Minding Ben (12 page)

She was right, of course, but it wasn't nice to call people ugly. “My name is Grace,” I said to her.

“Grace is a good name. I am Ule Brown. I see you this morning and before.” She dropped her voice. “Is a nasty somefing that boy mother do Carmen.”

Finally somebody was going to talk to me about Carmen. “I didn't know what was going on, you know.”

“How you could of know, child? That woman”—she chucked her chin at Ben—“that woman is a snake. She used to spy on Carmen. Yes.”

“Spy on her doing what?”

She ignored that question. “You best watch yourself, you hear me.”

I didn't know what I had to watch myself for. I did the housework Miriam told me to do, and cooked what she told me to cook, and took care of Ben as best as I could. There was nothing for her to see if she spied.

“So what did Carmen do?” I asked again, feeling like a hypocrite. Half an hour ago I was comparing Danny to a
comess
woman, and now here I was trying to get gossip from Ule. “You know what, Ule? I don't want to know. That doesn't have anything to do with me.” I reached for Ben in the sandbox. “Is time to take him in. Have a good night.”

She looked as if she agreed with what I had said. “Okay, Grace. Tomorrow is anadder day. Bye, Benjamin.”

He didn't look at her, but he did said bye.

We met Sol in the tower lobby, and he and I switched cargo. “So what time do you normally come in?” I asked, pushing his briefcase. “Yesterday you came in after eight and today it's barely six.” He carried Ben high on his shoulders.

“Usually somewhere in the middle, around seven. I went uptown to see my parents yesterday.”

“How's Big Ben?”

Ben stopped counting floors and said, “Big Ben, choo choo.”

“He's good. He liked you.”

The apartment lights were on, and I guessed that Miriam was home. Sol called out, but there was no answer. He walked in ahead of us and stopped when he came to the kitchen entrance. “Miriam, what the hell are you doing? Get down from there right now. Are you crazy?”

Miriam was standing on the top rung of a step stool. She held a spray bottle in one hand and a wad of paper towels in the other.

Sol held her around the waist as she backed down. “Sol,” she said, “stop overreacting. I just climbed up to clean some grease off the glass. It was filthy.” She showed him the blackened paper towels.

“Listen, Miriam, this is why we have a maid, okay. I don't want my wife climbing around like a monkey cleaning windows.”

A maid?

“This is why we have Grace. Grace”—he turned back to me—“these are your chores, not Miriam's. You're getting paid to do this stuff so she doesn't have to do it. Do you understand?”

I ran through the list from this morning. I had forgotten nothing. Still, I nodded.

MIRIAM WASN'T DONE WITH
me for the night. At 8:15, when I had dressed Ben for bed and loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the cabinet glass, and was finally ready to rest, she slid open the jalousied door to my space.

“Come to the supermarket with me,” she said.

Sylvia or Kathy or any of the other women it seemed would be able to say “I'm off,” or “I'm done for the evening,” or “This is my time.” But I could not.

Sol was watching TV. Ben lay with him. “Where are you guys going?” He barely lifted his head from the armrest. Ben chatted with Rabbit and paid us no mind.

“Quick run to the A & P.”

“At this hour, Mir? Have Grace go tomorrow.”

“Nah.” She buttoned a coat around her shirt. “I have to get some heavier things.”

He half sat up. “Do you want me to come with?”

She tossed and caught her keys. “We'll manage.”

In the elevator she made small talk. “My kids drove me nuts today.”

“Your kids?” I asked.

She turned to look at me. “Yeah, my students. You know I teach, right? Special ed. Not the easiest class. Mostly crack babies with zero attention span. You know what a crack baby is?”

I had an idea. Once, Micky and Derek had got into a fight with the kids from next door. Micky had stood with her hands on her waist, quite bold when her mother wasn't around, and told Sonique, her best friend two minutes before, that her mother was a crackhead and her grandma was a crackhead and she was a government-cheese-eating welfare crack baby.

