The week before the cleaning lady was to start, Trish noticed that she was more attentive to the mess in the apartment rather than less. When she collected the dirty dishes from the bedroom and living room and stacked them in the sink, she couldn’t just leave them there for a night as she usually did—she rinsed them right away and loaded them into the dishwasher. When she put several days’ worth of old newspapers into the recycling box, she thought, “I’m being really nice not to leave these for the cleaning lady,” and yet she wondered whether, in the future, Evgenia would take over that task. On the morning itself, Trish stripped the weeks-old sheets from the bed and organized the things on Tim’s bureau, and before she could stop herself, she had wet a sponge with Comet and run it over the bathroom sink. Polishing the mirror, she caught sight of her face, angry red from exertion.
Trish had pictured someone middle-aged. She didn’t know what to say when she opened the door to find somebody she might have hung out with, in her single days, on a Friday night. The cleaning lady didn’t look like a cleaning lady at all. She had blond hair, pulled back from dark roots into a devil-may-care ponytail. Her face was made up dramatically, with heavy eyeliner and long streaks of blush on both cheeks. Her outfit, when she took off her coat, made Trish look away, embarrassed: Evgenia was wearing a ruffled blouse and a miniskirt over tights and sling-back sandals.
“You sure you want to wear that?” Trish said, after showing her in.
“I have apron.” The young woman removed one from the large zippered black bag she was carrying and put it on.
The Meehans’ apartment was new since the honeymoon, and Trish liked to show it off: the custom L in the living room, which backed up to the wall of windows onto—if not a park—at least Eighty-sixth Street; the kitchen decked out with gifts from their registry—the standing mixer and cappuccino maker, the cedar knife block filled with German steel. On top of the television stood the silver-framed picture of Tim and her cutting the cake at the wedding—black-tie, it had been, and they’d had seven attendants apiece. She rather expected a compliment, but the girl was silent, offering only nods, and unsmiling ones at that, that forced Trish to keep up the conversation.
“So, how do you spell your name, Evgenia?” she asked politely. “I hope I’m pronouncing it right.”
Evgenia was squatting down to peer into the cabinet under the kitchen sink where the cleaning products were kept. “It is complicated—Russian name,” she said.
“Oh, I know,” Trish said. “Where are you from, Moscow?”
“No, no.” Evgenia’s voice was muffled. She withdrew her head from the cabinet and turned up to Trish a face that was sardonic in the extreme. “Every American say that! Every American think I from Russia. I am from Ukraine,” she said. “Former Soviet Union.”
“Oh, okay,” Trish said.
“Look on map! You find.” Evgenia held up a box of Brillo pads and shook it in Trish’s direction. “Empty.”
“No problem,” Trish said. “I’ll buy more.” She asked Evgenia how long she had been in America. When Evgenia said three years, Trish asked if she had come by herself, and Evgenia, closing the cabinet door and standing up, laughed loudly and said, “Oh, my God, no! I come with my mother, my father, my two brothers, and my husband.”
“You’re married?”
“Everyone marry young in Ukraine,” Evgenia explained. “Not like here.” She was leaning back against the sink, a manicured hand on either side of her waist. She looked very much at home there, Trish noticed, as if she were leaning against her own sink. “I was married at eighteen,” said Evgenia, and it was clear from her intonation that she expected Trish to react with awe or at least surprise; that she had developed, as Trish had noticed the savvier immigrants did, a sense of what went down big in the States, had perhaps herself learned to be impressed with the fact, where once she had not been.
“God, I just got married last year and I’m thirty-one,” Trish said, as she led Evgenia through the bedroom and into the renovated bath. “I still beat all of my friends, though,” she added quickly. “Half of them don’t even have boyfriends. They’ll be lucky to find someone by the time they’re forty. It’s different in New York. Women have careers, you know? Other priorities.”
“You work?” asked Evgenia.
