by Mona Simpson
I corrected, “Yes, that’s like Dada’s car.” But he wasn’t persuaded, even as the dark sedan swam past. “It’s not only Dada,” I told Helen, “I’m every Jeep.”
We kept looking over the list trying to remember people from our parenting class, our hands reaching into the bowl for popcorn without our eyes.
“No fat,” she said, underlining something with a pencil.
The moon traced sideways, behind gauzy clouds, in the end-of-summer sky. “Where did it go?” Helen asked, looking down into Will’s face, because sometimes he and Bing had played hiding games. “Where’s the moon?”
He shrugged. “Working.”
I patted his knee, watching Helen, to see what she made of our boy. She didn’t question herself as a mother, the way I did. “How’s your poetry going?” I asked.
“Sort of back-burnered now. My mom always worked,” she said, I suppose by way of explanation.
Your dad always worked too, I thought. But I hadn’t liked my mom working either; I remembered the YWCA, the strange-smelling locker room, dread folded, a child on my lap. Helen was back to being a wife and mom. The poetry contest wouldn’t be mentioned again.
I looked down at Will’s hair, thinking, Someday you will come to me and ask, Did I do my best? “You warm enough?” It was odd company, being with someone who didn’t always answer. His thumb fit tightly in his mouth. I asked Helen, “How’s the sleep going?”
“Done. When Jeff went on location scout, I Ferberized.”
“And it worked?”
“I knew it would. My sister did it.”
My problem was the lack of a sister. Or mother. One tends not to emulate the mentally ill.
I did have Lola, though.
Helen pantomimed a quick goodbye, wearing jeans, a waffle T-shirt, and new sneakers.
“Hey,” I called. “You got them.” I touched an ear. The diamonds. They looked bigger than I remembered.
“Thanks,” she said, oddly. Maybe he gave them to her on just an ordinary day. He obviously hadn’t told her I’d helped.
“So he finally did it.”
“Cubic zirconium,” she said. “Ten dollars at Drugtown. I got ’em myself.”
“You’re kidding!” Had he taken the earrings back? Or was he saving them? Why didn’t he give her those earrings? All the little refusals. I didn’t understand marriage.
As she walked away, I hugged Willie, feeling stabs in my chest, pulling him closer. I was wired wrong. But even knowing that doesn’t make you able to fall in love with the next good-sense man you meet or, for that matter, your own husband.
I had a son in school. It was time to put those hopes on a high shelf.
Lola
IS THIS THE PHILIPPINES?
This morning I fought again with Issa long-distance. “He is making me prime the wall,” she said. “I tell him, Mom is paying for me to study. And you want me to paint.”
“Get him on the phone,” I said. But then I listened Bong Bong and he is right. She cannot place herself above her sisters and she should not talk to him this way. I told him, Put her back on.
“I am here cleaning toilets,” I said. “Working seven days no off. You can paint one wall and pass a test.”
Actually, since Claire hired Ofelia, I do not scrub bathrooms anymore or make the beds on Friday. But Issa can remember her mother on her knees.
Today, I have an off for the wedding of Ruth. I told Claire, she can write her music; I will take Williamo for my date. She drives us to the Wilshire bus, and he sits stiff, dressed in his Americano. Finally the 341 arrives, swaying side to side, slow, like a jeepney in Manila. At first, we pass places Williamo knows. Karate Kids. “See, that is where Helen picked the convertible.” I show him the intersection where the father of Esperanza stood, his first day here, with a sign that said ORANGES $1.00, PISTACHIOS $3.00, and a bucket of roses by his feet. He did not understand English or the American system of money, but anyway he made fifty-nine dollars. There is a man there today with that same sign. This interests Williamo. “Can you get me that job, Lola?”
“You will have higher jobs. You will get a big education.”
I point the Federal Building and distant towers of UCLA. Beverly Hills, he does not care; the head drops. I feel a wet on my thigh. I will wake him when we pass Dodger Stadium to see the tunnel, built during the American Depression.
But the head pops up. “Are we there yet?”
The sky outside looks poor, strings of plastic flags over a car lot, prices scrawled in soap on the windshields. People many different colors walk the cracked sidewalks.