Miriam didn't wait for me to answer. As we walked into the supermarket conveniently located on the building's ground floor, she went on about taking care of people's troubled children when she much preferred to stay home and take care of her own.

“So why not stay home?” Sol was a lawyer, and his parents looked like they had plenty of money. It didn't seem to me that Miriam had to work.

She pointed to the conga-lined shopping carts off to the side, and I grabbed one. “I'd love to quit my job and take care of Ben full-time,” she said, “but in my own sweet time, thank you.” She added, almost to herself, “I'm not on anybody's timetable.”

I pushed the cart up and down the aisles, and Miriam picked out groceries. A gallon of milk, cans of whole and crushed tomatoes, tins of tuna, boxes of Rice-A-Roni, olive oil, jars of gefilte fish in that viscous gray jelly that made a sucking sound when you pulled out a lumpy piece, bottles of Diet Coke and water, chicken, meat, frozen vegetables. Eventually, I had to use my foot to turn the cart up and down the rows. “Any coupons?” the checkout girl asked.

Miriam reached into her brown pocketbook and pulled out a sheaf. She fanned through them and handed over two.

“Delivery?” the checkout girl asked.

“No,” Miriam said. “We've got it.”

There were seven packed bags in all, and I picked up four and waited. The checkout girl said good night and turned to the next customer. Miriam snapped shut her purse. “You left some bags, Grace.”

The checkout girl turned back to us as I tried to pick up the other three bags. “You sure you don't want us to bring those up, ma'am? Delivery's free in the building, you know.”

“I'm sure,” Miriam said. “Do you have them, Grace?”

“I think so.” I managed to pick up all seven bags—my arms felt as though they were coming apart at my inner elbows. Miriam walked out of the store, scanning her receipt. I turned to smile at the checkout girl, who looked at me and shrugged.

In the lobby, the dog man leaned against the concierge's desk, listening to an animated Danny. “Hey, Dave.” Miriam stopped. “How are you?” He kissed her on the cheek, and they held their hug for a while.

“I'm good, Sister Maria. How you doin?”

“Smart-ass,” she said playfully. “You coming up on Sunday, right?”

“Wouldn't miss your gnocchi for anything in the world.” Dave looked over at me and at the bags blooming from my clenched fists. “And who have we here?”

“This is Grace.”

I pivoted at the hips like Pinocchio. I wanted to rest the bags on the tiles so that I could shake hands with the dog man—Dave. Also, my arms were on fire.

“Um, sorry, Grace, you can't put those there, house rules,” Danny said.

Miriam glared. I straightened and felt the burn race up to my shoulders.

“Uh-oh,” Dave said. “I guess I should move Cesar and the Brute before I get in trouble then.” Danny didn't say anything, but Dave gently yanked the leashes and said good night.

Inside the apartment, Miriam told me to put away the groceries. Sol had taken Ben to his room, and I could hear them laughing and the rise in Ben's voice when she walked in. I bent again and slowly uncurled my fists to release the bags. My fingertips were bone white, and tiny bright red welts ribboned diagonally across my palms. I couldn't bend my elbows or my wrists without pain searing my arms. Slowly, slowly, I put away the groceries, listening to voices down the hall. Then I heard just Miriam's nasal voice as she read: “Once upon a time there was an artist named Hieronymus Bosch who loved odd creatures. Not a day passed that the good woman who looked after his house didn't find a new creature lurking in a corner or sleeping in a cupboard. To her fell the job of”—Ben and Sol joined in—“feeding them, weeding them, walking them, stalking them, calming them, combing them, scrubbing and tucking in all of them—until one day . . . I'm quitting your service, I've had quite enough . . .”

B
en and I stood outside apartment 15F. “You want to ring the bell?” I lifted his thirty pounds and immediately regretted it as pain lanced through my arms. He happily rang the buzzer four times. I could hear feet dragging across the floor inside and children's voices saying, “Ben's here, Ben's here.”

Evie opened the door wearing a blue housedress with grubby bedroom slippers mashed at the heels. She had her bangs rolled in one pink sponge curler. “You think you ring the bell enough?” she greeted me.