“No,” said Trish. “I mean, not now. Not anymore. We’re trying to get pregnant.” The truth, though, was that Tim wanted to pay down their wedding debt before thinking about a baby. When she stopped to think about it Trish felt her days were sort of aimless, that she was always very busy but never accomplished anything. It seemed to take all day to pick up the dry cleaning, and then when Tim got home he would say, “Why don’t you just have it delivered?”
“What about you?” Trish asked quickly. “Do you have any kids?”
Evgenia shook her head.
“Well, maybe you will soon.”
She felt like dropping the subject and was about to explain how the shower worked when Evgenia said, “No, not soon.” Trish looked at her, and Evgenia said, “I cannot.”
“You can’t—not?” Trish faltered.
“No.”
“My God.” Trish hid the hand-shower nozzle under her arm as she tried to summon some appropriate words. “I’m so sorry,” she said finally. “I’m sorry I even brought it up.”
Evgenia wiped a finger along the inside of the tub, holding it up to show the grime. “You have Soft Scrub?”
Trish stared at her. “I think we ran out.”
“No Soft Scrub? Okay, next time,” Evgenia said, shaking a finger at Trish. “And Brillo. Don’t forget.”
“Look, why don’t you just make a list, okay?” Trish told her. They came out into the bedroom, and then into the living/dining area. Then she said, “Well, I guess I’ll take off.” She lingered a moment for the girl to ask her where she was going.
“See you later,” Evgenia said.
“I think I’ll head over to the Met,” Trish said. “There’s supposed to be a good exhibit right now.”
But when she got outside it was gray and threatening rain. All of her energy seemed to dissipate. It seemed odd to go to a museum on a weekday morning, like a punishment for bad behavior. After hesitating a minute, she walked two blocks to the Starbucks, sat down with a latte, and made a list of errands that needed taking care of: buy stamps, exchange wedding gift, drop off Tim’s shoes at the cobbler, replace lost lipstick.
Trish herself had never cleaned for money, but all through her teens she’d held tedious after-school jobs, babysitting mainly, some office work (stuffing envelopes for a state rep; typing and filing for a father/son dental practice), and she knew how irksome and debilitating it was to have the mother, or the boss, lurking around, checking up on you, so you couldn’t even use the phone to call a friend and joke around or make the kids watch TV for five minutes just to alleviate the boredom and drag the minute hand back around to 12 again, chalk up another dollar fifty. She considered those endless afternoons the most hateful, wasted hours of her life. Even now, she would feel her face get hot when some acquaintance of theirs mentioned, as if it were onerous, having had to go to “practice” every afternoon after school, and yet at the same time it could cheer her, twenty years out, to remind herself that she would never have to take another babysitting or filing job again.
Having whiled away four full hours and having dawdled all the way home, Trish was taken aback when she finally returned, exhausted in the exasperated way that only killing time can make one, to hear the television on in her apartment. As she stood outside the door listening, she became more and more irked by the noise—whether it was that Evgenia had carelessly forgotten to turn it off when she left, or that she was still working and worked with the television on. In the case of the latter, Trish decided, her key in the lock, to say something. But when she came in Evgenia was sitting on the couch with the remote control in her hand. Seeing her there confused Trish, and the apartment itself, which was fantastically clean and sme
lled of Murphy’s Oil Soap, confused her and touched her somewhere also. She felt at once that she was being hasty, and so she swallowed what she was going to say.
“I go now,” Evgenia announced. She clicked the TV off, crossed the room, and took her coat from the rack. Put it on and buckled the belt snugly around her waist. It was a red coat, cut long and gathered in the back, with a stand-up collar and two rows of gold buttons down the front that gave it a smart, military appearance. A hammered-silver mirror hung to the right of the door as you went out—another of Trish and Tim’s wedding presents—at which Evgenia paused to redo her lipstick.
Trish said uncertainly, but with a touch of impatience, “Were you waiting for me?”
Evgenia rubbed her lips together to blend the color. “No,” she said, making a pout for the mirror. “Just waiting.” She turned and smiled at Trish. “It’s okay. I am student. I go to class now.”
