Victoria's Window--Bath and Breakfast

Her father used to lean forward as if speaking confidentially, and in his gruff, husky voice, say that she was the one in the family who had “both feet on the ground.”  She never knew exactly what that meant, except that he was happy that she had graduated from high school, stayed out of trouble, and could hold a steady job.   It was true, she was the steadfast one, offering the rest of the family a framework of easy-going dependability.  She provided a certain architectural appeal to their home life, providing the rest of them with light and ventilation like the sunshine and breeze that flows through an open window.  What would her father think now that she had been permanently laid off?  

Victoria took her work clothes off and threw them in a heap.  Her bed was still made from the day before, but she didn’t want to sleep.  She wanted to stay up all day, and go to bed at night like most of the rest of the world.  

She drew her bath water, and slipped into the tub letting the warm water surround her body with a filmy, soft membrane.  She was long-legged, and let her big feet stick out and rest on the edge of the tub.  She thought about how she had long-neglected her feet--they were calloused, and her toenails were untrimmed.  She slipped them back under the water, and closed her eyes.  When she re-opened them, she realized that she had nodded off.  The bath water was so still that it reflected the bare light bulb on the ceiling, and then rippled from the breeze through the open window.  At almost the same moment, Victoria sensed that she was cold and hungry.  She had always grabbed something in the canteen at work, so there was nothing in her refrigerator, nothing much of anything for that matter.  

About ten o’clock, Victoria bounced down her narrow wooden staircase to the street, and walked across to the local diner where she ordered a feta omelet and more coffee.  Marge was behind the counter, and proceeded to update Victoria on everything and anything going on with her, afraid that she might miss a detail.  After ten minutes of non-stop chatter, she asked Victoria how things were going.  “Okay, I guess,” Victoria replied.

Victoria was as private and close-mouthed as Marge was freely communicative, and Marge always assumed that Victoria didn’t have much to say, because she didn’t have a lot going on.  Privileged glimpses into Victoria’s mind and heart were not open to the excursions of casual friends and acquaintances.  The common ground they did share was a lively interest in the bits and fragments of life in their mutual territory--new people moving in and out of  the block, store foreclosures, arrests, arguments, lost dogs and cats, large and small eyesores, unusual street people, doors ajar or broken windows.

After exhausting their present supply of information, Marge said, “We’d be damned fools to live anywhere else.”  Victoria answered shortly, “True that.”