* * *
I love Mo. I realize this as I push my way through the door, so excited to see him. I also realize I don’t know Mo’s story, and just how he came to be sitting at this desk.
“Mo!”
“Heather! Yo, girl!”
“How are you today?”
“Good. You’re one brave lady, that’s all I got to say.”
“Yeah?”
He shakes his two-ton head. “You got any grubbies with you?”
“Just what I’m wearing.”
He examines my garb. “Can they be replaced?”
“There’s not too much that can’t be replaced. Well, if it’s inanimate, that is.”
He jerks his head toward the kitchen. “Health department cited us. That kitchen needs to be scrubbed top to bottom.”
My stomach sinks. Yeah, I admit it. I had visions of chopping veggies, opening cans, skipping from big pot to bigger pot like a pixie, waving my magic spoon, creating fabulous meals from whatever anybody happened to bring by.
Drat.
“Point me at it.”
“No need. You already know where the kitchen is.”
I smile at him, and he knows.
He pats my arm. “Baptism by fire, girl.”
“You said it.”
I hoist my purse up on my arm. “Okay, then, wish me luck.”
He raises his brows. “Oh, you need more than luck.”
I gather as much air into my lungs as possible and move forward. One step. Then another. And then another.
Sister J’s office door is open. I peek my head in. “Sister J?”
“Hi, doll. Come on in. Ready to work?”
“Yep. Mo filled me in.”
She laughs, that grating hack. “I’ll bet he did! You sure as heck can’t clean in those. Go back to the clothes closet and pick out some of the used duds. No sense in ruining your good stuff.”
I bristle. “No, no, no. I really don’t mind.”
“I insist.” She looks at me, no-nonsense eyes. “Go pick something out. Doesn’t matter what.”
“But—”
“Now!”
Okay, okay. What is this? Some sort of bait and switch? The crusty yet nice nun turns into a hard-nosed mother superior?
Remember, Heather. Remember why and remember Who and who. There, that nice, righteous-sounding thought should see me through, right?
I head back out into the kitchen, into the main room, and over to the clothing room. They’re all free, these clothes. But those who come for them can take only five at a time. I’ve heard Sister J’s spiel three times now, so I know. The room sits devoid of clients. Ceiling high, windows grimy. I breathe in.
Oh, Lord, I’ve never put on someone else’s clothing in my entire life! Other than my cousins’ hand-me-downs or good friends’ clothes. I don’t know where these have been. Have they been washed? I pick up a pair of jeans.
Did someone urinate in them at one time? I close my eyes and sniff. They smell clean. But . . . how many people have slid their legs into these, and who were they?
I bow my head.
Help me.
I look up. Maybe a shirt would be a better first pick.
Sweaty underarms. Unseen dribble from a slack mouth down the placket, perhaps? Looking around, I see the ghosts of bodily secretions in neon colors on every garment. I see dirty people and poor people.
I see black people.
Oh God!
And my own prejudice confronts me in this garment I hold in my hand. All the thoughts I never allowed front and center, all the fears that never found their place.
Help me, God. Please help me. I don’t want to be like this.
I stand. Frozen in the frigid pool of my own sinfulness.
* * *
A hand squeezes my shoulder. “Miss Heather?”
I turn. Krista. I hold out the jeans, speechless.
In her eyes I see time and pain and understanding, though heaven knows, I don’t how or why she should, or would.
“Can I help pick you something out?”
I nod.
“What size?”
“Fourteen.”
She starts at the pants table. “Mo told me you gon’ be scrubbing the kitchen today so you want to be comfortable.” She lifts up a pair of painter pants. “Here. Sturdy too.”
I receive them from her.
She walks to the shirt rack. “I know color don’t matter cleaning the kitchen, but we have to look good, all right? I think blue is your color.”
“Why are you doing this?” The words slip out.
“You need me to.”
“I do.” I whisper the words.
She pulls out a blue blouse, blue the color of the Aegean in a travel poster for Greece. “Now that will go with your eyes. You go change in the bathroom.”
She hands me the shirt and leads me out of the room, into the main room. “The bathroom is right before Sister J’s door.”
“Thank you, Krista.”
Krista shrugs. Then she smiles. And she sees me for exactly who I am, a do-gooder white lady come to save the world.
Only she’s the one who’s going to save me. But I don’t think she knows that yet.
Maybe Jace was right about medication. I cry in the bathroom. Who do I really think I am?
* * *
Sister J peers at me as I walk into her office. “Good choice.”
“Krista saved me.”
“She’s got that in her. It’s why I’m so hard on her. Okay”—she hoists herself to her feet—“come on in and meet Jimmy, our cook.”
“There wasn’t anybody in the kitchen.”
“He’s probably having a smoke outside.”
Sure enough, Jimmy sits on the alley stoop, smoking a cigarette. He wears one of those caps that look like somebody cut the legs off a pair of pantyhose. His height makes me feel like I’m eight again.
“Jimmy, this is Heather. She’s going to help on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Said she’d clean your kitchen for you. Wanna show her the supplies?”
