The night’s joy drained out of me. “Anything else about Daddy?”
“No. All she say is that she was coming home from hospital and she decide to stop and give you a little call. Oh, and she ask if you giving me any trouble.”
But the news was there. Last week she had told me that my father was to be discharged on Monday. Five days later he was still in San Fernando General. I counted out two twenties and a ten for Sylvia, wondering again if a little bit of money and a restaurant meal was worth being away from home.
“What you have plan for tomorrow?” Sylvia asked.
“Nothing special. Why?”
“You see all this clothes on the ground here. I have to put all of this in garbage bags. The city sending somebody tomorrow to do some tesses—”
“What kind of tests?”
“Me don’t know, mama. I carry Dame by HIP Wednesday, and Thursday they call to say the city coming to run some tesses and to take the clothes out the closets. I tell Bo clear the hall closet, but I still waiting. Tomorrow-please-God help me to bag up all this stuff, nah?”
“No problem.”
“Anyhow,” she said, bracing herself against the armrest, raising the other end of the couch off the floor, “is a good thing all this rubbish move. Jacob Russian and them coming from next week to start the paint job.”
I stayed up to bag the clothes, and after about an hour Bo came in.
“So, was only a last week thing. You didn’t bring no cigarettes this time?”
“I work late tonight. And anyhow, Bo, I not supporting you. I look like your wife?”
He dropped onto the springless couch behind me. “Speaking of which, we doing this thing or what?”
The fur edging Bo’s parka was matted and dirty, like wet hair on a mangy pothound. “Don’t you need to have a job before you could sponsor a wife? You need to show income, Bo.”
“You don’t worry about that,” he said, reaching for the remote. “Just tell me when you have the money save and you ready to go downtown.”
“And what if I tell you I have the money save now?”
He kept the TV on mute and leaned toward me on the floor. “You talking seriousness, Grace? You have it already? How much?”
In all, I had about $170. “I have five hundred to start.”
“We could work with that. Remember Jacob?”
“Yes?”
“Well, the other day he promise me a few days’ work. All I have to do is get a letter from him saying I is one of he regular guys and them and that good enough to put in the paper. Scene? You ready to do this thing?”
Slowly, I folded a purple winter coat of Micky’s for the bag. She wouldn’t need it again for nine months. In nine months, if I married Bo, I could have a green card. “Month end,” I said. “Let’s wait until the end of April, so I don’t have to spend all my money. We’ll get the license, and then we could have a June wedding. It’ll be more convincing.”
Bo leaned in closer. “Sylvia tell you what happen?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. “About the city coming tomorrow?”
He brushed imaginary flies from in front his face. “With she husband last week in the G Building.”
She had not.
“She and he was sitting down in the visiting hall talking cool cool, when all of a sudden he grab she in a headlock and start to choke she.” Bo was talking so softly I could barely hear him. “The guard and them had to rush to separate them and lock him up fast fast. Me don’t think they letting him out of that madhouse anytime soon, mama.”
Sylvia hadn’t said a word, but then I hadn’t called all week to find out what was going on either.
“Bo, what send him mad, so? Sylvia say he was good good, and then he start to go off. Something happen?”
He settled in the couch and aimed the remote. TV laughter filled the room. “Is this place, girl. Babylon does send man mad mad when you see they can’t take care of they family. Back home he used to teach, you know, but here he papers didn’t count. He not build for construction and sit down inside all day minding child like a woman. Is why you think I does go and walk about when you see morning come? Sitting down waiting for what break up he mind. Scene.”
I continued to fold clothes and fill bags. The mound was almost cleared, and the dull carpet so matched the faded red of my Conway jeans that my legs and the floor seemed melded to one.
I WAS NOT EXPECTING a woman.
“I’m Cassandra Neil. Are you Mrs. John?” she asked, standing in the hallway.
“No, I’m Grace. Sylvia’s not here. You’re from the city, right? To do the tests?”
“Are you over eighteen and have permission to let me on the premises?”
“As of yesterday.”
She said happy birthday and walked in. I was embarrassed. You could brush a pig only so much. The apartment was clean on the surface, but the decayed carpet, the smudged walls, and the listing breakfront could not be camouflaged. Micky sat curled in a corner of the couch watching TV with her thumb in her mouth.
“So, do you live here too?” she asked. She had taken a small meter from her bag and now unhooked an attachment from her belt. The pieces made a nice click as they fitted together.
“No,” I said, “I’m only here to let you in. My cousin had to run some errands this morning.”
She placed her meter flush against a wall where the peeled paint hung in tongues. “Man,” she said, “this is bad.”
“What?”
“The lead levels. This place is a death trap. Do you feel tired and sluggish when you wake up in the morning?”
“I don’t live here, remember.”
“That’s right,” she said, and I wondered if she had been trying to catch me in a lie. She continued around the apartment, and I followed her. “So you’re eighteen,” she said, opening the junk closet in the hall and confronting the pile. “Where do you go to school?”
Not Do you go to school? but Where? “I’m not in school right now.”
She closed the door and wrote something in her notebook. “This closet should have been cleared. Where’d you go to high school then?”
