Woman on the Edge of Time

Dolly drew herself up. “The johns are a business thing. Don’t put it down, I make good money. I don’t bring the johns here—I do them in hotels or at Geraldo’s. Listen, every woman sells it. Jackie O. sells it. So?”

“So how do you like it with them?”

“It’s a job.” Dolly sucked in the smoke, glowering. The minutes thickened between them. Finally she sniffled. “You hate yourself, you hate the trick. I never met one woman yet who didn’t hate every stupid trick.”

“Leave him, carita, leave him. Never mind him. He’s not worth your little fingernail.”

“He’s smart, Connie, his mind works like that.” She snapped her fingers. “He has style. The other whores all standon their heads to catch his eye when he comes around … . I thought, why not have a baby with him? Then Ican quit. It’ll be like it was before, only better. A man respects you more if you have his baby. Why not?”

“So you didn’t take your pills in Puerto Rico?”

“I left them here. I didn’t even put them in my purse. I thought too it might be lucky, a baby made on the island. I want to have this baby, Connie!”

“Why not? One child is lonely. Why not have another? You’re a good mother. You quit this whoring and have the baby.”

“He won’t let me! He says I got to have an abortion!”

“No.” Connie banged her fist on the table. A strange gesture for her. Dolly stared. “You have it! Tell him to o.d. and sell his body to the city for rat bait. You come live with me. I’ll help you with the children. I’d love that, you know it’s the truth—”

The phone rang. It was a john. Dolly ran off to the bathroom to fix her face and get herself together. Connie kissed her, fussed over Nita for a couple of minutes, and then reluctantly picked her way down the stairwell. In the street a damp, jagged wind off the East River scraped her face. She pulled her old green coat closer. The lining was gone. She felt high and loose with the grass, too stoned to endure the subway just yet. She decided to walk all the way over to the Spring Street stop on the IRT and take the local uptown, even though it was ten blocks of walking.

In a playground on Elizabeth, some little girls were playing red light, green light. She hunched against the wind, not deciding to walk closer, to stop and stare, but finding herself pressed suddenly into the fence. Brown-skinned mostly, about the right age. Angie would be one of the lighter, one of the shorter girls. Eddie, her father, had been light and short. She could be that lean quick one with the black hair and creamy skin and big love-me grin. Getting caught and making a big show of kicking herself. Yes, the girl who kicks herself would be mine!

Two men wheeling a cart on the sidewalk looked at her, and one spoke laughing to the other. Tears were rolling down her face. Rotten dope making her sentimental. Crazy Connie. She started to walk while the street bellied out before her. With the sleeve of her coat she tried to rub her face. The tears ran from her sore eyes, faucets that would not be shut off. Warm and wet over her cheeks. She turned onto Prince and sat down in a doorway, on a cement step recessed into the entrance to a loft building, the door big as a barn door behind. She spread the newspaper for her butt. Nobody around. She blew her nose hard in a wad of toilet paper. Anybody would think she had loved her daughter.

A shadow across her. She began to get up but that hand was extended again. “What’s wrong? You’re weeping. Connie, did I frighten you?”

Shorter than in her dream, just a few inches taller than she would be, standing, he bent toward her, moon face, black turtle bean eyes, that gentle smile.

“I’m going crazy! But it could be the dope. Really powerful—”

“I’m here.I’ve been trying to reach you. But you get frightened, Connie.” Luciente grinned. Really, he was girlish. Mariquita?

“What do you want from me?” Childhood scary tales of brujos, spells, demons. A lot of garbage, but how could this boy creep into her dreams?

“Just to talk. For you to relax and talk with me.”