America's Dream (20 page)
“Charlie collects them,” Mrs. Leverett explains, matter-of-factly. “He started when he was a boy.”
“There are more?”
“He has a few in his office upstairs and some in the city.”
It frightens América that a man with as little patience as Charlie Leverett should have sharp objects lying around within easy reach.
“You no afraid kids touch?”
“The case is locked,” Mrs. Leverett replies. “Besides, they know not to fool with their father’s things.”
The knives give América the creeps. She can’t imagine finding beauty in an object designed to inflict pain, can’t imagine what makes these knives so special other than the fact that they look more deadly and vicious than the one Ester uses for gutting chickens. She checks to ensure the case is really locked. She wouldn’t want the wrong hands getting a hold of those knives.
The laundry and dry storage is behind the sports den. “I buy things in bulk,” Mrs. Leverett says pointing to enormous boxes of detergent, a shelf filled with sanitary paper and paper towels, plastic cups and cutlery, napkins, industrial-size containers of cleaning supplies, cases of soda, beer, bottled water.
América is exhausted. Not just from the up and down the stairs, in and out of rooms. But from seeing so much in one place.
How will I ever find time to clean this huge house with two kids to look after? She follows Mrs. Leverett from room to room, half listening to her instructions, taking mental inventory of the number of toilets to be scrubbed and disinfected, the sinks crusted with toothpaste and soap scum, the streaked mirrors to be wiped with vinegar solution, the beds with their profusion of pillows, the stacks of towels to be washed, the rugs to be vacuumed.
When they return to the kitchen, Mrs. Leverett opens and closes cabinets, shows América where food is kept, which drawers hold cutlery, which kitchen utensils. She points to a calendar with the children’s schedule printed in block letters. Kyle is to make his bed every day, which explains the lopsided corners and casual position of the comforter. Meghan is to help clear the table after meals. They both look at the crowded breakfast table, and Mrs. Leverett smiles and says, “We were in a rush this morning.” She runs her fingers through her hair, pushes both hands into the pockets of her jeans.
“Well, I’d better get some work done before I pick up Meghan. Maybe you can start with the kitchen. If there’s anything you need, buzz me in my office.” She runs up the stairs without a backward glance at América, who stands in the middle
of the kitchen wondering where to begin. Her stomach rumbles, and what she’d really like to do is have something to eat, but she can’t bring herself to do so until she clears the messy kitchen.
“Okéi, that’s where I start,” she says to herself.
She picks up and hand washes the dishes, scrubs the sink, wipes down the table, counters, and chairs, sweeps the floor, rinses out the coffeepot, scrapes the burnt crumbs from the bottom of the toaster oven. A song insinuates itself into her brain, and before she knows it, she’s humming, within minutes singing to herself as she rubs down the cabinets with a damp cloth. She’s so in- volved in her work that she jumps when Mrs. Leverett appears at the bottom of the stairs, announcing she’s going to pick up Meghan from school.
América doesn’t eat all day. As soon as Meghan comes home from school, she has to be given lunch, a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. A couple of hours later, Kyle has to be picked up.
Once the children are home, América can’t do much. They want to show their rooms and are disappointed that she’s already been there. They argue over whose rooms she should clean first in the morning, over who should play with her first and whether she should crawl down on all fours with them or sit and watch what wonderful things they can make with their blocks or trains or whatever. She strains to understand what they say, and the effort gives her a headache.
“Charlie won’t be home for supper,” Mrs. Leverett informs everyone. “I’ll make us some pasta, okay?”
She cooks spaghetti with vegetables and garlic bread, fills glasses of milk for the children. América sets the table.
“Set a place for yourself, too,” Mrs. Leverett reminds her. “You eat with us.”
She’s uncomfortable sitting at table with them, jumps up each time the children ask for more milk or extra cheese for their pasta. “Sit down, relax, I’ll get it,” Mrs. Leverett tells her, but América doesn’t want to relax. She wants to impress her with how helpful she can be. She wants to do her job like she thinks it ought to be
done, and that includes serving the family their
supper, making sure the children have plenty to eat, that there’s enough of everything.
