Tales From A Broad

by Fran Lebowitz

  We walk into Tuskin Shopping Centre at 10 am on a Sunday. No stores are open. I think about being in my highschool building at weekends for special track meets. Everything still, waiting for real life, noisy life, to begin again. Embassador is on the third floor. We go up the escalator to find a hallway teeming with Filipino women, sitting, sauntering, socialising, preening, slouching, sleeping. They have many things in common: dark, thick, wavy hair, caramel skin, wide, wide smiles and, ooch, way wrong clothes. The outfits they’re wearing are new and are not shabby or dirty or for the impoverished only – it’s all normal attire but put together wrong, fitting badly and, most of all, never what you’d wear for an interview. Striped shirts with flowery skirts. Pantyhose, skinny heels and shorts. Clothes for the disco or last decade’s weight – or maybe they just got dressed in the dark. I wonder if that one is really trying to find a job as a maid? Dress slit up to the pupick, heavy make-up, clingy, see-through blouse … Now you’re just the kind of gal I need to take care of my husband, but what about the cleaning, dear?

  They make way for us as we head down the hall. Conversations stop abruptly, hands fly self-consciously to stray hairs and puckered shirts. As we walk along, they try to outdo the last praise bestowed on the kids. We start with ‘so cute’ and move on to ‘Jesus has blessed you with gifts greater than …’ One young thing swoons. One shouts, ‘Pick me!’ There are a few ‘I love Americas’ and a general chorus of ‘hellos’ with noticeable effort applied to sounding American.

  After wending our way through the crowd, making sure the kids are still with us and trying to look at each one with a ‘Oh, you could be it!’ expression of hope, we find Jessica. She is out in the hall as well, unmistakably the queen bee around here. Physically, she towers above all of us and weighs in at Frank times two. In contrast to the general garish-glam look of those milling about, Jessica wears her hair short and styled like all the boys in my third-grade picture. She actually has a straight part way over on one side. She carefully smoothes the hair over with a penny comb and a beefy hand.

  ‘Mrs Rittman?’ She mats down her hair once more before extending her hand for me to shake. ‘I’m Jessica.’

  I feel myself shrinking. This woman knows I am a bitch already. She is definitely not someone I should have spoken to with any disrespect. This is a woman who owns a business, takes care of thousands of young, destitute women from one of the worst-run countries in the world. This is a woman who doesn’t give a shit about being a macho, fat Asian broad in homophobic Singapore. This woman thinks I’m supercilious and as redundant as snack-size baggies. She’s going to punish me here and now. She’s not eyeing Frank up and down for new hairstyle inspiration. She is sizing him up. She can see he’s a lascivious cad who wishes I still had my cheerleader outfit and would relocate, in a heartbeat, somewhere that allows you to pinch 16-year-olds. We’ll have interview after interview with titillators only. I really wanted a big fat mammy to bustle about. Someone who maybe even, on a blue day, would think to make me chocolate chip cookies.

  Jessica ushers us into a room VIP style, telling the girls to give us space, back off and settle down. She closes the door and motions for us to take our seats. There are placards on the wall bearing trite little quotes you’d find on last year’s overstock of calendars, like, ‘It is better to apologise and know that your beatings will heal than to not make the most of tomorrow.’ There are lots of Catholic symbols – Marys and crosses – and Bible passages. The message as a whole: He served, you can too! There is a sign on the bathroom door advising ‘Do not stand on the seat. You might slip in’ with a line drawing of a person doing just that, the end result being that they are up to their ankles in the toilet bowl.

  Once we’re settled and have the kids engaged in snacking and colouring, Jessica hands us six binders. These are the dossiers of the women we are about to see. Each folder contains the answers to a questionnaire the candidates filled in previously: What would you do if a loved one back home died? Why did you leave your last employer? What can you cook? Can you give massage? Do you have any diseases? What would you do if there was an emergency? What does your father do? Are you married? What do you do on your day off? All the answers are the same. If a loved one dies, they would send money. They left their last employer because they didn’t get Sundays off. ‘I can cook spagedi.’ ‘I know massage.’ No diseases. ‘In emergency, I call 499 and Ma’am’s cell phone.’ ‘My father, he was a farmer.’ ‘I am not married.’ ‘On my day off, I go to church and then study computer.’

