Minding Ben (15 page)

W
hen I got to the towers that night, Dave stood in the lobby talking to Danny. Brutus and Cesar were sprawled across the floor.

“Hey, Grace,” Dave said. “How's it going? You in for the week?”

“Yep, my first full week. Do you know the time?” I asked them.

“You're in trouble,” Danny said. “It's nine-fifteen.”

I felt a heavy stone in the pit of my stomach. “Really? Okay, good night, let me—”

“Danny, you know that's not the time,” Dave said. “Grace, it's not even nine yet. Danny's just being a potato bug.”

Up on the platform, Danny laughed, throwing his head back so I could see his discolored teeth from the underside. “Don't sweat it, Gracie Mansion, it's only eight-thirty-five. You can stay with me for twenty-five minutes.”

“You think that was funny?” I asked him, wondering how they both knew what time I had to be in.

“Well, it cracked me up.”

“So,” Dave asked. “Did you have a good weekend? Where do you go when you're not tending Ben?”

I didn't mind telling Dave about myself, some, but I didn't trust Danny at all. He watched us both from his perch, skinny hands clasped behind his back and that too big hat slipping down over his left eye. His whole body shook like a rutting mongrel hungry to know everything.

“My weekend was fine,” I said to Dave, then asked him, “How come you're always wearing shorts? It's still so cold outside.”

He put a hand to his forehead. “I dress in sympathy for Key West.”

Seeing I had no idea what he meant, he explained. “I'm a young snowbird, Grace. We're usually down in Florida. This year unfortunately I need to be here, but mentally the boys and I are in Old Town, and there I only wear shorts.”

“I love the cold,” Danny said. “Irishmen don't do well in the heat.”

Dave didn't say what he needed to be here for, and I didn't ask him.

“Well,” I said, “I've been cold since Labor Day.”

“Yeah, your people don't do well in winter, right, Grace?”

I ignored Danny.

“You have to embrace it,” Dave said. “Have you ever been skiing?”

I stopped myself from laughing out loud. The closest I had come to skiing was riding a fallen coconut branch down the grassy slope behind my house. “No, I've never been skiing. Not in snow, anyway.”

“Well, we should definitely take you skiing sometime. I'm sure you'd love it; you look athletic.”

“Do you ski in shorts too?” I wondered if Dave was flirting with me or if he was just being nice.

He laughed. “Hah! You got me. For skiing I wear long pants.”

He wasn't handsome. He didn't look like Sol, with his green eyes and curly red hair, or like Brent, with his sexy stare and trim goatee. Really the only thing noticeable about Dave was the black afro, and, as Kathy would say, that was not necessarily a good thing.

“Okay, time for me to go up. I'll see you guys around. Good night.”

“Hey, Grace,” Dave said, “you should come up to the thirtieth floor sometime. Like when you get off from work. Sol and Miriam won't mind.”

“No, but I might mind.” I was surprised by my own boldness.

“Nah,” he said, “trust me. You won't. And the view is the best in the towers. Anytime, just come on up. We're usually there.”

“Grace, I've been up there, and the fricking view is amazing,” Danny said. “You can probably see all the way back to Africa.”

“Daaaaanny,” Dave said. I ignored him again, said good night to Dave.

I WASN'T SURPRISED WHEN
Sol opened the front door in his robe and folded over to give me a hug. I didn't put my arms around him, only stood there as he gave me a quick squeeze and told me that Miriam had gone to bed already.

The apartment was a wreck. The floral couch looked like a trampled garden, and Ben's toys were littered across rugs and under chairs. The dining table was covered with plates of half-eaten pasta, a slice of pie still in a foil dish, and melted ice cream. I thought I smelled weed.

Sol lay back on the couch to watch TV. “Miriam wants you to clean up tonight. You don't mind, do you?”

Yes, I minded. I didn't start work until Monday morning. It wasn't fair to come in and have to clean up their Sunday mess. I took a deep breath. “Sol, I don't think I should have to do any work on a Sunday night.” There. I'd said it.

