of them, the smooth brown glossiness. I thought of nothing but the eating. For twenty minutes I felt I was no longer inside of my body.
& this was the first time I discovered all the joys & possibilities of food.
I finished nearly half in my first sitting & felt very ill & I put the basket under my bed. To accomplish this I bent the high wicker handle until it broke. I vowed that I would never do such a thing again. But the next afternoon, my mother once again out of the house, I came home from school & finished the rest, & then went down into the kitchen to get more food, anything I could think of. Sugar sandwiches were a favorite of mine. Butter and sugar on soft white bread. I knew my mother could return at any time & I listened tensely for her key in the door, stuffing things into my mouth, swallowing dryly & painfully. I hid how much I was eating from her without wondering why.
Eventually she asked me what happened to my Easter basket & I told her that I took it to school to share with my friends.
How many times in my life have I reenacted that first episode? Thousands? Tens of thousands? For a time, when Yolanda was coming regularly, when I felt that the possibility of seeing Charlene again was real, I rarely ate at all except for mealtimes—& then it was only a reasonable amount, for me.
But these days I am up to my old tricks again, for I have been unable to reach Charlene’s son, & I have been unable to find the bravery it would take to leave a message. Three times now I have failed. Twice I dialed the number & faltered & hung up. A third time he answered—I heard him answer—and my voice gave out. I physically could not speak. So although there was a moment when I actually thought I might reconnect with Charlene or might meet her boy, that moment has passed. Hearing his voice took mine from me. And I have not heard again from Charlene Turner. I do not believe her boy needs a mentor or a tutor. I do not think he needs my help. I don’t know why she contacted me to begin with. I told myself that if she wanted me in her life she would call me again, and then every day I woke up expecting a call until finally I told myself, Arthur, you must stop getting your hopes up, it is probably doing very bad things to your health. For example I got a cold after my third day of hopefulness. So now I am not at all hopeful but this means that I’m very very glum, & therefore have resumed certain eating habits that for a time I had successfully eliminated.
On top of this Yolanda has disappeared. I have called and called her little pink cell phone. Since leaving my house over a week ago, she has not returned. I called her phone five days in a row. Then I tried calling the agency, tho I was hesitant to do this for fear of getting her in trouble. I phrased it very casually: “I was wondering if you still employed a certain Yolanda who used to clean for me,” but they said “O we haven’t heard from her in a long time.” So I then asked them if it might be possible for them to contact her and let her know I was interested in having her work for me again, “Because she was so thorough,” I said. And they said they had none of her information on file, which I presume was a lie. In any case it was a dead end.
I became very worried for her welfare, for the last time I saw her, her rabid lunatic boyfriend was practically pounding down my door to harm her. So I searched for her name online, to see if I could contact her parents or find a home address for her, or a landline. But nothing came up.
Once, when we were talking about the name of an actor we both liked, she mentioned that her full name was very long and elaborate.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“It’s stupid,” she said, embarrassed.
“Go on,” I said, and she told me her full name was Yolanda Maria José Veracruz de la Vega, which became a phrase that I repeated in my head over & over