Patsy

by Patsy (retail) (epub)

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am. Ma’am, will you listen to me? Ana is well trained—she took care of her brothers and sisters in the Dominican Republic since she was little. I swear my niece has never pulled this before. Ma’am, I understand you’re upset, but I promise she has been nothing but a good employee. I’m trying my best to see what I can do. I am very sorry, but we have a no-refund policy. I’d be happy to send someone else over as soon as— Hello? Ma’am? Ma’am, are you there? Fuck!”

  Patsy raises her right hand to knock again, but decides against it. What me getting me self into? Lowering her hand, she almost turns to walk away before deciding that this is her only chance. She takes a breath to steady her nerves and pushes the door open. A big-boned woman with unnaturally black hair and olive skin is behind a desk in a studio apartment, which is made to look like an office. A curtainless window with child-safety guards sits above a loud heater with caged metal bars that blows hot air into the space. Patsy has to take off her jacket to feel comfortable. Photographs of women, mostly Spanish, with aprons and dusters, decorate the cream-colored walls with the Magic Maid logo of a woman in a maid uniform flying on a broom, her head bent backward in an ecstatic laugh, stars trailing behind her.

  The telephone rings off the hook. The woman behind the desk is leaning over it, her fat, ringed fingers resting on the receiver like she’s waiting to feel a pulse, but she doesn’t pick up. For a moment Patsy thinks the woman is frozen, her body poised solemnly in her chair, her hollowed face creased, the hair at her temples graying.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” the woman finally says. “That’s what I get for hiring family members. Give them an opportunity and they blow it and drag you down with ’em.”

  “Uhm . . . good aftah-noon,” Patsy says lightly. “Are you Minerva?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name is Patsy. I’m here fah di housecleaning job,” Patsy says.

  Minerva gazes up at Patsy as if suddenly aware of her presence, her eyes tired, though seemingly buoyant almost, above a pair of sagging bags beneath them. Had it not been for the faint mustache and drawn-on eyebrows, she would’ve been beautiful. She pauses with her hand still on the receiver. With her gaze steady on Patsy, she says, “How soon can you start?”

  “I can start as soon as possible, ma’am,” Patsy says. She fumbles inside her purse for the résumé the agency helped her type up months ago. It’s creased at the edges, but she hasn’t gotten a chance to return to the agency and have them print another one.

  Minerva stops Patsy before she can give her the paper. “Well, consider yourself hired.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You’re hired.”

  It’s Patsy’s turn to pause, excitement skipping through her veins. She watches Minerva dab perspiration from above her lips with a piece of tissue. Patsy has forgotten that she’s standing until Minerva motions with her fat, ringed fingers for her to sit on the chair in front of her. “You look like a nice girl. Let me guess, twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-eight,” Patsy says.

  “Still young. But I’m giving you a chance. All you need to know is that when you enter these homes, you’re representing Magic Maid. Me and my husband worked hard to build this business from the ground up. We make sure that our workers are decent and hardworking people. With the exception of my good-for-nothing niece. I don’t expect any stealing or delinquent behaviors from you. But just in case that happens, I will not only terminate you, but report it to authorities. Now, you and I both know that getting arrested isn’t exactly ideal. You walk a straight line, understood?”

  Patsy’s mouth opens and closes before she says, “Understood.”

  “Good. We pay minimum wage. Five dollars fifteen cents per hour.” The words hang in the air. Five dollars fifteen cents per hour? Wha me aggo do wid dat? The pay is barely higher than what the restaurant paid. Something on Patsy’s face must have given away her disappointment, because Minerva adds, “The more jobs you do, the better. It all adds up. We also provide you with cleaning supplies. Do you own a car?”

  “No.”

  “You might need one.”

  “But I’m not—ah can’t get—ah don’t ’ave—”

  “Papers? Not a problem. Many drivers in this city don’t have papers. It’s easier to drive to jobs, especially with all those cleaning supplies you will carry.”

  “I can manage,” Patsy says.

  Minerva raises a drawn-on eyebrow before she shrugs and says, “All right. Suit yourself. What size are you, dear?”

  “Uhm . . .” Patsy thinks. Lately she has been wearing two sizes bigger than what she normally wears. To be safe, she tells Minerva extra-large. Minerva reaches into a box next to her feet and hands Patsy a black T-shirt. Patsy holds it up to the light. The Magic Maid logo is printed in yellow on the upper left.

