“Poor Harold….” Her words trailed off as she waded through the sea of unpacked boxes to the only window in that postage stamp of an apartment. Peeking through the slit in the drapes, she winced at the confusion of noise and people on the street below. “This isn’t Cotati, Harold.”

Cotati: its quaint summer cottages nestled between Napa and Sonoma… . Years ago Dora memorized the route there. She’d traced the map into one of the notebooks she always carried with her. Every day trip they’d taken to Cotati, she’d read Harold the directions as he drove the old Packard up the freeway. They’d planned to retire in Cotati. “Plans,” Dora scoffed. “Always changing, or getting changed for you.” She opened the window. “Not that I’m complaining, but at my age, Harold, this—”

Exhaust fumes and street noise grated on her nerves, but it was too hot inside to shut the window again. Fixing herself a tepid glass of instant tea, she avoided the box labeled “Harold” sitting next to her handbag on the kitchenette counter. She dragged a plastic chair to the window and sat looking out at nothing in particular, until she noticed the thrift shop across the street. Dora whispered Harold’s single-word prohibition against such places: “Germs.”

A clerk took in the outside sale rack, dropped a few items into a box marked “Free,” then locked the store and walked away. Dora craned her neck to the left, noting with little interest the 5:02 on the corner bank clock. Suddenly, she straightened in her chair. “Bag lady, Harold!”

A woman in an orange blouse and green polka dot skirt pushed a shopping cart piled with bulging plastic sacks into the thrift shop alcove. Dora grabbed her handbag, fished out her notebook and pen, then jotted down notes about the bag lady the way she used to keep track of Harold.

The woman peered into the shop window and rummaged through the free box. Then, with her hands clasped behind her, she paced up and down in front of the shop. “Like Groucho Marx,” Dora chuckled. Afraid the bag lady might look up and catch her watching, Dora backed away a bit from the window, yet she couldn’t keep her eyes off the woman.

The downtown emptied out of its business-day crowd. Buildings cast evening shadows on the street. Cars honked, pigeons cooed, catcalls and laughter came from the bar down the street, while in the middle of the alcove, the bag lady unrolled a bamboo mat and spread three blankets on top: yellow, pink, green. She folded back the green one. Dora’s chest tightened. “She’s going to sleep there, Harold. Somebody should do something.”

Dora fingered the pen in her hand as if that might make the answer flow onto the page. Harold would have known people to call, people who could help that poor soul.

Dora mopped her brow, tried to compose herself. “Irene, good night, Irene…” She sang the song in a whisper, as much to comfort herself as the woman with the green blanket pulled over her head. The street woman lay there, as still as stone.

Dora turned from the window, fumbled for the light switch. Her old neighborhood was only a few miles away: her cozy flat, Netty Franklin upstairs, the Walters across the street… . But all that was behind her now. In search of comfort, she picked up the box labeled “Harold,” pried loose the tape, lifted out the urn. Harold’s heart attack, the funeral—too much, too fast. “You should have waited, Harold.”

Harold the speeding train, and she the caboose. “Harold, your keys…Harold, your lunch…” she’d call, hurrying after him. But now Harold had really eluded her—left her behind. And left the lawyer, with all his paperwork and details, to give her the shocking news: Harold had unwisely invested their Cotati cottage savings, and creditors had taken the rest. There would be no cottage in Cotati. Years of frugality, denying herself so many small luxuries…

Probably for the best, the lawyer’s opinion. “At your age, you shouldn’t be stuck out in the boonies,” he’d said. But with only Harold’s small pension, Dora could no longer afford their flat. “Get a little place downtown,” the lawyer had advised. “Sell the car, walk to stores, the library, ride the bus. Downtown there’ll be lots of people to meet.”

Dora thought about the woman asleep on the pavement. “I don’t want to meet anyone here.” She clutched Harold’s urn to her chest. “What am I going to do, Harold?” For the longest time she sat with the urn, staring through her tears at the boxes surrounding her. “Well, Harold,” she finally said, “I can’t have you sitting out in this mess.” She settled the urn back in its box, resealed the tape as best she could. She’d have to decide where to put things, to hang things.

