Minding Ben (20 page)

T
his year Easter would coincide with Passover, with the first night of the Jewish holiday falling on Good Friday. It was the Tuesday before the holidays, and spring rains had been forecast for most of the week. Except for our daily dose of fresh air, Ben and I spent most of the time indoors, watching Pooh videos and building castles.

“Grace, can you get the phone? I'm trying to rest,” Miriam called out to me.

I hadn't even heard it ring.

“Hello, Grace. How are you, my darling? How's Ben? Big Ben misses him terribly.”

“Hello, Ettie. I'm fine, thank you. Ben's good.” I looked over to Ben. “Hey, buddy, Nana's on the phone. Come say hi.”

“No, Grace.” He wouldn't take his eyes off Pooh and Tigger. “Tell Nana I'm watching
Winnie the Pooh
.”

“Hi, Ettie. I don't think he wants to stop watching his movie right now.”

“That's okay, darling. Is Miriam home yet?”

“She's resting.”

“Oh, she won't mind talking to me.”

Miriam lay propped up in her darkened room reading the same romance novel I had started the other day.

“Ettie.”

Miriam dog-eared her page and lifted the phone next to her bed. I turned to leave.

“Just a second, Ettie,” Miriam said. “Grace, give me the other phone too. And close my door all the way.”

I did as she said and went back into Ben's room.

“Grace, you missed the best part.”

“I did? Tell me about it.” I sat on the floor next to his little furry chair.

Ben shook his head. “Uh-uh. Shhh, Grace.”

I shhhed and, restless, got up to stand by the window. The rain was steady and gray, but I could still see the bright new leaves on the trees in Union Square. Those vendors who had bothered to come to the market had already packed up, and the tops of umbrellas wove in and out. At home I loved the unexpected showers that came in the blazing dry season, sizzling the hot pitch and drumming the galvanized roofs. When we were younger, Helen and I had fled outside at the first few drops, shedding clothes and inhaling the burnt tar smell. We got soaked quickly, before our mother could start on number sixteen of her hundred and one ways to catch cold.

Miriam came in. “Grace, can I talk to you for a minute in my room?”

“Shhh, Mommy.” Ben put his finger to his lips.

Miriam put up her hands. “Sorry, mister.”

She sat on the bed. “I need you to work through Saturday night and take next Monday off instead.”

I was about to agree but then remembered Sylvia. “I have to talk to my cousin first. She might need me.”

“Can you call her now? I need to know as soon as possible.”

I left the room, not wanting to talk in front of Miriam. When I made the call, Micky answered. “Ma! Grace on the phone.”

“What?” Sylvia picked up in the middle of a coughing fit.

“You need to stop smoking them cigarettes, Sylvia. Them things going to kill you dead.”

“Grace, shut your ass before you put goat mouth on me please. What going on?”

“Nothing much. The lady ask if I could work this Saturday and take off Monday instead. I calling to make sure you don't need me for anything Saturday.”

Sylvia coughed again. “You see how them white people like to take advantage. She paying you extra to work on a Saturday?”

“Um, she didn't say anything about that.”

“Grace, stop playing the ass. You have to learn how to operate in this country or else people will take you and make you they fool. You know Saturday should pay more than a regular weekaday? People does get double money for working weekend.”

I didn't know that. “Well, I will ask she and see what she say.”

Sylvia inhaled deeply. “You not listening to me. Why nobody don't listen when Sylvia talk? Don't ask she, tell she you want extra money. I sure she want you to work for they holiday coming up. Tell she Saturday is not Monday and she should pay you extra. And too, you is a Christian, right? You must work on Good Friday for them and not get nothing extra? This is what Christ crucify for? Come on, Grace, you is a girl with brains.”

“Okay, Sylvia. So you don't need me, right?”

“I know you, Miss Grace. You not going to tell that lady one thing I say. Go ahead, please your mind and play
bobolee
.”

I needed to change the talk. “So, Sylvia, Jacob start the work yet?”

“Uh-uh.” She gargled, and I could tell that she was struggling to sit up. “Is good you not coming. This place is a mess. Everything have to move for them to start proper. I think they say early next week.”