She now knows why the Leverett family is so thin. The flavor- less spaghetti, the steamed vegetables, the gritty bread, the skim milk are all diet food. The entire family is on a diet. Unlike other homes with children, this house has no candies, no cookies in the cupboard, no ice cream in the freezer, no butter in the refrigerator. She feels sorry for Meghan and Kyle.
Mrs. Leverett leads the dinner conversation as if she were a schoolteacher, asking Kyle and Meghan about their day, pressing them for information about what they learned in school, whether this or that friend played with them today, whether the teacher was pleased with their work. Even little Meghan has to relate the goings-on in her classroom, and América wonders if this is for her benefit or if Mrs. Leverett interrogates her children like this every night.
She eats the bland spaghetti because she’s hungry but wishes it were one of Ester’s thick asopaos or her arroz con habichuelas. She pushes the thought aside as quickly as it surfaced, afraid that if she stars missing her old life so quickly, she’ll never get used to her new one.
While the family watches television in the den, she cleans up and decides never to eat with them again. She’ll prepare her own meals the way she likes them. She’s not about to go a diet that will make her end up looking as pale and wasted as an Americ- ana.
At 9:00
P.M
., after the children are bathed and put to bed, she comes into her room for the first time since she left it this morning and collapses on the bed with her shoes on. She stares at the stars above, going over all she has seen and done today.
A whole day has passed, and she has not once thought about Correa or Rosalinda. Does it happen so soon? Does one leave one’s old life behind and in less than a day forget everything? She asks herself what she would like to forget, other than the obvious, and can’t answer the question. She doesn’t want to forget anything or anyone. She just wants not to have to think about them all the time.
he next morning she gets up early and comes down to break- fast before the family wakes up. It’s still dim out, but a feeble sun is beginning to touch the white landscape like a timid lover. She sits with her coffee and toast with jelly, enjoying the quiet house, wishing it were a little warmer, wondering what time Mr. Leverett came home. She remembers hearing the garage door going up and down in the middle of the night, but she was too sleepy to raise her head and look at the bedside clock. His briefcase is at the edge of the table as if he has set it down for a
few moments.
She hears water running upstairs and knows that the adults in the family, at least, are up. Mrs. Leverett didn’t say whether América is supposed to waken the children, and she’s not sure what they eat for breakfast, so she picks up around the family room and den while she waits for them.
Mr. Leverett is the first to come down, and he seems surprised and pleased to see her.
“Good morning! How are you today?” he asks as if truly inter- ested.
“Very good, Mr. Leverett, and you?” “Charlie.”
“Excuse?”
“I’m Charlie at home, Mr. Leverett at the office.” “Ah,
sí,
thank you, Don Charlie.”
“No, just plain Charlie.”
“Okéi, Charlie.” She smiles to herself. He’s cheerful and ener- getic, moves with the confidence of an athlete. But his brusque manner and efficient movements seem studied, as if he has to keep reminding himself he’s a grown-up. “Do you like breakfast?” “No, thanks, I’ll get some coffee at the station.” He finds his coat in the closet, tugs his necktie into place before grabbing his briefcase and gloves. “Well, have a good day,” he says, and doesn’t wait for her to wish him the same before he goes out the back door. In a minute she hears the garage door open and his
car’s ignition catch smartly.
Upstairs there’s a lot of running around, and Mrs. Leverett’sand the children’s voices speaking incomprehensibly fast. The phone rings and is picked up upstairs. América wonders if she should help the children dress, and as she’s about to, Mrs. Leverett runs down, the portable phone at her ear, trailed by Kyle and Meghan. “Okay, guys, have a seat and we’ll get you some breakfast, okay, Good morning,” she says as she goes past América and starts frantically opening and closing cabinets, pulling out bowls, cereal, a banana from the fruit basket on the counter at the same
time as she’s conducting a telephone conversation.
“I do, no worry,” América says, and Mrs. Leverett nods, and leans against the counter, points at the cereal, then the kids, and turns around to scribble something on a piece of paper.
América brings everything over to the table, fills the bowls slices the banana over the flakes, pours the watery milk.
“That’s too much,” Kyle complains.