“I rang the bell,” Ben said and pushed past her into the apartment. The Zollers' place was much bigger than the Bruckners' and seemed given over to Sammy and Caleb. There were two of everything. Two small desks with paper and pencils and two play kitchens with pots and spoons, two big bouncy balls and two tricycles. The poui yellow walls were striped with colored crayons up to where the twins' awkward arms could reach and the ceiling painted a cloudless blue with a silver, sun-shaped chandelier hanging from its center.

Evie aimed the remote at the TV. “You should have come two minutes later, man, you make me miss the end of my story.” She turned to Ben. “Hello, Mr. Redhead. You come to make some trouble for me?”

Ben ignored her, and I didn't tell him to answer. He and the twins were clustered around one of the desks and already held fat markers in their hands. I didn't know what to do, so I sat on the couch wishing I had brought a book or a magazine. I waited for Evie to take the lead. She sat next to me and crossed her legs. “I don't want you to think I don't like you, child. This thing that this woman do have everybody so upset.”

“What?” I asked Evie. “What
thing
Miriam do?”

“So you want to tell me you don't know?” Evie was waiting for an answer, for me to explain myself.

“How come Sammy and Caleb's arms are like that?”

She didn't expect my question. “Is so they born. They used to hug up each other in the mother womb.” I looked at her to see if she was serious. “All the pictures the doctor take before them born, when they was still in she belly, you could see the two of them hugging up.” She was serious.

“Oh, okay,” I said and leaned back into the food-stained couch, wondering how long these playdates lasted. Ben and Caleb had left Sammy at the desk and rode bouncing balls across the bright red carpet in cowboy hats.

“Which part in the Caribbean you from?” I asked Evie, even though it was plain from her accent that she, like Duke the doorman, was Bajan.

“Barbados, born and bred.”

“I always wanted to go Barbados,” I said, and it was the truth. “In all the pictures you see the water always blue blue.” I looked up. “Blue like the ceiling.”

“Is me self who pick out this color for them to paint,” she said.

“It's pretty,” I said. It was.

“Now I hear you talk good,” she said to me. “I think you from Trinidad.”

“Yep. Born and bred.”

Evie seemed to relax a bit. She unrolled her bangs, combed her fingers through her hair, and then put the curler back in. I scooted off the couch and moved over to Sammy, standing by herself next to the desk.

“Hey, Sammy, can I see your picture?”

“I'm vrawing a cow,” she said, her tongue thick in her mouth. She turned close to my face, said, “Moooo,” and laughed.

“You have a very good moo.”

“Here.” She handed me a black marker. “You can vraw a cow too.” I took the marker from her and did my best cow. Ben and Caleb came to see what we were doing, and we all took turns drawing animals on the whiteboard. Evie chatted in a low voice on the phone by the window, glancing over at us. I didn't pay her any mind. If this was all I had to do, I'd be happy. I could play with toddlers all day long and get paid at the week's end. The kids were not the problem.

I WAS DONE WITH
every chore on the list. I had cooked Ben's dinner and theirs, made a plate for Sol, and had mopped the kitchen floor without her asking. Miriam came in around five, said hi to Ben and me, and went to her room. For an hour. At six she came out with sleep marks pressed into the left side of her face, the fresh-lined indents and her own deep pockmarks set up for an
x
-less game of tic-tac-toe. She called me into the kitchen, where she picked up the plastic money cup. She counted the money and then tallied the receipts. I tried to remember if I had put in receipts every time I had gone to the store this week. Ben and I didn't go out for pizza, so I had receipts only from the A & P. Three trips to the A & P. Three receipts. I was nervous standing there in the kitchen, even though I had nothing to be anxious about. The house was clean and the money had to all be there. Miriam turned to me and smiled. In relief, I smiled too. I grinned in fact.

