T-Backs, T-Shirts, Coat, and Suit

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Bernadette didn’t do anything slowly. She moved like an Olympic skier, zigzagging around and alongside obstacles but never stopping her forward motion. The space in the back of the van was hardly big enough for two people. Chloë was told that the board of health did spot checks and could close them down if everything wasn’t clean. Besides keeping things clean, they had to keep everything in its place. There was no place for it, except in its place.

  Chloë approved.

  Bernadette taught her how to chop onions as they drove to the first stop. It was hot and close in the back of the van, and she had to work fast, making it even hotter. Chloë thought she would drown in her own sweat. It poured from her brow, from under her arms and belt, and from behind her knees. Tears blinded her eyes as she chopped the onions. Lot’s wife was not as salty as she was. Neither was the Atlantic nor the Pacific. Between the sweat and the tears, she was being pickled in her very own brine.

  Bernadette paid no attention to Chloë. She was too busy getting to the best spot on Talleyrand. The best spot was exactly opposite the gate to the docks. There the men would see her van first as they came out for their break. Within seconds of her parking, other vans pulled up in front of her and in back of her.

  Bernadette next taught Chloë how to jump down out of the van, open the window, pull down the ledge, put up the awning, and set out what Bernadette liked to call her condiments. Bernadette could do all that with a single sweeping motion, but she was a tall person, a very tall person, an experienced very tall person. Chloë was inexperienced. And short. And had to reach farther and pull harder. Her arms felt stretched like bungee ropes, and her hands bounced here and there as she set out the mustard, the relish, the ketchup, and the onions that she had so recently chopped and cried over.

  Bernadette paid no attention to Chloë’s discomfort and pain.

  She blew a wooden whistle that she wore on a leather thong around her neck. Chloë asked if she thought the men could hear that little whistle over the clang of hammers and the noise of welding torches.

  Bernadette told her that even if the men could not hear it, the drug-sniffing dogs could. “They send up a howl that no one can ignore. The men know I’m here.”

  And, sure enough, the workers started coming.

  Bernadette watched them approach and began to slaw dogs and run mustard over burgers even as they walked toward her. She knew which of her customers wanted cream in his coffee and which wanted one sugar and which wanted two. She could pour coffee with one hand and spread mayonnaise with the other and not splash, spill, or drip a drop.

  There were some women working in the offices and a few who worked the docks, but most of Bernadette’s customers were men. Macho men. Bernadette knew how to joke around with them. The guys joked back but never crossed the line between playful talk and dirty talk. Bernadette told Chloë that the important thing to remember was that the customer is always right, and then, every now and then, to remind him how you define right.

  Three of Bernadette’s regular customers didn’t like drinking out of Styrofoam cups, so Bernadette kept china mugs for them. She wrote their names on the mugs with red fingernail polish and kept them in the glove compartment in the front of the van. One of the men didn’t have cash with him, but Bernadette served him anyway. “He’ll be by on payday asking me what he owes. He knows—they all know—that if they don’t pay Bernadette, Bernadette still has to pay Zack. It wouldn’t take the fingers of one hand to count the times I’ve gotten stiffed.”

  All morning they moved from the docks to the shipyards to the ship chandlers across the street. When there was a break from serving customers, they were busy unwrapping meat patties and making more coffee and cleaning, cleaning, straightening, straightening, and sweat kept happening.

  Noon found them back at the docks. Some of the workers carried their lunches but bought cold drinks from Bernadette. “Don’t they have a Coke machine in that place?” Chloë asked.

  “Bite your tongue,” Bernadette said. “Coke machines are the enemy. Actually, a lot of the office workers just like to take a break in the fresh air.”

  “Fresh air!” Chloë said. “Fresh air, you say? You call this fresh air?” she asked, waving her arms over her head. “In Ridgewood what we call air is a gas and is full of O two, oxygen.” She waved her arms over her head again. “This is not even a gas. This is rain that is just too stupid to fall.”