“Lola,” he whispers. “Is this the Philippines?”
“No,” I have to tell him. “This is Hollywood.”
Rain is the wedding present to Ruth from God. The Sapersteins had offered their garden for the wedding, and Ruth could not say no. But now, the reception will be at the place of Ruth in Eagle Rock, and then Danny will drive a carful of babysitters to Las Vegas.
Williamo has never seen the place of Ruth. A smell of adobo comes from the kitchen, where Cheska stands like a trumpeter, blowing up balloons. Ruth wears a white dress, nothing like the cream suit we wanted. Maybe she went to Las Vegas and lost. Or maybe she quit like her kids beg her to and did not even try. There is something sad of that too. Las Vegas was the place where Ruth could relax, among clicks and rings, under the indoors light. And after, walking home from the bus, she felt a hundred percent herself, tired as if coming from a day of real work, cleaning, not babysitting. Maybe we are not meant for nine-hundred-dollar suits. This neighborhood, it does not blame you for not being more. Outside her place, she would smell leaves, where the old men watered. In the kitchen, the girls left a plate of dinner out for her. She could get her clean ice.
“Sapersteins will be here,” she says. Danny stands in pajama bottoms, buttoning his good shirt. Then, out of nowhere, the slave beeps. After almost one year, why today? “Ask, does she have the passport?”
The slave does not have the passport. But today, the lady left the house with the kids and forgot to lock her in. They will be gone, she thinks, three hours. Ruth tells her to walk out the house right now, she will keep walking to a food place. What is the closest? Ruth asks. Taco Bell. They will send Shirley to pick her.
Williamo tugs. “What are they talking about?”
“It is a getaway,” I whisper.
“Motion sensor,” Danny says, and Ruth holds the phone out so we hear the blare.
Just keep going anyway, Ruth says. Walk quietly but fast. Keep going forward.
Even with stray showers, there is a line to get married at city hall. Ruth is not the only one dressed up. Young brides tip in huge skirts.
“Cream puffs,” I say.
“Where?” Williamo asks.
I point. They look frightened and excited. They should be. People marry on a dime. Like me. Now, look—everything from that.
The sons of Ruth step out from the wall, wearing suits they do not own. They had to arrange offs from their work. But Natalie, who has no job all day, she is absent. And her daughter, Aileen, she is supposed to be flower girl.
When it is their turn, the lights remain fluorescent, and Ruth looks tired. It is only as a bride that she appears without her stature, arms pinched at the sleeves. Would it be different if we could have bought that cream suit? Danny stands in his barong Tagalog, looking slight and foreign, saying I do, for the green card. In this civil administration building, that is plain. Maybe Ruth hoped for more. Just at the end, Natalie arrives, pulling her daughter. Wearing just jeans, she stops the breath. She is the one should be bride.
Cheska has decorated the apartment with white crepe paper.
At two, Sapersteins arrive, the Dr. Mrs., the guy, and Ginger, the one Ruth takes care. They have never been to Eagle Rock before. Ruth gives Ginger a basket with rice and she throws it everywhere. The Dr. Mrs. asks different babysitters, are they sure they don’t mind? But what can we say when Ruth has their old vacuum
cleaner?
Aileen, the real flower girl, runs to the bedroom. Ginger Saperstein looks up a way she will all her life, unhinging herself from the commotion she has caused. Mr. Saperstein just stands eating. “Very tasty,” he says.
Ruth is proud of Aileen and of Natalie, who sits too far back on the couch; she does not want them like this. “Natalie is too shy with Sapersteins,” she whispers. “They never see her personality.” Natalie twirls the ring her father put on the finger of Ruth. Ruth gave that to her today. It was not a marriage to cherish; there was violence. “Sex, like in America, did not work for me,” Ruth says. “But God married us to make them.” In a way she is still saying thank you.
Natalie, too, she is divorce. But the guy, he built bookshelves in her apartment. He and the Korean together! This summer, Natalie found a tumor on the neck of her employer, while she was massaging him. He gave her a reward and now she only paints her pictures. Ruth says they are all still pictures of beds. Made and unmade beds.