“Make sure Dame not eating paint.”

“I know. Is not my apartment alone they fixing, you know. After the city come, is plenty people in the building getting paint job.”

“Good. Sylvia, I have to go. The lady waiting. I will see you on Saturday night, late.”

“Okay. Grace, wait, a letter come from your mother.”

I was staying too long on the phone. “Put it up for me. I'll see it when I come. Bye.”

I went back to Miriam's room. “My cousin says it's okay.”

“Good. Friday, we're going to visit my family in Brooklyn, and on Saturday, we're going up to Ettie and Big Ben's for Passover Seder.”

Why was it so hard to tell her that she would need to pay me extra for Saturday, that my weekend was worth extra money? “Miriam, how much you paying me for Saturday?”

“Same as usual. Why?”

“Well, it's the weekend, so, um, you should pay me more.”

She laid the book down and sat up on the rumpled sheets. “Why should I pay you more, Grace? You're getting Monday off.”

I was going to start off with “my cousin said,” but that sounded lame to me. “I think weekends are worth more than Monday to Friday.” I couldn't look her in the eye.

Miriam let out a big breath. “Let me talk to Sol tonight and see what he says, Grace.”

I felt like a fool.

“I'M LENDING GRACE TO
Ettie for Passover,” Miriam said between bites of chicken étouffée.

“Good. You told Mom already?” Sol answered.

“Not yet. She only asked to borrow her today.” She lowered her voice, but I could still hear. “Grace wants more money for Saturday.”

“Why? Didn't you offer to trade her a weekday?”

I didn't hear Miriam's response, but Sol said, “Then you should lend her to Mom on Friday. She could help Jane set up. You already own her Fridays.”

“I can't spare her on Friday. We're going to Brooklyn, remember?”

“She doesn't need to come. Send her uptown.”

“No. Ettie really wants her for the Seder. All your cousins are coming over. Jane's getting too old.”

“Please don't make it sound as though my mother's the one who wants to show off the help. Give me one good reason Grace needs to come to Brooklyn on Friday. A bad reason, even.”

“Hush, Sol.” Miriam was laughing.

“So give her an extra twenty for Saturday, then.”

“You think so?”

“Twenty bucks, sure.”

DAVE FILLED ME IN.
“Sol comes from lots of money. Miriam doesn't.” We were pruning the hibiscus. “I think you're cutting back too much on that one.”

“No, I'm not. The hedge around my mother's house is red hibiscus. Daddy used to cut it way back in the dry season, and as soon as the rains came, they grew like mad.”

“Got it,” he said.

“So, how do you know so much about Sol and Miriam?”

Dave made a sour face. “Sol and I went to school together.”

“College?”

He rubbed under his chin with the back of a gloved hand. “Before that. Prep school. Uptown.”

“You know, Dave, you shouldn't work with gloves on. You have to get a feel for the roots and the soil. You're doing old-lady gardening. My mother never wore gloves. Did you know Miriam too?”

“I got to know her later. This is America, Grace Jones. Gloves are a necessity. Who knows what's in this dirt.”

“Do you know you can use hibiscus stalks as chew sticks—like a toothbrush.” I took a finger-thick branch and peeled an inch of bark off the end. “See, you just chew on it for a while and it cleans your teeth. Whitens them too.”

Dave faked brushing. “Why not use a toothbrush and toothpaste, Grace?”

“Ah. You don't get it. My sister and I used to feel so cool walking around the yard like men with sticks in our mouth. God, it used to drive my mother crazy. Everything did.” I laughed. “My father used to cut hollow papaya branches for us to blow bubbles, and she couldn't stand for us to hang over the banister for more than fifteen minutes.” I hadn't told Dave too much about home, only about plants.

“Sounds like you had a great childhood, Grace.”

“I guess.”

“You guess,” he teased.

“So Sol and Miriam married. How come you're not married, Dave?”

“Married?” He laughed. “Are you kidding?”

When he saw that I wasn't, he put down the pruning shears and pulled off his gloves. “Sol and Miriam haven't told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Neither Danny? Duke?”

