It’s like she’s dancing in her own place, where she lets the music speak to her. Forgetting for a moment all the people around, she lets the beat guide each step.
“How about staying here?”
Lavinia nods and faces Mario as the room fills. A sign reads, “Capacity 150.” Another sign reads, “Talk with your dance.”
“Mario, we can’t talk?” she asks.
He nods, moving in closer to her, staying in sync with the slow, flowing sound. She follows him, getting closer. When one song ends she hears short connecting beats that fade into the next mix. Most of the music is instrumental and new to her, but then a vocal piece plays. Someone is singing, “Are We Humans or Are We Dancers?” She loves it, hangs onto the words, sings aloud. Some of the dancers are singing. The round clock above the DJ reads ten thirty. With two hours to go, she can’t imagine what surprises lie ahead.
But the music speaks its own language, pulling her into its wave, moving her closer to other dancers. At times someone pairs with her momentarily and then moves on into the deeper part of the sea of dancers. Lavinia is content to stay in her place close to the wall. For right now, this corner is where I feel safe.
With each change of music comes a mini crisis for her. As one song ends and before another unknown piece begins, there is a pause or transition during which she feels in limbo. Where to go, how to move, what to do? Day turning to night, in the in-between times, always makes her anxious. But the dancers still move. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, trying to anticipate the next new and different beat so she can ease into the flow. But she only feels uncertainty. Restlessness replaces safety. A man who dances through the space like a galloping colt scares her. She doesn’t understand his beat. Again, fleeting thoughts of leaving or going to the bathroom compel her.
She looks for Mario. His eyes are closed, his body is responding to the music. She moves close so that she is almost touching him. He opens his eyes and gathers her close. They are in the flow now, their bodies touching. She stares at him. He smiles like a child who’s happy to see her—a smile so warm and beautiful she can’t take her eyes off his lovely face with its high cheekbones and full lips. He nuzzles her face with his nose. She can’t leave.
Her heart fills as the music informs her feet, her legs; her hips sway; her waist swivels; her torso rolls; her arms fly as the beat picks up. She feels like a puppy wagging its tail and finds she is more connected to herself.
The music shifts. This must be another rhythm. The pizzazz of the increasing vitality of the music enlivens her, freeing her from her constraints. All of the dancers seem to respond with rotating shoulders and bobbing heads, then flying arms and feet. She is in this sea of joyful dancers, each safely in their own boats, bobbing on the same ocean—or are they each their own wave? The waves bring buoyancy and uncontrollable joy to her being. She finds her tight-lipped mouth opening into a wide smile.
A man wearing a kaftan bobs beside her. They are in sync, and he is a complete stranger. A young woman wearing a midriff top joins them. They are laughing. People come together on some unspoken cue. Each speaks a unique language without any words and dances near or by her through the open space, allowing her to make contact with so many new people. No words. Only the vibrational threads connect her with others. She feels deliriously happy. Her feet fly to the crashing sound of the escalating music. Her heart is laughing.
Now here comes a tall, galloping woman who seems to match the running colt Lavinia noticed earlier. She doesn’t feel so afraid anymore. She looks over toward the short man, who is enmeshed in a dance with a yet shorter woman. Flying, circling repetitions! They are so closely connected. She envies their intimacy.
The music slows down. She hears the DJ ask everyone to stay purely in the physical world, letting all stories and thoughts melt away. Lavinia remembers Mario saying that what makes him clear is staying in the physical world. The DJ asks them to imagine the entire space and then the space before them and behind them.
These words stick. Lavinia keeps repeating, The space behind you and the space in front of you, in her head.
The music has started again. Mario playfully engages her now, bringing her back into the sensate world. Their eyes meet. He gently pushes her raised hand with his palm. She responds to the light contact with a similar touch, following this pressure, making circles in the air. They stay attached hand to hand, arm to arm, playing. When he pushes, she meets his energy. Then she places her other hand at his shoulder and pushes, and he rotates in that direction. Soon they are engaged in an ongoing push-pull. It feels like a tango, except they are both leading.
Now she is leading, pulling him toward her and then pushing him away from her. Her legs shoot out. She loves this awareness of actually staying at
tached to his moves, which allows her to follow them likewise. They are engaged in a playful dance, coming and going, expressing some primal language. She imagines two polar bears playing without words.
