Belize
2011; Colorado State University; Volume: 38; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/col.2011.0086
ISSN2325-730X
Autores Resumo36 JONATHAN PENNER BELIZE S weet Ones,” Matthew said, which I’ve asked him not to call me, “let’s snatch Mrs. Jimson’s dog. We’ll hold it for ransom.” His head was tilted way back and I was kissing him under the chin, a place you rarely get to. It’s a boring spot. Down where his collarbones almost meet, in the cup below his Adam’s apple, the skin is saltier. Around the corner of his jaw it’s stubbly, like licking thumbtacks. “No,” I said, and punched him. “Mrs. Jimson is my god.” I shouldn’t even have told him about her. But Matthew has this blue-eyed innocent look, and I always forget what an ass he can be. I’d told him Mrs. Jimson was the coolest person I knew, and now he was jealous. I knew her from waitressing at Geezer Gardens, as Matthew calls it—the old age home, that fat building up the road from McDonald’s. Most of the women there are pathetic. “Miranda , this prune juice tastes like sewage!” “Miranda, this salad has only four croutons!” “Miranda, can’t you stop twitching?” The men don’t talk much, mostly they look. And I think these guys are somewhere else. They’re with a girl on the beach, some warm night sixty-two years ago, or maybe in the back seat, parked by the road in a snowstorm. Mrs. Jimson is a lady of class. She doesn’t sneak extra desserts up to her room, like most of them do—crumbling pound cake wrapped in napkins and stuffed into handbags. She doesn’t cackle about who lost their license after driving up on the sidewalk, or whose grandson is an addict. She is a lady of class and culture, which sometime before the end of my life I would like to be. So one night when she asked me to come to her room after my shift was done, I did. Boston terriers are a hyperactive little breed, sort of like me. Maybe that’s why Mrs. Jimson liked me, because I was another 37 Penner undersized creature that’s really affectionate but can’t hold still. Willis jumped at me, leading with his tongue, until Mrs. Jimson shooed him into the kitchenette and latched an accordion gate across the doorway. “Miranda, I’ve been watching you,” she said. Mrs. Jimson has a foreign accent, which makes her sound super smart. I’ve tried, but I can't imitate it. “You work much harder than the other girls. Those enormous trays! You handle them so gracefully . You’re always polite. You’re always cheerful. I think I’ll call you Sunshine, if I may.” “Sure,” I said. “My boyfriend calls me Little Angel.” “He sounds sweet.” “I made that up.” “My dear, the things you say are sometimes so”—she stopped and patted her white head until she knocked the word loose— “unpremeditated. You seem young to be working here. You’re living with your parents?” “Of course.” If I said I was staying with Matthew, she wouldn’t like me anymore. And if I told her my parents had kicked me out, she’d think it must be my fault, when all I’d done was quit school. My mother said never to darken her doorway, and my father said that henceforth our relationship was purely genetic. Mrs. Jimson’s apartment looked like it came out of a movie. You could tell whoever lived there must be abnormally interesting , meaning the person would probably die before the movie ended. Her pictures were strange but beautiful. People sitting in chariots pulled by horses with wings, with a guy standing up in the back waving a thing like a squirrel tail. One that showed a naked woman washing her hair in a waterfall, and watching her from behind a tree was a man with a blue face, wearing a turban. Mrs. Jimson smiled and said, “Feel free to look. I’ve been collecting my entire life. My husband and I traveled to many countries. He was my second husband.” “How many did you have?” “Just two.” “What did they die of...
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