More Than Allies Page 7

  What did she think I was going to do with him in the summer? She was paying me less than minimum wage, and now that was for only half a day, and did she think I could find a babysitter who would charge me even less? Did she think I would have anything left over?

  I went to welfare. I cried for days before I did it, but I didn’t see what else I could do. When I went in, I had this feeling, like they’d known all along I’d be in. Like maybe my mother had called ahead! Well, I told them I would work if they would pay for child care, but that’s not how it goes. All that summer I was home with him, and I should have been happy, I should have enjoyed it—and I did, much of the time, especially when we were outside—but I was frantic to find work and a way to live. I told Rachel I would come once a week to clean, but I had to bring Gus. She said it wasn’t possible. She found someone else, a service, to do the cleaning. You can bet she paid them more than she’d ever paid me. I heard that they come in, two of them, and it’s $25 an hour. They’re fast. But if I’m slower, I’m cheaper, and I was there, why wasn’t that as good?

  In the fall, when Gus started first grade, I began working as a dishwasher. I worked a lunch shift in a restaurant that did its biggest business then. The next year I began working in a motel part-time, and they taught me how to speed up. Oh, and Rachel asked me if I would come back. She wanted me twice a week. She gave me more money. She said the other people she had hired hadn’t cared about the house, about her things, and she had to tell them every thing to do, she had to make lists, couldn’t they see what was in front of their eyes?

  One day she said, I suppose Gus could come over here after school if you’re not done. He was in second grade, and he was going home to the trailer alone after school when I had work. I said I had made other arrangements. Once, after that, Sandy took both boys up to Portland to a comic book convention, if you can imagine that, and to the science museum. I know it was nice of him, but afterwards, when Gus said he wanted to call Mason, I’d say, wait for them to call you, and they didn’t. It hurt his feelings a lot. Then he started being friends with your little Jay, and that was a lot better. They both loved comic books and soccer and school, and it was nice, because of them being in the same classroom. And Jay little, like Gus, except Gus is stocky.

  Rachel recommended me to other people. First to her mother-in-law, who was a lot more formal and direct, and nice but not friendly. Also I worked sometimes for Nora, then later, Nora sent me to Lynn, and there were some others.

  Last summer Rachel invited us—Gus and me—to a barbecue at her house on July 4th. She said it would just be family. I was uneasy; family would include Sandy’s mother, who was always politely cool to me. I didn’t want to go, but Gus did, and I didn’t know how to refuse. Gus wasn’t in the same school as Mason anymore, and he wanted to see him.

  It turned out there was a lot of family—Sandy’s sister and her husband and kids, the grandparents, and another couple and their kids were “god-kin” someone told me. I was completely out of place, crazy to go, but Gus liked being with the kids. Everyone was there in shorts and those tube tops and jerseys, except Sandy’s mother, who wore a white pants outfit, and me, in a dress, looking like I’d gone to some other event.

  Everyone helped Rachel get the food out. We sat in the yard around tables. Someone asked me if I was a neighbor. I was surprised Sandy’s mother hadn’t told them who I was, but maybe she didn’t know I was coming. I said I lived across town, near the bowling alley, and I’d worked for Rachel for several years. Rachel said, Oh my yes, what would I have done without her? She’s been with me since before Leah was born. I could see them wondering what else they could possibly ask me. And I was thinking about that phrase, being “with” someone. The only person I’d ever been “with” was Gustavo. Rachel had never asked me, not once, about Gus’ father. She probably thought I wasn’t married. So there we are at a picnic, drinking lemonade and eating strawberries and eggcake, and I’m going over all this stuff in my head, over and over until my skull feels like it’s splitting. Then, when the meal was over, and everyone was moaning about how delicious it had been—there wasn’t much of anything I liked, truthfully, it was all very bland—Rachel asked me if I’d mind clearing the table. Nobody else even looked my way when she asked. Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention when I took the mess away. Nobody peeked in as I covered dishes of leftovers and scraped the plates and loaded the dishwasher and scrubbed the stove. Nobody admired how fast I worked.

  I sat in the kitchen and waited for Gus to come in the house for something. He and Mason and one other boy were going to put on a video. I grabbed him and said we were going. He didn’t protest a bit; he’s always been very sensitive that way. We left without saying goodbye.

