Minding Ben

by Victoria Brown

Kathy grinned and slipped on her sunglasses. “Saks. Fourth floor.”

  “Fantastic,” the woman repeated and stalked off to meet her friends.

  Kathy turned to me. “Saks my ass. Try Janice on Fulton and half hour with the BeDazzler.”

  Chapter 12

  My hours were a sham. Like yesterday, Miriam called me into the kitchen at seven-thirty. She showed me how Sol liked his coffee: mix grounds from two separate blends, use cold water from the filtered pitcher, and microwave a mug of water for a full minute to have hot and ready for when he came out. He took it black. I also had to make Miriam toast and jam and pack her a bag lunch. While Ben had his breakfast, I started the cleaning: their room, his room, the bathrooms. Then out for morning play. Back in for lunch. During Ben’s afternoon nap I hung laundry, cleaned the living room, cooked dinner, and kept up with what Miriam referred to as “miscellany”: figurine dusting or refrigerator organizing or closet sorting. After Ben’s nap, we had errands. Miriam came in, and I served her and Ben dinner and made a plate for Sol. Folded and put away laundry. Packed up leftovers. By the time I put Ben to bed, it was already eight-thirty and I still had to load the dishwasher.

  Today, when I put the coffee into the machine, Miriam covered her nose and ran to the bathroom, her high heels tacking on the floor. When she came out of the bathroom, lipstick gone and red spots bright in the corners of her mouth, I smiled and asked, “So how far along are you?”

  Miriam looked at me with a blank face. Her eyes were red too. “Far along with what, Grace?”

  “Aren’t you . . . ?” I left the question hanging.

  “Aren’t I what?” she asked, steadying herself on the counter.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing?” she repeated. “It couldn’t be less, could it?”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it wasn’t an invitation to chat. “I rode the elevator with Evie yesterday,” I told her instead. “Ben plays with Sammy and”—I didn’t know the other one’s name—“on Fridays?”

  Ben walked into the kitchen and stuck his head between his mother’s legs. Back home, whenever children looked between their mothers’ legs the women asked if they were looking for a brother or a sister. I chose not to share this with Miriam.

  “Sammy and Caleb,” she said.

  Ben, hearing his friends’ names, said, “Sammy fell in the sand yesterday and Evie picked her up, Mommy.”

  “Evie introduced herself?” Miriam asked.

  “Not exactly. She said Ben and the twins play together?” I wondered if Miriam would tell me about Carmen now.

  “That’s all she said?” And for a few seconds she looked at me, expecting to hear more.

  “That’s it.”

  “Evie’s the queen bee of the playground,” Miriam said. “She’s been with the Zollers since the twins were born. They hired her away from the hospital, actually.” While she spoke, Ben danced the maypole through her legs.

  Sol came out, dressed, and I passed him his coffee. “And what did the Lady Miss Evie have to say?”

  I shrugged. “Just about the Friday playdate.”

  The silence hung for a few seconds. “Okay,” Miriam said. “Grace, there’s a list on the dining table. Big ironing day today! If you have questions, call me.”

  BEN AND RABBIT WERE settled with The Little Mermaid, so I took advantage of the quiet to call Sylvia. A groggy Bo picked up.

  “Hi, Bo, is Grace. How you going?”

  “Grace, what the ass you doing calling here so early in the morning? You know what time it is?”

  It was exactly 10:00 A.M., and if Bo answered the phone, it meant that Sylvia had gone to work. “Bo, where Dame?”

  “Me don’t know,” he said, and I could picture him scratching his hairy chest.

  “He probably still in the crib, Bo. You have to make a bottle for him and then give him something to eat and bathe him.” I knew Sylvia must have told him to do all this. “Bo, let me ask you something.”

  “Talk fast.”

  “Why you don’t tell Sylvia the paint in the apartment making Dame sick?” I didn’t understand how Bo and them operated, if he knew that something might be wrong with Dame, why would he not tell Sylvia?

  “And when I tell Sylvia, what she could do about it?”

  “Bo, don’t be stupid. What you mean ‘what she could do?’ She could take him to the doctor or pressure Jacob.”