Again Trish sensed that she ought to assert her authority, but she couldn’t think fast enough how to do it. “The apartment looks great,” she said. When Evgenia merely nodded, continuing out, Trish called after her, down the hall, “So, what is it that you study?”
Fashion design, Evgenia told her. “I want to be next Donna Karan!”
There were bound to be growing pains in any relationship; Trish understood that. But she wasn’t prepared for the television incident to repeat itself just two weeks later—the very next time Evgenia came—but again she heard the noise from the hallway, and again when she entered, she found Evgenia sitting on the couch, remote control in hand.
“What are you watching?” Trish asked, detaching several plastic grocery bags from her arm. She was unable to keep the irritation out of her voice.
“Oprah,” said Evgenia, standing up. She was not tall—Trish was taller—but the girl’s posture was so erect that when she came toward Trish she seemed to lead with her collarbone. “She is so great. You know, your cable remote is totally screwed up,” she added. “You should get universal.” She handed the device to Trish, who turned it over in her hands several times, frowning, and followed Evgenia to the door. As Evgenia was buckling the belt of her coat, Trish told her not to wait in the apartment in the future, but to leave when she had finished cleaning. “My husband and I just don’t feel it’s professional,” she said. She shut the door and bolted it and went to the fridge to see if there was an open bottle of wine. Standing at the counter, she poured herself a glass of Chardonnay and drank it down.
After that, Evgenia was always gone when Trish got back.
The holidays neared, and there was a lot to do: presents and cards—Trish was meticulous about keeping in touch—booking flights, decorating the apartment, and her annual bake-a-thon with Jan. Trish’s sister would come in for the weekend from Hoboken, where she was an assistant kindergarten teacher, and they would make sugar cookies all day Saturday and all day Sunday, rolling out the dough, cutting them and frosting them, and finally packing them up in tissue-papered tins for a long list of unsuspecting recipients. It was a habit from high school. Even then, it had been their private project; their mother didn’t bake, and they had taught themselves from a column in Gourmet, to which Trish had a subscription. Once they started they never missed a year. Jan’s list was always half as long as Trish’s, but Trish knew she didn’t mind, she liked to come into Manhattan and crash on the foldout and be taken out to dinner Saturday night.
This year Trish had forgotten to make a reservation, and after striking out at a number of places, finally she and Jan walked up Third Avenue to the local Chinese. It was more a weeknight place and a lot of the tables were empty, but Trish tried to make the most of things. She ordered fancy cocktails while Jan was in the bathroom, so she couldn’t protest, and drank half of hers before her sister reappeared, sucking in her cheeks and pursing her lips at herself in the mirror above the banquette. When Tim came through the door of the restaurant, freshly showered from the gym and with his hair slicked back, his eyes found their table and he came right over. Trish felt such a rush of pride she had to look away. “Ladies,” Tim said. He kissed Jan and Jan looked pleased. Trish was glad as she always was that Jan was there to share the bounty. She made up her mind on the spot to take Jan shopping in the morning and get her an extravagant Christmas gift, something she would never be able to afford herself and, in any case, would never buy for herself—the “in” designer clutch bag of the season or a day of beauty at a Madison Avenue spa—something decadent like that.
“Come on, Tim!” Trish said when the food arrived. “Think—there must be someone! It’s ridiculous with the ratio at that firm that you haven’t found anyone for Jan yet.” In referring to her sister’s single state, despite the fact that Jan, who wore no makeup and didn’t believe in spending money on her clothes or her hair, had never had a boyfriend, Trish always adopted the can-do, breezy tone that she felt had been so disastrously lacking in their mother’s attitude when they were growing up. Then she bugged Jan about moving into Manhattan—“Or you’ll never meet someone!”
But Jan, struggling unattractively with her moo shu pancake, put down her chopsticks and looked at Trish with disgust. “How am I supposed to do that?” she said. “I’m not going to bleed Mom and Dad like you did!”
