Only a matter of time, you think. Before Metti seeks you out.

  He knows where you live, he’d driven you home numerous times, before he’d given you the Honda Civic. He would know your university schedule except he’d never listened carefully, vaguely he might recall that you are on campus on Thursday evenings.

  Of course, he calls. Late-night calls on the specially installed phone. You listen, and you do not answer.

  Unlike his ex-wife, Metti doesn’t leave lengthy messages. He is too shrewd to threaten you. Too shrewd to leave proof of any intent to do you harm.

  All he will say is, in a deceptively jovial voice—Hel-lo, Vi’let. We have a little something to discuss.

  AND THEN, THE AGENCY CALLS.

  Not Ava Schultz but the manager, a man named Dwyer to whom you’d never spoken before. Dwyer is harsh, disgusted. Informing you that Orlando Metti has accused you of stealing from his apartment. He claims that you took jewelry, articles of clothing, money. Unless you give it back he will call the police and press charges.

  You wonder if this is a joke. But no, Dwyer is panting on the phone. No joke.

  Weakly you protest: Metti gave you gifts. All those items were gifts.

  He’d given you a car, too. A Honda Civic. (But Metti isn’t accusing you of stealing the car, at least.)

  Disgusted Dwyer commands you to come to the Agency and bring the “gifts” with you.

  In the Honda Civic you drive to Maid Brigade Agency. You have brought with you the gifts your lover gave you in the first flush of his desire for the sorrowful virgin/Madonna: turquoise bead necklace, gold-plated bracelet with the tricky clasp, earrings that match the bracelet, gorgeous red silk scarf by Yves Saint Laurent.

  You are uncertain what to do about the money Metti gave you over several months. You have never added it up but believe it must be nearly a thousand dollars, most of it spent in the effort of keeping yourself alive and the rest set aside to send to Ethel Johnson next February.

  Have the bills been gifts, or tips?—impossible to know which might be which by the time of the breakup.

  Damned if you will return tips to that man. These tips you have earned on your feet and on your back.

  Deeply embarrassed, you lay the gift-items out on a counter for Dwyer to contemplate. Each object is clearly expensive, of high quality. You’d been thrilled to receive each, at the time. You’d worn the turquoise necklace most frequently, at the university; the other fancier items you’d worn solely in Metti’s company, which pleased him.

  In fact, if you didn’t wear something Metti had given you, sulkily he’d ask why.

  Does Dwyer believe you? Are these the first accusations Orlando Metti has brought against one of his cleaning women? With childlike vehemence you insist—I did not steal these things! I did not.

  Yet you worry, your vehemence is not convincing. A truly innocent girl would be more crushed, perhaps. Wounded.

  Since Dwyer is damned angry with you, he is in no hurry to give you the benefit of the doubt. No good reason for him to take your side in a disagreement with a customer. You will not be asked to work for the Agency again, but Orlando Metti is a valued customer.

  Very embarrassing to concede to Dwyer, who questions you closely, that yes, you’d become “involved with” the client.

  “Involved with”—what’s that? Slept with him?

  Mortifying! The skin on your face seems to be contracting with shame.

  Yes, you’d been warned. Very clearly you’d been warned. Naively you had not listened.

  Impossible to claim—But I was in love with him. I thought.

  Wanting the man to love me. To take care of me.

  That had been the wish, beyond even the wish for money. The hope that, when Lionel came for you, Orlando Metti would protect you; your life so altered by him, Lionel would never dare come for you at all.

  You realize this now. How transparent! Pathetic. Yet, somehow you had not known.

  For forty minutes Dwyer interrogates you. As Metti has enjoyed humiliating you, now the manager of Maid Brigade enjoys humiliating you. And you are willing to be humiliated, you are apologetic, abject. The fear that you may be arrested by police, jailed for theft, unable to convince authorities that you are not a thief, has been rising in you, like a fever.

  You tell Dwyer that you don’t want any of the gifts. You’d rarely worn them, except in Metti’s company. Please, would he return them to Metti! Maybe that will placate him.

