Lucy's Launderette by Betsy Burke

always discovering new past lives, and for a while she’d drift around in the costume of the person she’d been until the next life or this life took her over. She’d been a friend of Archimedes, helping him on the construction of the great lighthouse at Alexandria. She’d been a general of Genghis Khan’s, in the end slicing off heads all along the Khan’s funeral route until her own head was sliced off. She’d been at the courts of Catherine the Great and Elizabeth the First. I envied her. She really got around.
    Reebee said again, “So how about this tea?”
    â€œLapsang souchong?”
    She shook her head as if I were a lost cause and sighed heavily, “Hibiscus tea. That’s what I’m going to give you. Your aura is demanding it.”
    She disappeared into the kitchen and I sat down on her couch. Reebee’s house had a view of the ocean from its glassed-in sunporch. I could see freighter lights glittering in the dark distant bay. The whole house shivered and shimmered with bells and wind chimes, Ojibwa dream catchers, wall hangings, mobiles. It was full of color and clutter in contrast to Sky’s high-rise apartment with its clean sparse lines and neutral colors.
    Reebee’s house always made me feel as if there were great and infinite possibilities, that my life could work out the way I wanted if I just applied myself somehow.
    She came back a few minutes later and set a tray with two mugs down on the coffee table. Without a word she grabbed both of my hands, scrutinized them, then frowned. “You haven’t been painting.”
    I told her about the Viking invasion.
    â€œSo the Swedish woman is supposed to help balance the budget.”
    I nodded.
    â€œAnd all this deficit is because of Frank the Writer?” asked Reebee.
    I nodded again. “The so-called writer. You’re welcome to say I told you so.”
    â€œI would never say I told you so. Tell me how it ended.”
    Â 
    The ending. It was funny because I had been thinking about the end of Frank just before Jeremy died. A few months back, Sky and I had had the bright idea of going for a drink at the Sylvia Hotel. Of course, I should have realized what a stupid choice the Sylvia was. As soon as I was through the door, I saw Frank. And god, it was like being in a time warp. He gave the impression of having been born in that spot, of never having moved, of having stagnated in that corner forever. The girl sitting across from him even looked a little like me. I felt sorry for her and hoped she didn’t have a lot of money in her bank account.
    I knew exactly what he was talking about, because his voice rose above the others, but also because I had endured his rant a million times. It was his party piece, his hobbyhorse. If only I’d known back then what it would all amount to. Back then, I’d thought he was very clever and intellectual.
    Frank was going on and on about the play Waiting for Godot.
    He’d dragged me to see it shortly after we first met. I’d been up for the whole of the previous night helping to mount an exhibit and was tired when I got to the theater.
    The play is about these two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, or Didi and Gogo, who are waiting for this guyGodot. I kept nodding off and waking up and whispering to Frank, “Has he arrived yet? Wake me when Godot arrives.” And Frank just looked at me with an expression that said, “What a pathetic ignoramus!” How was I to know Godot never shows up? The second time Frank dragged me to a different production of it, I found the play sort of funny in places and I actually stayed awake.
    As for the third and fourth productions, well, I’d rather not talk about it. Let’s just say I probably won’t sit through two showings when they make the movie.
    Afterward, the first time, we went for a drink at the Sylvia Hotel and Frank sat in his spot and lectured. Are Vladimir and