“Okay, Grace, that works out. Just a minute.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen to her room, for my pay, I assumed. Instead Miriam came back out with an armful of clothes, which she dumped on the easy chair, on top of my bag and my coat. It was 6:19. “Iron these before you leave. It's stuff I might need this weekend.”

While I got the iron out of the closet, Miriam dished out Rice-A-Roni and sliced the London broil I had cooked earlier in the day. She sat at the table with Ben, right where I had to plug in the iron. As I pressed her clothes, she ate and chatted with her son about his day and his trip to the Zollers' and their plans for the weekend. At one point she said, “A minute less on the steak next time, Grace.” I finished ironing, hung the clothes in her closet, put away the board and the iron, and still she sat at the table, taxiing spoonfuls of cold Kraft macaroni and cheese into Ben's mouth. I sat on the soft chair with my bag. At 6:57, when I was sure that Kathy had grown tired waiting for me, Miriam got up, went to her brown purse on the floral couch, took out a wad of bills, and passed them to me.

“Grace”—she was smiling—“thank you so much for coming in this week. You saved us. We'll see you on Sunday night.”

“Hey, Ben, can I get a hug?” I stooped to kiss his forehead. “Have a fun weekend, okay.”

I rose to say bye to Miriam. “Hold on, Grace.” She dashed into the kitchen and came back with the bag of trash from the bin. “Can you throw it down the chute on your way out?”

KATHY WAS SITTING AT
a closed checkout counter in the A & P, reading a fashion magazine she had plucked from the rack. An old woman with a laden cart stopped at her register and placed her groceries on the unmoving conveyor. Kathy blew a bubble with her gum and snapped, “I'm on break.”

“Kathy,” I said to her, “what you doing? Get up from there.” She dropped the magazine and swiveled on the high stool.

“Grace, Jesus. Me thought you say you soon come. I've been in this supermarket for an hour and a half.” I could see a huge wad of gum lodged in the back of her mouth. “I can't tell you how many old ladies I turned away. I've been on break for the last hour. Daddy would never leave a register untended like this. What a take you so long, girl?”

“Kath, decide. Either Trini, Jamaican, or American, but not all three in one conversation. That woman found some last-minute chores for me, but I'm done and I'm here and most importantly, I have two hundred dollars in my pocket. Shall we go shopping, my dear?”

“Abso-frigging-loutely,” she said and spat her gum into the bin set behind the register for abandoned receipts.

Fourteenth Street was a wind tunnel with breeze gusting up from the river, but the Friday night air was bracing and not unbearably cold. Kids on skateboards bounced off the railings and clattered down the concrete steps, high-fiving each other when they made it and ducking off to try again when they fell hard on their bottoms. Kath and I linked arms, me a good six inches taller than her; she glinting and sparkling from the headlights and streetlights and brightly lit storefronts. I loved New York right now. The towers were behind me, and I didn't look back.

“What is this place?” Her special shop was not at all what I'd expected. Lean-waisted mannequins were roped into corsets, and headless torsos wore stockings of various degrees of sheer. There were bullet-shaped bras and bras that laced up in the front, and bras that plunged in the back—any kind of bra Madonna could possibly need.

Kathy pulled me all the way to the back of the shop.

“Kath, for real. Why did you come here?” I asked her.

She stopped. “Okay, choose one.”

“One what? You mad or crazy? Kath, these are drawers.”

“I know it's underwear, Grace. You won't wear it like this. Pick one, and I'll decorate it for you to wear at the bash.”

“Nuh-uh,” I said, using Micky's absolute negative. “This is meant to go
under
clothes, not be clothes.” I backed away, and she rummaged through one of the middle boxes. “What size are you, Grace?”

“Extra-large.”

“Oh shut up.” She took stock of my body and went back to her digging. No one else came in the shop.

“Got it.” She straightened up holding a bulky package.

“You dreaming if you think I'm spending my hard-earned money for underwear,” I said.

Kathy started up to the register. “Don't worry, this is my birthday present to you, remember.”

“You must be mad if you think you getting me to wear that thing.” I stood away from her as if she and the stocking suit were both catching.