“Not much you can hang on two-by-four walls,” Dora muttered. “But let us be thankful for the little we have. Right, Harold?”

Clothes…kitchenware…linens…. She unpacked what she needed: one of everything. Then she tugged and slid the boxes toward one wall, piling those she could lift two deep, three high. Standing on a chair, she stretched her tiny frame to set Harold’s box on the very top. She placed another box in front of it, so Harold wouldn’t be offended by a view of disorder. “Hope you appreciate my effort, Harold,” she wheezed. Leaning against the open window to catch her breath, she saw the woman still lying in the shadows. “Irene.”

The garbage truck woke Dora early. She hurried to the window. Irene. Rolling up her blankets, her mat. Just before the clerk arrived to open the thrift shop, Irene left.

From then on, first thing each morning, Dora hurried past the wall of boxes to check on her bag lady. “Bedding’s packed in the cart,” she’d report to Harold high atop the stack or, “Ten minutes later than yesterday, Harold.” And each evening at five, as the thrift shop closed, Dora peered down the street. “Here she comes, Harold.” Irene’s arrival, she’d jot in her notebook, adding the time and date.

Dora also noted that Irene was neat, clean-looking. Too loud in her choice of colors, perhaps. “Will you look at that, Harold, a purple blouse with yellow and fuchsia stripes.” Dora was used to wearing more somber tones: brown, gray, navy. Although she vaguely remembered a rose-colored blouse with yellow daisy buttons. But she’d been so young then, before Harold, as he’d often said, took her under his wing. Bright colors gave Harold headaches.

On days when the afternoon heat drove Dora out of the apartment, she walked to the nearby air-conditioned strip mall with the dress shop and 24-hour supermarket. There she kept an eye on the clock, making sure to be home in time for Irene, while she spent too much of her precious money, sometimes on things she didn’t really need, especially to satisfy her newfound craving for blouses.

She imagined Harold’s look of disapproval each time she carried a new blouse home in its white plastic bag, tucked like contraband into her grocery sack. Then, oh, how delicious to slide a blouse out of the bag, feel its newness spread across her fingers as she slipped it onto a hanger. Not having the courage to wear them, Dora hid her cache of blouses at the back of the closet and wondered where Irene stored clothes she wasn’t wearing. There was little room in her cart for extras.

And where did she wash her clothes—or herself? And where would Irene relieve herself? Dora shuddered at the thought of squatting outdoors. But she jotted down these questions in her notebook under a new category: Bathroom. She remembered the restroom sign in the 24-hour supermarket: “No bathing or sleeping allowed here.”

So disturbing, thinking about survival tactics. Yet Dora enjoyed stretching her imagination to reach possible solutions. “I did that for you too, Harold.” Boxes of notebooks filled with Harold’s favorite recipes, his clothing needs, his interests, his work-related stresses. Dora eyed them piled against the wall and wondered if there had been a Harold in Irene’s life. One without a pension, Dora figured. Or with too many debts and no retirement cottage. Dora pressed her lips into a tight line.

“And not even one night, Harold.” That’s all Dora had wished for, one night in one of those nice little Cotati motels—pretty trees, flower borders. She’d looked up the rates, written them in a notebook along with the map. “Cheaper by the week, Harold.” But Harold had no time for detours that interfered with their budget, their plans. Plans—that word again.

One hot Saturday as Dora sat at the window, waiting for Irene, a wedding party filed upstairs to the Masonic Hall above the thrift shop. Dora winced at the loud music that poured from the hall’s open picture windows. She squinted, eyeing the guests in their finery, the bride, the groom, laughing, dancing.

