Christina Cowling

 

The following works are copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  

Something Else About Wilma

  

Shortly after dawn, Wilma and I park our cars side by side in the lot behind the apartment building where we are tenants. Just home from working the graveyard shift, despite a blackout caused by a windstorm, I wonder where Wilma’s been.

She’s probably made a quick morning run to the drug store to buy some women’semergency commodity, such as Kotex or a pregnancy test since the wind died down, I think.

I am wrong.

Through the open sunroof of her car, Wilma waves a tear stained handkerchief at me. Not wearing her wig, I think she resembles a bald, baby bird SOS’ing.

I’ve learned several things about Wilma in the year she’s lived in the apartment across the hall from mine. One thing I’ve learned is that after several failed self-inflicted dye jobs, she shaved her head and bought a wig.

With this in mind, I exit my car and climb into Wilma’s. Seated beside her, I watch her suck back the air in an attempt to control her crying.

“Where’s your wig?” I ask.

“Don’t no,” Wilma says.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“I fell in love last night.”

Another thing I’ve learned about Wilma is that she falls in love easily. I’d tell her this but I’ve never heard her laugh at herself.

Who’d you fall in love with?” I ask

“Wilber.”

“Who’s Wilber?”

“A fellow I met at the single’s dance last night.”

“Wasn’t the dance cancelled due to the storm warning?”

“It was but I went anyway. My gut told me that if I didn’t go I’d miss out on meeting my soul mate.”

“Did Wilber’s gut tell him the same thing?”

“Yes. He listened to it too and arrived at the dance hall a few minutes before me. Although the doors and windows were boarded up in preparation for the storm, he sat on the front stairs, certain his soul mate would come.

“By the time I got there, the winds were high and all the lights in the city had gone out. But that didn’t stop Wilber and me from sitting in the blackness talking the night away,” Wilma says, blowing her nose into the SOS handkerchief.

“If you’re in love, why are you so unhappy?” I ask.

“Something dreadful happened to ruin my happiness,” Wilma says.

“What? Did the wind whisk Wilbur away?”

“No. It whisked my wig away.”

“Your wig?”

“Yes. You see, after the winds had settled and Wilbur had memorized my address because it was still too dark to write it down, he walked me to my car. We’d decided to both go home and get a good sleep before he visited me tonight.

“He helped me into my car, then stood on the curb waving. As I pulled away from the curb, I put the sunroof down. That’s when the wind unexpectedly picked up again and blew my wig away,” Wilma says.

“Did Wilber chase your wig?”

“I don’t know, I was too embarrassed to look back.”

“If it was dark, maybe he didn’t see your wig fly away.”

“Oh yes he did and the back of my bald head too. I forgot to tell you that just as my wig blew away the city lights came back on,” Wilma says, placing her head in her hands and crying harder than ever.

I notice a man old enough to be Wilma’s grandfather walking toward us and tell her.

Still sobbing she looks up just as the man reaches her side of the car.

“Can I help you,” she asks without recognition.

The man reaches into his pocked, pulls out Wilma’s wig and throws it at her through the sunroof.

“Fake,” he says exposing his toothless gums.

Wilma buries her face in her hands again.

I watch the man walk away until he disappears around the corner of the apartment building.

“Was that Wilber?” I ask.

Wilma nods yes. She is shaking and I think she’s still crying.

            “Too bad you didn’t look back when the lights came on,” I say.

Wilma snorts three times, then looks at me.

“I fall in love easily,” she says.

I have just learned something else about Wilma. She can laugh at herself.