“Grace,” he said, his eyes fixed on the TV, “that's between you and Miriam. She really wanted you to get this stuff into the dishwasher tonight.”

I had always done everything Sylvia asked me to do, and all that got me was more chores. Standing in the living room, I knew that if I cleaned that table off tonight, next Sunday night it would be piled even higher. And last week they had paid me for only three days.

“I don't start work until Monday morning, Mr. Bruckner. Good night.”

Now he looked at me. “Mir's going to be very upset in the morning, Grace.”

I knew she would, and I also knew that this might make me even less likely to be the right person for them to sponsor.

“I know. Good night.”

Early the next morning, so early that it was still dark, I crept into the living room to clear up the mess. Trying hard not to make any noise, I scraped pasta nuggets into the rubbish with my fingers and used both hands to slide the plates into the dishwasher. I was almost done when Miriam came and stood over me in the kitchen doorway. From where I knelt on the floor, she looked like the mythical
soucouyant
women my na told Helen and me stories about. Pale, evil women who shucked their skin at night to go flying through the villages looking for men and blood.

“Jesus Christ, Grace. What on earth are you doing this hour of the morning?”

I thought I should stand up, but all I did was say, “Morning,” and, needlessly, “packing the dishwasher.”

She crossed one leg behind the other and said, “Didn't Sol tell you to get those done last night?”

“He did, but it was nine o'clock already. I just thought I'd do them in the morning. Is that a problem?”

“Is that a prob-lem?” she taunted. “Yes, that's a problem. We're still asleep and you're making a racket. If you hadn't waited until exactly nine to come in, you could have cleaned up last night. Just stop, okay. When Sol and I leave, you can do the dishes by hand.”

I stood up now, still holding the last plate. “Why by hand?”

“Dinner things go in the dishwasher, and breakfast things get done by hand. If you had done what you were told to do last night, the dishes would have been dinner dishes. Now, they're breakfast things.”

She turned off the kitchen light and went back to her room. I wanted to drop the plate I was holding onto the kitchen floor. To raise it over my head, like a perfect full moon, and just let it slip through my fingers and crash into a million tiny splinters.

I WAS SITTING NEXT
to Ule watching Ben play. “So what part of Trinidad you say you come from?” she asked me.

“The bush, Ule. A small village so far south you can see Venezuela from the beach.” From any shore on three sides of the island, a small bolus in Venezuela's dragon mouth, you could see the mainland.

Evie was across the way, pushing Caleb and Sammy in the tire swing but paying more attention to us than to the children.

“And where your family?” Ule asked, gently pushing the newborn in the carriage back and forth. “Them here with you?”

“No, they're home. I'm in America alone.”

Ben came over for me to take his jacket off. “I'm hot, Grace. Off, off, off,” he demanded.

It wasn't too cold outside, and as I undid the zipper Ule said, “Child, you mad? You want this little boy to catch cold and drap dead right here? Police will lock you up if you make the white people children sick, yes.”

I ignored her and took off the jacket anyway.

“Please your mind,” Ule said, making me laugh. Evie didn't take her eyes off us.

So far I was pleased with the way spring was coming along. After cold mornings, the days warmed up, and then at night the temperature cooled again. If you sat very still in the sunshine with your coat zipped up, the heat managed to warm you slowly, all the way to your insides.

It was 10:30 by the time Kathy arrived. Presumably in honor of getting a marriage license, she was dressed in all white, but her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.

“Well, this is it,” she said, parking the carriage and sitting down on the bench. I wasn't sure if she meant the baby or her trip to City Hall.

“Where's the guy?”

“He's there already, holding a place so we don't have to wait too long.”

“Makes sense. Kath, this is my friend Ule.”

Ule said hello and Kathy barely answered, leaning her head back against the bench. Evie had moved from the tire swing to the sandbox, from where she watched us openly.

“You doing all right?” I asked.

Kathy shook her head, and I saw tears streak down the side of her face, cut a clean line through her blush, and fall in a small, pale pink splash on her fur-trimmed collar.

“Hey, Kath,” I whispered so Ule wouldn't hear. “You don't have to do this, you know.”

