Read Online After Delores by Sarah Schulman - Free Book Online

by candlelight until some big dude steps, suddenly, out from the shadows. He whips out his knife and delivers a speech about why he killed Punkette, including all the practical details. He tops it all off with a sinister laugh and lunges for Charlotte’s throat. That’s when I’d pull out my revolver and let him have it right in the gut. We’d leave his corpse for the rats and run out, euphoric, onto the street. Charlotte would love me forever for that. She’d throw her arms around me and cry real tears. I’m sure everything would feel better then.
    If Charlotte and I were going to find Punkette’s killer, we had to get started soon. I hadn’t heard from her since that day in the park and it scared me to think she might be slipping out of my life. I couldn’t let that happen. I put on Delores’s shirt again. There are those of us in this world who understand nothing about clothes, about what looks good and why. When one garment succeeds, it becomes a permanent part of the repertoire, a habitual sure thing. Delores’s shirt had worked for Delores and, so far, it had worked for me. Now there were other, more pressing, matters.
    It was almost comfortable walking over to the theater. Charlotte’s neighborhood and I were getting used to each other, or maybe I was becoming part of it. Some streets in New York City are fab and their people are fabulous too. Some streets are preoccupied and keep to themselves. Some are broken and tired. Some accept things the way they are. Charlotte’s streets compose their own universe with their own personal sense of order and not too many questions or possibilities. They’re not romantic or inviting but that’s why they suck you in. Especially if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t feel like looking at the future right now.
    The front door wasn’t locked so I stepped into the theater’s cool darkness. Beatriz was there again, alone in the front row. I knew I shouldn’t disturb her, because she was busy thinking about something dramatic. And, I probably shouldn’t involve her in the Punkette thing, because her feelings must be very mixed. But I was curious about what kind of woman would shove Charlotte around in order to get her to do what she wanted her to and then have it work. Beatriz seemed to be staring at the empty stage. Every once in a while she would make a little sound, a snort of recognition, and then, a note.
    â€œExcuse me.”
    She looked up, interrupted but smiling graciously. A person with very good upbringing. Diplomatic. Not a common person.
    â€œYou are Marianne’s friend, aren’t you?” That scared me right down to my fillings.
    I thought Charlotte didn’t want her to know about Marianne. Or was it that Charlotte specifically did not want Beatriz to talk to me about Marianne? Did I know something special or had Charlotte changed her mind? I wanted to get out of there but she beat me to it by saying, “Come in and sit down. I’ve been waiting for you.”
    She was miles ahead of me and flaunted it with style. She knew more than she should have known but was polite enough to tell me so. Beatriz didn’t let suspense hang in the air like the melodrama of a waterfront movie, foghorns and mist. There were no raised eyebrows or padded shoulders and vampire nails. No, she said it like she was really thinking about something else, but in the meantime this little detail needed to be dealt with, simply that she knew more than I had told her and that was that.
    â€œBeatriz Piazzola, like the musician.”
    She tapped the chair next to her with a pencil. Then we were both staring at the empty stage.
    â€œI warned Marianne not to let strangers into a home, hers or anybody else’s. But what can you do when children want everything to be so beautiful?”
    She was Latin, but not from PR and not from Santo Domingo, with a soft accent and bad skin. Her English was