  He belched hard in my ear. “You don’t know how them Jew and them does operate,” he said almost to himself, and then louder, as if coming to, “Grace, why you calling me this hour of the morning to hurt my head? If you so concern about Sylvia children, why you leave to go and work for them white people? I find you could of stay here and help she out if you so concern.”

  He was right, of course, partially. “And where I would get money to pay you?”

  That snapped his attention to. “So how much money them people paying you? Is a good little change you making?”

  Normally, I wouldn’t tell anyone how much I made, but the amount of money was so small, I wanted Bo’s reaction. “Two hundred.”

  He whistled. “Girl, you selling yourself cheap. You better look around and see how to get a little lagniappe.” Bo laughed. “Maybe from the husband on the side.”

  “Why I wasting my time talking to you? Sylvia gone to work?”

  He ignored me, liking the slack talk he had brought up. “No, Grace, in truth. Them white man and them like black pussy—”

  I hung up.

  WE WERE PICKING OUT Ben’s lunch plate when the front door opened.

  Ben ran to the living room. “Daddy’s home. Daddy’s home, Grace.”

  Sol came into the kitchen carrying Ben on his shoulders.

  “Hi, Sol. You forget something?”

  “No, Grace, I came to have lunch with my boy.”

  “Okay,” I said, and then added, “nice to see you,” even though it wasn’t. I held up one plate with Pooh and Piglet strolling through the Hundred Acre Wood and another with Mickey holding a blushing Minnie’s white-gloved hand. “Which one, Ben?”

  “Winnie-the-Pooh plate, Grace.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Sol said to Ben, “do you want to say the blessing with me?” Together they singsonged, “Baruch ata adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, Ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz.” “Did you go to the playground today?” Sol asked him when they were done.

  Ben reached for his cup. “I played in the sand and the tire swing, and Grace put me on the monkey bars.”

  “Sounds like you had a great time.” He took a carrot stick off Ben’s plate. “So how’s it going for you, Grace? Are you comfortable, do you have everything you need?”

  He had asked me this just last night when I was loading the dishwasher. “Everything is fine,” I told him.

  He rapped his long fingers on the tabletop, and I saw that the hair on his knuckles was red too. “So, how about some lunch?”

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not hungry yet.”

  One orange eyebrow raised. “I meant for me, Grace. How about some lunch for me?”

  My face burned as I recognized my mistake. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Bruckner, um, Sol.” Ben had taken his sandwich apart and was pinking the edge of the cheese with his front teeth. “What would you like?” It hadn’t occured to me to make him something.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Maybe tuna on rye with lettuce and tomatoes. Do we have rye?”

  I got up from the table to check. There was tuna and rye, and I put together a plate for him. When I brought his sandwich, he was sitting sideways, with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He didn’t move, and I had to step over him to rest the plate on the table. “Thanks, Grace. Can I also have a glass of water with ice?”

  I went back to the kitchen and poured the water, remembering Jane’s production with Miriam’s orange juice. As I placed the glass next to his plate, Sol held on to my wrist. I looked over at him. “Yes?”

  He swallowe
d before letting me go. Tapping the corner of his mouth, he asked, “How’s your lip from yesterday morning?” Ben watched us.

  I touched the spot with the tip of my tongue. It wasn’t even sore anymore. “It’s fine,” I said. “It was better by the time we got outside.”

  “Good.” He picked up his sandwich, but before he bit into the bread he winked at Ben. “Hey, buddy, look,” he said. “Mine is bigger than yours.”

  MIRIAM CALLED IN THE middle of the afternoon. I was up to my waist in ironing. “Hi, Grace.” I could hear her drafty breathing through the phone. “How’s Ben? What’re you doing?”

  “He’s still napping. Because Sol was here, he went down a little later. I’m ironing.”

  There was a pause. “Sol was home?”

  “He came around lunchtime, and I made him a sandwich. He and Ben played for a bit, and then he left.” Miriam was silent for a while. So maybe he didn’t come home all that often for lunch.

  “Okay, Grace, listen. I have a meeting after school and then an appointment. Take Ben to the park around five for about an hour.”