“If you say so.”
He takes one more draw, crushes the smoke beneath his sneaker, and rises to his feet. He walks by without looking at me, shows me the closet crammed with half-full bottles of every kind of cleaner known to broom closets. “There you go.”
“Thanks.”
Sister J heads back to her office. “If you need me, just holler. Jimmy, what’s for lunch?”
“Soup!”
She rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and flies away, her black veil last to leave the room.
Jimmy turns away from me, and I grab a bucket and some rags. And Mr. Clean. I need a guy like Mr. Clean right now.
He points to the far wall. “Utility sink’s over there.” And he disappears.
I feel so otherworldly. So out of place.
But I fill the bucket and begin to scrub the baseboards.
Four hours later, I’m only halfway through the kitchen. I’ve seen more roaches and roach carcasses, more grease, more primal yuckiness than ever before.
I change my clothes. Mo isn’t at the door.
I leave.
My trip home is quiet. Windows up.
It wasn’t what I thought it would be.
Not even close.
THIRTY-THREE
Sitting on the edge of his seat, Will listens and shovels in mac ’n’ cheese without even chewing. I don’t know how he does that. It makes my throat close into that gagging feeling just watching him. But there is something cool about it in that “boy” way. He keeps looking up at me, saying, “Sweet,” every few seconds as I tell him about my day. Jace isn’t home.
I almost want to turn on him and say, “Don’t you get it, Will? I had a lousy time. Jimmy was rude and I spent a disgusting day scrubbing a bunch of disgusting surfaces and didn’t even finish the disgusting job. A ministry of presence? Yeah, right, Jerusha.”
He caught the demeanor of the thoughts in my expression.
“Didn’t y
ou have fun, Mom? You did, didn’t you?”
How can I do this?
“No. It was the most humiliating experience of my life. I hated almost every minute of it.”
Will bows his head. He’s trying to hide the tears that always gather when he’s had a horrible day at school or disappointment strikes like the clapper of a bell.
“But I’ll go back Thursday.”
Will looks back up. “Really?” He sniffs. “After all that?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to. If I don’t finish that kitchen, they’ll shut the place down.”
A voice inside me says, Those people will survive without you.
“But life is about more than surviving.”
“What did you say, Mom? Never mind, I heard you.”
“It’s that voice inside me telling me I don’t have to go back, bud. That those people have it better than a lot of people in the world.”
“Better than us?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
He shoves a forkful of macaroni between his lips and grins a noodly grin.
“Gross.”
I load up my own fork and we talk about his day at school. Ronnie Legermin broke his legs in a freak hang-gliding accident the day before school started and won’t be back until at least Halloween.
Loser that I am, I actually high-five him on this. Poor Ronnie, right? I wonder how Ron’s dealing with it? Maybe I have a lot to learn about compassion after all.
* * *
I put the positive spin on the day with Jace. He looked so tired when he pulled in around ten, I couldn’t bear to burden him further. Besides, it’ll get better, right?
* * *
Mo’s eyebrows rise up so high I wouldn’t hesitate to call it a wonder of the world.
“So you want to hear my story, huh?” And he laughs and laughs and laughs. He laughs so hard I think he’s going to fall out of that chair, which has definitely lost the tone along its spine.
Pulling out a handkerchief, he actually wipes his brow.
“Never mind,” I say.
“Good girl!”
I walk toward the kitchen, and he says, “Hey!”
I turn. “Yeah?”
“You all right, Heather. I can’t believe you back here today.”
“Don’t give me too much credit, Mo. There’s always next week.” And he starts laughing again.
The big room is filled with folks. Panera sent over a huge trash bag full of bread, bagels, and pastries clients are picking through. Neighbors too, I think. And there’s some pretty good stuff in there— croissants too! I wonder if anybody’d mind if— Heather!
We all love a good find, don’t we?
I came prepared today. Tuesday’s outfit is laundered and ready to return to the rack. I dressed in an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt from Ron Jon Surf Shop. Yeah, did I mention I tend to keep stuff?
“Hi, Jimmy.” Jimmy’s arranging a tray of cling-wrapped, day-old blondies and muffins that have a decidedly Starbuckian look to them.
He looks at me and nods. Turns back to his work.
“Sister J in?”
“Nope.”
I stand there and wait for a possible explanation.
Nope.
Right, as Jace would say.
I pull out Tuesday’s bucket, the colonial blue Rubbermaid with the plastic tube missing from the handle. Luckily I don’t have to drag it far, or bye-bye, circulation in my fingers.
Mr. Clean again, and just for kicks, I add a couple of caps of Pine-Sol, mix it up a little, make it interesting. The water falls warm into the bucket, sudsing up the cleanser, and I place my hand beneath the stream. I close my eyes and feel the comfort of the hot wetness.
Okay. I can do this today. I made it through last time; I can do it again.
“I think I’ll tackle the stove today.”
Jimmy rummages through the large glass-front refrigerator, then snatches up some oranges in a red net bag and places them on the worktable. He looks at me and turns up the radio. I have no idea who the artist is. It’s rap. I know nothing.