  Dwyer regards you with some measure of sympathy. Though mostly he is disgusted with you.

  Telling you that Metti is very angry. On the phone he was shouting. Sounded as if he’d been drinking. You’re damned lucky he didn’t call the police immediately.

  Dwyer concedes, Metti’s account is suspicious—claiming you stole the items over a period of weeks. If you had, and he’d noticed, why hadn’t he reported the thefts at the time? Why would he wait until you’d stolen a half-dozen items, and then report it? And if he gave you the car, and the title has been made over in your name—obviously you hadn’t stolen it. And if he’d given the car to you, probably he’d given the other gifts too.

  Dwyer thought probably the police would see through Metti’s story. Accusing a woman of stealing from him. Former cleaning-woman. As a story, it was suspicious. Also they wouldn’t be inclined to take Metti’s side, rich guy living by himself, divorced, in the fancy high-rise by the river, bringing women home. They’d know the type.

  Before Dwyer you stand meek, humbled. It is flattering to the man, how humbled you are, a girl (at one time) sexually attractive enough to have provoked a man like Orlando Metti to give her expensive gifts, and God knows how much in tips.

  You are not so attractive now, you understand. Stunned by the accusation that you are a thief. Stammering as you tried to defend yourself. With sluttish haste you’d dressed that morning, thrown on soiled T-shirt, jeans. Not a thought of a shower. Smelling of guilt. Rank underarms. Coldly Dwyer stares at you, face, breasts, belly, hips, legs. Feet. And raising his eyes again, in slow male assessment finding you lacking.

  Saying meanly that the police might not like you, either. Figuring you were taking money from the customer for sex which makes you, in some eyes, a hooker.

  This opprobrium you accept, it is your due. Taking money from a man, any man, even if earned, is a kind of hooking. You will not contest this.

  Dwyer says the police aren’t stupid, they’ll see through Metti’s story. But still, they might bring you in for questioning. He pauses, savoring this possibility.

  Still you have nothing to say in your own defense. It is all true, terrible. Almost you feel a kind of exhilaration, that this hostile stranger has seen you so exposed, naked.

  Time to leave. And leave your hard-earned “gifts” behind to be returned to the giver. Maid Brigade is dismissing you. Not even as a part-time laborer paid contemptuously in cash, off the books, will you be welcome to return though only recently you’d been one of the Agency’s most diligent workers, uncomplaining and uncomplained-against.

  Dwyer adds, laughing: “You must’ve done something to really piss this guy off, Vi’let. Count yourself lucky he called us first, not the cops.”

  Count myself lucky. Yes!

  BUT THEN, THERE WAS NO CLEAR END. FOR METTI CALLED ME A few days later leaving messages of abject apology, insisting he didn’t want the gifts back, there’d been a “tragic” misunderstanding—the fault of the Agency.

  When I didn’t answer, didn’t return his calls Metti came by the place in which I was living, a weatherworn Victorian dwelling north of the sprawling university campus. Metti had seen the residence exclusively from the outside, and at night. Somehow he made his way inside and upstairs unerringly to my room on the second floor determined to speak to me but I hid from him behind a locked door. “Violet! Try to forgive me. I’ve been a little crazy, I think. I never expected that kind of behavior from you. Betraying me. Sleeping with—those men. I’d believed I was the only one.” He began pounding on the door with a fist. “It’s your life, Violet. You have a right to your own life. I can see that. I’m a father, I am not a jailer. A girl—a daughter—can fuck anybody she wants to. Any color. I know that. I am not contesting that. But I’d thought you had promised me. Must’ve missed something, I was sure you’d promised me. When you took gifts from me. Money. There was an agreement. There is an agreement, if a woman accepts gifts and money. But not you, you lied to me. But no, I am not accusing you, Violet. You’re very young. You’re not too young to know better. This isn’t going to end here, Violet. There’s too much left undone. We have much more to say to each other, dear. Women don’t walk away from me, not like this. They walk away when I tell them—walk. This isn’t over yet, Violet. You lying cunt. Not by a long shot.”

