Bad Marie

by Marcy Dermansky

Ellen shook her head.

  “We are sitting here right now,” Ellen said. “I am paying for your dinner. I forgave you. Don’t contradict me. I know what forgiveness is. You went to jail, Marie, and when you got out, I gave you a job. I gave you a job. Watching my daughter. My daughter. Do you understand what a big deal that was for me? How precious Caitlin is to me? I trusted you.”

  “Pfff,” Marie said, for lack of a better word.

  It had been a surprise to Marie, too. She had no babysitting experience. They had all that history. Clearly Ellen was trying to prove something, if not to Marie, then to herself. Marie, however, did not care what Ellen’s motivations had been.

  Ellen had also wanted Marie to clean, to dust and do laundry, make beds, but Marie had refused. “I am not my mother. I won’t be your maid,” she had said.

  It turned out that Marie had no ambition, but she did have pride. Ellen backed down. Ellen had never trusted Marie; she needed a servant.

  As far as Marie was concerned, the conversation was over. She did not need to hear what Ellen had to say next. Best of luck. Let’s stay in touch. Marie lay her chopsticks down at the table. There were those uneaten shrimp rolls staring at her. Could she get them to go? Ellen’s contempt for Marie was clear. She did not trust Marie with her daughter. There was nothing left to talk about.

  It was time for Marie to get up, leave the table, leave before the rest of the food came, even though she had ordered all of her favorite dishes. Her nice and easy days with Caitlin—taking baths, taking naps, walks in the park—that was over. Done. Marie knew that later, when she was alone, she would start to feel it. No more Caitlin. Marie could not imagine. She woke up in her basement room each day, eager to get upstairs, share Caitlin’s organic Cheerios.

  Leave, she told herself.

  But Marie did not get up. She wasn’t ready to admit defeat. She still wanted Caitlin. She still wanted that refrigerator full of food. And she wanted Benoît Doniel. Fate had delivered him to Marie.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Ellen said. “Can you explain what I walked in on last night?”

  Ellen stared at her, across the table, waiting. A response seemed to be required. Marie yawned. She stabbed a spring roll with her chopstick, digging a hole in its perfect center.

  “Am I boring you?” Ellen said.

  “I’m bored out of my fucking mind.”

  “How do you expect me to act?” Ellen grabbed the chopstick from Marie’s hand. “You think I should be nice? I trusted you. I trusted you, and you fucked me over. You can’t handle a job meant for a teenager. My mother always thought so much of you. She thought we let you down. When you ended up in jail, she felt responsible.”

  This was news to Marie. Ellen’s parents had retired, moved to Arizona, and they had not kept in touch. Like Ellen, her mother had not written to Marie all that time she spent in prison. Six years. She could have sent something. A book to read. A tin of brownies. A letter would have been enough, a show of support. A small kindness. Marie had never committed a crime. She had fallen in love with a bank robber.

  “I gave you this job against my better judgment. I’m really busy at work, Marie. I have an important job. I have a career, Marie. I swear to God, I don’t have time to look for a new nanny right now.”

  “I’ve inconvenienced you,” Marie said, wondering what the fuck Ellen was talking about. Ellen was worried about her job. Marie was going to wreck her marriage. Marie might have held off, had she been allowed to keep her job. She would have put off the inevitable. “I apologize. It must be hard to find good help.”

  “We can be adult about this,” Ellen said. “Caitlin is fine. I know that. She seems to like you.”

  “She seems to.”

  “You don’t have to leave right away. We can be professional about this. I am probably going to need at least a week to find someone else. I’ve contacted an agency, but it takes a little while. That should give you some time to figure out your next step.”

  Ellen hailed a waiter and asked for a new set of chopsticks. It was typical for Ellen to act decisively, without mercy, and then expect something in return. But Marie would work for another week. It would be enough time.

  “Look, Marie, I’ll lend you money if you need it,” Ellen said. “It’s not like I want you out on the street. I’m sure your mother would let you move home.”

  Marie shook her head, speechless.

  Go home to her mother.

  She hadn’t spoken to her mother in the six years she had been in prison. She had no plans to do so now.

