America's Dream (19 page)
The room is eerily quiet. She goes to the window, pulls up the shade. It’s so dark outside! Snow drifts past in thick clumps,
settling into mysterious white mounds and dips, a huge rectangle, a little house with a peaked roof, and beyond, solid darkness. She shivers. Her cotton nightgown is not warm enough. She turns off the lights, crawls under the comforter, punches the pillows into shape, decides there are too many for comfort and slides them off the side to the floor.
There are stars above. She closes her eyes, opens them, and still sees stars, glowing palely above her. She turns on the bedside lamp. A constellation of plastic stars is stuck to the ceiling. She turns the light off and stares at the stars above the bed, counts them, realizes it’s been years since she has lain on her back looking at stars. Heavy on the bed, soft covers around her like clouds, the earth is moving, no, she’s moving, going down, down, down into a soft dark place with stars shimmering above, green stars, like his eyes, green. His eyes. He’s so angry. He’s going to hurt me. Don’t, Correa! Stop! She sits up, her arms around her head. It’s so quiet, so dark. No one heard her scream. She lies down again. It’s so strange and quiet, stars above. So cold. I’m in New York. Not home. He’s looking for me. He knows.
hiss by her ear wakes her. A snake? She sits bolt upright. She’s in a huge room, with too many windows and sloping ceilings. Pale light stripes the sills around and below drawn shades. América presses her fists into her eyes, rubs them, opens them to a fuzzy view of the same room, same stripes of light around the shaded windows, and the hiss that woke her up. The clock radio is playing static. It is six-thirty in the morning. She chuckles at her foolishness and throws herself back against the pillows, pulls the comforter up to her chin, stares at the stars above, not quite so brilliant now, as if the coming of morning has dimmed them. Her face feels cold, and she pulls the covers over her head
and curls up.
Someone bangs on a distant door. Knock knock knock knock. Pause. Knock knock knock knock. “Amé-rica!” She turns over, uncovers her face. The clock radio is still hissing, but the time is now 7:48.
“¡Ay, no!” She throws off the covers and is blasted by cold air.
Knock knock knock knock. “Amé-rica.” Mrs. Leverett sounds exasperated.
“Sí, I come. One minute plis.” She runs to the door, opens it,
hides her nightgowned body behind it. Mrs. Leverett stands in the hall with her hat, coat, boots, and gloves on. America cringes in shame.
“I sorry. I never slip so much.”
Mrs. Leverett smiles feebly. “I’m taking the kids to school. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. We can go over the house then.”
“Okéi. I get dressed.”
Mrs. Leverett walks down the long hall to the stairs without looking back. América shuts the door and leans against it, rubs the cobwebs from her brain. Her first day on the job, and she oversleeps!
She needs to focus on what to do next. Shower. No, it’s too cold for that, maybe later. She gives the heater dial another half turn. She washes her face, brushes her teeth, her hair. She dresses hurriedly in the closet, which feels warmer than the room.
She makes her bed, tries to place the extra pillows as artfully as she found them but can’t. She opens a shade. The world is white. Snow covers the ground along the driveway, which is cleared. Beyond it, a dirt road. Tall pointy green trees and wide, bare-branched trees surround the house, so that no other dwell- ings are visible. Clumps of snow soften the landscape. Bright sun makes it seem as if it were warm out, but the bottom of the win- dowpane is crusted with ice.
As she stands at the window deciding whether to wait down- stairs for Mrs. Leverett to return, the red Explorer pulls into the driveway. América draws away from the window guiltily. She reaches the bottom of the stairs just as Mrs. Leverett comes in from the garage.
“Hi!” Mrs. Leverett’s cheeks are rosy. When she takes off her hat, fine golden hair swirls around her face, like in a shampoo commerical. América smiles. “Let me take my boots off…” Mrs. Leverett goes into a closet under the back stairs, and América has a chance to look around.
The kitchen has an island counter that divides it from the room where the family takes meals. The table is crowded with
plates, bowls, cups, a box of cereal, soiled napkins, glasses, and spoons. América begins to clear the table, placing everything on the dividing counter.
“No, don’t do that now,” Mrs. Leverett calls out. “Let me show you around first.”
