Carmela was a stumpy woman straight out of a 1930s situation
comedy, who looked and acted old, but was not old, that supporting utterly
dependable character the rich people in such flicks always depended on to make
things run smoothly.
She wore old lady’s dresses and old lady’s perfume, and
during the first years that I worked for Cosmetics Plus, she sat outside Donald’s
office like a guard dog. She fiercely defended his privacy, if only in the nicest
way.
She drove a Baracuta, the envy of all the workers in the
warehouse complex, who grumbled about such a fine machine being wasted on such
a character such as she. As with everything else, she drove it like an old lady
might, and only to get to work or to drive her sister somewhere.
While Donald boasted about being a self-made man, it was
Carmela he depended on, until later, when he expanded and bolstered his image as
a modern businessman by bringing on younger, more modern women to as part of
the secretarial staff, leaving Carmela as something of an outdated model,
dependable yes, but hardly hip.
She was moody even back in the old warehouse, a condition
some claimed was the result of “that time of month.”
Most assumed she was still a virgin, an old maid from birth,
and later when the warehouse expanded, some cruel members of the staff offered $100
to any guy brave enough to take her virginity.
There were no takers, even among the well-meaning, because
she had a put-off air that would only let a person get so close, but no closer.
She reminded me of a petrified aunt, a large nose, deep set
back black eyes, a dark complexion. She was short and perched like a bird
behind her desk, utterly efficient, but not someone to inspire even the most
remote sense of tenderness.
Jokingly, people said she walked like a duck and talked like
a goose, and quacked when upset, her head and shoulders moving side to side.
Sometimes, when I came upon her unawares, I found her starting
off into space, her expression filled with intense loneliness, which vanished
the moment she became aware of me.
She lived with her sister somewhere in West Caldwell in a
garden apartment, and constantly complained about her mostly male neighbors who
constantly parked in her parking spot, especially in winter after a snow storm.
She and her sister were twins; I never met her sister.
Carmela spoke of her sister as if an echo, a mirror image of
herself. She spoke of her often, but it was as if she kept her sister in a
drawer, putting her back when not needed.
Nobody seemed to know much about Carmela’s parents, or what
made these two sisters cling to each other the way they did. I always got the
feeling she felt as if her parents were always looking over her shoulder.
Donald didn’t seem to care much about where she came from,
only glad he had her when he did, and always jumped when she asked him for
something.
When she complained later at the new office about the increased
work load, Donald went and hired an army of young women to help her.
None of them ever met with Carmela’s approve, and
eventually, she became more and more isolated as they flocked together, often ignoring
her.
