Grey City Rhapsody

XIX: Paint It Black

           From one decrepit location to another. Ash had donned the oversized canvas jacket from the back seat and wrapped Zelda in a saddle blanket. The Doran residence was not condemned by any means, but the lawn was wild, the window on the first floor was broken, and the front door was splintered around the handle. As Ash secured the blanket around Zelda's shoulders, she got a closer look at her right hand. She bore a few tattoos: one a minimalistic bee outline on her ring finger, and a series of brightly colored honeycombs starting under her fore knuckle and disappearing beneath the crusted sleeve of her sweater. Up close, the woman's eyes were bruised from sleeplessness, her complexion yellowed from excessive drinking. Despite the wrappings, she vibrated as if she were standing naked atop a breezy hill. Clouds gathered in the distance as the two crossed into the threshold of Juliette's last known location.

The house bore three years of neglect like a practiced champion. Ash recalled that Mrs. Doran had worked several manual labor jobs and a few assistant ones, including one brief stint at a paper mill in Ellsworth, and the nurse registry at Cedar General hospital, even the Saloon when she inevitably couldn't keep them.

Ash remembered a lazy Sunday afternoon when Nick had talked at Jordan over hashbrowns and eggs. 

Zelda Jane is at it again, he said. She's gone and gotten fired again.

What-- from Cedar General? Nick nodded. Jesus, first the paper mill, now this. Later, over burnt steak and raw green beans, Jordan pondered aloud how Zelda's eldest daughter had stayed for so long.

It was a wonder that Ash now found herself escorting the roughed woman into the place that was once her home. Dust floated in what little dying light fluttering in through the window. Once the door shut behind them, Mrs. Doran sauntered aimlessly through the main floor, brushing her fingers over sentimental and random items. Her bee tattoo danced as she passed her hand over a flower pot decorated with hexagons like the ones on her wrist.

Ash remembered Bee Doran, the elder daughter. Bee was never one of Ash and Mikey's friends, but they had classes together. Every day after school, Bee was out the door and running off to pull every job in the neighborhood an underage kid could. Newspaper routes, lawn care and gardening, babysitting. She got into fights with Valdez and Escobar kids, until she stopped asking for work in the Mexican villa, or stopped getting it. Ash had never watched a white girl work so hard and still not be able to afford lunch. Looking over the photograph on the fireplace mantle told her some of that money must have went to her little sister.

Pink. They always wore shades of pink, sometimes with accents of yellows and golds. Bee held Juliette in her arms, they must have been thirteen and two at the time. The little toddler was kicking her legs, one of her toes caught in her sister's autumnal locks. The quality of the picture was so high you could clearly see the girls' noses pressed together even beneath the waves of hair obscuring their eyes. They seemed happy, their smiles genuine and free of responsibility. Zelda Jane was napping before them, her sunglasses had a dark, rose tint and she rested her head on her arm. The family lay on the same green fleece blanket, but no picnic basket or travel bag insight. Ash couldn't figure out who might have taken the picture, not that it mattered much.

[Bee wears a striped bee themed knit sweater and ripped jeans. Juliette is in a pink peter pan dress, a cartoon bee ironed onto the pocket of her chest. And Zelda Jane is wearing a crepe or rouge colored cashmere crewneck over a collared white shirt. Not pictured, but She does not have the bee finger tattoo yet, as Bee had not run away. Her honeycomb tattoo is unfinished, outlined but colorless.]

In the hallways, Zelda Jane ran her ink covered hand over the objects of her home. She drug her fingers through the dust like they didn't belong to her. The lamps, the photographs, the line of shoes. The woman entered a bedroom at the back of the house and began to rifle through the trunk at the end of the bed. Sweaters, worn and woolen and so loved the colors were fading. Black and yellow striped, jade green, carnation and indigo checkered, maroon. Ash went up the stairs to give her some privacy, and to find the room she really came for. A quick swipe of the keyboard and she had sent a location text to Mikey, a bit of an afterthought really.