ELEVATOR CHAPTER TEN: CHANGE CLOTHES AND GO
The old devil leaves and I get back to trying to get the wine and bloodstain off my dress, but all to no avail, this is exactly why I don’t ever wear cashmere.
On the brink of panicking, could this night get any worse I ask myself, then I realize I came up with my little clutch bag, and inside it is my cellphone.
I reach for the little clutch bag like a horny overseas marine officer reaches for his wife’s bra after three years of overseas service in Alaska or some other distant land.
Before then it took me about thirty seconds or more to figure out where I kept the bag, after all a lot had happened since I came into this bathroom, I’ve cried twice and thrown more tantrums than a toddler, ruined my make up and applied it again, I’ve made a deal with the deal amongst other things.
My eyes finally settle on the little clutch bag lying innocently on the floor, untouched, as if the Wolf did not almost burn in this bathroom.
I bend down with great difficulty, my whole body feels stiff, the cashmere material and the tightness of the dress is not even making things any easy, at this point it feels like I am clad in a fancy onesie. I pick up the clutch bag and open it, stick my hand inside with reckless abandon, let my fingers dance around, inside the dark crevice a until they find my cellphone and I being out the device and put a call through to Juanita, our little cleaning lady from Puerto Rico.
The Kitchen landline phone rings twice and somebody picks up.
“Ola, McPherson residence, what can I help you?” a soft, pleasant sounding Latina voice with a strong drawling Puerto Rican accent, punctuated by forced hard “R’s” in a bid to sound as American as can be, emerge from the other end of the line.
“Yeah Juanita, thank God it’s you” I reply in a panicking rush.
“Miss McPherson, is that you, where are you, your father is ehhh caliente loco…” Juanita says, then pauses to try and figure out the phrase to say what she means in English, then goes “your papa very mad with you” in her comic broken Puerto Rican accent doused English.
” Let him get mad, it’s his fault all of his is happening in the first place, listen carefully Juanita, head to my bedroom, open my dresser…” Juanita pauses me mid sentence and asks “what is dressah, madame?”
“let me finish Juanita,” I continue speaking, ” a dresser is my wardrobe, open it and look by the left side, just next to my blue trench coat and my white fur coat, you’ll see a green and purple dress, grab it from me. and bring it to the general bathroom, quickly Juanita I need it immediately.”
“Okay madame, I vamos” She responds in a hurry and hangs up so hard that I could hear the phone bang from my end.
A few minutes later Juanita bursts through the bathroom door half-panting and hands me the green and purple dress I asked for, I aks her assistance in putting on the dress after taking of the tight cashmere dress my dad’s maids put me in to display me to his rich friends like an art exhibition.
I put on the dress with great difficulty, avoiding any contact that would ruin my new make up.
Then I head downstairs, happy that the mood was a bit down, like a lot had happened since I’ve been gone. My father gave me a cold stare as if to say “don’t try anything silly this time, or your mom gets it!” I stare back as if to say, “I dare you, you grey haired devil,” but I wouldn’t dare him, I mean I would but not now that my mother’s life is involved, it’s simply just too much to risk, my Dad is a powerful man.
It’s been three days since the party, I’ve been burying myself in work in a bid to forget the humiliating events that took place that night, it’s Friday and I’ve been thinking about taking some work home because I don’t want to be ideal which will lead me to think about my life crashing and I’m really tired of crying.
So I decided to stop by a movie rental place and get every season of “Friends” that I can find, maybe Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox and the rest of the gang will help cheer me up, or at least make me forget that I’ve not been cheerful for a week.
My best friend hits my line and goes on and on about this new guy she met at the club and how he gave her the best sex of her life, until she noticed I was not responding then she forces the reason for my cold reaponse8out of me, I hate Sheila for this one reason, she just knows how to get information out of me.
Truthfully I would rather listen to her describe her sex encounter with a stranger with a very veiny member, detailing every single vein, than tell her about my forced marriage to an Asshole just because my father cannot say no to money and power.
“What the hell were you thinking, Anna?” She screams over the glasses of Margarita in front of us, just like when she asked this question on the phone she did not let me respond and kept going on and on about how forced marriages lead to generational emotional trauma and then my children may grow up to hate me and whatnot, all courtesy of an edition of Metropolitan magazine from the stone age that she read one time in college, my best friend Sheila is a very unique individual to say the least.
“Listen girl, I know it was a crappy deal, I don’t know about all that generational trauma stuff you’re talking about but I do know that I’m not a naive 12 year old, I know better than to trust the old Devil, I know what I’m doing, I had to compromise for my Mom’s sake,” I assure Sheila.
“Girl, I know you are not 12 but it’s just that this is McPherson we are talking about, if he is smart enough to make all those Billions then he is smart enough to keep you and your plans at bay, I wonder how you are going to manage to outsmart the cunning fox,” she say with resignation in her voice and raises her glass of Margarita and holds it up for a toast.
Our glasses clink and she takes the glass straight to the head, while I’m just happy that she stopped talking.
The music is loud, people are chattering enjoying, and I begin to ponder why I let Sheila drag me out here when I could have been snuggling in my bedroom watching fuve friends and their monkey, actually David Schwinmer’s monkey and all their shenanigans to help me cope with my problems.
Now I’m stuck at this bar where I have no interest in being and I suddenly feel guilty about making a deal with the Devil and getting my mother in harm’s way if my plans fail.