  Lynn’s house was bleached wood, cool glass and stainless steel. She displayed a hat that had belonged to a famous movie star (Dorothy Lamour?), a huge papier mâché pig, a collection of thimbles. She always had fresh flowers—from her garden, in season, from the florist’s, other times—and magazines and large expensive books on the tables. She disliked things out of place. Only one room was disorderly, the room where her husband Dermott wrote; in there, Dulce vacuumed and carried away dirty dishes, leaving a desk, bed, the carpet strewn with papers and books. The house was beautiful, in its way, but odd for people to live in. Lynn always walked barefoot—she had Chinese slippers for her friends when they came—and dressed simply, in expensive stretchy one-piece things, with something thrown over to flow—a scarf, a silky vest, a sarong.

  Dulce was on her hands and knees in the master bathroom. Lynn had dropped a bottle of something sticky, maybe days ago, and it was hard to get up, especially since Lynn wanted no strong cleansers—she gave Dulce a citrus concentrate to use for everything. Through the open door Dulce heard Lynn and Dermott talking. Dermott wanted her to go with him to play tennis, she said she didn’t have time. He said why didn’t she buy a tray at Safeway’s—cheese and cut-up veggies, a tray of fancy crackers? Lynn said, “The way I see it, you left L.A. to get away from meetings and traffic and high-calorie lunches, but we still have to have a home. We still have people popping in from L.A. like it was a bus stop away, and they matter, this is your work, Dermott, a writer has to pay attention to these things. This is not exactly back to nature. Lupine has its standards; we have ours. You can wear cut-off sweats and run out for a six-pack of beer, but cheese and crackers on a paper plate are low-class. What will your Hollywood cronies think of Muenster and Wheat Thins? What will they pay you for a script? ‘He lives in Or-y-gone,’ they’ll say. ‘And Lynn has gone to hell.’”

  Dulce scraped up strips of goo and threw them in the toilet. She straightened a moment and stretched to ease her back.

  Dermott said, “You don’t have any of those worries tonight, Lynn, we’re having friends over. Lighten up.” Dulce heard him kissing, making smacking noises; Lynn make pipping sounds. “I hope you’re not tired when I get home,” he said. “I hope the house is clean and the bed is made.” There was a smacking sound. “To your satisfaction.”

  Dulce flushed the toilet.

  When she got to the kitchen, Lynn was sitting in the breakfast alcove (that was what she called it) drinking a glass of white wine and nibbling at small chunks of cantaloupe off a patterned ceramic dish. She glanced up as Dulce arrived. “Sometimes I sit here in the dark. The raccoons come down and wrestle on the deck. Do you have raccoons where you live?”

  “No. Only cats and skunks.” Actually, Dulce had opened her door last night, to get more air, and caught a glimpse of two baby raccoons staring at her from the center of the drive through the court. She didn’t see why Lynn would want to discuss animals with her, though, or anything else.

  Lynn twirled her glass between her palms. “We had a house in the canyon outside L.A. Once I saw a wild cat frisking in the brush like a kitten. I heard coyotes at night. I lost a toy terrier to one. Sounds awful, but I miss all that.”

  “You must have birds, squirrels, here,” Dulce said. S
he held Lynn’s list in her hand. She was supposed to clean the refrigerator this time. “Should I do the kitchen later?”

  Lynn’s fingers fluttered. “No, no. I’ll do my Nordic Track and wash my hair.” She drained her glass. “Have a little lunch if you want. Try my hors d’ouevres. Mushroom caps stuffed with boursin and spinach.” She smiled. “A hell of a lot of trouble.”

  Dulce snapped a towel and laid it in the sink. She began putting bottles and jars from the refrigerator there, to stay cool while she cleaned. Behind her, Lynn padded away.

  When Dulce reached the bedroom, she found the bed piled with clothes. Lynn sat at her mirror, examining her face. “What do you think, Dulce? I’m thirty-six. Four more good years? Five?” She was wearing a wine-colored body suit. She was so thin her clavicles protruded. Her pale hair was wet and combed slick back from her face. She looked young and a little sick, though Dulce knew she was athletic, ate all the right things, went to doctors and dentists in L.A.

