Woman of Light (59)

—

“Wake up, Lizzy!” shouted her brother Antonio, who had strode into her bedroom in cowboy boots and a bandito mask. From the end of her brass bed, he let out a huge belch and giggled frantically. He gripped the bed frame and shook it with all his might. Lizette groaned and told him to get the hell out of her room. She said Goddammit, Antonio! and stood from her bed.

“Don’t forget,” said Teresita as Lizette stepped into the kitchen and grabbed an apple from the table. “Lucrecia is dropping off her twins this afternoon. You’re watching them.”

Lizette opened her mouth full of mealy fruit. “No, I’m not.”

Teresita shot her daughter a merciless look. She whacked one of her son’s hands away from the stove, where she was flipping tortillas over the black comal. “Yes, you are, and you don’t have a choice.”

Lizette took another bite. She was used to her mother forgetting that she had her own obligations. Not everything, she thought, revolved around family. “Mama, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m at the dressmaker’s all day today. I’m not going to be here.”

Teresita shrugged. She tied her white apron strings around her waist. “So? Tell her you’re busy.”

At that moment, Lizette’s father walked into the kitchen with a pastry in each hand. He smiled at his family through sugar-powdered cheeks.

“Papa,” said Lizette. “I can’t watch no stinking twins today. I have work.”

“Okay, mija,” her father said, and reached for his work boots beside the door.

Teresita began shouting at Eduardo, telling him he was always a pushover. Lizette imagined she was somewhere else, a big white house that was all her own, a quiet place to keep her fine dresses and fur coats and books filled with facts, all the things she wanted and deserved in life. At the very least, she thought, lifting her brother Miguelito from the floor and moving him away from the back door, she had Alfonso. Once they were married, he would take her away from this life of endless chores and little brothers. Once they were married, she’d finally know what it was like to have a life of her own.



* * *



—

In a bad mood and rushed, Lizette arrived fifteen minutes late for her shift after missing the streetcar when her mother made her change a diaper before leaving. Natalya was behind the counter at the edge of the dress shop, glasses on and a cigarette burning.

“You come late today, like every other day,” she said, without looking up. “I hire you to help, and this is how you repay me?”

Lizette wanted to yell out that it wasn’t her damn fault, but if there was one thing she had learned about Natalya—she didn’t like excuses. “It won’t happen again. I’m very sorry.” Since she had started working for Natalya, Lizette had given most of her laundry route to a woman down the block named Sensionita, who at nineteen had three babies and a husband who had been fired from the smelter after a long bout with flu.

Lizette spotted a brown parcel, wrapped in burlap string. “What’s that?” she asked.

“When you come late, you miss out,” said Natalya, lifting the box into the air.

That was when she knew. “No!” said Lizette running to the rear counter, nearly tripping on the uneven floor. “Is that what I think it is?”

Natalya looked up. She had kind, translucent blue eyes, fine wrinkles about her face surrounded by red hair. She puffed on her cigarette. “No smoking when open it.” She winked.

“It is!” Lizette shouted. “My wedding dress fabric.” She was dancing now, snapping her fingers, swinging her hips. With a happy laugh, she reached out, as if asking for a slice of cake.

“Not so fast,” Natalya said. “I need drop-off today. Then we open your package.”

Lizette wilted like a frostbitten rose. “Natalya,” she whined, but it was clear the dressmaker didn’t care.

“The address here,” she said, handing Lizette a piece of paper and a wrapped bundle of cotton slips that they had sewn the week before. The slips had expandable waists and were to be delivered to the Saint Agnes Home, on some street in Capitol Hill Lizette had never heard of. Lizette crunched her face as she grabbed the bundle.

Natalya dashed out her cigarette on a white dish. “Hurry back,” she called as Lizette exited the shop.



* * *



—

The Queen Anne mansion looked like any other from outside. Red brick, flamboyant windows, a large encapsulating iron gate with murderous spikes, either to keep people out or to keep them in. As she walked the sandstone footpath, Lizette hardly thought of anything else besides delivering the damn slips, collecting payment, and getting the hell out of there. For months, she had been perfecting her wedding dress pattern, imagining the pull and grainy texture of the taffeta, the satin train, and her face proudly unhidden by a veil. Whatever the hell this place was, it was keeping her from her happiness.

Lizette knocked and waited, then with no response yelled out, Delivery, open up. She was startled when a young nun in a white veil opened the door.

“Right this way,” she said, ushering Lizette into the mansion of dark wood and marble stairs. The young nun’s habit skirt was loosely cinched at her broad waist with three knots, signifying her three vows—poverty, chastity, and obedience. Lizette shuddered.