Minding Ben (22 page)

“Come on,” Linda said, “Pop. Tell us your joke already.”

Mr. Forgione looked right at me. “It wasn't even that funny. Alls I said to Miriam was that I didn't like eggplant. Never liked it all my life.”

Miriam laughed again, and so did Linda and Frankie. Sol let out a long sigh. Irene shook her head, and I didn't think that Mrs. Forgione even heard what her husband had said. The kids, not getting it, looked at everyone, and Ben asked, “What's eggplant, Mom?”

“Okay,” Sophia said to the children, “you guys are excused. But no cheesecake if you don't play nice.” Then she wagged her finger at her father. “And you, Pop. Be-have.”

H
ad my egg white in rainwater foretold my days in America, neither my mother nor I would have been able to decipher the signs. On the day of the Seder, I got off the subway one stop before Ettie's to see more of New York. The rains had washed the city clean of its winter stains. Daffodils and tulips bloomed where before had lain craggy formations of black snow and ice. The sun was warm, not hot yet, but I felt a deeper thaw in the chill that had been in my bones for ages.

I stopped to look in a shop window where mannequins were decked out in miniskirts and shorts and polo jerseys in pastel blues and pinks and greens. One wore an orange halter with white strings. I swear she called out to me by my name. I answered her and walked into the shop. Immediately a saleswoman approached. “How are you this morning?”

“Fine, thank you.” This was not Conway. The clothes here were neatly folded and spaced on shelves mounted to the walls. The music here was soft, just a man singing in Spanish accompanied by a plucking guitar. The saleswoman, who looked like a fashion model, raised her perfect eyebrows and asked, “Is there anything special you're looking for?”

I was glad I'd taken care getting dressed, and had lined my eyes with the last nub of liner I had. “I'd like to see the top on the mannequin, please.”

She pulled back. “You're a small, right?” She came back with two halters, the orange and white one I had seen in the window and a limey green one with orange strings.

“Let me take your bag.”

I couldn't find a price tag. “If you need help tying the strings, let me know.”

“I'm good, thanks.” I reached around to make a bow, then looked in the mirror. It was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

“If you want to see the back, you can come out and use this mirror.”

I stepped out to look. “This color was made for you,” the sales assistant said. “The white and orange go perfectly with your tone. Don't even bother trying the green.” She retied the strings so the bow sat lower on my back. “What a beautiful spine you have.”

I didn't know a spine could be beautiful. I turned and looked again in the angled mirror, liking the halter even more from behind. The white stripes did look good against my black skin.

“What do you think?”

Before I could answer, an older woman stepped out of the next cubicle in her brassiere and Bermuda shorts the same orange as my top. She glanced at herself in the mirror and grimaced. “Look at how pale I am. But you,” she said, “you should definitely get that. You can wear it to the beach or out to the country, or if you want to, you can dress it up with black pants for a more formal look. You'll get mileage out of it, for sure.”

I liked the idea of mileage.

“Okay, I'll take it.” At the register, the saleswoman folded my halter into the lightest tissue paper, peeled off a round sticker with the shop's logo, and sealed the package.

“Cash or American Express?”

“Cash.”

The woman from the dressing room stood behind me holding a white linen shirt minus the shorts. She checked her watch and frowned. “Don't ever put off shopping until three hours before you fly to Mustique.”

“That comes to a hundred and twenty-seven dollars and nineteen cents.”

The Spanish man was singing more furiously now, strumming his guitar with force. I could see my halter in the shopping bag, the gentle pillow of its folded bulk, one white tendril curling out like a young vine. I had $220 in my pocket. Tonight I had to give Sylvia $50. One hundred and eighty dollars gone. I pulled out six bills from my wallet.

“Goodness,” I said. “One-twenty-seven nineteen?”

The saleswoman smiled without parting her lips. “That's with tax.”

“Is there a Citibank around here? I only have a hundred and ten dollars.”

She bit her bottom lip and thought about bank locations. “And you don't want to put it on your AmEx?”

I didn't even know what an AmEx was.

“One ten. If you had ten dollars more, I could give it to you for one twenty.” Not a speck of lipstick showed on her teeth.

I looked in my wallet again, seeing the thin accordion of remaining bills. I shook my head and patted my back pockets. “No. I'll just run to the nearest bank.”

The woman with three hours to Mustique checked her watch. “The Citibank on Madison and Sixty-fifth has machines.”

“Thank you.” Turning back to the saleswoman, I asked, “May I have my bag, please?”