  “You must wear our shirt with our logo at all times,” Minerva instructs. “That way clients know you’re one of us. People here don’t open doors for black faces unless you’re the delivery guy or a worker. Also, wear comfortable shoes and clothes you wouldn’t mind getting dirty.”

  HER FIRST CLEANING JOB IS IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS. THE STREET reminds her of Cicely’s with its endless colonnades of handsome brownstones. She lugs her cleaning supplies, inside a heavy bucket with a handle, up the wide concrete steps of the brownstone with its cast-iron railing. Patsy pauses to catch her breath at the bright red door with the brass handle, unable to decide whether to knock or press the doorbell above the last name BRADFORD. She presses the doorbell. There’s no answer. Patsy stands on the top step, feeling silly. She tries to peer inside the house, where she can see an oil painting of a naked reclining woman on the wall, a bookshelf crammed with books, a marble sculpture on the mantel, and bare wooden floors. As with the other houses on the street, there are no curtains. On her way, Patsy could see huge displays of artwork on the walls, chandeliers hanging from high ceilings, grand arches of doorways leading to other rooms, winding staircases leading to other floors, mantels displaying exotic vases and fireplaces. Like Cicely and Marcus, these people are begging to be robbed, Patsy thinks, suddenly resentful of Cicely for having become the type of woman to take pride in the flagrant display of her assets this way.

  The optimism she felt earlier, knowing that she’ll walk away with extra money from this job, dissolves in doubt when she rings the bell again and no one answers. Maybe the person canceled the appointment and the agency forgot to tell her. Just as she’s about to walk away, she sees a woman coming toward the building with bags of groceries. “Hello, there!” she says to Patsy in an easy-breezy tone. “You must be the new cleaning lady!”

  She’s tall, about five feet eleven inches, looking like one of those Scandinavian models in the Vogue magazines that Fionna likes to look at (sometimes with a flashlight at night when Patsy tells her to turn out the lights so that she can sleep). “These are real American women. Look how skinny they are! Look how fair! Look how soft their hair and skin! What would it take to look like dat? Do you t’ink we would be cleaning toilets if we look like dat?”

  “Yes, I’m Patsy,” Patsy tells the woman, whom she can’t stop staring at, though she’s dressed like a homeless person in baggy cargo pants, an oversized orange coat she probably made herself with patches, and a New York Yankees cap turned backward. She’s just the type of woman that the American magazines tell you to look at, save for the brown hair instead of the preferred yellow ponytail, secured in a rubber band like an afterthought. No one else could get away with this type of shabbiness. But there’s an air to this white woman different from that of the other white woman Patsy met at the bus stop, whose name she has forgotten. This woman gives the impression of understated elegance—someone used to the best of everything and who doesn’t have to try too hard to impress. With high cheekbones, an angular face with a handful of carefully positioned freckles around her nose, and a wide mouth, she has a commanding look that announces itself and demands full attention. Patsy a
utomatically moves out of the way for the woman to open the door. She watches as the woman digs inside her baggy cargo pants for the house keys, feeling awkward just standing there with her hands at her sides, the bucket at her feet.

  “Uh—yuh need help?” Patsy finally asks.

  “Oh, no, no. I’m fine. I do this all the time.”

  Patsy watches her fumble with the two heavy grocery bags and the keys. As soon as the door swings open, a dog leaps toward the woman and begins licking her face as she lowers the bags on the hardwood floor.

  “Hey, Chi-Chi! Have you been a good girl? Mama is back, and she has company! A new cleaning lady!” Patsy wonders if she has forgotten her name already.

  The dog, which doesn’t look like a dog at all but a toy, jumps up on Patsy too and she yelps. She’s immediately embarrassed by her reaction to the dog, hoping that she didn’t lose any points for almost kicking it.

  “This is Chi-Chi,” the woman says to Patsy, picking up the dog and holding it to her chest like a mother nursing her baby. “Don’t worry, she’s friendly, even if she can be a bit much. It just means that she likes you.”

  Patsy’s guard comes down once the dog is out the way, and she finds herself grudgingly charmed by this woman. She glimpses herself in the foyer and smooths her hair and Magic Maid T-shirt after taking off her jacket, but suddenly feels foolish for such grooming when she remembers that she’s only here to clean this woman’s house, and that a dog liking her is not a compliment.