  “I have to feel safe,” Ellen continued. “I can’t concentrate at work if I’m convinced that you might kill my little girl.”

  Marie started to laugh.

  “Jesus, Ellen, you can’t feel safe,” she said. “Not ever. Not for a second. You can die crossing the street. You should be afraid of terrorists. Pedophiles in the park. Natural disasters, you should be fucking scared of that.”

  “She could have drowned,” Ellen said.

  “She didn’t drown.”

  “She could have drowned.”

  “She didn’t drown.”

  “My husband is not interested in you.”

  “Your husband.” There it was. At last. “Benoît Doniel.”

  Marie could feel herself blush, the heat spreading across her cheeks, just from saying his name. She had had a dream about him that afternoon, napping during Caitlin’s nap time. Marie could remember specific, erotic details.

  “I’ll say it again,” Ellen said. “In case you are thinking about trying a second Harry. My husband is not interested in you.”

  “No, of course he isn’t.”

  “Benoît thinks that you are immature.”

  This interested Marie. Why immature? Was that all that he had said? What hadn’t he said? They had talked about her. Was Ellen testing her husband with Marie? She was out of her mind, taking a risk like that.

  “Of course I am immature. Look at my sneakers.”

  Marie raised her leg onto the table, displaying her purple canvas high-tops. She had missed her sneakers when she was in prison. Ellen frowned. A waiter appeared at the table, hovering with a tray of food. He also frowned at Marie, her purple Converse All Stars on the table. Marie could smell the crispy squid. Marie loved crispy squid.

  Marie put her foot down so that the waiter would serve the food. They still hadn’t touched their shrimp rolls. She stared at the fresh plates of steaming hot food, almost helpless before it. She would be unable to make a heroic gesture. She would have to eat everything, drink her beer, order another. She would let Ellen pay for her meal.

  She would not regret it.

  That was how Marie wanted to live her life. Without regret.

  “My husband thinks you are immature,” Ellen repeated. “And without soul. Those are his words.”

  Marie wondered what she was supposed to say. It occurred to her that perhaps Benoît Doniel was telling Ellen exactly what she wanted to hear. Or maybe it was true. It was possible that Marie did not have a soul. She had had this same thought on her own. Benoît Doniel was a gifted novelist and perhaps an excellent judge of character. But that could not begin to explain his marriage to Ellen, such a hard and inflexible woman. She was all wrong for him. She was certainly no Virginie; she had been a picture-perfect, well-adjusted teenage girl.

  “I don’t care what your husband thinks about me,” Marie said.

  “That’s good to know,” Ellen said. “Not that it matters what you think. Let’s get this straight. For this upcoming week, you can’t drink in my home. You can’t bathe with Caitlin. You do not talk to my husband. I’m going to repeat the last one. You do not talk to my husband. These are my rules. These rules are, I believe, more than fair.”

  And then, as if something amicable had actually been settled between them, Ellen began to eat.

  Marie watched Ellen bite into her shrimp roll, angry that Ellen had gotten to taste the food first. “Understood. No drin
king. No bathing. No looking at your spouse.”

  Marie was perfectly at ease lying to Ellen’s face. Of course, she would continue to drink in Ellen’s apartment. She would continue to take baths with Caitlin, and she would also look at Benoît Doniel and talk to Benoît Doniel as much as she possibly could. She would do more, much more than talk. Marie could feel her confidence returning.

  “Marie, you probably won’t believe me,” Ellen said. “But I still care about you. In our twisted way, I think we are friends. Maybe we can learn from this experience. I don’t think it was ever comfortable for either of us, this situation, your living in my home. My giving you orders. You are not good at following orders.”

  Marie saluted.

  Ellen ignored her.

  “I want you to know that you can still see Caitlin. If you decide to stay in New York. If you can afford to stay. If you get another job in the city. I guess it might be difficult with your police record.”

  “With my police record,” Marie said, grinning.

  Ellen, of course, couldn’t help herself; she had to bring up Marie’s police record. It was her last and best weapon. It trumped all other episodes from Marie’s past. Ellen didn’t understand Marie in the slightest. She assumed that they viewed life the same way because they came from the same town and had gone to a Bruce Springsteen concert together when they were thirteen. She didn’t understand that taunting Marie about prison was useless, because Marie was not embarrassed. Or ashamed. Marie had never felt any regret.