  “No problem. I’m about to start dinner now, so as soon as I’m done.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

  AT FIVE DANNY WAS at the front desk. He jumped off the elevated platform and landed next to us. Ben put up his hand for a high five, and Danny slapped him one. He still wore the leprechaun lapel pin.

  “Hello again, Grace,” he said. “So you are the Bruckners’ new nanny.” He nodded. “I like their choice.”

  “Just do me a favor, okay? Don’t ask Ben if I’m his new Y-A-Y-A.”

  Danny dropped into a crouch next to the carriage. I could see his hair thinning in the middle like a sprouting yarmulke. “Ben here,” he said, “is my main man.”

  Ben reached for the leprechaun pin on his lapel. “Why you still wearing that? St. Patrick’s is over.”

  “Hey”—Danny pointed at me—“for the true Irish every day is St. Paddy’s.” He moved closer to me at the back of the carriage and lifted his eyebrows a few times. “So, Grace, what’s the word upstairs? Why’d they get rid of her? She steal money? I hear they had you come in in the middle of the night. What was that all about?”

  How I wish I knew. Danny reminded me of the comess women on the island, the ones who lived for gossip and who, when they couldn’t find any news, made up stories themselves.

  The doorman held open the front door for a woman. Danny touched his red hat. “Good evening, Ms. Eastman.” She cocked her head and gave him a smile that was more of a grimace. Even though I stood closer to the desk than the middle of the lobby, she made right for Ben and me. “Excuse me,” she said and shook her head as she passed.

  I looked at Danny. “Was I supposed to move? We weren’t in her way even.”

  The elevator closed, and the numbers lit her ascent. “No, man,” Danny said, “I don’t think you were wrong at all.” He dropped his voice. “All the same, though, you shouldn’t stand around in the lobby, especially at this time of day. It gets busy, and not everyone’s a breeder. You know what I mean?”

  A FEW MOTHERS LINGERED in the park with their children. They looked out of place squatting near the sandbox in their wool coats and business clothes and pumps. I unbuckled Ben and asked him what he wanted to do.

  “The sandbox, Grace.”

  I wasn’t surprised. It was where he spent most of his time. The tire swing, the loopy plastic slide, the monkey bars, everything else in the playground was a distraction between trips to the sand. “Hey, Ben”—I dug into the netted pouch for his shovel—“how come you’re such a sandman?”

  He liked that. “I’m a sandman, Grace. A sandman.”

  I passed him the shovel, and he scooped up his first mound. “Grace, this is like the beach.”

  Kneeling next to him, I picked up a handful of the damp brown earth—nothing at all like the pinky white sand on the beach back home—and let it fall in dismal clumps through my fingers. My father’s little parcel of dirt was still in my purse, but the boxed-in sand in Union Square, sat in and spat in, played in and maybe peed in sand, was not the mix I needed to settle my stomach.

  “Hello, Benjamin.” We both looked up. I recognized the woman from the group of sitters on the benches yesterday and this morning. She was older, in about her mid-fifties, and had a small-island accent. Ben, I had noticed, never answered when any of the sitters said hello.

  “Ben,” I said, “this nice lady just said hello. You’re supposed to say hello back.”

  He didn’t look again at her, but he did say hello. She bent over her carriage and took out a small baby wrapped in a thick layer of blankets.

  “How old is that baby?” I asked her.

  “Not more than four weeks.”

  “It’s late to have a small baby outside, isn’t it?” I didn’t mean to criticize.

  She lit up when I said that, boy. “Exactly,” she crowed, “is the same thing me try and tell the mother, but she don’t want listen. I tell her dew falling already and America dew is colder than in the West Indies. A likkle child so should be inside. But nobady listen. She want me to bring the child outside for air, so me bring him outside for air. As long as when you see he catch pneumonia and drap dead them nah say is my fault.”

  I didn’t think she was right about the dew. My mother had been the same way, and Helen and I had a long list of things to not do to avoid catching cold. We couldn’t iron and then bathe, or step out of bed in the morning and put our feet directly on the ground. We couldn’t even think about opening the refrigerator if we came in during the heat of the day.