  Bernadette laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Chloë thought, Not in your lifetime. Nick asked me to help, he didn’t ask me to lay down my life. When we get back to the house, I’m going to use that fifty dollars to make other arrangements.

  Then another wave of workers came by, and she got so busy chopping, pouring, and spreading, that she had no time to think about sweat or making other arrangements.

  * * *

  By two o’clock they were done on Talleyrand. Bernadette put the van in gear and pulled away from the curb. “Help yourself to anything we have left,” she said.

  Chloë asked, “Is that lunch?”

  Bernadette said, “Yes.”

  “What about you? Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “I would appreciate an egg-salad sandwich,” she said.

  “There’s a couple of hamburgers left. I’ll split them with you.”

  “I don’t eat anything that has a face or comes from something that did,” she replied.

  “Eggs come from something that had a face.”

  “There is this important difference: You don’t have to kill the chicken to get the eggs.”

  “What would you like to drink with that egg salad?” Chloë asked.

  “A Coke would be fine.”

  “Diet or Classic?”

  “Classic.”

  “Cup or straw?”

  Bernadette looked over at Chloë long enough for her to watch the full slow-motion blossoming of a smile. Only one day on the job, and you’re a pro. Nick said you were a quick study.”

  What else had Nick said? Chloë decided that she would find out later when she discussed her working conditions. In the meantime, she decided to let Bernadette enjoy her egg-salad sandwich.

  * * *

  Bernadette headed out to the beach where a high-rise luxury hotel, the Ritz, was being built. Even in Ridge-wood, Chloë had never seen anything like it. It was bigger than the Hanover Mall. Fancier than Neiman Marcus, Victoria’s Secret, and Bloomingdale’s put together, and there were certainly going to be a lot more bathrooms. Bernadette called it “the mother of all hotels.”

  The Ritz was so far out of town that it was not on any of the regular van routes, so all these workers carried their lunches. The men worked in crews according to their specialties. Electricians and plumbers, tile men and dry-wall men and carpenters, all worked at different spots around the gigantic shell that spread out over the whole oceanfront and cast a shadow as big as cloud cover. Bernadette didn’t have to blow her whistle because the men who saw her first sent out a call that was picked up by the next batch, and they sent it to the next ones, and so on and so on.

  None of the other van operators would be stopping at the Ritz. Drivers who had been working for Zack for a long time always pulled in a little extra stop. Marie stopped at the condos being built at Crossroads; Lionel, the apartments near the University; and Wanda, the school construction site on Kings Road. The Ritz was a nice extra for one van, but two wouldn’t make it worth the time it took to get there. Zack didn’t mind drivers making extra stops as long as they didn’t get back late for check-in. The more they sold, the more money he made.

  Bernadette showed the carpenters her wooden whistle and told them that her brother Nick had carved it. And then she did something she had not done on Talleyrand: She introduced Chloë to the carpenters’ crew. “These are craftsmen,” she explained. “They appreciate fine work.” The men admired the whistle, and Bernadette mentioned that Nick had trained himself to work with wood.

  Chloë had forgotten that Nick liked t
o work with wood. He had not done it in a long time. On the day he had married her mother, Nick had given Chloë a little box he had made. “A wedding present for you,” he had said. The carved wooden box had once been her favorite possession, but she had not thought about it in a long time.

  She kept barrettes in it, but in sixth grade she stopped using them. Starting in sixth grade, girls let their hair fall in their faces or pushed it back by shaking their heads. There was a technique to it. You tilt your head on the side opposite the part, then jerk your head back with a slight twist. Chloë practiced in front of a mirror before she tried her technique in public. The most important thing about hair-tossing was not to get the frizzies. Frizzy hair never tossed right. On a list of possible bad hair days, frizzy was at the top.

  Instead of buying sandwiches and coffee, the men of the Ritz bought a lot of pretzels and chips and gallons of Gatorade.

  Chloë wondered, Does everything taste the same to everyone, and likes and dislikes are different, or do things really taste different to different people?

  Bernadette must have been reading her mind because she said, “I don’t know if these men have different tastes or not, but I do know they need salt. They sweat so much.”