“Ten minutes with the judge.” That’s how she and Harold got married. Harold, so handsome in his hound’s-tooth jacket; she in her green felt hat with the eye of a peacock’s feather tucked in the band, Dora patted her head, remembering. And after the ceremony, that funny little thing Harold did. Putting her hat on his head, he’d sung in her ear till she burst with laughter. “I wear my green fedora for Dora, for Dora…”

We’re a team; that’s what Harold had told her. She gathered the facts; Harold made the decisions. “I trusted you, Harold.” Dora’s voice was drowned out by excited shrieks as the bride tossed her bouquet. Just then, Irene arrived, seeming not to notice the commotion above. Two young women came downstairs from the party. A man followed, talking with them. They laughed, fanning themselves. When they noticed Irene sitting on her bedroll, the women moved away, but the man approached her.

“Leave her alone,” Dora whispered. But Irene didn’t seem to mind when the man sat on the pavement beside her. Dora strained forward, wishing she could hear their conversation. The man offered Irene a cigarette. She reached for it. Dora tensed, Harold’s often-repeated words on her lips: “Dirty habit.”

Irene and the intruder puffed their cigarettes. Dora rolled the pen between her fingers, wet her lips, the remembered tang of tobacco on her tongue. In her notebook she wrote, Cigarettes—ways to obtain them.

The man took out a black book from his jacket pocket. To Dora’s surprise, Irene pulled some books from the cart, but they didn’t seem to interest the man. He held up his book, tapping it for emphasis, then read aloud.

“Like those door-to-door preachers, Harold.” How Harold could lecture about not opening the door to them. “Rather the preachers than your ranting, Harold.”

But this man: was he someone Irene knew, or just a curious stranger? Who would notice, or care, if someone tried to harm Irene? Dora added another category to her notebook list: Safety. She kept an eye on Irene until the man left and the party ended, all the while thinking about crime and stories of cons and scams she’d heard on the six o’clock news. She checked the lock on her door, checked it again. Then she returned to the window, to watch over her sleeping friend.

Dora imagined Irene reading in the park the way she often had. She smiled, remembering how she’d scurry home to straighten the house before Harold arrived. Then Dora’s smile faded. In her notebook she wrote, Perfection for protection. “Well, I did my part, Harold.” Dora’s eyelids grew heavy. “What’ll happen to us, Irene?”

The next morning, as Irene packed up her bedroll, Dora woke with a crick in her neck and a plan. Late that afternoon, ignoring Harold’s admonition about germs, Dora went over to the thrift shop. But she didn’t go inside. She slipped a plastic bag into the free box, then hurried home to sit by the window and wait.

When Irene arrived, Dora felt giddy. She leaned against the windowsill, watching Irene pick through the free box, find the bag, and the cobalt-blue blouse inside. “Hope you like it, Irene. It’s really not my color.”

Irene looked around, as if expecting someone to take the blouse away from her, then she buried it deep in the folds of her cart.

“Don’t worry, Irene, there are more.”

And indeed there were—fuchsia, yellow, floral, polka dot… Every other day, near closing time, Dora made a trip to the free box. The following evenings she thrilled to see the clothes from her closet adorning her street friend. Then, late one Friday afternoon, Dora made an even bolder move. She ventured inside the shop, intent on finding some skirts to go with Irene’s blouses. But when the clerk announced closing time, Dora hurried from the store. Squinting into the setting sun, she almost collided with the sale rack—and Irene.

“You don’t belong here!” Dora blurted out. She meant to say Irene was too early, but it came out all wrong. The startled street woman stared at her. Dora stared back until, feeling naked in Irene’s steady gaze, she flipped down her clip-on sunglasses. The blouse-of-the-day slipped from her hand as she scuttled across the street to her building. Shaking, she rode the elevator to her apartment, then crawled into bed, not daring to look out the window.

Irene the Bag Lady didn’t come Saturday or Sunday. She was still absent on Monday. “It’s my fault.” Dora repeated this like a mantra as she paced from the window to the door and back again. “I scared her away. I didn’t mean to.” Then Dora stopped her pacing, gazed out the window. “She’ll be back.”

Day after day, Dora sat by the window, waiting, humming her Irene song. Summer was ending. Dora shivered in the cool evening air. Irene would need a warm jacket. Jacket… In a frenzy Dora searched through the stacks of boxes. Standing on a chair, she edged toward the box she thought she wanted, one at the top of the pile. It slipped from her grasp, started to fall. She grabbed for it, knocking over the box behind—the one labeled “Harold.”

