Minding Ben (18 page)

“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 said 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.”

M
iriam 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, khaki 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.”

“Is that a papaya?” I didn't have a response for what he had just said.

“It is, actually.” He stopped digging and looked up. “How'd you know? It hasn't fruited yet.”

“We have trees in my yard back home.”

“Really? Then maybe you can tell me why the flowers on this one keep falling off without growing into fruit. It's healthy too. I changed the soil. I gave it more sun. It's been under lights since last October. Not a single papaya.”

And there wasn't going to be one any time soon. The flowers on this tree hung from streaming stalks instead of coming directly out of the trunk, meaning only one thing. “This tree is male, Dave. My mother had a freak mango tree that did that.” She had hung a blue milk of magnesia bottle from its branches to shield it from withering
mal jeux
and put up a chicken-wire fence to protect it from
mal élevé
children, but year after year that tree had flowered and not one single mango. Finally, my mother had taken her cutlass and, calling the tree an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, chopped it down.

“Male, huh.” Dave put both hands on his waist, sizing up the mutant plant. “I hadn't thought about that. Figures I'd grow a male papaya.”

“There's a way to fix it, you know.”

“How d'you mean ‘fix it'?”

“To get it to bear.”

He looked up at the spiky crown of leaves. “How?”

“You've got to cut off the top, cover the stump with a pan or something so that it only takes water through the roots, and then it'll branch out with female flowers. My mother turned papayas all the time.”

Dave was looking at me with his mouth open. “Ouch. You want me to castrate my tree? I got a papaya to grow in New York City, in the wintertime, from seed, Grace. No way I'm cutting it.”

“Okay, but no way you're eating homegrown papaya either.”

“You're funny,” he said and pulled off his work gloves. “Come on, let me show you inside.”

The apartment did in fact have an inside tucked away at its core. The open space all around was more of an aerial yard, and because of the dense growth of trees and bushes around the perimeter, the huge inner flat was almost invisible. We ended up in the kitchen. “What would you like to drink? I've got beer and red and white wine and all kinds of liquor for cocktails and Diet Coke.”

“A beer, please,” I said but then thought about going back downstairs reeking of alcohol. “Not a beer, I'll take some Diet Coke.”

“Please, Grace. The last thing you need is diet anything. You worried about Sol and Miriam?” He took two bottles of beer out of the huge refrigerator.

“They don't even know that I came up here. I just walked out the door after Miriam had me take naked pictures of her belly.”

Dave cracked up and passed me the beer. “She did what?” He put his finger to his lips, picked up a phone. “Hi, Miriam darling . . . Dave . . . Just wanted to let you know, Grace is up here . . . Don't worry, I won't keep her too late . . . Good . . . good . . . Ohhhhhh, congratulations. I feel demoted. I get told with hoi polloi now?” He rolled his eyes at me. “Okay, I'll tell her . . . uh-huh . . . Yep, see you later, good night.” He made a kiss sound and rang off. “Drink up, Grace Jones, but you're not allowed to stay past midnight.”

“Is that what she said?” We knocked cheers, but I took only a sip. “She didn't sound angry?”

He took a long draft of his and sat on the stool on the opposite side of the counter. “They won't be mad that you're here.”

“How come?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Trust me, they won't.”

On the redbrick wall behind the stove, Dave had hung plant cuttings to dry. He had big bunches of bay leaves and lots of different peppers and plaited ropes of papery garlic. On a line like at the newsstand, he had tied smaller bunches of big- and small-leaf thyme, basil, chives, rosemary, every herb possible, within easy reach of a cooking pot. “Did you grow all of that stuff on the walls up here?”

“Everything except the bay leaves. I brought that up from Key West. Do you know a lot about plants, Grace?”

I guess I did, by osmosis almost. Between my mother's small backyard garden, as well as the bigger one where we grew vegetables to sell in Penal market, and the old people in the village who had a bush medicine for every ailment a sea bath wouldn't cure, you couldn't grow up on the Quarry Road and not know about plants. “I know about the plants we have at home.”