Fic: Condolences (West Side Story 2021)

[bookishwench]

“Uh, hi.”

Anita stares at her. It’s not a rude stare, she’s not trying to make the girl feel uncomfortable, but she realizes it’s probably doing that. She’s just stunned. When she opened the door to the timid knocking, she had expected another one of the girls from work carrying a plate of food to add to the gigantic pile forming in the kitchen. She hadn’t expected it to be the girl from Doc’s.

“Hi yourself,” Anita said. The words weren’t angry, but they were guarded.

The other girl looked like she was about to either bolt or dissolve into the floor from awkwardness, but to Anita’s surprise, she stayed, raising her head to look her square in the eyes before daring to ask a question.

“Are you okay?”

Everyone kept asking that question, and Anita wanted to scream every time. No, she was not okay. She would never be okay. Nothing would ever be okay again. Bernardo was dead, and Anita was dead inside. She wore black every day, the color having bled out of her life and onto the floor of a salt shed, red on white like Maria’s lipstick above the white dress that marked everyone’s doom. Why did people keep asking it? Wasn’t the answer obvious?

“No,” she said, holding the door between her palms and considering slamming it in her bleached blonde gringa face, but it reminded her of something.

She remembered the girl and her friend on the other side of the glass door, pounding on it, begging the boys to stop. Anita hadn’t thought much about it at the time or since. The other one, a boy or a girl, she really wasn’t sure which, had warned her, just that simple word, “Leave.” And the two of them, for all they looked like a pair her mother would have crossed to the other side of the street to avoid, they had tried. They had said something, done something, even if maybe it wasn’t too safe for them either. Those boys were mean. There could be consequences for that kind of thing.

Anita stood thinking, chewing her lip, then abruptly pushed the door open.

“Come in,” she said.

“I didn’t bring nothing,” the other girl said, taking in the kitchen table laden with mismatched plates and casseroles. She looked ashamed of herself. “Ma always said to bring something, but I don’t cook much, and I didn’t think of it. Sorry.”

“We have too much as it is,” Anita said, sighing. “Sit down. You want something? Coffee? We got Coke?”
“A Coke’d be nice, thanks,” she said, sitting at the table. As Anita got the pop from the ice box, she watched as the girl crossed her legs, then changed to her ankles, then sat with her feet flat on the floor like a good girl in school. She felt strangely sorry for her.

“Here,” she said, opening the bottle then giving it to her before sitting on the other chair and sipping from a glass of water.

Silence fell, and for the first time since that horrible night, Anita felt something instead of mind-numbing grief. She felt awkward. Why was this girl even here?

“I don’t mean to take up your time or bother you or nothin’,” she said.

“You are not bothering me,” Anita said, then took a breath. “I appreciate what you tried to do that night.”

The girl shook her head dismissively.

“I ain’t never seen them act that way before,” she said, then looked sideways at the floor. “Seen others do it, though. That ain’t never right.”

“No,” Anita said, filling in the blanks as the girl rubbed her wrist over her neck like she was remembering something she wanted to scratch off her skin. “Women got to look out for each other. No one else going to do it. Is your friend okay?”

“Velma? Yeah, she’s fine,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll bug us now.”

“Velma,” Anita repeated. “Tell her I thank her too. What is your name?”

“Graziella. Everybody calls me Grazi, like thank you in Italian,” she said.

“You Italian?”

“My ma was born there, yeah,” she said.

“Your father from there too?”

Grazi looked away again.

“Don’t know. Never met him. Ma never talks about him,” she said. “I speak enough of the lingo that I get most of what you guys say, though. Not much difference between Spanish and Italian.”

“No,” Anita said. “Maybe not so much different.”

“I, uh, I’m really sorry about the guy who died. Your guy,” she said, dropping her head and staring at the table. “He was the other girl’s brother? Maria?”

Anita nodded, avoiding speaking until she was sure she was under control.

“I saw him box one time. Riff took me,” she said. “He was real good. Beat the other guy. I think his name was O’Brian.”

“Yes. He was good,” Anita said, but she meant more than boxing.

Anita’s eyes flicked around the apartment, coming to rest on the open door to what had been their bedroom. She could just barely see the cross on the wall above the bed. Her mother would have thought it sacrilege, hanging a cross over the place where she and Bernardo would sin, but Anita had put it there for a reason. She had seen it as blessing them, maybe protecting them. An identical cross was above Maria’s bed, the one she had lain on with Tony. Maria had told her they had made vows, that she considered them married. Anita and Bernardo had made their own promises to love until death. It had come far too quickly. Maybe mama had been right.

Too late, Anita realized Grazi had followed her gaze and seen what she was looking at. Anita jerked back to herself, feeling shame.

“I ain’t judging you,” Grazi said quickly, shaking that shockingly platinum blonde head. “I ain’t got no room to judge nobody for just lovin’ somebody.”

“Nobody does, I think,” Anita said, taking another sip of water. “But they do.”

Grazi nodded, twisting her hands in her lap before suddenly saying, “I used to be Tony’s girl.”

Anita blinked, but said nothing.

“Before he got sent up state,” she said. “After he was gone, Riff took up with me. I couldn’t take being alone, but I wish I hadn’t done it. He wasn’t bad, Riff. He was just… you know.”

“Yes. I know,” Anita said. “There’s no point in hating the dead.”

“Or lovin’ ‘em,” Grazi said. “But I do.”

The girl choked back a sob and hurriedly grabbed her purse and hunted through it for a handkerchief to stifle tears.

“I’m sorry,” Anita said, surprised that she actually meant it.

“No, sorry, didn’t mean to fall apart on you,” Grazi said, embarrassed. “I only came to see if you was okay and pay my respects. Ma’s right. I ain’t got no class.”

“I think it takes a lot of class to do what you did, then and now,” Anita said.

Grazi shrugged, stuffing the handkerchief back in her bag and looking around the room as she stood up.

“You make all these?” she said, gesturing towards the dresses.

“Yes,” Anita said.

“They’re really pretty, all bright like flowers,” she said.

“Thank you. Someday I want to open a shop.”

“Oh, me too, but I do hair,” Grazi said. “And nails. I wanna have my own spot someday.”

Anita silently thought that everyone needs a someday to dream about, whether it ever happens or not.

“Well, I don’t wanna take up no more of your time,” Grazi said. “Thanks for the Coke, and I’ll tell Vel what you said.”

“Thank you for coming,” Anita said, walking with her to the door and opening it.

She didn’t know what made her hug the other girl, but it just happened. Maybe Anita had been hugging so many visitors the last few days who had come to give their condolences that it was almost an instinct, but Grazi stiffened for a second, then hugged her in return, squeezing her like she drowning until she remembered herself and backed up.

“Take care,” Anita said, “and if the idiots on the stoop give you any trouble, you tell them Anita said back off. They’ll listen.”

“I’ll say an Ave for you,” Grazi said, then disappeared down the hallway.

Anita stood at the door, tired to the bone and not sure who she even was anymore. She had the oddest feeling she’d spent the last quarter of an hour looking into a mirror, everything slightly backward, the colors a little off, some distortions, but the reflection still recognizable.

“And I’ll say one for you,” Anita whispered to the empty hallway, “and for them. All of them.”

The door closed, and life went on.