Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,22

her but for a whisper or an occasional footstep or a song or the creak of my old old house. Today I heard clearly everything that she was picking up and putting down. Once she even slammed a door.

I was wondering if perhaps she was annoyed with me about something, & I racked my brain for what it could be. Perhaps the money I was giving to Home-Maid was not enough & I was supposed to pay her directly or tip her & this was etiquette that I did not know about. I could fix this.

I worked my way up off the couch and walked to the base of the stairs.

“Yolanda?” I said again, but she did not respond. To be fair I could not get myself to really shout to her, & I said her name in a fairly normal voice, so she probably didn’t hear me.

Tentatively I put a foot onto the bottom step and then I heaved my other foot onto it, pulling myself up by the banister.

& then I did this again & again. Seven times I did this.

Now I was breathing quite heavily and I felt several trickles of sweat find their way down the back of my neck and under my collar.

“Yolanda?” I said again. Nothing. Just her banging away. It sounded as if she were moving furniture.

I looked back over my shoulder & realized that I had gotten myself into a precarious position. However far up I went, I had to get back down. I was halfway up the first flight & suddenly I had a vision of losing my balance and tumbling backward & I started to get very dizzy and nauseated. I wanted to sit down but the steps were too small to accommodate me.

& that is when there came a vigorous knocking at my front door. It was accompanied by the sound of my doorbell buzzing several times in a row.

The banging upstairs stopped. I heard Yolanda emerge from whatever room she was in & walk down the second-floor corridor, & then I saw her face pop over the railing up there.

She seemed unfazed by the sight of me on the stairs.

Look at me, I wanted to tell her—I’ve climbed these for you.

“Who is it?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

“Can you get it?” she asked.

It took me a couple of minutes to get to the door & during this time the knocking got more and more vigorous.

I opened an inner door just a very small crack. There was a young man on the other side of the glass outer door, standing with his feet planted squarely on my stoop. I recognized him instantly: it was Junior Baby Love. He was wearing a neat blue bandanna tied around his forehead and on top of that a spotless Yankees cap with a gold sticker on it. He was wearing jeans that fitted him tightly to his skinny ankles and a sort of large aviator’s jacket. He was a handsome boy but looked rough & his tattoos were not well done in my opinion. The one on his neck, I now saw, said a lady’s name, and it was not Yolanda.

His mouth fell open a little bit stupidly.

I opened the door wider to let him have a really good look at me.

“May I help you?” I said finally, and he said he was looking for Yolanda.

I looked back inside and saw that Yolanda was still peering over the second-floor railing. She shook her head no.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “she’s not here right now.”

But then JBL noticed her and said “I SEE YOU! COME OUT HERE! JUST LEMME TALK TO YOU!”

He was pointing at her and he moved as if he might pull open the glass door.

So at this point I positioned myself so that I blocked the entire doorway.

“Apparently Yolanda doesn’t feel inclined to come outside,” I said. “May I take a message?”

But Junior Baby Love would not be swayed. He was still shouting at Yolanda, & he was not saying nice things, so gently I shut the door on him, at which point he resumed his pounding, so hard that I was afraid for the glass.

After I shut the door I turned around and saw that Yolanda was sitting on the topmost step with her knees drawn up & her arms about them & her head lowered. & the poor thing was shaking with sobs.

I walked to the bottom of the stairs & I looked up at her. In this