  She had been in love. Wildly, madly, thoughtlessly, heedlessly in love. When Juan José had shown up at her door, desperate, covered in blood, when he had told her that he had made it out of the bank, but his partner hadn’t been so lucky, that the police were searching for him, she’d run off without a moment’s hesitation and she had never looked back.

  Later, once they were on the road, Marie had learned that Juan José’s partner had killed one of the security guards. But still, Marie hadn’t allowed herself any doubts. Juan José had not killed anyone and Marie wanted to be wherever Juan José was. In his bed. In his house, with his mother and sisters and squawking chickens underfoot. Juan José used to recite poetry to Marie in Spanish. He had taken her dancing. They would have sex before they went dancing. They had had sex after they went dancing. Marie had felt alive in a way she had never felt before.

  That had been worth going to jail for.

  Marie helped herself to the crispy squid. To jasmine rice and the sautéed greens. A delicious shrimp roll. She started to eat. The squid was still hot. She had a week. An entire week.

  “I can front you five hundred dollars,” Ellen said. “Consider it severance pay.”

  “That would be great,” Marie said.

  Marie would take the money. She would take a whole lot more than that.

  Marie had spent only six of her thirty years in prison, but often she found herself overwhelmed by her newly regained freedom. Marie had not yet gotten used to the swing of life. She hadn’t, in fact, minded jail nearly as much as she’d thought she would.

  Her days in prison were ridiculously clear. She ate three meals a day, always at the same appointed time, in the same airless cafeteria, seated in the same place at the end of a long table. She had a job in the prison laundry. The work was surprisingly difficult, more physically challenging than anything she had ever done before. Marie learned how to operate industrial machinery that sent enormous quantities of prison sheets and blankets and towels and uniforms through a long, dangerously hot iron.

  Marie had even made friends with another woman who worked in the laundry. Ruby Hart was in for twenty-two years; she had killed her husband, hitting him strategically in the head with a hot iron. She did not regret killing Hector. “Otherwise,” she had said, matter-of-factly, “I would be dead.” And she added, “It felt good. Hitting it to that motherfucker where it hurt.”

  Ruby Hart appreciated the irony of her work assignment. She had not meant to kill him.

  All of the killers Marie met in prison had killed for a good reason. Marie, of course, had not killed anyone, but the other prisoners had not held this against Marie. It was nothing like jail on television.

  Ruby taught Marie how to fold T-shirts with a technique she had once learned working at the Gap, the job she had had before she had been incarcerated for murder. They worked well together, loading and unloading innumerable washers and dryers, running hot irons. Ruby seemed to believe in life after prison. She studied law while Marie reread Virginie at Sea.

  “Prepare for your future,” Ruby used to tell her.

  The truth was, nothing bad ever happened to Marie in prison. She had never been attacked. She had never felt herself to be in any physical danger. She felt competent and strong. She gained muscle from working in the laundry; she also lost the weight she’d put on in college. Even with the hours she put in at the laundry, Marie still had time on weekends to walk the prison grounds, to read in her cell. For the first time in her life, free from the need to make any sort of decision, Marie felt herself relax.

  Jail had been a better, more instructive time in her life than both college and high school. Sometimes, staring into Ellen’s refrigerator, the drawers and closets full of clothes, jewelry, confronted with so many choices, Marie missed it.

  Even though he did not have a job, Benoît Doniel left every morning for work. He had an office, a small cubicle, somewhere downtown in some communal writers’ space. He was hard at work on his second novel. Marie knew these things. She had heard him talk to Ellen about good writing days, bad ones. He would get angry when Ellen pressured him with questions about his work.

  For as long as she had been Caitlin’s nanny, he was gone six hours a day, every day, but Marie wasn’t surprised when he came home early the day after Marie had been fired, back in time for Caitlin’s lunch.