I hear the nudge of tires. Through the gauzy screen, someone steps out a car into rain. The slave, wearing a yellow shift. Very thin. Danny comes to stand behind Ruth. The Sapersteins, they will not understand. For the slave, Ruth will cancel Las Vegas. Let the casinos keep their store flowers and champagne. She will stay home. “My real wedding, no one here would believe. The orchestra, the silver.” Her voice hushes. She means this time, at the core, there is one particle sugar.
The slave weaves to one side; something is wrong her balance. She is tall for an Asian, fine boned, but the cheeks fall hollow, dark around the eyes. Danny puts a hand under her arm; Shirley, on the other side, says, “This is Ate Ruth, I told you.”
The slave lowers to a genuflection.
“See.” I take the hand of Williamo. This is what we did not witness at the city hall. Ruth and Danny held the wick all along, but this one Ruth pulls up, she makes the spark. That is always the way with marriage. I tell him, “The arrival of the third one, the small stranger, that is what brings it to life. A real life.” I finally understand why Ruth favors Natalie over her better sons. Some people, they can love only the broken.
Mr. Saperstein returns his plate to the kitchen, saying, “Very very good. All very good.” His wife flies out to the car, making her coat a roof for Ginger. Then it is only Filipinos and Williamo. Ruth covers the slave with a blanket. “You can keep that. It will be yours.” Even with so much party food, the slave she will not eat. Shirley says she does not want that anybody will see.
Ruth tells us to call the slave Candace. She should never hear us say “the slave.”
I press the hand of Williamo on a paper plate of paint, to put it on a page in The Book of Ruth. He writes his own name and I add Age 3, 1994. I hurry him to finish his second cake before we start home, when there is a honk outside. Lucy stands. “Bye-bye, Ate. Bye, Lola.” The door slams. Ruth shakes her head. “Does he ask if you need a ride? And out she runs.”
“I’ll take you, Lola,” Natalie says, finally getting up from the couch.
“But we are not on your way.”
“I’m driving Shirl anyhow.” Shirley has been cleaning two houses since the divorce of her employers. She takes care five kids, doing laundry, cooking dinners, making the lunches for the school. She likes her employers and Cindy and Bob, the new husband and the new wife, she says they are also nice. When they have a party, Shirley is the one to serve and do the dishes, but she never minds because Cindy makes one of everything for her; if they are having fillet of salmon, Cindy will buy eight, not seven, one for Shirley too.
“So what’s the prob?” Natalie asks.
“I met a lady from my province and she is earning the same for five days, not seven,” Shirley says. “And you know what she is doing? She is just walking the dog!”
Claire stands from her chair, a cup of tea and her open book under lamplight. “How was it, Lole? Get your pajamas on! Brush your teeth! And what do you say to Lola?” She yells again. “William!”
“Thanks,” he calls. “Night.”
Claire
ALL THE CHRISTMAS PARTIES
Will walked straight into school carrying his lunchbox, trying to do everything right. I lingered at drop-off, hoping for some warmth, maybe a new friend I didn’t find, but enjoying the fringes anyway, child-made pictures on the wall. When the teacher closed the door, I walked home past a high school and slipped into the back of the auditorium while the orchestra tuned. They were practicing Firebird that fall. “Okay, let’s take it from measure one thirty-six,” their patient conductor said.
At home, I made black coffee, carried it with me to my hot room, and stayed five hours. Even though I’d had Lola, the time when Will was at school felt different. My symphony eked out, measure by measure.
Finally, in November, I was down to fingerings. I sat at the kitchen table with a metronome and a laptop, notating the score. Quarter note 132. There were hundreds of details. Making sure the dynamics were correct in all the parts. I found a crescendo without a mark at the end. Then I went over all of the balances. One of my teachers in school told me, a wind instrument is balanced in weight by twelve to sixteen strings. Then I had a glitch and had to get the computer guy. After all that I changed the instrumentation with Finale. Finally, I pressed PRINT PARTS. It was amazing. You used to have to copy the parts yourself by hand. I carried my stack of paper to Kinko’s and faxed it in.