  “What should we do with these?” Dulce surveyed the amazing, enormous mound of clothes. There seemed to be something of everything, skirts and dresses, pants, sweaters, jackets.

  “I went crazy this morning,” Lynn said. She rose and reached into her closet for a pale silky short robe. “I’m never going to wear any of that. Not here. Not anywhere. There’s something—well, immoral—about so many things stuffed into your closet.” She threw open the doors and pointed into the closet. “Besides, now you can clean the inside really well. Up along those ridges—” She reached in and tapped the closet wall. “I hate thinking of all that dust.”

  Dulce had begun to fold and stack clothes on the floor. Lynn watched her a moment, then spoke. “Isn’t there anything you can use? Take anything.” She stepped over next to Dulce and dug into the pile, came up with a red sweater. “This is cashmere, feel. It’s pretty, but I look like a whore in it. My blond hair—” She held it up to Dulce. “With your dark coloring, it’d be smashing.”

  The clothes, Dulce guessed, were fours and sixes. The sweater looked like a child’s. All the items were wool or silk or fine cotton. Dulce wondered what they had cost, totalled, what a person could do with the money this abundance represented.

  She tried to smile. “I’m four inches shorter than you, Lynn, and who knows how much bigger around.”

  Lynn threw a skirt onto the floor, dug down for a jacket, held it up in the air. “This is one of those shapeless, sizeless styles, you could wear it—”

  “No thank you,” Dulce said firmly. She began, again, to fold.

  Lynn hurried away, and returned with a box of lawn bags. She thrust them at Dulce. “Here, put everything in bags. I’ll call Goodwill to pick up. And then strip the bed. Everything. I’ve bought new covers for the mattress and pillows, my allergies, you know. Something the dust mites can’t get through.” It was obvious she was annoyed with Dulce.

  “Yes ma’am,” Dulce said.

  Lynn stopped her silly, frantic motion, and stared. “You’re in your socks,” she said.

  Dulce stuffed sweaters into one of the bags. “I didn’t want to track anything in,” she said. The plastic bag made a lot of noise. Whatever Lynn said was lost.

  Across town, Maggie has retreated to her cottage with her children, while Polly settles the new baby. Jay is home another day, miserable, with raw patches of poison oak on his neck and both cheeks. Maggie wouldn’t dream of saying “I told you so.” (She didn’t even think of poison oak.) Besides, this way he avoids the last-minute Spanish night rehearsals from which he is excluded.

  She has put him in her bed, with extra pillows from Polly’s, a plastic jug of ice water, a pile of comic books. He moans and whimpers, milking his condition, and Maggie tries to give him all the sympathy he seems to require. She takes his temperature and gives him Tylenol. She puts ointment on his sore places. She suggests he call his father and tell him what has happened, but when they try the cycle shop in Austin, they find he is out. Disappointed, Jay pouts. Maggie takes Stevie for a long walk, on which they encounter a puppy in a neighbor’s yard, and are invited to play. For a little while, time passes pleasantly.

  By the time they return, they are all hungry. They have been eating so much at Polly’s, Maggie hasn’t been to the grocery store in days. She mixes canned tuna with mayonnaise, and digs out crackers and a jar of juice. Stevie plays with the food and gets part of it in her mouth. Jay complains and whines for a hamburger. Maggie reminds him that his dad will be calling, and he might miss him if they go out. Jay glumly eats a small lump of tuna and retreats again to Maggie’s bed.

  Stevie toddles to her book basket and retrieves Runaway Bunny. Maggie is pleased to stretch out on the couch with her and read it. As she turns each page, Stevie shrieks with delighted recognition, slaps the picture, and calls out “Bunny!” (or her approximation). She likes for Maggie to read the same lines again and again. Maggie doesn’t mind. In fact, she loves the book. No matter where the bunny runs away, the mother finds him. It is Maggie’s favorite children’s story.

  The phone rings, and before she can shift Stevie from her lap, Jay has leapt and run to answer. “Dad?” he says, instead of hello, and then his face clouds and he hands the phone to Maggie and runs back to bed.

  It is Lynn. “I’ve been going through my closets. I have this heap of clothes, they’re all fine, you know I just keep changing my mind about what I want. I was wondering if you’d want to come over and take a look, I think there are things you could teach in.” She talks so fast, Maggie is a beat behind her, understanding.