Well. Good, then. Maybe at least the tempo will keep me moving.
I pry the iron grates off the gas burners and throw them in the utility sink, stopper it up, and pour in plenty of dish detergent. The hot water flows again. It will take several hours to soak off that grease, and Jimmy will be making the soup soon.
We’ll see what happens.
And the scrubbing begins. Wouldn’t you know it? I forgot my rubber gloves. “Jimmy? Are there any kitchen gloves?”
He turns up the radio, and something the artist is doing sounds like a fly buzzing around.
I can’t take him personally. He doesn’t know me, right?
Or does he? More than I even know myself? Surely women like me have come and gone.
Time will tell. He’s got to be thinking that.
But he heads around the corner to the pantry shelves and returns with a box full of tuna cans and several loaves of bread. “We’ll have us a cold lunch.” He starts opening cans with the industrial can opener attached to the worktable.
Krista walks into the kitchen with the creamer and sugar bowls in her hands. “These are all out.”
“Creamer’s gone.” Jimmy.
She shakes her head.
Jimmy turns to me. “Folks bring by ramen noodles, green beans, white beans, black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans. They bring by canned soup and day-old bread. But you know what? We really, really need us some creamer.”
* * *
It’s nine o’clock, and I am exhausted. Finally the stove glistens. So do the refrigerator and the sinks and every corner of that downcast kitchen. Bring it on, health department.
Sister J came through, said hi and chatted for a bit, and spent the rest of the day in meetings.
I had a different picture of all this.
Surely there’s some good I can do near home? Maybe visit a nursing home, read to the blind, grow a garden and take the produce to the elderly somewhere?
At least they’d appreciate me. Wouldn’t they?
And I feel so white, rhythmless, and uncool. Sort of like a bleached whale whose only trick is to roll over and wave with her fin in the midst of dolphins that jump high into the air and turn somersaults. Floating ungainly, out of her element, while the dolphins ignore her existence and scornfully gaze upon her mass.
On the way home I stop at Costco and pick up a case of creamer.
I also noticed Jimmy has to cook with very little oil. I put a huge jug of olive oil and one of safflower oil next to the creamer, pay the cashier, and head on home.
* * *
So Will loves Pink. I know. A little girly for a boy, but I’m glad he ventures out from Led Zeppelin every once in a while.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. While Pink will never win the Brio award for good Christian girls, she doesn’t compromise her standards—whether or not you think her standards are proper, she does stick to them! I like that about Pink.
I like her music too. Spunky, hip, full of groove.
I know all the lyrics to her album Missundaztood. It was in my car CD player for two years.
“Doctor, doctor, won’t you please prescribe me somethin’, a day in the life of someone else, ’cuz I’m a hazard to myself.”
I am so there.
So when “Get This Party Started” blares from Jimmy’s transistor on Tuesday, I can’t contain myself. And it isn’t like he’s in the kitchen anyway.
I boogie my way around the stove, a mess again after the weekend, wiping, flicking my rag, wiggling my behind in time to the music. Singing as loud as I dare, but not close to as loud as I can, “‘I got lotsa style with my gold diamond rings. I can go for—’”
“Aww! Caught you! Caught you singin’. And dancin’! Ha, haaah!”
I whip around, feeling like somebody opened the door to the restroom stall by accident.
Jimmy stands in the doorway, shaking his head, his face rent by a smile.
“You caught
the rhythmless white girl. I’ll try not to scare you like that again.”
“That Pink. She my girl!” He claps his hands, bends double, and laughs some more, swinging his head from side to side. “You all right, Heather.”
He disappears out to the stoop to smoke a cigarette.
* * *
Something happened after that. Jimmy talked to me. Told me about his cocaine addiction, his association with a famous dead rapper, how he came to be cook at the Hotel because Mo caught him sneaking in to sleep in the storage room and offered him work. A few years ago he led a Bible study in the home for alcoholics he stayed in, and he’d love a good study Bible. I’ll bring him one next Tuesday.
And when I cut away the rot from a case of oozing tomatoes that came from only heaven knows where, I experienced euphoria like I’d never known. I knew that at that moment I was doing the holy will of God. I was exactly where I was supposed to be; it was holy and good and just. Merciful—to me, the chief of sinners—and humbling. I shouldn’t have been privy to such blessing, such favor from God as to serve right there, right then. He called me out to do this, and I deserved none of it. I could have been in my house at this moment, sitting on my plush couch with a cup of warm tea, a Bible in my lap, and a study book beside me begging God to make me whole while doing none of His dirty work. But no. I cut rot off tomatoes in a roach-infested kitchen off of North Avenue.
It didn’t get any better than this.
Sister J walked into the kitchen just then. “What are you so happy about?”
“I can’t believe I get to be here.”
She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, you’ll get over it.” And disappeared. But I saw a hint of a smile before she turned away.
I loved where I stood. I loved the sink. I loved the stove. I loved Jimmy and Krista and Mo. I loved.
Plain Perfect & Quaker Summer 2 in 1 Page 48