  The woman, who still hasn’t introduced herself, leads Patsy to the kitchen, where there are copper skillets and different-colored pots hanging above an island counter. Ceramic plates are stacked neatly inside wooden cabinets, along with books about vegetarianism, how to do the right cleanse, and easy steps to making your insides “as clean as a whistle.” The woman reaches into her grocery bag for an apple and bites into it without washing it. She lets the dog lick the fruit before she puts it down. Patsy stares at the barking thing wagging its tail, unable to believe the woman would let the dog lick the same fruit she’d eat. Finally, she introduces herself as Esther—as if this is an afterthought too, like her ponytail. Patsy wishes she and Cicely were on speaking terms. She would’ve told Cicely how she was right—that Americans treat their dogs like family members, and some even introduce the dogs by their names before introducing themselves, as if the dogs are more important. She and Cicely would’ve had a good laugh.

  Esther begins to show Patsy around her apartment, which occupies two floors—the garden and the first floor, which has windows that swallow a whole wall. Chi-Chi is running behind them, sniffing at Patsy’s feet as Esther breezes ahead. Patsy tries to ignore the furry animal.

  The bedroom is larger than the studio Patsy and Fionna share. There are things covering the night table by the bed, clothes everywhere. The bright living room with peach-colored walls looks like something out of a magazine, with a teal sofa, a rustic coffee table with an ivory vase, and even the cramped bookshelf with books about yoga, travel magazines displaying people meditating in exotic places, a bronze Buddha statue, and hardcover novels. Above the mantel is the oil painting of the reclining naked woman Patsy spotted from outside, who she assumes is Esther. The come-hither smile is as haunting as it is unnecessary. Patsy imagines Esther’s guests looking up at their hostess’s crotch or pale nipples as she serves them sandwiches, expecting them to speak intelligently or at length about anything other than the obvious. Esther lives alone and tells Patsy how much she loves having her own freedom, which is why she never has roommates.

  “It’s such a New York thing, you know,” Esther says, biting hungrily into her apple. “People assume that because I’m a young, single, female that I should have a roommate. I can’t see how anyone can live with roommates,” she says. “Even when I go to Europe in the summers for yoga retreats I stay in flats owned by friends of my parents’. I always have them to myself. I need my independence. You know what I mean?”

  Patsy nods and smiles as though she knows exactly what Esther means and shares the same woes. She also hears Fionna’s warning in her head: “Americans funny. Keep yuh business to yuhself an’ mek dem do all di talking.” She looks away, feeling bad for having those thoughts. Politely, she assesses the beautiful mess around her. Each room seems to have an item of clothing—T-shirts and yoga pants hung on doors, a slip left on the wooden floor, unwashed laundry, including dirty underwear piled in a hamper. It baffles Patsy that the dirty panties aren’t washed by hand as soon as they’re taken off, and hung to dry like Patsy was taught to do as a girl. The bathroom has toothpaste splattered against the mirror, unemptied trash, and toiletries spread out on the counter. Though the place is obviously messy, it’s still picturesque. It’s as though each misplaced item of clothing, shoes, handbag, were strategically placed there to add character, an unkept charm.

  “My other cleaning lady vanished on me,” Esther tells Patsy in a tone indicating a crisis. She shows Patsy a raggedy mop inside a closet without further instructions, as if Patsy is supposed to automatically pick up where the other cleaning lady left off.

  When left alone, Patsy looks around the place, wondering if she had made a mistake saying to the agency that she’s willing to do housekeeping. What does she know about good housekeeping? Mama G did this for a living, back when she used to work. Patsy remembered her buying bleaching creams to lighten her knees and elbows blackened from scrubbing floors inside houses she cleaned on the hills, or coming home and soaking her feet in hot water while complaining about the day’s work, and about the rich people—how they swooshed by her without a good morning or good afternoon, how they spilled their coffee or tea and simply rang a bell for her to clean up, how they made her serve them food without ever offering her any, how she had to wash their dishes and clean their tables before they let her go home, how one woman followed her around like she was a child and barked at her if she didn’t do something properly. Patsy was with Mama G one day at the market downtown when Mama G spotted one of her employers and waved in clear view of the woman. However, the woman walked by Mama G like she didn’t recognize her outside her helper’s uniform. “Dey treat people like dawg if yuh nuh ’ave money like dem,” Mama G said to a very young Patsy, pulling her along. And when Patsy tripped and fell from the sudden force, Mama G shouted at her. “Why yuh suh clumsy? Yuh have two left foot, gyal? You is nothing but a disgrace! Yuh mek me shame! Get up an’ don’t mek me have to drag yuh ’cross dis market!”