She had no right to ask me these questions and I didn’t have to answer her, but I wanted her to know. To know that I wasn’t a dummy living like the Haitians in a dilapidated apartment with ten other people. “Back home. I did O-levels and A-levels. Do you know what those are?”
She adjusted a button on her meter. “Like in England, right?”
“That’s right. I’m just waiting for a few documents to start college.”
She didn’t look up. “Which college?”
“Hunter.” Thank you, Big Ben.
“Hunter’s good,” she said.
“Where did you go to school?” I asked her.
“Columbia.”
“Columbia University?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, shaking her head at what her meter told her about the windowsill.
“What did that cost you?”
She turned around and looked at me. “A lot, and I’m probably going to be paying it back for the next twenty years. Big deal, though. If you’ve got the grades or your A-levels whatever, don’t worry about what school costs, just go.”
She knelt in front of the radiator and angled her meter between the accordion grates. She whistled and asked Micky, “Are you the only kid living here?”
Without taking her thumb from her mouth, Mick said, “I’ve got two brothers. One fast one and one slow one.”
Cassandra took her notebook out of her back pocket. “How old are your brothers?”
Micky glanced at me for permission to answer. “Derek’s seven, and Dame’s almost three. I’m ten.”
“Thanks,” Cassandra said, slapped closed her notebook, and unscrewed the meter attachment. To me she said, “Tell your cousin that she should hear from the city by Wednesday, and if she doesn’t she should call this number.” She gave me her card. “In the meanwhile, do me a favor? I know you sai
d you don’t live here, but when you’re over could you make sure that the kids, especially the two-year-old, could you make sure he’s not putting any paint in his mouth or licking the windowsill? This place is hazardous.”
“That’s all my baby brother do,” Micky said. “Grace already told my mother to stop him eating the paint.”
“Good.” At the front door Cassandra Neil said, “Watch out for those kids. This place needs to be gutted. These landlords are the worst in the city.”
“I’ll tell my cousin.”
“And don’t wait too long before you go back to school.”
Chapter 20
Miriam didn’t really announce that she was expecting a baby, she just started talking about being pregnant. “Like clockwork, Grace,” she said on Tuesday morning. “Twelve weeks and no more morning sickness, thank God. Same with Ben.”
I didn’t know how to answer her. “Good?” I offered.
“Uh-huh, very good.” She stood in profile and pressed her shirt against her belly. “What do you think? Can you tell yet?”
Before I could answer, Sol walked down the hall and stood outside the kitchen, trapping me between them. He fiddled with his tie and wolf-whistled at her, and I swear she exaggerated the kick of her flat bottom. “Still feeling okay?”
She held up crossed fingers. “Can you tell, Sol? Am I showing yet?”
“Not that I can see.” He slid past me into the kitchen. “You look as gorgeous as ever.” He put his arms around Miriam and said into her hair, “Now, wouldn’t you prefer to be off today? You could go shopping, you could go to a movie, go to the spa, house hunting.”
I pretended not to listen, but I saw her jab him with her elbow. “Don’t start” was all she said.
Later I told Kathy, “Well, she definitely pregnant.” We were at McDonald’s with the kids. Kathy paid for our food with money her boss had left her and, after asking the displeased and disturbingly acned cashier for duplicate receipts, gave me one for the money cup. We had a clear view to the park, and I could see the other sitters clustered around Evie. Before she responded, Kathy aimed her chin in Ben’s direction and lifted her eyebrows. “It’s okay,” I said. He was taken with the little green monster toy that came with his meal and didn’t seem to be paying us any attention.
“She tell you so?”
“Not plain plain, but she said that her morning sickness had ended just like it had with Ben, and then she turned and asked me if she was showing.”
“Sounds pregnant to me,” Kathy said with a heavy sigh. “Maybe she was just waiting for three months to pass. You not supposed to tell anyone before twelve weeks, bad luck. You ever hear that?”
I hadn’t.
Kath put her chin in her hand. “Must be nice.”
I offered Ben a drink of my chocolate milk shake, which he took without even looking away from his toy. “What must be nice?”
Kathy made a face. “God, Grace, look how you drinking after them dirty little white children.”
I sucked on the straw. “American antibodies. Answer me, though, what must be nice?”
“You know, nice. Nice to have a husband and a child and to be expecting another one. It just sounds nice to be settled, is all.”
Sure it would be nice, but not now. Getting married for real and settling down was the last thing on my mind. “Yeah, but we don’t need to worry about that yet. Hey, Ben,” I said as I stole one of his fries, “do you want a baby brother like Kathy’s baby in the carriage?”
Still without looking up from his toy, he shook his head. “Baby duck,” he said.
“Duckling. You know, he says a different baby animal every time.”
Kathy got up and put on her sunglasses, showering the tabletop with dancing rainbow spots. “I have to go.”
“Already? I thought you said you wanted to go by your shop on Fourteenth? I don’t want to go back upstairs yet. And I sure don’t want to go to the park,” I said. But she didn’t stop, just pushed the receipt my way.
THAT NIGHT MIRIAM CAME into my room. I put down the book I was reading, a thick romance I had pulled off her shelf, and sat up as she switched on the overhead light. She had a camera looped around her wrist.
