Glamour Ghoul by Sandra Niemi

Author:Sandra Niemi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feral House
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

In the wake of Jimmy’s death, New York City offered a new beginning. A hopeful Maila moved into a third-floor walk-up in a brownstone at 136 West 46th Street. The former tenant’s name, Peggy Willson, was not yet removed from the mailbox slot in the foyer.

Maila’s move may have been impulsive, but it wasn’t entirely ill-conceived. Of course, memories of Jimmy were too fresh in Hollywood, but Maila moved to New York to be near Tony Perkins, who was back on Broadway. She had a kind of desperate need to sustain their blossoming friendship. The bonus was that Perkins’ East Coast connections could potentially bring her work in the theater as well.

Not that she longed to be an actress. She was still holding out to become an evangelist. It wasn’t that she was even religious. It was just that evangelism was something she was familiar with, having listened to her father’s orations for so many years. As well, Maila still held out hope of somehow being able to fund an animal sanctuary or the ability to help abandoned animals in some capacity. She hoped that as a woman proselytizing, gowned in lavender from head to toe, she could find a niche that could fund that dream.

The apartment was barren except for an enormous pile of shredded lavender cellophane, used as postal packaging. The excelsior served as Maila’s makeshift bed, above which she hung a photo of a Tibetan monk she’d torn out of a magazine. On the floor sat a vase with her 13 vulture feathers.

Years before, Peter the Hermit, the bearded, robed, self-proclaimed metaphysician who prowled Hollywood Boulevard by day and lived in a tent by night, told Maila her aura was lavender, “the sign of the spiritual seeker.” The pile of lavender packaging that the former tenant had left behind delighted Maila. She interpreted it as a sign that she was on the right track with her evangelistic pursuits.

With the few dollars she had, she splurged on a can of paint and, in an attempt to create a sanctuary of harmony, Maila painted everything in her living space an ethereal shade of lavender. And not just the walls—anything that would accept a coat of paint, including the icebox, the stove, and her suitcase. In doing so, she believed her personal energies and the lavender splendor of her surroundings would merge to resurrect Sister Saint Francis who, wearing a lavender-hued nun’s habit, would become a champion of animals.

Until the rebirth of another of her alter egos could manifest, Maila relied heavily upon Tony for companionship. He showed up at all times of the day or night for a glass of coffee, and if she were lucky, he’d bring her food. (She had no cups and no money.) Tony was assigned a specific knock so that Maila would know when he was at her door. In the unlikely event she found a more intimate kind of companionship, or simply wanted to be left alone, she would then open the

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