She turned her head to me and did not whisper. “What choice I have, Grace? I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life.” She pushed the carriage with the tip of her white boot.

Ben came over. “Where your cool sunglasses?” he asked Kathy. She pulled them out of her bag and put them on. “Cool,” he said and ran back to the sandbox.

“Anyway, I shouldn't complain, right? At least it's happening for me.” She took a deep breath and stood up. “I should be back by twelve, twelve-fifteen. Is just to sign some forms. You staying here?”

I was hurt by her words.
It
was happening for her. All around me, in the city, for the busy people walking to and fro with a sense of purpose,
it
seemed to be happening.

“He eat already,” Kathy said, “but I bring an extra bottle. Thanks for doing this, Grace. Bye.”

She walked out of the park, her black ponytail an exclamation point in sharp contrast against her coat. I pulled the carriage closer and looked at the baby asleep inside. Ule looked too. “Now that is a good-looking white child,” she said.

Evie had been making her way toward us, and now she came and peeked into the carriage. On her forehead she had a patch of dried and fresh pimples I thought came from her greasy bangs.

“Who child that?”

Before I could answer, Ule said, “I doing a little half-day work for Grace friend. Is nobody you know.”

“Huh.” Evie put both hands on her hips and looked into the carriage again. “Me never see this one before.”

By the sandbox, I saw Ben stand up and snatch his dump truck from a little blond boy. He held it aloft as if to bring it down on the child, and I ran over. “Ben, what are you doing?”

“He took my truck, Grace. It's mine.”

No other sitter came over, and I figured the boy belonged to one of the skinny mothers standing in the corner.

I sat on the edge of the box. “Ben, you have to play nice. Don't you want to share your toy?”

“It's my truck, Grace,” he said. I looked back to where Ule and Evie were with Kathy's baby. And then I saw Miriam Bruckner walking into the park with her black stirrup pants looping into her shoes.

Evie and Ule saw her too, and the other sitters who knew who she was nudged those who didn't. She came over and smiled down at Ben and me in the sandbox. “Surprise!”

Ben dropped his truck and ran to Miriam. “Hi, Grace,” she said, still smiling. “I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and I thought I'd drop by to see you guys. How's it going?”

“Hey, Miriam. This is a surprise.”

“Grace, Mommy's here,” Ben told me.

“Yes, I see. How about that?”

Miriam held Ben's hand, and they walked over to Evie and Ule. “Hi, ladies. Mind if I sit between you for a bit?” she said to them.

I walked slowly to the bench, where Ben had draped himself between his mother's knees. He hung there, dump truck completely forgotten. Sitters glanced in our direction from every corner of the park.
Oh, dear God. Help me
, I prayed.

“So, how's it going?” Miriam asked Evie, and she called hello to Caleb and Sammy.

“Things good,” Evie said with a smile. “Caleb and Sammy, don't you guys hear Miriam calling you? Come say hello like you have some manners.”

“Ah, it's okay. They don't have to,” Miriam told her.

Miriam turned to Ule. “You watching two babies, Ule? Linda Bloomberg's and who else's?”

Oh, God
, I thought, here it comes. But Ule didn't flinch. “Is only Linda I working for, you know. I just watching this one for a friend with a deaf in the family. She had to run wire some money home.”

Evie laughed—“Hey hey”—her fat breasts rising and falling. I wanted to slap her greasy face.

What if Kathy came back from downtown and Miriam was still in the park? What if Miriam told Linda Bloomberg that Ule was minding another child and Linda fired her? And I had made Ule tell a lie.
Dear God
, I prayed silently,
help.
I shook my head at my own hypocrisy.

“Miriam,” Ule said, “when you making another one to give me the baby-nurse work?”

She hoisted Ben onto her knee. “You want a little brother or sister?” she asked him.

“I want a little penguin please, Mommy,” he replied, and Ule laughed.

Miriam shielded her eyes and looked up at me. “So, Grace, how's the morning?”

The twins were trying without success to climb on Evie's knees.

“It's good,” I answered. “I was just telling Ben that he should share his toys with the others.”