  Then, footsteps descending the stairs. Inside I was cowering. Inside I was calculating how I might escape through a window, breaking the window with a chair, a badly rusted fire escape outside the window, possibly it would hold my weight. And there was a pair of scissors, gripped in my hand. But then suddenly, Metti was retreating. From the window I saw the man make his unsteady way to the Jaguar parked crooked at the curb, where it had attracted some attention from several guys, admiring its sleek dark missile-shape. I wondered if Metti would pause to look back at me, if he would wave. If I would wave at him.

  And now, I thought—No more.

  YET STILL, THERE WOULD BE MORE. IT DID NOT (YET) END. FOR A few days later when I returned to the house on Cayuga Street it was to discover, on the small front porch, barking and whimpering as I approached—Brindle! The little French bulldog secured by a short leash to a porch railing, a flimsy red scarf about his neck, badly twisted so he’d nearly throttled himself.

  “Brindle! My God.”

  Astonishing—Brindle was alive, and Brindle was here.

  Afterward I would wonder if Metti had been boarding him at a kennel, after our disagreement. He’d wanted me to think the worst, as a way of punishing me.

  I would wonder if Metti had changed his mind about having the bulldog put down or whether in fact no veterinarian would consent to do such a thing. Whether Metti’s daughter had told him definitively that she didn’t care to take the dog back.

  Brindle was overcome with joy to see me. His deep-chested dwarfish body quivered, shook from side to side with the agitation of his skinny tail. His left eye was cloudy but luminous. He was panting, slathering spittle on my hands.

  “Oh, Brindle. What the hell am I going to do with you . . . .”

  Whether in derision, or for some other motive, Metti had tied the red silk scarf around Brindle’s neck, over his collar. In his agitation the dog had torn the delicate material with his claws and soiled it.

  I wondered if Metti was somewhere close by, observing. I did not want to look for him—the Jaguar parked on the street. No. I carried Brindle up the stairs, to my room. And here too, a surprise—an envelope stuffed with cash, pushed beneath the door.

  Ten one-hundred-dollar bills. One thousand dollars!

  No note, not a word. Just the dog, the scarf, the envelope filled with cash. Somehow this did not (yet) feel like an end.

  AND SO NOW, I WOULD LEAVE CATAMOUNT FALLS. I WOULD NOTIFY the telephone company, disconnect the phone. (Metti paid the phone bills: he would see that I’d terminated the account.) The previous week was the end of the university spring term, many of us would be departing soon. I felt a sudden stab of regret for that other life, the life of which Orlando Metti had no knowledge, my life as a university student who came onto campus only after dark—diffident, diligent, dutiful—a young woman who sat near the front of classrooms taking notes as if her life depended upon it.

  Packed the Honda Civic with the little French bulldog (in a secondhand carrying cage: I didn’t trust him to behave himself in the car) and my (few) possessions. On the way out of Catamount Falls dropping by the Agency to say goodbye to Ava Schultz who’d become my only friend there and to inquire if they’d heard more from Orlando Metti.

  Ava said she hadn’t heard anything. It was supposed that, since I’d returned the things Metti had claimed I’d stolen, Metti was appeased and would not cause more trouble.

  I asked her if Metti was continuing as a customer and she said sure, she thought so. Metti hadn’t actually had any complaints about my housecleaning. He’d paid his bills more or less on time. Over the years, other women the Agency had sent to him, most of them had worked out OK. He’d never accused anyone of stealing from him before me.

  “You need to be more cautious, Violet. Next time you’ll know better.” Ava laughed.

  Told Ava that I was leaving Catamount Falls and she expressed surprise though maybe not so much surprise, considering. Asked me where I was going and I told her I didn’t know yet—“I’m just running for my life.”

  Tongue

  . . . THRUST INTO YOUR MOUTH TO IMPALE YOU, SUBDUE YOU. THE man’s tongue thick like a snake not warm but weirdly cool, clammy. Predator-male tongue prepared to thrust and penetrate until you choke to death.

  Bitch. Slut. Lying cunt.

  This isn’t over yet.

  “OH, BRINDLE. STOP.”

