Lucy's Launderette by Betsy Burke Page B

went to get the scissors from my sewing box. While Frank slept, I sheared a chunk of hair out of the middle of the back of his head, as short as I could get it without rousing him. His hair was shoulder-length at the time and he was quite vain about it. I opened the bedroom window and let the lock of hair waft down to the street below. Didi and Gogo saw me. I waved to them, still silently blubbering, and began to drop Frank’s things out the bedroom window. They hurried over and gathered up as much of his stuff as they could carry or cram into their shopping carts. When I’d finished, I yelled so that the whole neighborhood could hear, “Godot has arrived.”
    Frank woke up with a start and said, “Wuzza?”
    I threatened him with my aerosol-pump can of pepper spray, told him to put on his disgusting corduroy jacket and leave. He staggered out of the apartment in a stupor, wearing nothing but that jacket and his boxer shorts, and the last I saw of him, he was playing tug-of-war for his possessions with Didi and Gogo at the back of the building.
    Â 
    â€œThat was a bit naughty of you,” said Reebee. “You realize you had to go through it. Being with Frank had its purpose although it’s usually a while before we know what that purpose is. Did you press charges?”
    â€œNo. I was too embarrassed. I didn’t want anybody to know how stupid I’d been by putting up with such a lout. I thought I was supporting the next Michael Ondaatje.”
    Reebee smiled. “I grew up in the sixties and seventies, Lucy sweetheart. You and Sky, you girls, your generation is miles ahead of mine. I fell for men just because they had nice threads and longer, nicer hair than mine. Now tell me about your dreams.”
    Reebee always asked about my dreams. When I first started taking my problems to her, I was always asking whether or not I was going crazy. It was my private terror, that the genetic pool would try to drown me, that I’d become like Dirk, put on a Supergirl costume and start wandering around town harassing people, and not even realize I was doing it. According to Reebee, my dreams could gauge my mental state. In fact, it was Reebee who first encouraged me to start painting them all those years ago.
    So I told her about the one I’d had the night before.
    Mother was having a big house party. My father was nowhere around, in fact I didn’t even know he existed. It was sort of like our house in Cedar Narrows but it was better. There were more rooms and conservatories and rolling lawns. Drunken guests were sprawling everywhere and having a good time and I was aware that they’d been there all night, that it was light out and morning was coming. I wentinto the dining room and there was my mother and her new husband sitting at a very elegant table, just the two of them, about to have breakfast, like the king and queen of some land where people did nothing but party. The table was set with white linen and silverware, croissants and orange juice and caffe latte.
    My mother’s new husband was Ugo Tognazzi, the actor who was in La Cage aux Folles, the macho one living with the transvestite performer.
    In the dream, I was quite pleased with my mother’s choice of husband. When I came up to the table, UgoTognazzi told me that he had decided to give me a present for my high school graduation. He was holding a Victoria’s Secret catalogue and pointing at pictures of fancy black lace underwear. I told him that I’d graduated from high school years ago. So then he said, “University graduation then, you did graduate from university, didn’t you?” And in the dream I honestly couldn’t remember if I had or not. I had the sensation that there was a lot of unfinished business left over from university days.
    Ugo Tognazzi said, “Look, this is what I’m going to give you.” It was the same shawl that keeps showing up in my other dreams: the white