Taxi girl
Chapter Four
Tania and Billy Miller left the Cenacle and crossed Halsted. Billy grabbed Tania’s hand and pulled her into the doorway of Vintage Values thrift store. He kissed her; she kissed him.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“On Sedgwick,” she answered.
He pulled away.
“I live on Sedgwick.”
Tania resumed kissing Billy. He kissed her back harder. She pulled away.
“What’s your address?” she asked.
“1901 North Sedgwick.”
“You’re across the street from the park?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m next to the park. That’s not good.”
“Why?”
“If this doesn’t work out, I’ll have to avoid running into you,” said Tania.
“But that’s not what’s happening now; this is what’s happening now.” He unbuttoned her peacoat.
Tania and Billy Miller hailed a cab and made out in the back seat for the ten minutes it took to get to Billy’s Edwardian brick three-flat. They raced up the stairs to the second-floor landing. Billy opened the door to his apartment, and they had sex on the living room floor.
Later that night, Billy filled his clawfoot bathtub; he and Tania sat opposite each other in the warm water. Billy lit a joint and took a drag.
“And what did your wife want?” asked Tania.
“She wanted more.” He passed the joint to Tania.
“More what?” Tania took a drag and handed the joint to Billy.
“More everything—more money, more success, more kids.”
“What did you want?”
“I like what I do, and I thought one kid was enough. That’s why I got a vasectomy.”
YOU GOT A WHAT?
“Oh,” said Tania.
You don’t wanna have a baby right now anyway, she thought. Well, I don’t want to never have a baby. Tania took a drag off the joint, held it in and exhaled.
“I need to get going.” She got up.
Billy put his hand on her pussy; they made love on the bath mat next to the tub.
The next morning, Tania left her apartment for the cab barn at 7:17. She picked up her first fare near La Salle and Division; he wanted to go to Van Buren and State. Tania took a left onto Division, then a right onto Clark. She stopped for a red light at Chicago.
“I wanna masturbate to the sound of your voice, so start talking,” said the fare.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Well, maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he’s lonely
and . . . has a gun . . .
“What do you want me to say?” asked Tania.
“Anything; just start talking.”
“Okay. So, I really like this guy.”
“Go on.”
“But he had a vasectomy. I don’t want to have a baby now, but what about later? You know what I mean? I’m afraid to let myself get too involved. Then there’s the fact that he lives right near me; I mean, right near me. If things don’t work out, I’m gonna have to spend all my time avoiding him. Then there’s the work part; I make great money checking coats at the theater. I don’t want to jeopardize that, right?”
“DAMN, WOMAN. Shut your fuckin’ yapper and pull over.”
Tania stopped in front of the First National Bank; the fare bolted from the cab and melted into the crowd on the bank plaza. She headed to the taxi barn.
Tania turned in her trips envelope at the dispatch window.
“I don’t want to drive anymore today,” she said.
“What happened?” asked the dispatcher.
Tania relayed the story.
“Was he Black?”
“Yes,” answered Tania.
“Don’t you know better than to pick up a Black man?”
“You’re Black,” said Tania. “Shouldn’t I pick you up?”
“No, not me or anybody that looks like me.”
Tania went home and called her mother in Minneapolis.
“Anything new and different?” asked Angela Wildman.
“I got the package you sent.”
“The sweater’s from Scotland; I got the toothbrushes in Germany.”
“East or West?”
“The one that doesn’t smell bad.”
“Oh. I got a new job.”
“Now you’re talking. Your Aunt Nell couldn’t keep a man either, then she bobbed and hennaed her hair. Before you know it, she landed Hal; they were married for forty-two years. Then he had a heart attack and dropped dead.”
“Huh.”
“Maybe your new haircut’ll do the same for you.”
“My new haircut?”
“Yeah, didn’t you say you got a new bob? I didn’t want to say anything, but I never liked you with long hair.”
Tania lay down on her bed for a nap. Her phone rang; she didn’t answer it.
It might be him, but I don’t know what to say if it is. She hugged her pillow and drifted off to dreamland, where she walked up to a taxi stand holding a Tiny Tears doll. She opened the rear door of the first cab in line and leaned into the interior. Billy Miller was the driver.
“Get lost, lady; no kids allowed.” Tania backed out of the cab; Miller peeled off.
The doll peed, turned into a bird and flew away. Tania morphed into the star of a musical number staged at her high school.
“What am I singing?” she asked the audience. Her mother stood up and warbled from the second row.