  “They sweat!” Chloë said. “What about what is happening to me? I have not mentioned it, Bernadette, but I am dripping wet.”

  Bernadette said, “I noticed.”

  Just then Chloë felt sweat trickle down her leg. She hated that. She said, “I think you should know, Bernadette, that I am not fond of having my body fluids soak through my clothing. My pants are so wet, someone who does not know me might think I had urinated in them.”

  “You shouldn’t have worn that stuff,” Bernadette said. “The minute I saw you come out this morning, I thought so.”

  “You could have said something.”

  “I’m saying it now. Tomorrow, wear shorts or a skirt, like me. One of the myths about jeans is that they are the most comfortable clothes in the world. Not always. And wear sandals. Why don’t you take that headband from around your hair and put it over your forehead to keep the sweat out of your eyes the way I do with my kerchief.” Bernadette checked her watch. “Let’s go down to the beach. That will cool you off.”

  Bernadette locked up the van, and together they climbed over heaps of cement and around the huge pit that would be the swimming pool. There, on the other side of the rubble, was the beach and all its elements: sun, sea, salt, sand, and the breeze that whipped them together. And there, beyond the pink ribbon of sand, was the Atlantic Ocean, kissing the sky just as God had asked it to. It sparkled and winked in the sun, inviting Chloë in.

  She pulled off her Nikes and ran to the edge of the water and felt the sea breeze unfurl the film of sweat in one long, seamless sweep. Then she turned to Bernadette and thanked her.

  Bernadette told her to dive in. “Go ahead,” she said. “We have time.”

  Chloë shook her head.

  “Nobody here says you have to have a bathing suit to go bathing. You’ll dry off by the time we get home.” Chloë shook her head again.

  “Doesn’t that water look good to you?” Bernadette asked.

  “Not especially,” Chloë answered.

  “Would swimming lessons make it look any better?”

  Chloë nodded yes.

  Bernadette checked her watch again. “We’ll start tomorrow,” she said.

  Chloë didn’t know how she got through that first week except that she had promised Nick to help and to welcome the unexpected, and during that first week, it seemed that everything that wasn’t work was unexpected.

  There was not a minute from the time she got up until she went to bed when she wasn’t busy. Every evening after checking back into the commissary, they rushed home. Chloë pulled off her sweat-soaked clothes and put on her bathing suit while Bernadette let the dog out to do its business. Then they immediately got back into the car and drove out to Seminole, the beach nearest Bernadette’s house.

  Bernadette said they had to pick up the dog. “Daisy loves the beach,” she said. “It would upset her to know that we went without her.”

  Chloë didn’t understand, but she was getting used to hearing things like that from Bernadette. And the dog did love the beach, all right. The minute Bernadette stopped the car, the dog went ballistic. It pushed open the door as soon as Bernadette released the handle, and leaped out. Not scratching Bernadette’s beloved Firebird as it left was the only well-mannered thing it did until it got back in. It raced into the surf, came back on shore, rolled in the sand, and made three or four runs before Bernadette and Chloë even made it to the edge of water.

  At first, Chloë didn’t go in any deeper than the tidewater pools that were left by the receding tide. They were shallow and warm and as comfortable as a bath. She lay down on her stomach and then flipped over onto her back. She didn’t even try to soak up the last slant rays of sun that might give her a tan. The first two afternoons, she did nothing but wallow.

  On the third day, she stood by Bernadette’s side at the water’s edge. She dug her toes into the sand and licked salt off her lips and said nothing. Bernadette let her stand by her side for a few minutes and then, without being asked, took her hand and waded out into the water up to her waist. She supported Chloë at the midriff and started to teach her how to swim.

  That day and the next, she showed Chloë how to move her arms and turn her head on alternate strokes. Then she taught her how to kick from the hips to get a good forward motion. She taught her one thing at a time, knowing exactly when each small fear was conquered. Secretly and slowly, with Bernadette as her teacher, without either Anjelica or Krystal to see her flounder, Chloë learned to swim.

