Butterfly In The Snow

Excerpt taken from Chapter 1 text

It had always been important when she was a child that she not dirty her Sunday best.  Nor, for that matter, her pinafores when she was five and six, nor the silk file dress she wore to church after her twelfth birthday until the day her breasts ripened and her legs grew longer.  In a flash she went from scrawny child to plump adolescent. (Too many milkshakes on that last trip to the U.S.)  Her mother had purchased the dark green dress at a department store in downtown Mexico City called “El Palacio de Hierro.” (The Iron Palace).  It was a grand store with a grand name that sold dresses to little princesses.  She was dressed as such and expected to behave accordingly.  This meant she must walk about daintily and never eat anything that dripped.  She was glad to outgrow that dress she wore the spring just before her grandmother died.  It only reminded her of her last visit with her grandmother.  She missed her scent of English Lavender and the safety of her warm embrace. She wondered what had happened to the green dress or even if it still existed at all, perhaps as a rag in someone’s kitchen...a rag, just a rag like this body will be...a dirty rag on a white kitchen floor or on black asphalt!

“I was never allowed to make mistakes when I was a girl.”  Her mother declared as she rubbed the green dress with lighter fluid she used to spot clean just about everything.  Jessie, by legacy and tradition, would not be excused from any soiling -- not then and not now. By now she felt she had stained her whole life with the shades of failure.  Now she might stain the street below.

What of the drivers in the vehicles?  How would they maneuver after impact?  Would her dive cause them to swerve in an attempt to miss the ill fated?  She had to stop rehearsing consequences.  She pressed her palms on wrought iron and felt pre-autumn air lift her hair like a flag while a glowing vessel crossed the River and cued the darkness to fall.

She had walked that afternoon.  It was her daily meditation and exercise.  She thought about this town called Brooklyn Heights.  It was here George Washington had at one time stood against the British and here a local woman sought to sabotage his mission of freedom. 

Five turns on the Promenade measured to be about the three miles of daily exercise Jessie allotted for weight control.  She had walked passed individuals and groups, catching fragments of their lives in a collage of sights and sounds. A man on a bench wailed out his song as he took swigs from a bottle in a paper bag.    “Oh don’t leave till I say so--don’t leave me till I tell you to go--” 

Jessie didn’t recognize the tune, nor was she familiar with the lyrics.  This was a man’s private dirge of sorrow and loneliness.   He howled off key as his head rolled back and he sang to the river, to the sky and to someone only he could see...perhaps a long lost love.

Three young women spoke as they strolled by.

“She’s that dangerous kind of woman, if you know what I mean...,” said one.

“Yeah... I’ll bet that she never eats Spaghettios!”

“What do Spaghettios have to do with character anyway?”

“It means she’d rather not eat than open a can of food, for God’s sake!  It means she probably doesn’t cook, gets carryout and dusts her kitchen.  It means she probably picks from the ‘A la Carte” part of the menu...Jeeees!”

“Why is that dangerous?”

 “Because it’s too easy for her; there’s no struggle over pots and pans, no serving others and because she makes no effort; because she can’t be bothered and well-- because you can’t trust a woman who is too selfish to cook!   Because she’ll probably never gain weight and because she will always be attractive.  She’s a bad example and men are perversely drawn to women that can manipulate them. That is why she is dangerous.”  The woman tugged on her oh-so-tight-jeans as they crawled up the crack between her buttocks.  She obviously did eat everything and had probably gained the weight she condemned another for not having.  Jessie bet that her husband or boyfriend had left her for a slimmer “dangerous” kind.  The three rambled on as they passed her and the sounds of their conversation suddenly blended with another.

Two friends sat on a bench as one of them leaned forward and threw crumbs at a cluster of pigeons.  One of the birds followed Jessie’s passing figure for a few steps but changed its direction and lunged for a large piece of bread.  She didn’t focus on the women but instead the pigeon’s waddle and bobbing neck.  A bird was a peaceful choice.  It couldn’t argue or judge or invalidate. It had its own pigeon life to think about.  The conversation set the backdrop to a reality of pigeons, dogs on leashes and singing drunken men.

“He told her he was moving