“You probably won’t hear until after the holidays,” Paul said as we strolled on our main street Saturday morning. We bought little treats—coffee for me, an ice blended for him, a chocolate spelt muffin for Will—and pushed the stroller in and out of shops.
“Stop doing that,” Paul said. My fingers were going on my other arm. Bach unaccompanied cello, which the guy in Australia thinks was written by his second wife. Anna Magdalena. Paul didn’t like Will to see. He thought it made me look crazy. I stopped when Paul was there, but I’d long ago given up on Will not knowing.
Marriage seemed a huge machine, plowing forward impervious to my flimsy bubbles of feeling. Every day, I woke up to Paul’s familiar noises in the kitchen. I kept the crush like a pill at the bottom of my bag.
We ran into Jeff and Helen on the street, and they came along into a store where Paul had seen a dress he wanted me to try on. They added romance to the day, I suppose, as did the high winter clouds. The friendship between the four of us made being grown-up calm and exciting at the same time, like a drink. My crush, which had once been alive, causing agitation, had stilled.
A dress. A frill. I was making progress. For a year, I’d run each day. A month ago, I told Lola to stop buying the twelve-packs. “Why, you do not need anymore? Good,” she said, with what felt like warmth, an oblong suspended in the air. I moved the last package to the upper part of the closet with the white breakfast-in-bed tray we’d gotten as a wedding present. Our son was three, in school already.
I slid on the dress, pulling my stomach in, rising a little on tiptoes. I saw Helen notice my feet, toenails just the color of toenails. Women here polished.
“What do you think?” I said. “Be honest.”
“Oh, it’s great,” she said, frowning. “Just take it in a little here.” She pinched the fabric with authority, then went to ask the salesgirl to pin it.
After she left, I asked Paul, “Are my feet okay?”
He looked at me. “Are you crazy?”
But I slipped on my clogs before stepping out.
“You can wear it to all the Christmas parties,” Helen said.
“You sound like an old holiday card.”
“That’s a dress that’ll make you feel like the prettiest girl in the room,” Jeff said.
“Not a feeling I’ve had.”
Helen had put on a watch. Jeff picked up her wrist and assessed it. What had ever happened to those earrings?
Paul extracted his credit card, taking the matter of payment seriously. I was better off with him. “See that woman,” I whispered. “My grandmother had t
hat hair. I’m a silverette, she used to say.”
A happy afternoon in Los Angeles, 1994.
Tom brought me two bare-root roses, setting them on the porch. I asked my mother if she wanted to see the dress.
“Just great,” she said, when I came out in it, over jeans. “Wear it while you’ve still got the good arms.”
I asked her about the goose.
“He’s gone,” she said.
“Well, that’s good.”
“I suppose.”
“And you can always visit.”
“Not really,” she mumbled, as if talking to herself. “Not yet.”
Tom shook his head, hands in pockets, looking at the ground as he usually did. His feet shuffled, in the same shoes he always wore.
“Which place did you choose?”
She looked up, her mouth peculiar. “None, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s in heaven now!”
“She had him put down,” Tom said. “She didn’t tell me either.”
“But you had those three places. Why not the farm?”
She shook her head, wincing. “They seemed nice at first. But then when I really saw the way they treated the animals, I wouldn’t have left him there. I think they would have eaten him.”
She’d once talked about giving me away. She’d described the families she was considering. They’d sounded great.
The goose had never acquired a name. It remained only The Goose.
“We’ve got to go now—Bromeliad Society meeting. And then we’re going to eat at Twin Dragons. Do you want me to leave them here?” Tom had dragged the two roses up to the door. I was still wearing my new dress.
“Just don’t plant them in front,” my mother said. “People will steal the blooms.” Tom and I looked at each other. She carried a scissors in her bag when we walked. She clipped roses and hid them in the bottom of Will’s stroller.
I got up at five and baked blueberry corn muffins from a recipe I’d scribbled in my twenties on the flyleaf of the Tassajara Bread Book. I was taking Willie over to play at Helen’s, and I had to be careful now; Bing was his only friend in the class. Holiday cards cluttered their table, photographs with scrolly Season’s Greetings, Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah printed at the bottom.