scene, so Naomi had dumped her. She had replaced Jenny’s name with Flora’s. If that was what Flora wanted, then yes yes yes, anything, anything not to be left to die alone.
Well then, what about the twenty thousand Naomi had given Jenny? Jenny was back, Jenny had returned, as promised. Whose promises were safer? Maybe keeping her money floating in the reach of both sisters was the safest thing to do, like corporations contributing to both the Democratic and Republican parties. Insurance.
How much money was left?
Could Jenny convince Flora that both of them should put their twenty-thousand-dollar gifts back in Naomi’s account?
That was the thing to do, so that the money would be available as needed. Preferably with Jenny’s name on the accounts. Of course with her name on the accounts. Wasn’t it she who had always been there for Naomi? She would blackmail Naomi as cruelly as Flora had: Do as I say or else —
Between us we’ll murder her, she thought. Flora with her cockamamie ideas about the proper use of money. And you? What’s your interest? Not the money, not the money, not the money, she hoped. Yes, the money, who was she kidding, but money for Naomi first, money for Naomi’s comfort and care, for her use in any damn way she chose. Half a dozen Lord and Taylor nightgowns if that was what Naomi wanted. And if something was left over, some of the money left after Naomi was gone, wouldn’t Jenny deserve it? Well, wouldn’t she? If she did everything right through to the end?
She was tired. She had walked eight or ten blocks into an area of small stores, beauty parlors, laundries and dry cleaners, money changers, restaurants, American, Cuban, Italian, kosher, Indian, Chinese, seafood, fast food, health food, alongside a heavily trafficked road. A roofed bus stop offered refuge from the sun and a no-back bench missing one of its slats. She sat, breathed deeply, enjoyed the wind and the shade. There was the usual mix of people waiting for the bus, all colors, classes, sexes, styles. They all took the first bus that came along.
Jenny sat on alone. In the sickly shrubbery bordering the bus stop, trash bloomed: pissed-on newspapers, plastic bags, food packaging, remains of pizzas, chicken, hotdogs, unidentifiable messes, soda cans, beer bottles, wine and liquor bottles. Toward the curb, around a standing refuse bin, garbage was rampant. She sat on, hypnotized, dazed. New bus riders collected: a small, round Latina with a child in her arms and two more trailing, all in clean white University of Nebraska T-shirts, eating candy, tossing the wrappers under the bench; another tense, skinny middle-aged man on his way to the track, or home from it without a cent, alongside a totally silent woman with a fixed smile suggesting that she might be with him, though it was hard to tell; a highly coiffed woman in a maize pantsuit, carrying a large Victoria’s Secret shopping bag and dropping crumpled tissues behind the bench; a fat young woman eating a pizza, in torn cutoffs and what looked like a plain white five-and-dime brassiere; a neat blond nurse unwrapping a stick of gum; an old black man in washed and pressed cotton pants and short-sleeved shirt, singing to himself in Spanish, tossing his newspaper on the bench.
Cut, Jenny thought. Enough. I’m ready for a new video. I’m tired of this scene and this action. I’m not watching the neat nurse surreptitiously drop the gum wrapper in the shrubbery. And the pizza eater? Will she use the trash can? I don’t want to see her dump her crusts under the bench. I want the end to this endless video.
And then found herself thinking, with excitement, If I protected my hands with those Wash’n Dri’s I carry around in my bag, I could clean up this garbage.
It presented itself as a reasonable, manageable job. She could actually do it, clean up this unnecessary street mess. It would be fun. As if in a dream of work, she set to it. Protecting her hands was not so easy. Even
Well then, what about the twenty thousand Naomi had given Jenny? Jenny was back, Jenny had returned, as promised. Whose promises were safer? Maybe keeping her money floating in the reach of both sisters was the safest thing to do, like corporations contributing to both the Democratic and Republican parties. Insurance.
How much money was left?
Could Jenny convince Flora that both of them should put their twenty-thousand-dollar gifts back in Naomi’s account?
That was the thing to do, so that the money would be available as needed. Preferably with Jenny’s name on the accounts. Of course with her name on the accounts. Wasn’t it she who had always been there for Naomi? She would blackmail Naomi as cruelly as Flora had: Do as I say or else —
Between us we’ll murder her, she thought. Flora with her cockamamie ideas about the proper use of money. And you? What’s your interest? Not the money, not the money, not the money, she hoped. Yes, the money, who was she kidding, but money for Naomi first, money for Naomi’s comfort and care, for her use in any damn way she chose. Half a dozen Lord and Taylor nightgowns if that was what Naomi wanted. And if something was left over, some of the money left after Naomi was gone, wouldn’t Jenny deserve it? Well, wouldn’t she? If she did everything right through to the end?
She was tired. She had walked eight or ten blocks into an area of small stores, beauty parlors, laundries and dry cleaners, money changers, restaurants, American, Cuban, Italian, kosher, Indian, Chinese, seafood, fast food, health food, alongside a heavily trafficked road. A roofed bus stop offered refuge from the sun and a no-back bench missing one of its slats. She sat, breathed deeply, enjoyed the wind and the shade. There was the usual mix of people waiting for the bus, all colors, classes, sexes, styles. They all took the first bus that came along.
Jenny sat on alone. In the sickly shrubbery bordering the bus stop, trash bloomed: pissed-on newspapers, plastic bags, food packaging, remains of pizzas, chicken, hotdogs, unidentifiable messes, soda cans, beer bottles, wine and liquor bottles. Toward the curb, around a standing refuse bin, garbage was rampant. She sat on, hypnotized, dazed. New bus riders collected: a small, round Latina with a child in her arms and two more trailing, all in clean white University of Nebraska T-shirts, eating candy, tossing the wrappers under the bench; another tense, skinny middle-aged man on his way to the track, or home from it without a cent, alongside a totally silent woman with a fixed smile suggesting that she might be with him, though it was hard to tell; a highly coiffed woman in a maize pantsuit, carrying a large Victoria’s Secret shopping bag and dropping crumpled tissues behind the bench; a fat young woman eating a pizza, in torn cutoffs and what looked like a plain white five-and-dime brassiere; a neat blond nurse unwrapping a stick of gum; an old black man in washed and pressed cotton pants and short-sleeved shirt, singing to himself in Spanish, tossing his newspaper on the bench.
Cut, Jenny thought. Enough. I’m ready for a new video. I’m tired of this scene and this action. I’m not watching the neat nurse surreptitiously drop the gum wrapper in the shrubbery. And the pizza eater? Will she use the trash can? I don’t want to see her dump her crusts under the bench. I want the end to this endless video.
And then found herself thinking, with excitement, If I protected my hands with those Wash’n Dri’s I carry around in my bag, I could clean up this garbage.
It presented itself as a reasonable, manageable job. She could actually do it, clean up this unnecessary street mess. It would be fun. As if in a dream of work, she set to it. Protecting her hands was not so easy. Even
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