Trish’s eyes smarted. She felt her jaw harden. She took a big sip of her cocktail, and she said, “Well, maybe you’ll meet somebody in Hoboken.”
“Yes, Trish,” said Jan. “I’m sure it’s surprising to you, but it actually does happen.”
The morning they were to leave for Christmas was a Tuesday; when Trish realized she hadn’t bought anything for Evgenia, she felt bad until she remembered a final tin of cookies, as yet undistributed. It was one of the big ones and had been sitting on the dining table for days, earmarked for an ex-colleague. As she showered and made coffee, Trish decided conclusively against delivering them to the bitch. In two years Avery had never invited them to a thing, though Trish happened to know she threw dinner parties all the time. Her decision made, Trish ripped off the “Avery” half of the gift tag and on the half that remained wrote “Evgenia” next to the “Merry Christmas!” Then all at once she stopped and held the pen aloft. It had occurred to her that there might be some expectation of an actual bonus. But as a biweekly employee, Evgenia just didn’t seem to fall into the category of people you tipped. As she was debating what to do, Trish walked to the wall of windows and looked out onto the street as if seeking an answer from the pedestrians below. And there she was—Evgenia—walking up the block in her red coat. She looked rather jaunty, carrying her lunch, stepping around a dog. It was not a beautiful coat, but Evgenia seemed to take a huge amount of pride in it. There was an unbecoming arrogance in her carriage, Trish had noticed, when she was wearing the coat. Watching her make her way up the block, Trish suddenly recalled something that had happened in the first few weeks Evgenia had worked for her. Trish had made some muffins the night before Evgenia was to come—more than she and Tim could eat. She left a note for the girl, beside her check—“Muffins in the kitchen—help yourself!” But when she returned, the six muffins were sitting on the counter where she had left them, only now they were covered in plastic wrap.
“So I guess I’ll see you after the New Year,” Trish said when the girl arrived. She had left the cookies on the dining table so she wouldn’t have to give them directly to Evgenia, a gesture she instinctively avoided. “We’re going to see my husband’s parents in Michigan, and then we’re going to some black-tie event in Chicago for New Year’s—probably totally ridiculous. My husband’s always saying, ‘Why should we pay a hundred and fifty dollars to stand around with people we don’t know and drink cheap champagne?’ But I think it’s important to get out, you know? Get dressed up and go out on the town?”
Evgenia seemed distracted, frowned, and said, “Okay,” and turned back to removing the mop, broom, and bucket from the utility closet by the door.
Trish immediately felt it had been callous to mention her own expe
nsive plans for New Year’s when Evgenia probably couldn’t afford to go out at all. She wished their parting would have more of a Christmas flavor to it. Impulsively she added, “You do such a good job here, Evgenia. Tim and I are always talking about it.
“It must be really tiring,” she went on when Evgenia didn’t answer. “I’m sure if I were in your place—”
She only meant to get started, but Evgenia cut her off with a laugh and said, “Are you kidding? This apartment is nothing! Wednesday, I have classic six! Classic six have two bedrooms, two and half bath—”
“I know what a classic six is!” Trish said furiously. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Later that day when she and Tim were locking up the apartment, the phone rang. It was Evgenia. A half-smile on her lips, Trish steeled herself for gratitude, but Evgenia did not mention the cookies. “You forget my check,” she said. “I look in drawer but you never put.” In her distraction, Trish had forgotten to leave it. She took down the address and promised to send it right away.
For nearly an hour, Trish sat at her table nursing her cappuccino and planning what she would say when Evgenia, inevitably, saw her—whether, for instance, she would be civil, or cold, or, in fact, rather blatantly condescending. “Oh—hi,” she could say, sounding puzzled and faintly put out. “How are you?” But her back was to the bar, Evgenia didn’t notice her, and in the end Trish shied away from such an encounter, waiting to leave the restaurant—staying much longer than she would have, in fact—until Evgenia had slid off her stool and staggered to the ladies’ room.
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