Paulina & Fran by Rachel B. Glaser

Author:Rachel B. Glaser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

10

A week later, they all graduated in faux silk, then, like trash in the water, floated off to lousy jobs in obscure towns and heartless cities. Terrible things happened in the news. People killed one another in inventive ways, and Fran read about it guiltily, as if her interest promoted it.

Fran hadn’t expected to move to Upstate New York, but it was satisfying to paint houses. It felt human to trust ladders. It was the only job that responded. She’d gotten the call the same day she applied, and had accepted the offer before finding Hudson on a map. She’d be in nature! Or near nature.

She slept in the extra room of an old woman’s house. The room had two windows, a small closet, and a sooty fireplace where spiders traveled long distances to die. Fran used the fireplace as an altar for her one love letter from Julian and a student evaluation from Sampson. She looked to these little papers in the dark, evidence that she could impress people.

When Ruthie had showed her the house, Fran was so charmed by her quick wit and wise eyes that she hadn’t looked at the other apartments on her list. Fran imagined the old woman telling her life story over glasses of wine. Fran saw herself spiritually reviving the old woman, perhaps somehow encouraging a love affair between Ruthie and an old (but handsome) mailman or neighbor, and this successful union would be so emotionally satisfying that Fran wouldn’t mind being single herself, having done this good deed. These fantasies vanished once Fran moved in. It seemed Ruthie had saved all her energy and good spirits for that first meeting and now she returned to her normal state of reading the newspaper and forgetting she had water boiling. Nights, Ruthie slept in front of the television surrounded by a haunted civilization of dolls, figurines, and fake flowers.

As Fran tiptoed around Ruthie, she thought of her fellow graduates trying new drugs, seeing old bands, taking the road trip people took from one part of California to another. Weekends she took herself to the local bar, Gruff’s, dressed like she was still at school, waiting to be discovered. If Paulina were here she thought, we’d make friends with the old men playing Hearts, we’d flood the jukebox with Bowie and buy each other weird drinks—but Paulina had left her in the bathroom.

At the Lanfers’ house, which they were painting a very dark blue, she threw the tarp off the ladder and sat waiting for the others. The company was run by an angry old man. The other painters were men in their thirties and forties. They smoked and had tanned, worn skin. On break they all ate sandwiches in the shade. It felt very American to Fran.

She spoiled good days calling Julian’s old number and hearing the robot woman’s voice—the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service, please try again. Only I could be jealous of a computer’s voice, she thought.

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