I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart.
My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey, and my landlord said he was around my age. I’d never met him even though his apartment was apparently only twelve minutes away. I lived on the bottom floor of her dilapidated duplex; she lived upstairs. Every night I’d fall asleep to the sound of her feet shuffling across the thin wood floor above me.
I slept with my bedroom windows open, hoping for a breeze to carry in the burned-air smell of the city. Instead, my landlord would wake me up in the morning by pulling aside my curtain and thrusting her hand inside my room, offering me a gift—a spare tomato or a pamphlet about the Hare Krishnas.
“For you,” she’d say, averting her eyes.
I always slept in the nude, though I never shared the bed with anyone. It was a shame, because I had the distinct feeling I’d never look that good again. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t look great. But I wasn’t eating all that much, and from afar, I had the sinewy profile a lot of girls were after. The last person who’d seen me naked said my body was extremely economical. “There’s nothing extra,” he’d said. That had been a while ago and I took it as a compliment. If nothing else, I was willing. Willingness could take you places. At the few parties I attended, I wore my willingness like a backless dress, a symbol of more to come. Willing to do what, was the question. I could never seem to move from willing to doing.
“Ricki, I brought you another brochure about kabbalah,” my landlord said one Monday, when she caught me suntanning on the driveway. “I think you should read it. You have no idea what you’re missing here in the sticks.”
I’d never considered Los Angeles the sticks but I didn’t argue. She was big into travel—less the act than the idea of it. I was lying on my side, so I turned over to face her and squinted at the landlord-shaped shadow standing over me. I could feel the ridges of the brick driveway through my bath towel. I was wearing a very small old bikini.
“America has no culture of its own,” she continued. She tended to walk around her property bursting with talk, as though she were a soda can that spent the day being shaken, waiting for any human interaction to pop her open. “What is American culture? Nothing. Trinkets and kitsch and Cracker Barrel restaurants. Anything good we’ve stolen from other people.” She had a long list of grievances, and America ranked high in the repertoire. She had been born in New Jersey.
I closed my eyes. Sometimes feigning sleep worked, and she’d walk away. “What are your favorite foods?” she asked. It sounded like an accusation. She bent farther over me, completely blocking my light. I sat up, sweat pooling in my belly button. I hoped she was looking at my body. Someone had to.