  Lunetta is our first interview. She has a tube top on and jeans with the label ‘Pincme’. She smiles, showing all 900 teeth and lots of gum. We shake her hand. She looks at the kids and says, ‘Oh, Ma’am, they are so good, so cute.’ I thank her and begin: ‘So, Lunetta, I really like being the mom. What I want is privacy. I want you to be like the shoemaker’s little elves and just keep our place running smoothly and babysit when we want to go out. It isn’t a big job, I don’t think. You won’t be overworked. Before you commit, though, you must check out the room we have for you. It’s not the best. It’s behind the kitchen and it’s private and all, but it’s small. Would that be okay for you?’

  I’ve already hired her in my mind. Then she says, ‘I make spagedi.’

  ‘We like that but I will be doing all of my own cooking. Are you good with kids?’

  ‘And hangbresers.’

  ‘Great, great. Do you have kids of your own?’

  ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘Yes, but do you have kids?’

  ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘Okay, what would you do if one of my kids took a fall and started bleeding?’

  ‘I would say, “Stop that now, eat chure spagedi.”’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The next one comes in, Rose, aged 32. She is giggling nervously and immediately approaches the kids.

  ‘So cute. Girl! What’s your name?’

  She’s looking at Huxley, who is not reliably responsive yet. So, Sadie pitches in: ‘I’m the girl. Name’s Sadie. Huxley’s a boy.’ Sadie resumes her sticker book activity.

  Rose laughs nervously over her gaffe. This is nothing new. Most people think Huxley’s a girl over here. I keep his hair long, and he has pretty, chiselled features. It’s not the end of the world to mistake him. I try to tell Rose this but she’s already collecting her things and backing out the door.

  Next is Diane. She is wearing a sweet cotton dress and pointy shoes that couldn’t possibly accommodate a real foot.

  ‘Diane, it’s good to meet you,’ I say and shake her hand. ‘Tell me a little about yourself.’

  ‘I graduated from university in the Philippines with a Masters in Fine Arts. I have two kids, four and seven. My husband died from lung cancer a year ago. My father was a farmer until he lost his legs to diabetes. I am one of eight children. I can cook spagedi.’

  Of course I want to cry. Of course I want to hire all of them, but this is about saving the right person, someone for whom I can really make a difference.

  ‘Masters in Fine Arts, what do you want to do with that?’

  ‘I want to work in Singapore for an American family.’

  ‘Will you be able to save up money and pursue the arts?’

  ‘I send money home to my husband.’

  ‘I thought he passed away.’

  ‘Yes. Your children are cute. I love children.’

  Then Posie comes in. Slim and sweet, dressed gaily but with decorum, with common sense. Posie smiles at the kids, sits straight and tall, smoothes her skirt over her knees. Her black hair, which is neatly tucked behind her ears and falls to her waist, gives off a healthy shine and just-washed scent. She has some light lipstick on and from time to time she toys with a delicate, tiny gold cross necklace.

  We ask her the usual questions and her answers are predictable but not unsettling. She would, for example, in the case of a mishap, call the emergency number instead of saying, ‘Now, run over here with those scis
sors and eat chure spagedi.’

  Huxley walks up to her and shows her his scribble. She warmly puts her hand on his shoulder and bends over to get closer to the work and to his little face. After a beat, she looks him in the eye and says, ‘This is beautiful, Huxley.’ He beams.

  We meet a few more shy things who don’t say a word, or speak to us in Tagalog, or who are nice but seemed tired.

  When we leave the room, a thousand eyes widen in hope and wonder. I wish I could convince them that it would be an unpleasant experience working for me. American, shmer-ican – I am a Viking.

  We find Jessica, who leads us to her office. Frank signs some papers, writes out a cheque for the bond and we’re told we can come by tomorrow to collect Posie. We walk out with Jessica. The girls are beginning to gravitate toward her, silently, anxiously. Jessica raises her hand and points to Posie. She says, ‘Ikaw ang napili nila.’ There is cheering. Frank whispers, ‘It means: they chose you.’

  I whisper back, ‘Flintstones episode?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Hazel.’

  Posie steps out to us. We embrace modestly. ‘See you tomorrow,’ I say.

