Old Ladies by Nancy Huddleston Packer

Author:Nancy Huddleston Packer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: women, aging, widows, short stories, Palo Alto California, Stanford University
ISBN: 978-1-56474-761-7
Publisher: Daniel & Daniel Publishers
Published: 2012-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

Two’s Company

Rosa Perdido was four feet eleven inches of muscle and energy, every erg packed with prickle. Virginia Blankenship was six slender feet of controlled good manners. One dark, the other fair. One poor, the other well off. One an immigrant from Manila, the other not quite back to the Mayflower but close. Of an age, which was a year or so over sixty. For eleven months, they had met every Tuesday in the Blankenships’ seven-room flat on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Rosa did the cleaning and the laundry and Virginia wrote children’s books.

Rosa admired Mrs. B, as she called Virginia. The cashmere sweaters, the well-kept nails, the brownstone full of expensive textures and elegant antiques, the husband who wore dark suits and silk neckties and spoke in a soft voice. And she was proud of working for a writer, a real writer. Shortly after Rosa had begun working for the Blankenships, Mrs. B had given her a copy of The Crocodile’s Dinner Party signed “To my friend Rosa.” On her way home to Brooklyn, Rosa often stopped in at Barnes and Noble in Grand Central to make sure the book was prominently displayed in the Children’s Books section and to tell the clerk that Virginia Blankenship was her very good friend. At these moments Rosa loved Mrs. B.

But something would happen between them, and then the woman’s very existence brought bile to Rosa’s mouth and rage to her heart. Leaving the room before Rosa had finished her story. Explaining how to run the new vacuum cleaner or how to apply for citizenship, things Rosa knew better than Mrs. B did. And sometimes Mrs. B spoke with irritation when Rosa was trying to do her work. Just a stupid rich woman.

Rosa was sure that she was smarter than Mrs. B and knew things Mrs. B had never even heard of and done things Mrs. B would shudder to know and lived in places that would frighten Mrs. B bald-headed. If she had had half Mrs. B’s chances, she would have done much better than Mrs. B ever could. She would have a grander apartment than Mrs. B’s, not decorated in pale, washed-out colors but in rich reds and blues. She would have written a large, important book, a book for grown-ups, not a teeny tiny book for kids who couldn’t even read them. And she wouldn’t be married to a wimp like Mr. B but to someone bold and confident—at least that son-of-a-bitch Antonio hadn’t been a sissy with a puny voice and soft useless hands.

Virginia never came close to “loving” Rosa, but she did admire her gritty determination. She admired the fact that Rosa had taken classes at night school and spoke an absolutely perfect English, that Rosa took pains with her appearance and came to work decked out in stylish designer clothing that she proudly said she bought for a song at a nearly-new shop just off Madison, that she took pride in doing a good job, dreary as the work was, and left the apartment gleaming.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.