  Benoît drank the coffee Marie offered him out of a blue bowl. He happily accepted a second blue bowl full of macaroni and cheese. He ate with delight, spooning in extra butter. He was ridiculously French. The extra butter, the coffee in a bowl, his accent. To further prove his Frenchness, Benoît smoked while he ate. Caitlin imitated her father, taking drags from a baby carrot. Marie leaned back in her chair, watching them both.

  Lunch. A threesome. A family. Benoît smoked. He sipped his coffee. He knew how to linger over a meal. At one point, he leaned over across the table to touch Caitlin’s cheek. This pleased Marie.

  Nothing had happened, but it would. Soon. Marie knew this. She was provocatively dressed: a short red cotton skirt, a white tank top with lace at the top, cleavage exposed. Because she had known he would come. She had expected him and she wanted her flesh in abundant display. The macaroni and cheese was warm and creamy in her mouth. She looked at Benoît and made no effort to mask her desire. All that time, three long weeks, Marie had been careful not to attract Benoît’s attention. Her behavior had bordered on rude. She had made a heroic effort.

  “Look at how comfortable we are,” Marie said.

  She waved her arms, embracing the room—the sunlight streaming in through the window, Caitlin with her baby carrots.

  “The three of us.”

  “We’ve never talked before,” Benoît said. “Not all this time, when you live in my home, take care of my daughter. I see you talking with Caitlin constantly, nonstop talk, jabber jabber jabber, but never with me. We don’t talk. I look at you and you look away. I wonder, why? Why don’t you talk to me?”

  Marie put both hands around her mug of coffee.

  “I wonder.”

  It dawned on her that Benoît had been avoiding her for the very same reason she had avoided him. She had not been invisible. They had known not to talk each other. They were good people who both suffered from lapses in acceptable behavior.

  “I cannot remember,” Benoît said. “Why did you not come to our wedding? You’re Ellen’s oldest friend. Why didn’t I meet you until now?”

  Marie shook her head. “She didn’t tell
you?” Marie was not surprised. Of course Ellen would not want to talk about her. “I was in jail when you got married.”

  Benoît put out his cigarette and immediately lit another. Caitlin pounded her fist against her high table.

  “Me,” Caitlin cried. “Feed me.”

  “Yes, of course.” Benoît absently stuck a spoon of macaroni and cheese into Caitlin’s chin.

  “No,” she said. “My mouth. My mouth. Silly Daddy.”

  Caitlin, of course, knew how to feed herself. She opened her mouth wide and Benoît tried again.

  “You were in jail.” Benoît took a puff of his cigarette, a sip of his coffee, another bite of macaroni and cheese. “You went to jail? For robbing a bank? Ellen mentioned this, just last night. But I have trouble believing this story. It seems, I don’t know, out of character?”

  “Ellen never told you what happened to me?”

  “Ellen said very little about you. Just one day, she fires Bertha, who she was perhaps a little unhappy with, and she gives you her job. But now, as I understand, you no longer work here, live here. The rules, I think, they change.” Benoît shrugged. “I like my life. Here. This city. This room. My American wife. This little girl.” He waved, just like Marie, to embrace the room, his daughter Caitlin, the blue bowl of coffee in front of him. “I really don’t care to fight. Ellen, you know, is quick to fight. So I did not ask questions. But now, now I am curious. About you. Marie. I love that name. Marie.”

  “What do you want to know?” Marie asked him. She decided, then and there, she would tell Benoît everything. “I will tell you everything,” she told him.

  Marie sat on her hands, resisting the overwhelming urge to touch him. Not yet. Soon. But not yet.

  And then, she touched him anyway. Stroked the top of the palm of his hand. Benoît shivered. Caitlin was smoking her carrot stick.

  “Did you rob a bank?”

  Marie shook her head. “My boyfriend robbed a bank. A small one. In the suburbs. Juan José. He was only twenty-two years old. He was this perfect boy. Like a painting. I wasn’t much older, twenty-four. I didn’t know he was going to rob a bank. I knew almost nothing about him, really. I had met him in a bar, the week before. He showed up in the middle of the night at my door. Scared. Bleeding. I didn’t even think about it. He needed me. We went to Mexico. Later, after the police found us, I went to jail. I didn’t regret it. I don’t.”