  “I can’t, Lynn, I’ve got the kids. Jay’s got poison oak.”

  “Couldn’t Polly watch them?”

  “She’s got a new foster child, I didn’t tell you? A baby, six weeks. She just came today.”

  “So what about this stuff? Should I hold onto it until you can get over?”

  “Lynn, the school year’s over, I haven’t got a job, believe me, the few things I have are enough for my life. I just can’t see myself in your clothes.”

  “You’re little enough.”

  “And you’re nice to offer, but I don’t think so.”

  There is a long pause, then Lynn says, “I ought to take all this stuff back to L.A. to one of those resale shops. It’s all like new. I can’t believe I can’t give it away.”

  Stevie rubs her eyes and clings to Maggie’s hip.

  “It’s the kids—I can’t talk—” she says.

  Lynn says, “Listen, I have this idea. I have a massage appointment at two. It’s just half an hour. Why don’t you take it, my treat? It sounds like something you really need.” That said with conviction, she adds, more tentatively, “I guess I could watch the kids that long.”

  Maggie has always thought Lynn is the prettiest, cleverest woman she knows. She admires her for a hundred things. Right now, though, she wonders if Lynn is speaking to her from another planet. “I’ve got to go,” she says. “Believe me, you don’t want to trade your massage for my kids.”

  Lynn laughs. “I’ll get you a certificate. You can go when you have time. Really, it takes away all the tension. It dissolves it. It’s so good for you.”

  “Let me think about it, Lynn. I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay. See you Saturday.”

  “What?”

  “Nora’s lunch.”

  “Right. Bye.”

  She hangs up and pulls Stevie close against her, between her body and the back of the couch. Stevie is already dozing. She also smells dirty. “Oh baby girl, I’m tired of diapers,” Maggie whispers. With enormous effort, she changes Stevie, who fusses halfheartedly and falls back asleep.

  Mo calls shortly after. Maggie tells him about Jay’s poison oak. She tells him about Polly’s baby, who is tiny and fragile and red with anger. She tells him about Lynn’s offer to send her for a massage.

  “I could do that for free,” he says.

  Oh, she would like that, she thinks, longing flushing over her body. “If you were here,” she says.
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  “If you were here,” he says.

  “You better talk to Jay.” She puts the phone down and wakes Jay.

  Sleepily, Jay tells his dad about the shed and the poison oak. “Are you going to come?” he asks.

  He hands the phone to Maggie. “He wants you.”

  Mo wants to know when school is out. It’s only a couple of weeks. “We’ll figure something out soon,” he says. “I’ve got to go.”

  Jay is watching her. “What’d he say? Is he coming?”

  “Some time.”

  He turns on his heel, and this time he slams the door to her bedroom.

  They need to talk about their son, she thinks. She and Mo. They really do need to talk.

  Dulce sat to one side near the back of the gym to watch the skits on Spanish night. She thought that what the kids were enjoying—and they were having a good time—was the fun of dressing up and acting silly. Spanish had very little to do with it. There were jumping beans and big bad wolves, señoritas with huge paper fans, a funny game of futbol. There were songs and poems and jumprope rhymes. Through it all, even as she enjoyed the children’s enthusiasm, Dulce couldn’t help wondering who all this Spanish was for. Would these children travel to Mexico, to Costa Rica, to Spain? Would they find jobs someday where they needed Spanish to talk to their uneducated clients? (Social workers, policemen?) Did they know anybody who actually spoke Spanish? Did they want to?

  The parents had brought food. There was an intermission, and everyone attacked the many pots of salsa and bowls of chips, beans and tortillas, mounds of red rice. She had made a tray of sliced French bread sweetened with dark brown sugar and cinnamon, a treat she remembered from childhood. No one spoke to her. She stood against the wall with a wedge of her own food in her hand, alone until Gus made his way to her. He was eating a tortilla spread with avocado. “Nobody’s going to like that stuff,” he said, pointing to his mother’s bread. Then she couldn’t help watching, as people looked over the food, and neglected the pan. “I’m the main bad wolf,” her son said. His brown cheeks were rosy with excitement. “Can you see me from back there?”