  As Frank, Sadie, Huxley and I walk down the hall, hand in hand, a fierce jab of trepidation sucker-punches me. What am I doing? I don’t want someone in our house disturbing our unique, demented dynamics. I don’t want the kids touched tenderly by anyone but friends and family, and I don’t want Posie to become either. I’m all they need. I don’t want to say, ‘Shhh, the maid will hear’ or ‘Throw that away before the maid sees it.’ But the deed is done, the ink is dry, the bond is signed, the date is set, the maid is coming, ready or not. It’ll be fine. Yes, everyone does it. It’ll be fine. I swivel around to give Posie a smile, but her back is to me. She has her hands on her hips, clutching the bottom of her skirt, which is now hiked quite a ways up. Her butt is swinging from side to side as she shimmies down the hall, Soul Train style, singing, ‘I’m gonna work for expats … I’m gonna work for expats …’

  By the time Frank turns his head, she is swallowed up by the herd in the hall.

  It’s like Narnia. Behind every kitchen lies Amahville. Just go through a little door next to the refrigerator and you’ll find their busy land. Each of the five buildings that make up Fortune Gardens is cylindrical and hollow in the middle. The maids inhabit the interior section, which opens onto the inside (think ‘courtyard’ and bring it down many, many notches). We, the employers, have balconies that look out at the sea, the sunsets, the playgrounds, the park. I can see who I’ll run into at the store, who has a nice tennis serve, if Samantha and Greg’s balcony light is on. The maids look inward at each other, downward to the lobby, or, if they lean over the waist-high wall, they might catch a bit of sky. Listen closely, you can hear the Tagalog, the giggling, the gossip, the radios. Take a peek and see the washing hanging out on bamboo poles, the neatly organised tools of trade and the clever use of discarded boxes, shelves, broken chairs. Can’t you just smell the beehoon cooking?

  To get to Posie’s room, you open a door next to the refrigerator and go down an open-air walkway, at the end of which is a sliding door. Inside is a small box. At one end is a grilled window looking onto floor upon floor of other grilled windows. At the other end is another door that leads to the elevators.

  ‘Here’s your room,’ I shout to be heard above the air-conditioner. The part of the airconditioning unit that’s in our living room quietly spreads comfort and refreshment. The part that is just above Posie’s door and across from her bathroom spews out suffocating wind and rumbles like a dying freight train. Despite our electricity bills topping $1,000 a month, I keep the aircon on all the time because, frankly, it makes me nicer and Frank’s company pays for it anyway.

  ‘And here’s your bathroom.’ There is no door, just an alcove with a spigot on the wall and a squatter next to it. Nothing separates the toilet from the ‘shower’ or the user of either from the stares of the folks in Amahville. Posie is also to share her sleeping quarters with the dishwasher – a highly uncommon appliance in Singapore, though I doubt that makes her happy to find it as her roomie. The dishwasher was once in the kitchen, but wasn’t built-in; it was just sort of plonked in the middle of the room. There was no other place for it unless you wanted to go through major renovations and I guess the owner didn’t want to. It looked stupid where it was, as though I wanted to be sure everyone knew I had a dishwasher, the centrepiece of my culinary collection. We only used it a few times; the thing failed to wash more than it broke. In fact, I never saw any evidence of water having entered or left it. Granted, I had no idea what the control symbols indicated. They were awfully intricate but entirely too impressionistic, like a Japanese painting, full of haiku and wisdom – a half sun covering a flower with a hummingbird sucking out nectar, with a bee on its tail. But I’m sure I never pressed the one that meant: ‘Dry clean, rattle violently, break dishes.’ One day, we just put it out of sight.

  ‘Put your bag down.’ She has arrived with nothing more than a suitcase the size of a small birdcage. She follows me back out, through the door and into the kitchen where all is quiet and crisp, the sea surrounding us on three sides.

  ‘What can I get you? Something to drink? Coffee? A piece of fruit?’

  ‘Nothing, Ma’am, I ate breakfast at Jessica’s.’

  ‘Is that all of your things?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  She stands there looking at her shoes.