She’s wearing a pair of slippers that make her feet into bear claws. When she sees América looking at them, she blushes prettily. “I know, they’re ridiculous, aren’t they? But they’re warm and comfortable.”
Even though she’s wearing so many clothes, Mrs. Leverett still seems slender to América. But a look at the crowded breakfast table lets her know that the family certainly has enough to eat. She wishes she’d come down earlier and poured herself some coffee, which, by the looks of the abandoned filter at the bottom of the sink, must be somewhere in the crowded kitchen.
Mrs. Leverett stands by the counter. “As you can see, this is the kitchen.” She points her hand at things the way models on television game shows demonstrate what you could win if you answer the question correctly. “We usually take our meals in the family room,” as she points to the table and chairs. “Sometimes Charlie watches the news before he leaves,” as she points to the television high on the wall. She fetches the remote control from under a napkin on the table and places it on a shelf under the television.
She leads América into a narrow room lined with glass-fronted cabinets filled with china, glasses of various shapes and sizes, serving platters and bowls. On the long stone counters, food- preparation appliances, candleholders, vases. Mrs. Leverett opens and shuts drawers to display serving implements, folded napkins and tablecloths, extra parts for the appliances. One section of the room is reserved for plastic ware, colorful cups and plates that look good enough for everyday service but that Mrs. Leverett says are used only in the summer.
“And this way,” she says, sidling past América without looking at her, “is the dining room.”
She waits for América to be impressed. The dining room is as large as América’s house in Vieques. On one wall there is a huge
stone fireplace, and on the opposite side, a massive, elaborately carved sideboard. In between, a long table under two chandeliers. Twelve chairs with upholstered seats are lined up on either side of the table and at the head and foot, and four more of the same type are against the walls, two flanking a long buffet table that matches the sideboard and the other two between the floor-to- ceiling windows that look out onto the neat rows of what América guesses is a garden of some sort, now covered with snow. Under- foot, a huge rug with fancy designs feels thick and soft, and América wonders how long it must take to clean this room after a dinner party.
“We entertain here,” Mrs. Leverett says as she walks around the room, “mostly in the fall and winter. In the spring and summer we cook out a lot.”
“Okéi.” América hopes the longer she’s in New York, the easier it will be to understand what people are saying. Mrs. Leverett speaks so fast!
“This is the living room,” Mrs. Leverett says as they flow into the next room. It’s easily as big as the dining room, with another fireplace in front of which two matching sofas face each other across a coffee table with magazines fanned on its surface, four upholstered chairs with cushions, four more side tables with bowls and china boxes and framed photographs. On one end, a piano, and next to it a music stand.
“You play?” América asks, and Mrs. Leverett shakes her head. “Charlie can play, and we want the children to learn.”
Shelves laden with books and more framed photographs line two of the walls.
“That one’s at our wedding reception,” Mrs. Leverett explains when she catches América peering at a large photograph of herself and Mrs. Leverett smiling, their arms around each other’s waists as if in the middle of a dance. “Here’s our wedding picture.” Mrs. Leverett in a long fitted white gown that accentuates her thinness, a lace veil drooping languidly from a crown of flowers, her hair under it longer and fuller, gypsylike.
“You look beautiful,” América says admiringly, and Mrs.
Leverett blushes faintly, looks at the picture, straightens it on
the shelf. “Ten years ago,” she says softly and strokes the photo- graph, leaving faint fingerprints on the glass.
“Around this way,” she says in a louder voice, as if trying to change the subject, “is the den.” She crosses a hallway with stairs leading up, and they’re in another living room, smaller than the first but still impressive, with a huge black leather sectional and two leather recliners, and a rectangular coffee table made up of a highly polished slab of granite. Its sharp corners are shin height, and América bangs against one as she passes it. Mrs. Leverett doesn’t notice América grimace in pain.
One entire wall is lined with electronic equipment, including a large-screen television. In a corner between windows there is a table with a computer and other machines with tiny green and orange lights, stacks of paper and a bulletin board with drawings and messages pinned on it so that there is very little surface for even one more scrap. “That’s the kids’ computer,” Mrs. Leverett says. “Ours are in our offices.” She goes out a door, and América follows her, finding herself back in the kitchen.