  I got up to see the baby’s face. She peeled back the blanket, and he looked like every other white baby, bald, wrinkly, and vaguely alien. “He’s very cute,” I said.

  “You crazy, child? Cute? No sah, you must take anadder look. This is the ugliest likkle wretch me ever did see.”

  I touched the child’s cheek. “Well, you don’t want to say that about a baby.”

  “You must always speak you mind, child. Even if the truf does offend.”

  She was right, of course, but it wasn’t nice to call people ugly. “My name is Grace,” I said to her.

  “Grace is a good name. I am Ule Brown. I see you this morning and before.” She dropped her voice. “Is a nasty somefing that boy mother do Carmen.”

  Finally somebody was going to talk to me about Carmen. “I didn’t know what was going on, you know.”

  “How you could of know, child? That woman”—she chucked her chin at Ben—“that woman is a snake. She used to spy on Carmen. Yes.”

  “Spy on her doing what?”

  She ignored that question. “You best watch yourself, you hear me.”

  I didn’t know what I had to watch myself for. I did the housework Miriam told me to do, and cooked what she told me to cook, and took care of Ben as best as I could. There was nothing for her to see if she spied.

  “So what did Carmen do?” I asked again, feeling like a hypocrite. Half an hour ago I was comparing Danny to a comess woman, and now here I was trying to get gossip from Ule. “You know what, Ule? I don’t want to know. That doesn’t have anything to do with me.” I reached for Ben in the sandbox. “Is time to take him in. Have a good night.”

  She looked as if she agreed with what I had said. “Okay, Grace. Tomorrow is anadder day. Bye, Benjamin.”

  He didn’t look at her, but he did said bye.

  We met Sol in the tower lobby, and he and I switched cargo. “So what time do you normally come in?” I asked, pushing his briefcase. “Yesterday you came in after eight and today it’s barely six.” He carried Ben high on his shoulders.

  “Usually somewhere in the middle, around seven. I went uptown to see my parents yesterday.”

  “How’s Big Ben?”

  Ben stopped counting floors and said, “Big Ben, choo choo.”

  “He’s good. He liked you.”

  The apartment lights were on, and I guessed th
at Miriam was home. Sol called out, but there was no answer. He walked in ahead of us and stopped when he came to the kitchen entrance. “Miriam, what the hell are you doing? Get down from there right now. Are you crazy?”

  Miriam was standing on the top rung of a step stool. She held a spray bottle in one hand and a wad of paper towels in the other.

  Sol held her around the waist as she backed down. “Sol,” she said, “stop overreacting. I just climbed up to clean some grease off the glass. It was filthy.” She showed him the blackened paper towels.

  “Listen, Miriam, this is why we have a maid, okay. I don’t want my wife climbing around like a monkey cleaning windows.”

  A maid?

  “This is why we have Grace. Grace”—he turned back to me—“these are your chores, not Miriam’s. You’re getting paid to do this stuff so she doesn’t have to do it. Do you understand?”

  I ran through the list from this morning. I had forgotten nothing. Still, I nodded.

  MIRIAM WASN’T DONE WITH me for the night. At 8:15, when I had dressed Ben for bed and loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the cabinet glass, and was finally ready to rest, she slid open the jalousied door to my space.

  “Come to the supermarket with me,” she said.

  Sylvia or Kathy or any of the other women it seemed would be able to say “I’m off,” or “I’m done for the evening,” or “This is my time.” But I could not.

  Sol was watching TV. Ben lay with him. “Where are you guys going?” He barely lifted his head from the armrest. Ben chatted with Rabbit and paid us no mind.

  “Quick run to the A & P.”

  “At this hour, Mir? Have Grace go tomorrow.”

  “Nah.” She buttoned a coat around her shirt. “I have to get some heavier things.”

  He half sat up. “Do you want me to come with?”

  She tossed and caught her keys. “We’ll manage.”

  In the elevator she made small talk. “My kids drove me nuts today.”

  “Your kids?” I asked.

  She turned to look at me. “Yeah, my students. You know I teach, right? Special ed. Not the easiest class. Mostly crack babies with zero attention span. You know what a crack baby is?”