  ‘Wow, great to be so unencumbered. Huh, I would love to be able to fit my life in a pillowcase. I mean it. Oh, the bits and pieces that have such talismanic pull for me. Can’t leave any of it behind. I don’t mean to say we have a lot of clutter here. Except you should see Frank empty out his pockets every night. He’s like a kid. The things he wants to keep. Always dumping in a different place. I used to throw it away but he got pissed off when he couldn’t find receipts or something. I don’t mean you need to worry about him getting angry with you. No, Frank’s easygoing. Huh, I’m the one with the temper. But don’t get worried. It seems to be a little under control – until about three, which is when I tend to get angry at some damned thing or another. I know all about the count to ten thing but at 3 pm, doesn’t matter. If you cross my lane while I swim or you cross my lane while I drive, if you cut in front of me at the supermarket or if you spill your milk, once I start yelling, I just can’t stop. It’s like an orgasm. Not that you should worry. Though I suppose it’ll be best if you stay out of my way after three. Actually, I thought we might really never be in the same room at the same time. If you see me coming, just float on over to another room and make yourself busy. By eight at night, you go back into your part of the house. You can go out – use the door in your room, okay? – and meet the other maids. Have dinner, do something nice, but you can’t come into our part of the house. Just be sure you have everything you need back there by eight. Okay? I don’t want you to worry about going hungry in the middle of the night and not being able to set foot in our kitchen, so, here, take this.’ I hand her $800. ‘Get yourself a little fridge, a toaster oven, a microwave. Hey, if you want, buy yourself a nice little rice cooker too. Whatever else you need. Okay, so why don’t you go now and do all of that getting settled in stuff and I’ll see you at five. It’s Halloween tonight. You have to dress up and give out candy. Look, I’m sorry about the room. You’ll get it feeling cosy. Okay, out you go. See you at five.’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Call me Fran, for goodness sake. You’re part of the – you live here now.’

  ‘Ma’am Fran, what is the Halloween? What is an uncucumber?’

  ‘Huh? Good, good, I’m glad you’re asking questions. Never mind, just go and do.’

  I pretty much shove her out the door. I hate her and I don’t know why. I’ll just send her cheques to Amahville and we’ll never see each other. I’ll leave notes about everything and before I come into a room, I’ll announce, �
��I’m coming in here now.’ I don’t want to look into her wide-set eyes that are full of confusion or see her sad little suitcase again.

  I take the kids to the major grocery store at Parkway in the bike cart. We stop off at the Children’s Library, which probably has a better inventory than any in the US. Classics and new titles from around the world cram hundreds of shelves. Unfortunately, randomness reigns, and it’s too chaotic to ever find anything in particular. The shelving system is as arbitrary as the whims of the staff. For example, the three Muslim volunteers do it according to colour, placing the dark covers in front and the colourful ones behind (those without any covers at all are cast aside). Another set of volunteers shelve by price. When we have the true, children’s-book-loving, certified librarians, the alphabet rules but sometimes by title, sometimes by author, sometimes by publisher.

  After we take out the eight books we’re allowed I ask the kids what kind of Halloween candy they want. They want lollipops.

  ‘Yuck,’ I say.

  ‘Jelly worms?’ asks Sadie.

  ‘Nah, it’s gotta be wrapped.’

  ‘Jaw breakers!’

  ‘Do you know how many kids choke on them a year?’

  ‘Gum?’

  ‘Against the law.’

  I can’t believe my kids. Chocolate is the answer. What complete idiots. Chocolate, I think hard enough to send the message through. Say ‘chocolate’. The correct response is: chocolate.

  ‘Those, I want those.’

  ‘What a sticky mess that would be. The moms would hate me.’ She was pointing to the Tic Tacs.

  While Sadie is looking up and down, weighing up the endless possibilities, I toss in 20 bags of mini Snickers.

  ‘Okay, honey, I got your favourites.’

  ‘They are?’

  ‘Oh, sure. Let’s just go home now.’

  The candy costs $200.

  I push the stroller home while Sadie and Huxley look at books. The journey takes about 30 minutes and there’s lots of hefting and hauling to get the thing over enormous obstacles: the canals, construction, curbs up to my knees, foreign workers sleeping on the sidewalks. I’m shaking with fatigue when I get home. It’s the hottest part of the day and I’ve been walking alongside cars and buses, negotiating this heavy thing and trying to make it fun for the kids. I just need a quick drink of water and to sit for a minute.