She gave her tight-as-a-ripe-grape smile. “Aren't you just running over to the bank now? I can hold it for you.”

She slicked on her smile again, and the other woman, digging into her own bag, twice the size of mine, said, “It's literally right around the corner.”

I smiled, also without teeth. “Thanks, but I'll take it.”

She shrugged ever so slightly and dipped without bending her back to get Sylvia's old bag. She kept on her smile and said, “I hope you find the bank.”

YESTERDAY MIRIAM HAD ASKED
for black clothes. Today Jane wanted white.

“Sorry, Jane. I only brought blue jeans.”

“You no can help me cook, clean, no serve in them fancy clothes you are wearing, missy.” She hadn't let me in the apartment yet.

The last thing I wanted to do was upset Jane from jump. “Gosh. I wish I'd known. Miriam didn't tell me anything, you know.”

She shook her head. “That woman, eh. Okay, come in, come in. You can tie one apron over yourself for now, and later you can wear one of my uniform.”

Jane was five-three and round in the middle like a rum barrel. Surely she was joking.

Every year, Jane told me, Ettie and Big Ben kept Passover Seder. In the past she alone had done all the preparations, but now that she was old and gray and ready to retire to Jamaica, Miss Ettie catered most of the dishes from some fancy place, m'dear. Except for the brisket. Big Ben wouldn't have anybody else make his brisket.

“You ever get ready for a 'olyday before?” Jane asked me.

“Uh-huh,” I said, putting on the apron she had given me. “Home, me and my sister used to help Mammy fix up the house for Christmas and Easter—mix the cakes, hang up the new curtains . . .” Those were the best times.

Jane turned to face me and, shaking her head, came around and knotted the apron way too tight. “Not Christmas and Easter, child. Jew 'olyday. Passover, Rashashannah.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish.

Jane sighed, and I made up my mind to do anything she wanted. “I'm here to help you, Jane, so tell me where to start.”

We worked without stopping from ten past twelve until three. Even though Ettie had earlier in the week hired two Polish women to do the heavier cleaning, Jane insisted we go over everything with dry cloths and feather dusters, then run the vacuum to make sure. For Passover, she explained, the house had to be spotless, and the only way to make sure it was, was to do the work yourself.

“Watch out for bread crumbs.”

“What?” I asked, shining imaginary dust off the brass ballerina.

“The house can't have no bread in it for this 'olyday.
Hametz
it name.” She stressed the
h
hard. “Last week Miss Ettie done sell the doorman all the big bread in the 'ouse, but them Polish woman she bring here, you can't trust them to do the work proper.”

I had no idea what Jane was talking about, but I kept an eye out for pieces of bread. I wiped the masks and paintings and sculptures and sconces, while Jane used the feather duster to clean the tops of books on their shelves and behind picture frames propped on tabletops. She was a hard worker, pausing every once in a while to check on her brisket or to ask me if I wanted water, but never taking a break herself. Finally at three she said, “Okay, time for the dining room. We have to set up the tables.”

“Tables? How much people coming?”

“Make me see.” She gazed up to the ceiling and touched a finger to her chin for each name. “Miss Ettie and Big Ben; Nancy coming alone; Solomon, 'im madam, and little Ben; Susannah, Michael, and them two little girls; and Miss Elsie; that's it for this year. How much is that?” She counted off again silently. “Eight big people and three children. Eleven. The little ones get them own table.”

I had never heard any mention of Susannah and Michael, or Miss Elsie, before, and I asked Jane who they were.

“Miss Elsie is Miss Ettie big sister. Never married. Susannah is Big Ben niece and Michael 'er husband. She grow up like sister to Solomon and Nancy. Spend more time here than with the own father. Mother dead when she born.”

“And how old are the little girls?”

Jane opened a drawer from a glossy wooden armoire and removed a white tablecloth embroidered with waves of pale blue flowers. “How much years them have now?” she mused to herself as she gently unfolded the fabric. “Samantha going on five, and Bennie near same age as Solomon Ben.”

She shook her head at the sharp creases checking big squares into the tablecloth. “This have to press,” she declared.

“Let me do it for you,” I offered, sure that Jane shared my mother's dread of ironing and catching cold. When she came back with the ironing board, I asked, “So Susannah's daughter's name is Bennie, like Ben?”