“Milk good for you,” América says softly, so as not to interfere with Mrs. Leverett’s phone call. “You grow strong.”
“She put too much milk in it, Mom.” América is surprised at Kyle’s tone, a whine that she’s not heard before. Mrs. Leverett looks up from her scribbling.
“Just a minute,” she says into the phone, then comes around
to look. “We only use a little bit,” she says. “They like the cereal crunchy.” She gets on the phone again.
“I’m not eating it.” Kyle pushes his bowl away. Meghan copies him. “Me neither.”
Mrs. Leverett looks at América, as if expecting her to say or do something. What América would like to do is teach the kids some respect and make them eat their breakfast.
She smiles obsequiously. “Eat now, tomorrow I put less.” “I don’t want it,” Kyle says without tasting. “It’s soggy.”
América picks up a spoonful of flaccid flakes. “Is good, you see?”
Mrs. Leverett puts down the phone, picks up the bowls, dumps their contents down the sink, and refills them. “América is learning how we like things, you shouldn’t be rude to her, okay?” she says to the children as the splashes a moistening of milk on their second serving of dry flakes. Without looking at América, she walks to the other side of the kitchen island to pour herself some coffee.
América stands by the table, feeling like she’s failed a test. The children sit at their places like a prince and princess, looking from América to their mother as if both of them had let them down. América gets another banana from the fruit bowl.
“How you like, fat or skinny?” she asks, her lips pressed togeth- er, the paring knife poised above the banana over Kyle’s bowl. He looks at her, his eyes staring into hers as if trying to under- stand her intentions. She stares back, unsmiling. He shrugs. She cuts half a banana into his bowl, half into his sister’s, in deliberate even slices, not too thin, not too thick. The children silently watch her plunge the edge of the knife into the firm, giving fruit. When she finishes, she looks at them, her face set in an expression that challenges complaints. “Eat,” she tells them softly, and they spoon the cereal into their mouths, their eyes on her as she moves to the kitchen, where Mrs. Leverett is waiting for the toaster to ding. “You sit, Mrs. Leverett,” América says. “I bring.” Mrs. Leverett sits across from the children, who are scooping up every last bit of cereal, milk, and banana.
“Call me Karen,” she says. “We’re not that formal around here.” “Okéi, thank you, Karen.” She smiles thinly as she places the toast in front of her. “You like more cereal?” she asks the children, and they shake their heads in unison, like puppets. “Get ready
to school,” she says, and they slide off their chairs and go.
Karen Leverett looks up from her dry toast. “I shouldn’t have yelled at them,” she says, “but they have to learn.”
América cleans up the children’s places wondering what Karen is talking about and whether she understood correctly. The chil- dren come back struggling with their coats, and América helps them while Karen looks for her coat and boots.
“Tomorrow,” Karen says, “you come with us so that you can learn the route.”
“Okéi.” América buttons Meghan’s coat up to her neck, pulls her hat over her eyes. “We play when you come back.” Meghan nods solemnly.
“I have to do some errands while I’m out. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” Karen shoos the kids out in front of her, and América stands at the back door seeing them off. When the garage door opens, a blast of cold air chills her. She waves, and shuts the inside door with a shiver.
We have to get used to each other, she tells herself as she clears Karen’s place. They’re not used to my ways, and I’m not used to theirs. In the sink, the remains of the children’s first breakfast look like vomit. She runs water over the mess, pushes the pieces of still shimmery slices of uneaten banana into the disposal. She feels like crying and attributes the sudden urge to the fact that she doesn’t like to waste food.
It takes her a week to learn the family’s routines and her role in them. Charlie Leverett leaves the house at the same time each morning, because he has to catch a train, and doesn’t come back before 7:30
P.M
. and sometimes not until long after the family has gone to bed. Karen Leverett is slow to get herself ready in the morning, and the children wait for her to help them get
dressed. They all come scrambling down the stairs with ten minutes to spare. After the third morning, América goes upstairs as soon as Charlie leaves, helps Kyle get dressed, helps Meghan, then escorts them down for breakfast. By the time Karen comes down, the children are halfway through their meal.