Kathy just laughed. “O ye of little faith.”

“What?” That was one of my mother's lines.

“Trust me.” She paid and took the thing she had bought. “You're going to beg me to sew all your clothes when I'm done.”

Afterward, when Kathy wouldn't even let me touch the package, we sat for a while in McDonald's. “Here,” I said, “before I forget.” I pulled out two twenties. “The money you lent me last week. Thank you very much.” It felt good to pay off the debt. To square myself down to what I actually owned so I could begin again.

But Kath turned away. “Why you have to go and embarrass me like that, Grace? I didn't ask you for any money.” She ended the talk and moved on before I could insist. “So,” Kath started on my french fries, “how was your first week?”

Good question. I rested my chin on my palm and thought about coming in so suddenly, about Miriam's demands, and about Sol's daytime visit.

“Well?” Kath interrupted my thoughts.

“First”—I took a chip away from her—“stop eating my fries. This is a strange place to work, Kath.”

“All white people strange, Grace.”

“I don't doubt you. The husband came home for lunch yesterday—I had to make it—and when I told Miriam, she was not pleased.”

“Grace”—Kath reprimanded me with a chip—“you come to make trouble in the people happy home?”

But I had not. Three days ago I'd been so happy to get this job, to start planning my future. Now I didn't know already. We ate in silence for a while, and I thought no one seemed to like me at the towers except Sol, and I didn't think that was such a good thing. “Kath,” I whispered, “I think my mother working
obeah
to get me to come home.”

“Grace, stop talking stupidness,” she said, but she saw that I was close to crying. “I bet you reading way too much into everything. Just do what Miriam tells you to do, and stay far from her husband. Wait”—she grinned—“I have something funny to tell you.”

I needed a laugh. “What?”

“Remember that scarf I lent you last week?”

In my rush to come in on Tuesday night, I hadn't thought to pack the scarf. “Shoot, yes. It's in my drawer at Sylvia's. I'll bring it on Sunday night.”

Kath laughed, and I leaned over the table, ready to hear. “No you won't. This morning I hear Madeline saying she knows that she had that scarf in yellow. And what I tell you,” Kath crowed, “she thinks the cleaning lady took it.”

I didn't think this funny at all. “Kath, I'll give it to you. I told you she'd miss it.”

“No way are you bringing it back. Keep it. If you bring it back, I'll throw it out. Some people have too much. Anyway”—she checked her watch and rammed the last of her fries into her mouth—“I have to get to Brooklyn.”

I had no taste for the balance of my meal. I had come out with her to feel better, and now I just felt worse. How many people had I screwed just by being around?

NOSTRAND WAS A DIRT
track compared to Fourteenth. I walked a little up the road to the Korean greengrocers and picked up the goods Sylvia would need at the house. The Koreans sold every item you could find in Penal market. I got tinned dasheen bush, fresh okra, and salted pigtails for Sylvia's Sunday callaloo, ripe plantains and sweet potatoes for her side provisions, and a big block of waxy cheddar hoping I could get her to make one of her killer macaroni pies. I picked up an edible necklace and some sour sweets for Micky; a box of Corn Pops for Derek, who really didn't need any more sugar in his diet; and a packet of caps for him to burst in the hallway. For Dame I bought a fish-shaped water shooter.

At the register the Korean woman leaned over and looked down at me close. Her hair was cut with blunt bangs over her eyes; a big clip-on bow held a short ponytail off her neck. She pointed a bony finger at me. “Is you!” she said, and the few other people in the shop turned to see who it was.

“Me what?”

“Don't play you don't know. Don't play you don't know! Yessaday, you come in here and you take two bottle soap.” The people in the shop murmured and shook their heads. “You come out my store right now. I call police.”

What the . . . ? “You're making a mistake. I wasn't even in Brooklyn yesterday.”

“Is you!” she shouted. “I not crazy. I see you yessaday you take two bottle soap. I remember you eyes like that.” She winged her palms to the sides of her face and pulled up her eyes.