“Grace, can you do me a favor?”
I had done everything including put Ben to bed, but I was already accustomed to the idea that I was on twenty-four-hour call. “Okay.” Tomorrow was Wednesday. I was sure Miriam was going to give me her don’t-say-anything talk. Instead, she pulled the louvered doors shut and handed me the camera. Without saying a word, she wriggled her jersey over her head—she wasn’t wearing a brassiere—then stepped out of her panties. Still without any explanation, though it was clear now what she wanted me to do, Miriam put both garments at the foot of my bed and stood in profile in front of the closed doors.
“Go ahead.” She lifted her chin. “It’s point and click.”
Her body, unlike her craggy face, was smooth and plump, filled out so that she looked slightly inflated. A surprisingly black triangle of pubic hair curled out bushy from her crotch. I slid off the bed to stand in front of the bureau, as far as I could get from her in the small room. She posed with her thin nose tipped up, and her arms hanging straight down at her sides. With each hoarse rustle of her breath, her full, firm breasts heaved. When I snapped the picture, the flash caught her diamond ring. I wasn’t sure if the shot was going to come out, but I didn’t tell her that because I wanted her gone from my space. She turned around to face me full-on. “Take one from the front too,” she said.
I snapped again, sure that the picture would be of the washer because I refused to look at her pale and uncooked nakedness. I had never even seen my own mother naked from the waist down, only the fried egg breasts she assured me would be mine after I was married and had nursed ungrateful children.
“You got it?” Miriam asked.
I gargled something, unable to speak.
“Good,” she continued. “I’ve got a project in mind. I wanted to do it when I was having Ben, but then it was too late.” She pulled on her clothes as she talked. “I’m going to try to take pictures of my belly every night and then have them animated, you know, like how cartoons are done. When you watch it, you’ll be able to see my belly grow”—she moved her hand slowly up from her navel—“like you see flowers open on the nature shows.”
Miriam reached for the camera, and I passed it to her, still unable to say anything. She checked the film count and said, “I’ll keep the camera and just bring it in every night.”
Every night? “Miriam, you want me to do this, to take the pictures of your belly every night?”
“Uh-huh, as often as I remember anyway. Sol was doing it before, but now that you know, you can do it.”
This I wasn’t comfortable with. I didn’t want to see her naked in my space night after night for six months. I willed myself to have Kathy’s boldness or Sylvia’s tongue. If I didn’t say anything tonight, tomorrow would be too late. Breathing deeply, I said, “Um, Miriam, how come Sol can’t continue to take the pictures for you?”
She was dressed now and ready to leave. “Ugh, he’s so not reliable for this stuff. It was hell getting him to do the past three months. The shots need to be consistent.”
She spied the book I was reading. “Is that one of mine?”
“Yes. I got it off the shelf.”
“You’re not reading during the day, I hope?”
“No, no. Just at night when I’m done.”
“Okay then,” she said, “because we’re not paying you to read.”
And then she left. But I didn’t get back into bed. I put on my clothes and walked out the door.
I DIDN’T HAVE TO worry about which apartment was Dave’s because on the thirtieth floor there was only one door, a few steps up from the elevator. Brutus or Cesar barked when I rang the bell.
“Grace,” he said, “so nice to see you. I was wondering if you were ever going to come up and visit.” He was wearing a faded green jersey, k
haki shorts covered in dirt, and an old pair of low-top Converse sneakers. There was a dried leaf in his bushy hair. “Sorry,” he said, moving away from the door, “I’m very dirty. I was all the way in the back repotting, and I didn’t even hear the bell. Thanks for the bark, Brute. Come on in.”
It is impossible to tell from the streets that such places exist. Dave didn’t live in a regular apartment with rooms and walls, and, unlike the open loft where Kathy worked, this apartment wasn’t once part of an old factory. His place, apparently, was an entire floor of the tower. The walls on three sides were glass, and because the tower dome protected the ceiling, it too was made of glass, or some kind of see-through material. Dave had cultivated the wild, and, with the constant light, the greenery, at only the beginning of spring, was as lush and abundant as the island bush in October—the height of hurricane season.
“Give yourself the tour,” Dave said. “Start here and walk around the apartment. Stay close to the walls.”
I did as he said, first walking the length of the one plastered wall and then turning at the corner where brick met glass. Immediately, I felt dizzy. With only glass between the night and me, I felt weightless and hollow. Outside, the crisp city grid and then the black river and still beyond lay sprawled before me. The view to the south showed much more of the twin towers than I could see from downstairs, and Brooklyn was somewhere in that direction. But Sylvia and that world might as well have been in another galaxy.
“You live here? This is your house, your apartment? This is, my God, this is fantastic, Dave. Wow.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, it’s not bad, is it? Now you know what I do here all the time. The forest in the sky.”
I wanted so much to ask him a money question, but of course I didn’t.
“My father,” he said, using a dented hand spade to loosen the soil around a flowering papaya. “When he had this place designed, he was the one who wanted a glass house above the city. The top floors in the other three towers have smaller versions of this apartment. This is the only one that takes up the whole floor.”
Minding Ben Page 18