“All by myself in the morning
All by myself at night
I sit alone with a table and chair
So unhappy there
Playing solitaire.”
“Sit down, Mother. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I have a boyfriend . . . sort of.”
Her fare from earlier in the day bolted to his feet in the fourth row and paraphrased George Bernard Shaw.
“You lack the power of conversation but not the power of speech.”
Then Mr. Worman, Tania’s boss at Pottawatomie Publishing, crossed the stage behind her, shaking his head.
“No, I wouldn’t exactly put it like that,” he said. “No, I wouldn’t exactly put it like that.”
Charlie trailed him with a giant pickle protruding from his crotch.
“Is this big enough?” he asked.
Tania shook her head.
“Hold it. I graduated from high school ten years ago. This must be a dream.” She woke up.
At 5:30 p.m., Tania headed to Lee Enright’s class at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. She watched pairs of fellow students perform independent activity repetition exercises. Then she and her scene partner, Tommy, got up to do theirs. Tania took an Osterizer Galaxie blender out of a shopping bag and set it on a table in the middle of the performance space; she pulled an extension cord from another bag and plugged it into a wall socket. Next, she unpacked a jar of honey, a bag of mini marshmallows, a can of crushed pineapple and a container of mandarin oranges. She lifted a half-pint carton of heavy whipping cream out of an ice-filled plastic sandwich bag and set the carton on the table. She put the bag of ice and a spoon in a bowl, then placed the bowl on the floor.
“You’re getting ready to make something,” said Tommy.
“I’m getting ready to make something,” said Tania. She poured the heavy cream and a small amount of honey into the pitcher of the blender. She started the machine.
“You turned on the blender.”
“I turned on the blender.”
Tania counted aloud.
“One, two, three, four, five, six.”
“You’re counting,” said Tommy.
“Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. I’m counting,” said Tania. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.”
She turned off the blender. The whipped cream was plastered to the sides of the pitcher.
“You turned off the blender,” said Tommy.
“I turned off the blender.” She went to remove the plastic pitcher from the blender’s base.
The two parts were stuck together.
She unplugged the blender and put the base under her arm. She pulled, twisted and turned the pitcher to free it from the base.
Nothing happened.
“You’re struggling,” said Tommy.
“I’m struggling,” said Tania. She thrust the blender in Tommy’s direction.
“Here,” she said.
Paul Enright called out, “Don’t help her.”
Tommy shrugged his shoulders, then folded his arms.
Tania held the base with both hands, banged the collar of the machine on the table, then twisted the pitcher.
Nothing happened.
“You’re frustrated,” said Tommy.
“Yes, Tommy, I’m frustrated.” She put the base between her thighs and twisted the pitcher.
Nothing happened.
“You’re really frustrated.”
“Oh, for chrissake, shut up. Sorry. Yes, I’m really frustrated.” She took off the Fair Isle Shetland wool pullover her mother had bought her in Scotland and stood braless in a men’s white sleeveless undershirt. She wrapped the sweater around the pitcher, squeezed the base between her thighs and twisted the textile-covered container free; she paused and raised the pitcher in the air.
The class applauded, then Paul Enright spoke out, “You could’ve just scraped out the whipped cream, but we’re all glad you didn’t.”
Tania packed up her stuff after the workshop and walked home. She could see Billy Miller’s apartment as she got closer to hers. His lights were on. When she opened her front door, the phone was ringing.
What if it’s him? What if it’s not?
When she got to the phone, it had stopped ringing. She took a shower, toweled off and squeezed Pepsodent onto one of the Dokti Dent toothbrushes her mother had bought in the part of Germany that didn’t stink.
Tania’s phone rang; she stared at it. She let it ring a couple of more times, then answered it.
“Tania, it’s your mother calling,” said Angela. “I forgot to ask; are you working?”
“Yes, Mother, I’m working for a transportation company.”
“Well, that’s good. Promise me you won’t go back to California and live in a milk truck.”
“I promise.”
“You can always come to Minneapolis and stay with your father and me.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. Well, I’m on my way to bed, so I’ll be saying goodnight.”
“Did you brush your teeth with a Dokti Dent?”
“I was doing that when you called; I love you, Mother.”
“I love you too, dear.”
Tania hung up the phone, finished brushing her teeth and got into bed.
I’m thinking about him; I wonder if he’s thinking about me?
Her phone rang; she didn’t answer it. She rolled onto her side and hugged her pillow.
She’s probably calling to tell me I don’t have to brush all my teeth, just the ones I want to keep.
