You Never Know Who You Will Meet

The package arrived just in time. I had been relegated to reading last chapter first back-to-front of the books we had left, just to make them interesting. All the good reads had been read, sold and traded away and I saw nothing interesting coming through the door. I check my post office box every couple of weeks, whenever I remember, so when I saw the notice of a parcel it meant one thing. The package of previously read New Yorkers had arrived, fresh from MBs coffee table. No duty on used books, it is supposed to be, but sometimes the government gets greedy and charges duty on postage. A tax on a tax. No duty on this package, I got off Scotch free, like the tape, clear and sticky. Raschell, the new postmistress, smiling as always, was happy to give me the package and to announce no duty due. I can’t believe how grown up she is now, all behaving like a lady. I remember when she was in the competition for Miss Lobsterfest, the beauty pageant which kicks off the season. I rooted for her, and she should have won, but you know how things go on a small Spanish island.

I wanted to rip open the package right there and lay down in the warm sand to read, but I didn’t. Instead, I put it in the bright blue bubble carrier on the back of the motorscooter and pretended I was out getting my exercise as I rode back to the house on the beach. Good literature is a bargainable commodity here and I savor each issue, keeping a small stash of them here and there, strategic spots hidden in the house. Bigness has learned the hard way about what happens when he disposes of my shredded poured over literature. I only bringing into the store what I can “afford” to lose. I tear through the fiction, then read the book and art reviews before reading any non-political story. Sorry, John McCain, I skip right over you. I’ve come to realize that most art in New York looks like vomit on canvas reflecting the feelings of aMerica. You can see these things from afar. I read the sardonic descriptions and wonder, who would want to look at that? When Bigness sees the package from MB, he knows the Do Not Disturb sign is hanging from my brain.

Miss Barbara brings in her old Vanity Fair subscription magazines, months old but fresh to me. For she has figured out how to order these things from abroad, a 14 year veteran of exile. Between coffee customers, Shirls and I pour over the pages of fashion, accessories and perfume ads, scratch and sniff, and marvel at dresses for $1000 that look like torn garbage bags and packing tape. Maybe next year fringe on the bottom of your terry cloth Capri pants will be the rage and I’ll have been ahead of my time once again. Michael Kors, don’t copy me, you hear?

I ask advice from Shirls on how I should wear my hair at an upcoming art show in aMerica. She advises to leave it as it is, just brush it straight. I want braids down my back with shells sewn into the ends. I say this to provoke her. She rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth, and I say Don’t you like the White Girl thinks she’s black look? She reminds me to please touch up those roots and I raise my hand self consciously to my hairline. She chuckles and its payment for jinxing her.

Guess who I met today and didn’t know it? That is, until I actually read her business card…, and then googled her. Don’t ya love google? Eve Brown-Waite