Jane set up the board, plugged in the iron, and passed me a can of spray starch. From the bottom drawer of the armoire she pulled out two purple velvet cases. “Lord, but you ask plenty question, child.” But she didn't seem to mind. “Yes, m'dear. This is a house of Bens.”

While I ironed, Jane polished the knives and forks and spoons she took from one case. After she had gone over each piece, she held it up to check for spots and then set it loosely back in its slot. Together we spread the freshly ironed cloth on the table, and then Jane began the setting. I stood off to the side as she placed plates and saucers and bowls, napkins and all the cutlery, wineglasses and water goblets, transforming the barren expanse of white into a four-star extravaganza. Done, she stepped back with hands on hips and cocked her head to check out her work.

“Jane, this looks like a fancy restaurant,” I told her.

She beamed. “Is years now I doing this, child. I didn't grow up stupid, you know. I worked for the governor of Jamaica before you see I come to this country.” Jamaica, like home, hadn't had a governor since 1962.

She went out and came back carrying a vase exploding with white, trumpet-shaped flowers on long green stems, which she placed on the table slightly off center. I reached to shift it, but Jane stopped me. “Wait and see.”

In the kitchen she asked, “You can get that platter up there?”

I stood on a step stool and got down a big oval plate like the one my aunt Velma had sent my mother from the Virgin Islands. That platter, with its embossed race day scene, was a treasure we only ever used when my aunt came to visit. Last time, Auntie had got drunk on the Harveys Bristol Cream she had brought my mother, and she sent the platter and its little triangle sandwiches crashing to the floor. My mother had pretended not to mind, but she had Helen and me collect every piece of china, every broken horse and headless rider we could find. She tried for days to put it together again, but it was no use.

Jane set the platter on the kitchen table and opened the oven. With a pair of tongs, she removed a huge roasted bone with no meat. This she placed on the platter.

“What the heck is that, Jane?” It looked like a femur.

“Me sure your mother is a Christian woman and didn't teach you to swear,” she responded. She went back to the oven with her tongs. This time she took out what looked like a stained brown egg and placed it next to the bone.

“That is an egg? What kind of animal lay that?”

She gave me a look like she was too tired of my questions. From a jar on the countertop, she took out a bunch of parsley, and, instead of chopping it for garnish like Miriam had me do on almost every dish they ate, she shook out the extra water and set about half of the stems on the platter.

I didn't ask.

Jane uncovered a bowl and, with a spoon from the top drawer, scooped out a mound of something dark brown. “Here, taste that,” she said and offered me the chunky pyramid. I didn't want to, but I opened my mouth and was surprised by the sweetness of the mixture.

“Umm, good. What's in . . .” I let the question trail off.

“What you taste?”

“You know”—I smiled at the memory—“it tastes like my mother's soaked fruits for Christmas black cake.” The cherries and currants were soaked from September in red wine, the only alcohol to enter our house with my mother's approval, the remainder of which Helen and I slowly depleted by the capful.

“Good, it supposed to taste like that.”

She stooped in front of the opened refrigerator and took a small albino carrot out of the crisper.

“Wow, I've never see a white carrot before.”

“No?” Jane quickly peeled the carrot and, with a hand grater, minced the whole root into a rough heap right onto the platter. She took a pinch and fed me a small bit. “Here, taste.”

The pepper was intense, and I spat the hot carrot straight out at her.

Jane laughed and laughed, holding her middle and heh-hehing until tears ran from her eyes. “White carrot. Well, I never. Wait till me tell Miss Ettie this one. Whey! This 'orseradish, not no white carrot, but them call it
maror.
” She laughed again, pleased to have an apprentice. “Parsley me sure you know, that is the
karpas;
it have salt water on it. The mix-up fruit is wine and nuts with a little honey,
charoset.
And this is a regular hen egg and a lamb bone from the butcher that been roasting since 'fore-day mornin'. All for the table. Bring it come.”

Carefully, I picked up the plate and followed Jane back to the living room. She pointed to a spot on the table, and I set the platter down, trying my best not to tip anything off onto the white cloth. Jane adjusted my placement about a quarter inch to the right and then back to exactly where I'd had it before. She opened the other purple case and took out a candlestick. It didn't seem like anything special, it wasn't big and didn't shine or have ornate decorations carved into the metal, and Jane didn't seem to feel the need to pass the chamois she had used on the knives and forks over it. Small as it was, though, she held it up with both hands and placed it exactly at the center of the table, between the platter of everyday things transformed by their mystical new names and the hydra-splayed bouquet of long-stemmed lilies.