(blog)
—(100) related articles.
Chapter 6
The moment Driver left, I showered and put on the same jeans that I had worn the last three days along with a severely wrinkled T-shirt. I grabbed my sullied sheets and headed downstairs. The elevator was still out, so I went down two flights of concrete stairs. The musty and badly painted laundry room was barely big enough for the three washers and three dryers, each a different color and model, each ancient and dented and marked with vulgar graffiti scratches. Only one washer and one dryer worked.
Someone had loaded their dark clothes in the only working dryer, then had been rude enough to abandon their belongings. My washing was done in twenty-five minutes and they still hadn’t returned. I yanked out the clothing and saw that it was the earthy apparel of a woman. I pulled out wrinkled, colorful T-shirts that had comical and incendiary sayings across the front:
ALL WOMEN MASTURBATE. GIVING BLOWJOBS IS AN ART. BUKKAKE QUEEN.
Reading her T-shirts distracted me. As did her lingerie. She had a ton of lingerie. Twenty minutes later I was taking out the last of her lingerie, folding and putting each item in her light blue plastic basket when she staggered in yawning and wearing Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms, a beat-up and severely wrinkled T-shirt that read NOBODY DIES A VIRGIN: LIFE FUCKS ALL, SO DO ME DOGGIE , and no makeup. Looked like she was living on very little sleep. She came my way andI still offered her no sound, no expression. She was tall enough to be a runway model, with keen features and clear skin. Eyebrows severely arched. Her dreadlocks were long, light brown waves that framed her face and cascaded over her shoulders like a cape.
She snapped, “
Vell, mudda sic
.”
She snatched up her clothing, yelled some vulgar pieces of her mind, then pushed me out of her way, and stormed out like she was going to get a gun to come back and shoot me.
After I finished drying my sheets, I returned to my hideout and made the bed.
There was another knock at my door.
The confrontation from earlier came to mind. Laundry Room Girl had probably tracked me down and had come seeking vengeance. But it wasn’t Laundry Room Girl. It was Sweet Isabel. Like an actor, I began to play the role of another character.
The Life of Varg Veum
. Isabel had on black pants and a short casual jacket, flat ballet-style shoes. She brought me a small fruit basket. Bringing food to a neighbor was the
Desperate Housewives
way of getting invited inside to snoop. Discomfort took root, but I remained cordial. I thanked her and carried the fruit to the kitchen, set everything on a circular cherry wood table that was bar height.
Isabel said, “Blimey. Look at all of these wonderful books you have.”
“Blimey? Did you just say
blimey?
”
She said, “This is a Hemingway.
In Our Time
. First edition of his second book.”
She handled the novels with care, then returned them as she had found them.
She said, “This is like being in a quaint library. Hope you don’t mind my browsing.”
Isabel picked up
The Pregnant Widow,
then sat at my kitchen table and started to read.
She said, “So you’re a book collector and screenwriter,
Varg Veum
.”
The way she said my name made me pause. Isabel had come here for a reason.
She asked, “From where did you matriculate?”
“USC.”
“From Norway and went to USC?”
“Exchange student.”
“With no accent.”
“I still have it packed in one of these boxes. I’ll take it out and wear it later.”
“Varg Veum. USC. I’m a UCLA girl. I matriculated from Sarah Lawrence back east, had left London to go to school in Yonkers. But when I came out West, I never left. Loved the weather. I went back to UCLA for my master’s. So, on this coast, I’m a UCLA girl.”
Isabel looked around, again took in my leather-bound books, my furniture, my bruised right hand, curious, but too cultured and polite to ask the questions inside her head.
Then she
—(100) related articles.
Chapter 6
The moment Driver left, I showered and put on the same jeans that I had worn the last three days along with a severely wrinkled T-shirt. I grabbed my sullied sheets and headed downstairs. The elevator was still out, so I went down two flights of concrete stairs. The musty and badly painted laundry room was barely big enough for the three washers and three dryers, each a different color and model, each ancient and dented and marked with vulgar graffiti scratches. Only one washer and one dryer worked.
Someone had loaded their dark clothes in the only working dryer, then had been rude enough to abandon their belongings. My washing was done in twenty-five minutes and they still hadn’t returned. I yanked out the clothing and saw that it was the earthy apparel of a woman. I pulled out wrinkled, colorful T-shirts that had comical and incendiary sayings across the front:
ALL WOMEN MASTURBATE. GIVING BLOWJOBS IS AN ART. BUKKAKE QUEEN.
Reading her T-shirts distracted me. As did her lingerie. She had a ton of lingerie. Twenty minutes later I was taking out the last of her lingerie, folding and putting each item in her light blue plastic basket when she staggered in yawning and wearing Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms, a beat-up and severely wrinkled T-shirt that read NOBODY DIES A VIRGIN: LIFE FUCKS ALL, SO DO ME DOGGIE , and no makeup. Looked like she was living on very little sleep. She came my way andI still offered her no sound, no expression. She was tall enough to be a runway model, with keen features and clear skin. Eyebrows severely arched. Her dreadlocks were long, light brown waves that framed her face and cascaded over her shoulders like a cape.
She snapped, “
Vell, mudda sic
.”
She snatched up her clothing, yelled some vulgar pieces of her mind, then pushed me out of her way, and stormed out like she was going to get a gun to come back and shoot me.
After I finished drying my sheets, I returned to my hideout and made the bed.
There was another knock at my door.
The confrontation from earlier came to mind. Laundry Room Girl had probably tracked me down and had come seeking vengeance. But it wasn’t Laundry Room Girl. It was Sweet Isabel. Like an actor, I began to play the role of another character.
The Life of Varg Veum
. Isabel had on black pants and a short casual jacket, flat ballet-style shoes. She brought me a small fruit basket. Bringing food to a neighbor was the
Desperate Housewives
way of getting invited inside to snoop. Discomfort took root, but I remained cordial. I thanked her and carried the fruit to the kitchen, set everything on a circular cherry wood table that was bar height.
Isabel said, “Blimey. Look at all of these wonderful books you have.”
“Blimey? Did you just say
blimey?
”
She said, “This is a Hemingway.
In Our Time
. First edition of his second book.”
She handled the novels with care, then returned them as she had found them.
She said, “This is like being in a quaint library. Hope you don’t mind my browsing.”
Isabel picked up
The Pregnant Widow,
then sat at my kitchen table and started to read.
She said, “So you’re a book collector and screenwriter,
Varg Veum
.”
The way she said my name made me pause. Isabel had come here for a reason.
She asked, “From where did you matriculate?”
“USC.”
“From Norway and went to USC?”
“Exchange student.”
“With no accent.”
“I still have it packed in one of these boxes. I’ll take it out and wear it later.”
“Varg Veum. USC. I’m a UCLA girl. I matriculated from Sarah Lawrence back east, had left London to go to school in Yonkers. But when I came out West, I never left. Loved the weather. I went back to UCLA for my master’s. So, on this coast, I’m a UCLA girl.”
Isabel looked around, again took in my leather-bound books, my furniture, my bruised right hand, curious, but too cultured and polite to ask the questions inside her head.
Then she
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