“Oh!” She exclaims, and Mrs. Leverett laughs.
“Yes, I know it seems confusing, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Is big house,” América says. Mrs. Leverett laughs and points to the back stairs.
“There’s more.”
América looks up the stairs. Her stomach growls, and she brings her hands to her belly as if trying to calm a wild beast. She hopes Mrs. Leverett didn’t hear it, but she’s already moving away from América toward a row of appliances under a cabinet next to the enormous stove with eight burners, two ovens, a grill. She ima- gines that the Leveretts must entertain every night to need a res- taurant stove in their kitchen. She wonders if it will be up to her to do all the cooking, serving, and cleaning up after their dinner parties.
“We’ll go upstairs later. I’ve written a list of what needs to be done when, and we should go over it now.” Mrs. Leverett finds two cups in the cabinet over the appliances and pours coffee from a thermos. “I made a potful before I left. We go through coffee here like you wouldn’t believe!” She hands América a cup-
ful, and the warmth and aroma set her stomach churning again. When was the last time she ate? Last night on the airplane. A chicken breast and broccoli. No wonder.
“Would you like milk in it, or sugar?” Mrs. Leverett asks, taking a container out of the refrigerator.
“No, thank you.”
Mrs. Leverett pours cold skim milk in hers and leads América to the family room. She wipes the crumbs off a corner of the table, pulls our a chair for América, sits in the chair across from her. There is a pad with a long list on it.
“If I don’t write everything down, I forget to do it.” She smiles ruefully. América sips her coffee, which is strong and bitter, as if it has been sitting around too long.
Mrs. Leverett goes through her list, and América listens, al- though not everything Mrs. Leverett says makes sense. She wishes Mrs. Leverett would leave and let her discover where things are. She can see the house needs a lot of attention. There is much glass, rugs to be vacuumed, furniture to be polished.
“Charlie leaves by quarter to seven every morning,” Mrs. Leverett explains, “to catch his train. I have to be out of the house by seven-fifty at the latest. On my way, I drop Kyle and Meghan off at school. She has to be picked up at noon, and Kyle at three- thirty.”
As she speaks, Mrs. Leverett checks off items on her list. The dried cereal flakes on the bowls must be calcified by now, and América is anxious to get up and clean. She hates sitting at table with dirty dishes piled up in front of her. Her stomach growls, and she’d like some toast to calm the roiling but is too embar- rassed to ask for food. It surprises her that Mrs. Leverett hasn’t offered her more than coffee.
“Your days off are Sunday and Monday. I need you here early on Tuesday. Sometimes if we don’t have company on Saturday nights, you can go home early.” Mrs. Leverett catches herself, “I mean you can take off early if you like.” She sips her coffee and studies her list.
There is no home other than the one I left behind. América looks out the window at the cold, white landscape shimmering
under the deceptive bright sun. She sips the last of the bitter cof- fee.
“Shall I show you the upstairs now?”
Kyle’s room is immediately to the right of the back stairs, and on the other side of the front hall is Meghan’s room, all frills and flowers and dolls. Each child has a playroom and a private bath- room. Kyle’s playroom is lined with shelves filled with plastic creatures, cars, wooden train sets, electronic games, books, and board games. Meghan’s room, too, is cluttered with dolls and stuffed animals, blocks, an easel with finger paints, crayons, and markers. The rear of the second floor is taken up by the master bedroom, his and hers dressing rooms and baths. On the third floor are another bath, two guest rooms, and Mr. Leverett and Mrs. Leverett’s offices, each one facing the front of the house, each with its own computer, each neat and orderly, as if very little work actually takes place there. By the time they get down to the kitchen again, it’s eleven o’clock.
“Oh, my goodness, how time flies. We still have the basement to look at.”
A mirrored room filled with exercise equipment and a television high on the wall, a bathroom, a room with a pool table, a bar with its own refrigerator, and another den with leather furniture, an- other large television set and stereo, framed posters of athletes.
“We call this the sports den,” Mrs. Leverett explains.
On a shelf, there’s a glass-fronted case with an assortment of knives. América shudders at the seven sharp and shiny edges lined up one next the other.