Then the rhythm slows—still playful, but more mellow. The music moves from its peak into graceful, silvery rivulets toward a still pond. As their breath catches up with them and their heart rates slow, they flow on an ebullient cloud across the room, turning and swirling, promenading themselves in some grand pas de deux, until the music slows again and eventually stops, leaving only the pulsing in their veins.
The room is a silent hum.
The DJ says, “Now bring this practice into the physical world.”
“Already? Where did the time go?” Lavinia whispers to Mario, not believing two hours have passed.
“Time, there you have it,” is all he says. He holds her hand as they leave the dance hall and walk out into the cool night. They hop a cab to her house. He asks the cabby to wait for her to get safely inside.
She peeks out her window after closing the door behind her, just in time to see the cab pull away with Mario inside throwing her a kiss.
Chapter 9:
THE WOLF
Monday morning comes too fast for her. After dancing on Friday night, she spent a beautiful weekend on the coast with Kinky, beach combing, chatting, and eating seafood at Puerto 27. And then they bought a pumpkin for Mercedes, something Kinky and Lavinia do every fall to celebrate the changing light of November days before heading home.
Lying in her bed, Lavinia fingers an abandoned shell she found, wondering whether the snail might have found a new home. A bird sings the answer with a cadence she can almost decipher, so familiar a song, but can’t quite make it out. She decides the birds are telling her to take some more time and not go to work today. Her phone beeps—a small, clacking noise. She reaches her arm to the floor and looks at the screen. It’s a text from George: “Are you okay? Are you going to come back to work? I don’t care about the missing laundry.”
Lavinia’s stomach turns. I’m not ready to deal with him. She turns her attention to Friday night and her time with Mario when they danced, flowing in and around the space they created, sometimes like birds in flight and other times like cubs rolling around a grassy knoll. Without their even exchanging words, she felt so understood by him and like she’d gotten to know him better, too. She wants to hang out with her thoughts of him a bit longer. She’s grateful for her Monday Zack day that will bring her to North Beach.
On Wednesday Lavinia picks herself up, dresses, and packs her special cleaning potions into her small leather purse, remembering to add a few fig leaves she stored in the fridge. She nods to the mother tree, which has become a sentinel with a prescience of the divine in her mind.
When Lavinia arrives on Russian Hill, Nina’s greeting is brusque. She’s quick to tell her the spot is still there. Even before saying hello, she grumbles her sour complaint, then pulls on her blazer, fiddles with her briefcase, organizes papers—all with a sharp pencil in her mouth. Lavinia wonders if the pencil is all that’s keeping Nina from biting her head off.
“I’ll drop it off at the dry cleaner on Hyde Street before I leave today,” Lavinia says, taking it from her hand and stuffing it into her small shoulder purse.
Nina seems to cringe at seeing the blouse handled so roughly. “Okay, then today, a few blouses, a skirt, some linens. Don wants his running clothes laundered this week. The vest, lightweight jacket, sheets, tablecloth.” Nina runs through the checklist as she moves toward the doorway, pushing past Lavinia like a great storm ready to wreak havoc. Lavinia wishes she had the guts to interrupt the tirade to tell Nina her husband is an asshole, but she can’t. Nina’s a client, after all, not a friend.
After Nina leaves, Lavinia sits on the patio trying to center herself. Coit Tower reflects the light. White. Pristine. The Bay Bridge in the distance shows off its new span, a triangular wonder glistening in the sunlight. When she looks into the dining room she sees dishes still on the table. Is that the linen Nina described? She breathes deeply, looking outside to see Nina get into her car. Her skirt is above her knees, exposing her generous thighs, and Lavinia feels embarrassed.
When Nina finally shuts the door and pulls away, Lavinia is left to her thoughts. How can Nina live with him?
Once again she studies the framed pictures on the mantle above the marble fireplace. Nina’s graduation photo—like Margaret, Zack’s daughter, she wears a hooded cap and gown, the tassel hanging over her eyes, while Don stands beside her wearing a wolfish grin. In another photo Don is crossing the finish line, number 21708 on his chest. His teeth look too big for his mouth. Like a wolf, he seems to be gloating over his accomplishment. Then they stand together at the beach, each of them holding a surfboard. Nina wears a sports bathing suit that covers her thighs, and he wears a wetsuit.