  Soft flopping tongue on my face. Soul of the dog is the tongue.

  Laughing, pushing the little bulldog away. A dog’s mouth is not exactly clean.

  Waking in this new place. Relieved to be alive.

  Premature heat of May, white-tinged sun falling directly on my face since I have not (yet) put up blinds, curtains. Outside the window is a balcony, a railing that casts bars of shadow against the windowpanes, onto the bed, on my face as I lie in bed awakened by the funny little dog wanting only to kiss me.

  Three hundred forty miles from Catamount Falls and from the high-rise apartment overlooking the steely St. Lawrence River. Though I have yet to precisely calculate the miles, it is probably about the same distance to South Niagara. East and south of the city of my birth, south of the Mohawk River in a hilly and mostly rural region of New York State in which I have never lived and where I know no one.

  Here, Orlando Metti will never find me. I am certain.

  If I’d remained in Catamount Falls the man might have persevered. Out of bitterness, spite. I’d have had to move from Cayuga Street to another rental. But Metti could not hate me so very much, he’d hardly known me. Soon, another girl/woman would attract his eye. The pale blond cleaning-woman speaking accented English, maybe.

  In another few months Metti will have forgotten my name. And he has to be grateful to be rid of the damned little dog.

  It is a new life in Mohawk, New York. A new interim life.

  Not my true life but a provisional life. Improvised, calculated.

  Slowly, assiduously since the age of eighteen I have been accumulating credits in the state university system. I have had many interruptions in my education. Entire epochs of my life seem to have disappeared. I have never been able to attend college full-time and now the State University of New York at Mohawk has accepted me as a transfer student in the School of Social Work with just five more courses before graduation.

  In Mohawk, a town of less than twenty thousand inhabitants, I will look for a new way of supporting myself. I will change my hair color to its more natural shade of brown. I will walk the lively little French bulldog along the river at least twice a day and see who it is I will encounter in this territory entirely new to me.

  What an adorable little dog! What is his breed? What is his name?

  A dog is a disguise I’d never anticipated.

  Uncanny

  HIM. BUT—WHO?

  He was approaching me on the campus walkway. First morning of the fall term.

  Facing me, not exactly seeing me. Making his way deftly through loose surges of students moving more slowly along the walkway oblivious of him, his very presence.

  A dark-skinned man, young, yet middle-aged. Dignified, self-absorbed, intent upon his destination. His briefcase was a handsome matte beige leather, a relic of another era, clearly heavy. His manner was severe. Something about the sobriety of his bearing and his clothing, the “sport coat” in a muted color that might have been gray, beige, or blue, the fresh-laundered white shirt and dark, dull necktie, made me think he might be an older, foreign-born graduate student. The black plastic-framed eyeglasses and the boxy-shouldered coat suggested a culture other than American and a style very far from fashionable. And no American student, even an older graduate student, would wear a coat and tie, let alone carry a briefcase.

  Briskly he passed me. Ascended a flight of steps, disappeared into a sandstone building.

  At the foot of the steps I stood staring after him. A sensation of terrible yearning came over me, to follow him up the steps . . . The uncanny sensation that you know who someone is, unmistakably you recognize the face, that’s to say the essence of the face, the (unique) face you’d known in a previous lifetime except now in the confusion of the moment, in the excited leap of your blood, you are unable to recall who this person is, or was.

  Yet, I was not sure that I wanted him to see me. I was not sure that I wanted to be forced to recall how this person and I knew each other.

  It should not have been surprising to me that I might encounter people here in Mohawk whom I’d known years ago in Port Oriskany and in South Niagara. Often in Catamount Falls I’d encountered former classmates whose company I avoided, for I did not want to recall exactly how they knew me, and what they knew of me and my family—Kerrigans.

  Seeing in their faces that flicker of recognition—Is that her? The girl who ratted on her brothers and sent them to prison.

  Not that they would have been cruel to me, but even their kindness and sympathy would be painful. And their pity.

  And even if this were not true, it would seem true to me. Like an indelible stain that has in fact been removed, yet its imprint will always remain in the memory, a shadow of a stain.