  The scene dissolves in the bright glare inside Esther’s lilac bathroom. Once she slips on her rubber gloves, Patsy drops to her knees with the bucket of cleaning supplies. The uncertainty and discomfort of cleaning someone else’s house is tempered by the relief of income after getting fired from the restaurant. It takes Patsy a while to dust, mop, scrub the bathroom tiles, vacuum the two mats in the kitchen and inside the foyer, and spread new sheets over the queen-size bed. She avoids the painting at all costs, her eyes dutifully trained on the mantel she dusts beneath it. She puts the dirty laundry in the hamper where it belongs, including thongs, which she holds up like the tails of dead mice, their strings so thin she could floss with them. As Patsy cleans, Esther lounges on the teal couch, her legs dangling from the armrest. She reads a book the whole time, Chi-Chi napping next to her.

  “This looks great!” Esther says when Patsy finishes three hours later.

  Patsy smiles, her pride oddly inflated by the compliment. But then she remembers again what Fionna told her about the woman who smiled, tipped well, complimented her, then got her fired. This is what prompts Patsy to say, “Yuh laundry.”

  “What about it?” Esther asks, rubbing Chi-Chi’s head.

  “I can do those too, if yuh like,” Patsy replies.

  And just like that Patsy goes from cleaning lady to washerwoman. She spends an extra two and a half hours doing Esther’s laundry, glad that she learned how to operate a washing machine. Just a few months ago Patsy had never conceived of the idea of washing clothes
without a basin and cake soap. She had quickly realized that Americans use only machines to wash clothes, that in America there are places dedicated to washing clothes. Patsy spent the first twenty minutes one Sunday afternoon at the laundromat around the corner from Beverly’s house in East New York learning how to operate the machines and pour detergent and something called a fabric softener into a small hole. The laundromat attendant—a fat black American woman who chain-smoked in the restroom and hacked into a handkerchief—was patient with Patsy. She even supplied Patsy with extra quarters. After a few of her sweaters and blouses shrank to sizes that could fit the dolls she used to buy Tru, Patsy began to pay attention to the tags on each item of clothing to see whether to adjust the machine to hot or cold, delicate or regular; and, depending on the load, heavy, medium, or light. She still chooses to wash her underwear in the shower and hang it to dry on the shower rod.

  When Esther’s clothes dry, Patsy folds what needs to be folded and hangs what needs to be hung. With Esther’s careful instruction, she takes the more expensive clothes to the dry cleaner’s around the corner. The short, bald Chinney man reminds Patsy of the Mr. Chin at the wholesale on Princess Street in downtown Kingston where she used to shop. She feels an instant connection to him. There are many Mr. Chins who own wholesales back home, but the Mr. Chin on Princess Street had better sales. She remembers those hot Saturday afternoons crammed in lines, shouting out the items on her grocery list through the mesh partition at the wholesale so that Mr. Chin, as slow as he was, could fetch them. He shouted back in patois, “Me nuh deaf, yuh nuh! One at ah time or else me g’wan lack up di shop! Mek me see wha oonuh aggo do, to rhaatid.” Sometimes Mr. Chin’s three teenage children, dressed in their Catholic school uniforms on a weekday—the two boys in their khaki and St. George’s boys’ school crest on the pockets and the girl in her white Immaculate Conception High tunic—would help out, harried, running back and forth to meet the demands of customers. Other times it was Mr. Chin’s double-chinned wife, who never smiled at anyone except Joe-Joe the haggler on Orange Street, who used to bring her guineps and pink hibiscuses from somebody’s yard. She and the children were never the friendliest, sick of being called “Chin” like every Chinese person in Jamaica. “Beg yuh a pound ah flour, Missah Chin! Beg yuh two-pound ah cornmeal, Missah Chin! Missah Chin, gimme a bag ah rice, a pack ah Shirley biscuit, two cake soap, four tin ah mackerel!”