Lavinia feels at a loss when she looks at these photos. She has no accomplishments like these that she wishes to commemorate in photos she’d place around her home. She herself didn’t even finish undergraduate school in elementary education. She doesn’t even have an ESL certificate. She can’t imagine running a marathon or surfing in the rough Pacific. Still, she’s more alarmed by Don’s success than envious.
She turns to the mess in the kitchen. She’s not a maid, but she removes the breakfast dishes from the table—raspberry muesli, coffee, and a plate of toast. She places the butter in the fridge, where an open bottle of champagne sits in the door shelf. She pulls the linen tablecloth and napkins off the table and moves toward the laundry room.
She stops to reflect on her ritual, allowing her mind to focus on this cleansing as a practice. The ritual of going down to the river to purify clothes is as old as time and near to Lavinia’s heart. It promises a renewal, a freshness, both for her and the wearer. Today, both Nina and Don’s laundry bags rest on top of the washer—sheets and pillowcases and sports clothes, mostly. Sorting, she pulls out the light colors first, comparing the piles of lights and darks to each other. Quite a bit to do today. She puts the lingerie and one shirt in a basin to soak. Then she puts in a load of whites, which include Don’s underwear, running socks, Nina’s white cotton panties, two towels, and the white linen tablecloth—a full load. The rushing sound of the running water brings her to that river; she immediately slows her pace to savor the experience.
Hanging on a hook in the closet are T-shirts and a pair of men’s slacks. On another hanger, there is a pair of jeans. She checks the pockets as usual, but with trepidation this time, remembering last week’s note. In the small pocket, she finds another note. She’s tempted to throw it out, but she can’t. Her curiosity gets the better of her. She unfolds the piece of paper, hoping that it will perhaps explain the last one.
“When you didn’t come, I figured you decided not to go through with the deal I proposed. I’ll call you.”
Lavinia shakes her head wondering how she could have ever imagined the first note was intended for her. Now the second note intrigues her. What? Who? If it is meant for her, it’s some kind of a delusion. Maybe even psychotic. She tears it into small pieces and flushes the pieces down the toilet. Then she proceeds to do the hand washing at the sink, adding soap and swishing the few things, listening to the sound of the water and the churning of the washing machine.
When she turns around upon completing her task, she’s surprised to see Don standing in the doorway. His lips are stretched across his face in a wide, closed-mouthed grin. She jumps. She wonders how long he’s been standing there. Has he been home the whole time, hiding in wait?
“You scared me,” she says, fearing he saw her rip up the note and flush it down the toilet.
“I forgot something.” Don moves toward the bedroom, where she can see him looking in his dresser. He finds his sports jacket and rummages through the two pockets.
“Damn,” he says. He’s taller than she remembered. He sighs and then walks toward her, flipping his hair off his forehead, “You didn’t see
a handwritten note in my pants pocket, did you?” His fists clench. When Lavinia’s mouth drops open, he stares at her mole. “You took it, didn’t you?” He’s too close now, breathing down her neck.
“Move away from me, don’t touch me!” she shouts. She backs up against the sink.
“Maybe you’ll come across it. If you do, you can rip it up.” He smirks.
She stands perfectly still. He’s staring at her still, looking intently at her birthmark, but he doesn’t say anything more. His lingering stare kills her. She’s furious; she wants to slap him. He turns away down the hall. She hears the front door slam. When he leaves she runs to the window and looks down to see him get into a waiting car. The driver, a woman, pulls away.
More angry than confused, she resumes her work, wanting to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. There is no way to make the cycles of washer and dryer go faster. She pokes around, killing time.
She rushes after work and gets to Falcone in half the usual time. Not even noticing the garden or if the wild parrots are perched in the trees, she gets down the hill and dashes inside like someone is chasing her.
“You look scared,” Mario says as soon as he sees her. “Are you okay?”
She sits down at a table, hoping he’ll take the cue that she wants to talk to him privately. She waits a few minutes, and when he comes out from behind the bar, he’s carrying an espresso, her favorite. He sets it down and she takes a sip.
“Thank you. Just what I needed.” She sighs. “It’s my clients. They’re lunatics, that’s all. I had an encounter today with the man at the house.”
“Zack Luce?
“Not him. The runner-husband lunatic on Russian Hill. A strange guy who leaves handwritten notes in his pocket.”
“Not to you.”
“At first I thought so, but now I don’t know. He was lurking around today. After his wife left, he came back and we had a runin. He accused me of taking the note. His energy frightens me.”
The Laundress Page 8