Dora watched, horrified, as the “Harold” box tumbled, hit a chair, and popped open, foam pellets flying as the urn careened toward the floor. It split open on impact. Ashes poured over the carpet and billowed into the air. Dazed, Dora felt the last of Harold billow up around her, then fall away as the ashes of what her life had been settled to the floor.

A wave of panic seized her. She tried to scoop up the ashes with her hands, but the grains sifted through her fluttering fingers. She stared at the gray powder coating everything. “Ashes to ashes…” she said in a shaky voice, “dust to dust.” Then, as she plugged in the vacuum, she repeated other words, words so dear to Harold: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

When the vacuum bag was full, Dora sat with it in her lap and gazed out the window until light faded from the sky. Then she got up, slipped the screen from the window. “Good-bye,” she whispered as she slit open the bag. She shook it out the window the way she had shaken dust from her mop before she owned a vacuum, back when she and Harold were young, when beginning was closer than end.

Dora watched the wind catch and scatter the fragments of her married life. Tiny specks drifted downward to the street, coating buildings, cars, like a benediction. At last, turning away from the window, she picked up her notebook with a trembling hand. Slowly, she read it through. Where was she, Dora, in those pages? Who was the person who had catalogued the daily activities of the anonymous street woman? And in all those other notebooks, whose was the hand that penned their pages, charted the life of a man who barely knew her? In all her careful chronicling of other people’s lives, where was Dora? Alone with herself now, Dora wept.

Out on the street, Dora zipped up her jacket. She rearranged her few possessions in the shopping cart, then pushed the cart down the street, against the wind. Her legs ached by the time she reached the strip mall, but she continued. In time, they’d find her note in the apartment—and the boxes. It gave her a surge of energy to imagine the befuddled maintenance man hauling those boxes out of the apartment and across the street to their free box destination.

She pushed on, past the dress shop, the 24-hour supermarket. Across the parking lot, past the bus and train stations, the used car lot. The wind whipped around her ankles, ruffling the hem of her new plaid pantsuit. When she finally stopped, she hauled Harold’s old leather Pullman out of the cart, swung her handbag over her shoulder. Then, with both hands, she dragged the heavy suitcase across the threshold of Randy’s Rent-A-Car. The young woman behind the counter hurried over to help her.

“I want to rent a car,” Dora said, out of breath. As she drew out her driver’s license and checkbook, a complimentary pack of Virginia Slims cigarettes fell from her handbag. Dora blushed. “Dirty habit.”

The young woman smiled, reached for an order form. “One-way or round-trip?”

Dora twisted the strap of her handbag. “One-way. But I’ll need your help with directions.” She pulled out an old, dog-eared notebook. “I was careful tracing the map. It always got us there, but that was a while ago and, you see, things change.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “Destination?”

Dora smiled. “Cotati.”

Tears and Trombones

by Nanci Lee Woody

Persimmon Tree readers will recognize and love young Joey’s mother, Ellie, as she navigates through poverty and around a philandering, alcoholic husband to help her boy achieve his dream of becoming a classical musician. She scrimps and saves to take her nine-year-old boy to the San Francisco Symphony to hear Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, though she had never before set foot in a concert hall. Readers will follow Joey through his childhood with all its real-life pain and watch him use his creativity to “get even” for his dad’s cruelty. Though his relationship with his mother is not without trials, she models for him loyalty, persistence, and hard work, and allows no excuses when times are hard. In high school, Joey is torn between his love for a curly-haired beauty and pursuing his musical dream. When another girl courts him and offers to help him pay his way through college and music lessons, Joey marries her, thus forming a tormented love triangle. You will follow Joey as he becomes a successful musician. But, having achieved his musical goals, will Joey ever be able to set right his personal life? Available on Amazon Check out Nanci’s website for samples of her writing and art. Nancileewoody.com And click here to hear the music in Tears and Trombones.

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