I wondered if his wife had died. “No, no one's told me anything.”

“Grace, I'm gay.”

“Really?” The surprise spilled out before I could stop it. “You're gay? Ah, that's why Miriam said you were safe. How come you don't have a . . . a friend?” The only gay man I knew, or at least the only man I thought was gay, was crazy Hen-man back in the village, who wore dresses and makeup and stole women's panties off their clotheslines.

“You mean a boyfriend?”

I guessed that's what they would call it. “Yes . . . a boyfriend.”

“That's a long story, and I'll tell you about it some night, but not tonight, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dave pulled his gloves back on and carried the pot he had been working on to another table. “Anyhow,” he said when he came back, “that's one reason why your bosses don't mind that you're here. I'll tell you another reason if you come back next week. It's time to bring my gay papaya out into the sun.”

ETTIE CALLED EARLY WEDNESDAY
to say that it wasn't such a good idea for Ben to come uptown. Big Ben had a cold, and she wanted him to save his energy for the holiday. Because we were going to Brooklyn on Friday, Miriam decided that Ben should have his playdate with the Zoller twins early.

Petal opened the Zollers' door after I lifted Ben to lay into the bell.

“Hi, Petal, how you going?”

Ben barged in.

“I going good, Grace, thanks to God. How you?”

The babysitter lime had moved to the fifteenth floor of Tower One. Petal had come by, and so had Marva, Meena, and Ule. The Bloomberg baby was asleep in his carriage, and, perhaps subdued by the weather, all the children were seated around Caleb's and Sammy's worktables coloring, amazingly, quietly. The Zollers' place was wrecked as usual. Evie apparently, like Kathy, did no housework above anything required to take care of the twins. The house looked like the hideaway of a hoarding clown. Colorful bouncy balls, turned-over trucks, and discarded dolls were scattered all across the bright red carpet. Ben beelined to his coloring friends, chose a book from the pile, and found a nook next to Sammy. Marva, Meena, and Ule sat at the Zollers' dining table playing cards. Evie was nestled in a corner of the couch, feet tucked under her and curler against her forehead, watching her story and ignoring me completely. Petal went over to the couch, picked up her Bible, and sat down.

“Grace,” Petal said, “you don't watch the stories?”

Back home
The Young and the Restless
was the craze. People were so tantalized by the show that all the restaurants and roti shops installed televisions so their lunchtime patrons could keep up. “I used to watch
The Young and the Restless
, but long time now I haven't seen it.”

“Nah”—Petal shook her head—“me never did like that one. I like Channel Seven stories.”

“Grace and Petal”—Evie never looked away from the screen—“wait for the advertisement to talk, please. Me can't hear one word them saying.”

Petal rolled her eyes and went back to the show. I walked over to the dining table, where Ule held her cards against her chest.

“What you playing?” I asked as I pulled out a chair.

Meena, made up for the crypt, said, “A kind of all fours, but we a man short.” She added, “You is Trinidadian, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I hear your people does play all fours for tea, breakfast, and dinner.”

Indeed they did, but not in our house.

Ule said, “You know how to play, Grace?”

“Nah, my mother didn't like cards.”

Marva's bottom lip was cut and swollen, bright pink against her blackness, and I wondered what the woman she worked for thought about her battered babysitter. She rearranged her hand. “Well, your mother not here and we a man short. You want to learn?”

I sure did. For the next hour and a half, through the end of Evie's story, four o'clock snack, and four-thirty nap, I partnered with Marva and learned to beg and stand as we lost eight games in a row to Meena and Ule.

“You ever make bets?” I asked.

Holy roller Petal, too curious about the ways of the corrupt world to stay on the couch, had come to sit at the far end of the table, but only to watch. “But, Grace, I didn't know you is a gambler.”

“No, Petal. I just asking.”

Evie stood behind Ule, who promptly hid her cards. She trusted no one and, as far as I could see, found it hard to give the required winks and nods to Meena.

“We don't bet money,” Evie said, “but we play for favors sometime.”

Marva winked at me, and I didn't know if she was signaling a high card or seconding what Evie said.