Someone Tell Oscar Peterson to Shut Up

Someone Tell Oscar Peterson to Shut Up

I married my house cleaner. Her name is Renata, although I'm tempted to
say that her name was Renata, and in fact sometimes I do say that. I
find that I tend to think of our time together as divided into two
phases, before and after, but then again she still cleans my house. I
hasten to add that it is now our house. When I told my parents about
the engagement, my mother became agitated and grew more so every day.
She said the whole thing was tawdry, that there were more elegant ways
to meet women, and that Renata must have had designs on me the entire
time. Yes, Mother, I said, we planned this as part of an elaborate
dating scheme.

My fascination with Renata, which clearly developed into infatuation
and then lust, began when I saw her sitting cross-legged on the floor,
scrubbing bloodstains from the inside collars of my dress shirts. I
tend to cut myself shaving, and sometimes I don't notice until the
shirt is ruined. I kept the ruined shirts in a bag in my closet. For
Renata to notice them, she had to have been rooting around in there.
She looked up and told me she was using a mixture of dish soap and
bleach, and that the blood was coming right out. The soap mixture was
swishing around in a large metal mixing bowl she got from the
kitchen.

I wondered if she found the box of dirty magazines that was in front of
the bag of shirts. To that point we'd had a very cordial relationship,
with little jokes here and there and a little extra in her weekly
paycheck. The idea that she might have seen my box of Playboys from the
1970's made her suddenly seem more feminine and seductive. I still
can't explain this, and I don't even know if she saw them. If she
mentioned them, I could fire her on the spot, but I'd probably just try
to explain that I like all the pictures of old Corvettes and the old
cigarette ads.

The idea of Renata as a lover began to hover over me and occupied a
great many of my thoughts. I looked forward to her weekly visits to the
extent that I would sit on the sofa and pretend to watch television as
she bustled around the house. Despite the fact that she was cheerful
and open with me, it was difficult to mention that I held her in such
high regard, and in fact I used the time to wonder why I was attracted
to her in the first place. As I spent an entire month pretending to
watch television while she dusted and mopped, I noticed that she
started wearing the sides of her hair up, and she started wearing rouge
and eyeliner.

My breaking point came when she arrived at my home wearing a string of
pearls and a long, white sundress. I think it was her breaking point,
too, since these were unsuitable clothes for cleaning, and she
responded rather nicely when I got up and wrapped my arms around her.
We kissed and embraced like we'd done all of it before, and before long
she stepped out of her espadrilles and ordered a pizza to be delivered.
After several alternating hours of lovemaking and eating pizza, she
pulled on a pair of my sweats, and started to clean. I sat down and
watched television, and so began our courtship.

The annoyances came soon after, and I bore them with more good humor
than I ordinarily might, because she was my housekeeper and I had lured
her into my bed. One annoyance was that she mentioned this fact every
time it was to her benefit, so that I would feel guilt about the
apparent abuse of power. This, despite the fact that she had overrun my
music collection with Tejano music, and she had a habit of leaving food
uncovered in the refrigerator. She would also become cross when I would
watch television as she went about her business. But Renata, I
complained, this is how we got started.

My friends thought Renata appeared out of thin air. I didn't have them
over when she cleaned, and I never had occasion to mention my
housecleaner to them. I mentioned her to them while we were bowling,
and they said that I had been holding out on them. I didn't understand
that phrase, holding out. I think they meant that they would have been
interested to know about Renata from the beginning, but I wasn't sure.
I was quiet for the rest of the evening, and I went home to the smell
of chilies roasting in the oven and the sight of Renata applying pink
polish to her toenails. She asked me how I bowled, and I said I did
fine, and then she said no, she wanted to know which hand I used.

We had been sleeping and living together for a month before it occurred
to us that we had never been outside the house together. To remedy
that, we loaded the car and went to the beach together. Her smile
beamed, and she gazed out the window in a way that reminded me of the
way dogs enjoy car rides. She wore a bright pink swimsuit over her
creamy brown skin, and we both ignored the strands of her pubic hair
peeking out from both sides. I was going to ask her if he'd had many
car rides before, which in retrospect wasn't such a great idea, but
before I could say anything she frowned and glared at the car stereo.
Who is that, she asked. It was my tape of the Oscar Peterson Trio, the
one with Sweet Georgia Brown. Well, she said, someone needs to tell him
to shut up while he's playing. And with that, she frowned and stared
out the window for the rest of the trip. I listened to the Trio for the
rest of the trip, and rested my hand on her thigh. Oscar Peterson does
make a lot of racket when he plays, but it's a happy racket, full of
dee-dee-dees and doo-doo-doos.

I have to say that Renata never lost her focus on the housekeeping part
of our relationship, no matter what was going on. She was in mid-scrub
on the kitchen linoleum when I handed her the jewelry box. This is how
dumb she can be: she thought the engagement ring was a toe ring, and
she marveled that with such a large diamond, she would have to wear
sandals. She put it on her second toe, and told me it would have to be
resized to fit her ring toe. I did not know it was called the ring toe.
Later that night, as she drifted off to sleep, I shared with her that
it was meant to be an engagement ring. Tearfully, she took it from her
toe, and placed it on her finger, and she swore her undying love to me
in English and Spanish. The next morning, she put extra chorizo in my
eggs, and our love was affirmed. While I ate, she called all of her
relatives in Mexico and shrieked the news to them. Her speech was
studded with her rendition of Chip: Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.

Her wedding gift to me was a bowling ball, and my bowling buddies had a
great time cooing over it. It was midnight blue, with my name inlaid in
gold cursive. At the reception they set up empty beer cans and bowled a
few frames, while my mother sat at her table and glared at the entire
Galdamez family. Renata's father bragged about me to all of his family
at the wedding, and I was held in high regard because I already owned a
home. Everyone knew how we met; the priest made sure of that as he
delivered his sermon. I had forgotten that Catholics have sermons at
weddings.

I mention all of this because you have not lived until you've seen a
Mexican girl lift up her wedding gown, kick off her white satin shoes,
turn on a stereo, and say, in heavily accented English, 'Hey, Chip,
check me out: I'm Oscar Peterson,' while she dances around the room,
bleating out dee-dee-dees and doo-doo-doos. It's a rare, random
pleasure that I highly recommend.