  Bernadette unrolled her hair and waded into the water, but she never put on a bathing suit and never swam. Once a wave swept up suddenly and broke over her head, and she got soaking wet. She smiled, wrung out the hem of her skirt, and tossed her head to shake the water from it. Other days, she came out of the water, her skirt sticking to her like a bodysuit, and she would let it drip. She never seemed to mind getting her clothes soaking wet, but she never put on a bathing suit.

  And the way she taught swimming was unexpected, for although she seemed to know everything about swimming and about how to teach it, she never allowed her feet not to touch bottom. Never once did she venture into the water to a depth where the soles of her feet left the sand.

  Chloë asked Bernadette point-blank if she knew how to swim.

  She answered, “Enough to save you if I want to.”

  Chloë asked if she would ever go in swimming with her, and she answered, “No,” loud and clear. When asked why, she replied, “To spare you and the world that sight.” After that, Chloë stopped asking. She knew that whatever reasons Bernadette had, fear was not one.

  * * *

  On that first exhausting day when they got back from work, Chloë was ready to take a cool shower and collapse in front of the TV and watch Oprah, but something else unexpected happened.

  Bernadette said, “Since we’ll be going back to the beach tomorrow, Daisy and I better do some gardening today.” She called the dog, and the two of them left by the back door.

  Chloë had never met a dog who gardened.

  She was curious. She followed.

  The air was so humid that the backyard felt as if God had turned on a giant vaporizer for a world full of asthma sufferers. Everything was plumped out. Leaves that looked ordinary in Ridgewood looked as if they had silicone implants here.

  Chloë watched Bernadette and the dog wander out to the field behind the house. The dog stopped, still as a statue, and stared. Bernadette stopped too. She stooped down, picked something up, examined it, and put it in a basket. Twice, she threw it away. Whenever she put something in the basket, she patted the dog and said, “Good girl.”

  Chloë came closer.

  Mushrooms!

  Bernadette was putting wild mushrooms in the basket, and the dog was helping her f
ind them.

  They walked back to the garden, where Bernadette picked some flowers before returning to the house. She washed her harvest, put it into a salad bowl, and tossed the mushrooms and flowers together with spinach and lettuce.

  “Is this what they call a garden salad?” Chloë asked.

  Bernadette nodded. “I grow borage and pansies, nasturtiums and violets especially for salads. And hyssops too. The leaves of hyssop make a wonderful tea. I sweeten it with honey and drink it when I have a sore throat. The leaves also help heal bruises.”

  Chloë hardly listened. She was worried about the mushrooms. “You’re not going to eat those,” she said, pointing to the mushrooms.

  “Yes I am.”

  “They’re poisonous, you know. They’re called toad-stools. They make the blood behind your eyeballs curdle like milk gone sour, and you go blind. It’s very painful, lethal and, I think, illegal.”

  Bernadette said, “I don’t bother with the poisonous ones, and they don’t bother with me.”

  “What about these pansies? They have faces. You said you don’t eat anything that has a face.”

  “A literal interpretation is the last refuge of a small mind,” she said. “You’re being picky, Chloë. Picky, picky, picky.”

  “Is this why you were called a flower child?” Chloë asked. “I have to warn you, Nick has told me all about your life at Spinach Hill.”

  Bernadette replied, “Those days were a long time ago. Long ago. We were flower children,” she said. “We called ourselves that, even though Nick was really the only child among us.”

  Chloë sat at the table, her hands folded in her lap and said, “I can’t eat this, you know.”

  “Oh!” Bernadette said. “I think you can.”

  She sat at the table and watched as Bernadette ate. She kept her hands in her lap and would not lift a fork. If Bernadette was aware of being stared at, she gave no indication. She finished one bowl of salad and took another. Chloë buttered a roll and ate that. Bernadette finished her second bowl of salad and got up from the table. She took some coffee beans from the freezer and ground them in the small electric mill. She put the coffee grinds into a paper filter and set the kettle on the stove to boil.