Guys & Dolls - Location: Ecuador
Saturday, July 2, 2005
Friday evening had been spent at Mercy’s new apartment down among the Lindenwood University student housing. Upon first pulling in, Collette had the feeling she was just entering a housing complex in Ecuador or some place in South America. There was a courtyard dividing two of the main complexes from each other and then a long open strip splitting the two sides. They climbed the stairs to the second level – number thirteen. Thirteen always seemed to be Mercy’s number. Down below and in the open strips, Mexicans played cards on chairs and drank beers. Their kids played ball in the courtyard. A big red motorcycle was parked near the stairway.
Mercy had seen them through the window:
“Aaaaaaah!” She screamed, running out her door.
There were hugs for the both of them.
“I didn’t know you were coming!” She exclaimed in delight.
She was looking absolutely beautiful. Her hair was cut nicely, dark, and with side-swept bangs. She wore a lovely sky-blue top with sequins patterned across the front and jeans. She was always lovely, but she shone in particular that night.
Collette figured that the Pretzel kids would still be well and lively, despite the news about their mom. Everyone handled such news differently. And Mercy did mention it once, but she seemed to be dealing heroically with everything. Collette wondered how things would progress over the next months.
But inside, there were already five other guests, two of which were the charming sisters who put on Broadway on the Driveway – the Miller sisters, Judy and Betty. Judy was a vegetarian and Betty was just about the cutest thing Collette had ever seen – a china doll. Her long dark hair was wrapped around her head in a whimsical braid, and she wore a stripped black and pink dress. Twinkling silver heart-shaped hoops hung in her ears, and she smiled sweetly and talked quite as though she were a princess of England in the 1940’s.
Meanwhile, Mercy’s apartment suited her just wonderfully. Thick vertical blinds hung across her window. She left the front door slightly open to the sound of Mexicans and music in the open courtyards. (In some ways, it reminded Collette of Hungary.) Above the window hung three hooks waiting for flowers or green plants. And next to the hooks hung a lamp above a small kitchen table with a red and green woven table runner. The walls were white and stuccoed, and a floral border ran around the room at the middle of the wall. For only having been there a month, Mercy had already taped up some pictures on her wall and had some lit candles on her dresser. On the top of her fridge were several of her favorite cereals and a fruit basket.
She also worked at the bank. Collette and OLeif decided that Mercy was at a point in her life where she wanted to try everything.
“If we asked her, ‘Hey, Mercy, you want to come live with us for three years in Zimbabwe?’” OLeif laughed, “She would be totally into it.”
But then some old friends, Strawberry and Iwo Pendergrass, arrived.
“Yay! It’s my best friend, everybody,” Mercy cried. “And the guy who stole her from me!”
They all laughed. Iwo had the look of a Greek god about him – blond hair, big muscles (construction worker), white collared shirt, and even a silver tongue ring. Strawberry was just a doll, as usual. She wore a completely fitted dark denim jumpsuit with her new dark hair in a pixie cut and swinging Indian earrings like little peacock feathers.
“We brought cherries!” She announced, swinging a bag of fresh juicy reds.
“So I hear you’re working at a hat-maker’s shop,” Judy asked her, most interested.
“Yes,” Strawberry smiled broadly. “It’s really so cool. It’s off of Chippewa and California, if you know where that is. And sometimes we’ll just look through the catalog and pick out cool hats to buy. But mostly they’re ‘My Fair Lady’ deals, big and grand. Occasionally we’ll have these eccentric Jewish women come in. But usually we’ll have black ladies come for hats for church.”
Meanwhile, others came in. Washington, Shepherd and Malaya, Peter and Julia… There were two guys and their girlfriends, two brothers and another girl from Broadway on the Driveway… One dude was a skin-head but had only recently shaved off his red bush of hair. And Shepherd and Malaya were to be married in three weeks, Sunday, July 24th.
It was all coming so quickly, and everyone had so many different plans and ideas about the future and life in general. It was good to see everyone laughing together, playing games, talking over everything… And on the way home, fireworks blazed through the skies three days early. How much things changed from year to year.
And good news had come in that day – The Englishs would leave for Taiwan, August 8th, to pick up their new son, Jules Verne. It was all very exciting.
Collette remembered three years earlier when Mr. And Mrs. English had brought back Leia from China. It had been such a wonderful time. All the kids clamoring around their new sister, and the grandparents so proud… Joe, Curly, and Tor had bought a little stuffed animal and a small book from the airport gift shop for her. She remembered how Joe had walked up shyly and handed them to her. And now, three and a half years later, Leia would be doing the same for a new brother. What things happened through the years…