1
Greta
Am I superstitious if I intentionally walked under the ladder just to prove to myself that I wasn’t superstitious? Or was it more a question of defiance mixed with stubbornness?
I suspected it was simply my good old-fashioned lack of common sense. I ignored the impulse to skirt around the ladder and, instead, walked underneath it. But I made sure not to step on the cracks in the pavement. I’m not superstitious, but I wasn’t going to stack all the odds against me.
No bad luck so far.
I thought as I slipped into the bodega to see, to my surprise, that there was no line. I was in and out in minutes with two coffees—one for me, another for my brother Hans.
On the way back to the studio, a flyer stuck to the side of the building on the corner of E 5th and Avenue A caught my eye. The glossy picture showed an oiled-up hunk posing topless, one hand on his hip, the other gripping the brim of his cowboy hat. With a wicked smile, he invited me to come down to The Rig—the soon-to-be biggest, best gay club in New York.
My first impression was ‘Not bad.’
I remembered the shoot.
The model was Clarence, a bit out of our league at that time as we’d only had the modeling agency up and running a few short months. But Hans had met him at a club and got him in for the day. We shot a dozen flyers and posters for The Rig then we never saw Clarence again—not counting on television where he had a spot on a daytime soap.
I stood there on the corner, passers-by narrowly avoiding me as if I were a statue or part of the building’s facade. I tried to remember whose idea the cowboy hat had been. Hans, probably. It worked well for the flyer, but it had the opposite effect on my mood.
‘See the cowboy hat?’ I could hear the universe saying. ‘Just my way of making sure you don’t forget. Next week you’re going back to Montana. Whether you like it or not, you’re going. You don’t have a choice. That’s what I’ve decided for you.’
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
The universe had been toying with me recently, constantly dropping little reminders that I would soon have to go back. Back to Montana, where Hans and I had spent four ugly years of our vagabond childhood.
Signs kept popping up. An oiled-up hunk on a flyer stuck to the wall, tipping his cowboy hat at me and giving me a knowing smile; or a bus passing by with an advertisement for Montana Furniture on the side.
Couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Someone, just yesterday, said ‘Howdy’ to me. And in New York that borders on a supernatural event.
Yep, we’re going back to Montana. I know. And the universe keeps rubbing it in.
“Hey, young lady.”
I peeled my eyes away from the flyer and looked to my side. An old man with a weathered face, white beard, and tattered clothes stuck out his empty coffee cup to me.
“Got any change you can spare?”
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the change from the coffee—fifty-four cents. Until the transfer came through from Bakker, that was all the money we had to our name, Hans and I.
That might have left me feeling sad or even desperate, but being three months behind on the rent, and with Jericho Dreams having canceled their contract with us not but ten minutes ago, I was beyond feeling sad. I was numb and resigned to our dire financial straits.
I poured the change into his coffee cup expecting to hear it clink with other coins. Instead, I heard the dull thwap of the coins hitting empty cardboard.
“Very kind of you, young lady.”
I looked back up at hunky Clarence.
Come to think of it, I think the cowboy hat was my idea.
Yep, I was the one who set the curse into action. If I had thought to put a lei on him, maybe we would have been offered a photoshoot in Hawaii instead of Perth, Montana.
“That’s a fine-looking cowboy,” said the man, clinking the coins around in his coffee cup and looking up at the flyer. “Of course, he ain’t a real cowboy.”
He winked at me. “I bet they put on a hell of a show at The Rig. Think maybe I should go see if they’re hiring?” He gave me a toothless smile. “I can still shake it.” He jiggled his body, more like a seizure than a dance.
“It couldn’t hurt to try,” I said. Then I turned, walked back under the ladder, and headed down E 5th Street to Handsome Studios.
I was conscious of the time my walk was just right. Quick enough so that the coffee would still be hot when I arrived, but slow enough to give me a minute to think how I was going to break the double bad news to Hans.