“I’m hoping we won’t be strangers for long,” Lester said.
“Lester, lighten up would you. You remember how I was when I first moved to Seattle. I was scared of my own shadow. We want to help her, not send her running into the night.”
“She knows I’m playing.”
“No, she doesn’t. Ignore him, Halle. Lester, explain to her what we did when I moved here.”
“I was going to school in California and then one day Constance calls me and tells me about what’s been going on with her husband. She was afraid he would track her down and kill her. She decided she wanted to go to Seattle, but she wasn’t sure how she would be able to get there with no money or stay there with no real skills and no job. This girl I knew had family in Seattle and when I told her what was going on with my sister, she hooked everything up for us. Once I was out of college, I wanted to come to Seattle and look out for her, but she was still so scared and told me that the first thing Jack would do would be to track me down and find out where I went after I left school. I stayed in California. Constance connected with some people, thanks to the girl I knew, and she’s been here ever since. I moved here about a year ago, but it’s been years and we’ve had no problems with Jack. Although, he was so old, he’s probably dead now. Why on earth did you marry that old codger in the first place?”
Constance shrugged. “I’ve got daddy issues.”
“Hell yeah, you’ve got daddy issues. That man was about a hundred.”
“Don’t believe him. He wasn’t that old.”
Damita laughed. It was the best feeling for her to be able to laugh. She hoped whatever Lester and Constance had in mind for her would work. She was starting to like the idea of living in Seattle.
• • •
Constance’s apartment was nothing at all like Damita’s Upper West Side condo in Manhattan, but it felt more like home more quickly than that Manhattan apartment ever did. Constance explained to Damita how she had furnished the apartment mostly with things she had salvaged from throwaways, thrift shops and storage facility auctions. According to Constance she felt like the discarded belongings of others lent spirit to a home. She believed that the hearts and souls of others lived in their possessions and each discarded item she retrieved added that spirit to her home. In the living room, there was a brown plaid sofa with a burn mark on the right arm. The octagon-shaped coffee table was missing what Damita assumed was a piece of glass on the top. And, the kitchen table had the name Sebastian scratched in the very middle of the table. In the bedroom there was a bed that squeaked loudly whenever Constance moved in the middle of the night, that Constance said she salvaged from a storage facility auction. Instead of the white walls Damita was accustomed to in New York City apartments, Constance had painted every room in her apartment a different color. The bedroom was a shocking Pepto pink. The living room was beige and brown and the kitchen was Halloween orange. The bathroom, however, was white. Every time Damita walked into the apartment she couldn’t help but smile. Rather than spend all her money staying at a hotel, Constance offered to let Damita stay at her place. Damita paid half the rent and half the utilities and they each bought there own food, and every now and then Constance brought Damita along to her storage facility auctions, which Damita was surprised to learn, could actually be fun.
Within weeks, Lester and Constance had helped Damita get a new name, which was now Simone Ballister. She got a new social security number and a passport and credit cards in her new name. Next on the list was a driver’s license. Driving never appealed to her but after moving to Seattle, she realized how important it was to take total control over her life and part of that was being able to do something that was a very basic component of life; driving.
“I can’t believe you can’t drive,” Lester said.
“It’s not that I can’t drive. I used to a long time ago. I was never very good at it.”
“What woman on this planet is a good driver?”
“Certainly not my sister, Constance, or any other woman I know, for that matter.”
Damita squinted at Lester. “That has got to be the most sexist thing I’ve ever heard. Do you even listen to yourself when you’re talking?” Damita asked.
“Of course I do. I listen and then I’m usually very pleased with what I’ve said.”
“Really? You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”
“No, not kidding. I’m completely serious.”
Once Damita began to trust again, she realized Constance and Lester were great friends. Lester knew how much she wanted to get her driver’s license, so he offered to help her. After several lessons, he thought Damita was ready to take the road test. She was terrified. It had been so many years since she had taken a road test, she wondered if it was the same as it had been all those many years ago when she first took the test. Since Lester had been giving her lessons in his car that was the same car she used for the road test. She was glad she was able to use it. It was familiar and made her feel more comfortable.