Minding Ben (33 page)

“Inspector's Report.” The address listed was unknown to me until I scanned down further. “Also known as Duck Hollow” in brackets. Under the report were several mortgage approval letters on bank stationery. From Citibank, Chemical, Apple, Merchants. “What the—?” My body was heating up in the fur, and I shrugged the coat off into a luscious black pool around my hips. Then I knew. Miriam and Sol were buying Dave's house in the country. It made sense. Dave had said that, when Vincent was alive, Sol and Miriam were always there. And she was crying at the house after our trip to the farm. I wondered just how much money Sol had, that they could afford to buy a weekend house, but when I saw the listing I understood.

SPACIOUS TWO-BEDROOM APARTMENT WITH SEPARATE MAID'S ROOM. TWO FULL BATHS. SWEEPING DOWNTOWN AND UNION SQUARE VIEWS. CENTRAL AIR. TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR LIVERIED CONCIERGE. HEALTH CLUB, HEATED OLYMPIC-SIZE POOL, AND DRY CLEANERS. MANHATTAN AMENITIES FOR UPSCALE, URBAN LIVING. SAT–SUN SHOWINGS ONLY.

“Holy moly.” I closed the folder and put both my hands into the warm folds of the fur. And then I saw it. The manila envelope I had given to Miriam months ago with all the sponsorship forms filled out and my passport photos signed on the back and my money. “Oh, God.” I reached for the envelope, half hoping that it was empty. That she had transferred everything to another envelope and kept this one for reference, but it was full and still unsealed. I tilted it over onto the floor in front of the fur. It was all there. My seven twenties and one ten fanned out, and both photos fell facedown.

It was 10:34. Twenty minutes had passed since I sat down, and everything had changed. Except of course nothing had. All this time I'd been waiting and asking and scanning the piles of mail not a damn thing had been going on. Now I didn't know what to do. I couldn't confront Miriam about this because then she'd know that I'd been digging around and would fire me on the spot. But what if she did fire me tonight? I decided that, if she let me go, I'd ask for my money. In the meanwhile, I had to see Dave.

He answered the door this time. “Hey, Grace. What a great surprise. I love it when you come up in the daytime. And look who's with you. Hello, Benjamin Bruckner. Come on in, guys.” Brutus and Cesar had already found refuge from the sun in the short morning shadows, and Ben made off to pet them.

“You want coffee?” Dave asked me.

I shook my head, and Dave asked Ben, “How's Daddy this morning?”

“His hand is hurt, but my daddy strong,
zio
.”

“He is,” Dave said, and then to me he mouthed, “Oh, please. Did they tell you what happened yesterday?” he asked. I nodded, and Dave said, “City slickers.” He hoisted a sack of the gorgeous compost delivered from the botanic garden onto the table. “So what's going on with you, Grace Jones?”

“Dave, how come you didn't tell me Sol and Miriam are buying your house?”

The penknife I'd given him slit the threaded edge of the burlap, and the rich fertilizer spilled out, dank and woodsy sweet. “Miriam told you? Finally.”

So it was true then.

“Oh, Grace, I wanted to tell you so many times.”

“So why didn't you tell me something?”

“You don't understand. I couldn't. Miriam specifically told me not to mention it to you, or to the doormen. She outright asked me to not say anything.”

“But, Dave, we're friends.”

“I know we're friends”—he stuck the opened knife in the bag—“and I tried to drop you hints.”

“When'd you drop me hints?”

“In Brooklyn, that time in the garden when you told me about coming to New York. Remember? I asked you what you'd do if Sol and Miriam ever moved?”

“That was a hint? Just last week I was telling you about going to school, and you said it was a great idea. Solid, you said. Bullshit, Dave.”

“But it
is
solid. Grace, please. You're so upset. Just listen to what I'm trying to tell you.”

But I couldn't care less about what he had to say. “Ah, forget you.” Sylvia had said it to Bo over the weekend, everybody looked out for their own. And I was not his own.

I WASN'T FIRED THAT
night after all. When Ben and I came in from the playground that evening, Sol and Miriam's bedroom door was closed. I fed Ben his dinner, gave him a nice long bath, and then took him into his room. After a while I heard Sol and Miriam's shower running, and later, both their voices in the living room. Then they came in. Miriam's hair was still wet and she had changed from her morning outfit into a white, strapless maternity dress. Her breasts were huge, and I saw little red hickey welts all over her neck. Sol stood behind her and she cocooned into him.

“Okay, Grace,” she said, “we're going out, so you're on tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Where you going, Mommy?”

“Daddy is taking me dancing.”

“Wow, that sounds like fun,” he said and slid off his chair and danced a jig.

I looked past Miriam to Sol, and he winked at me.

“Have fun,” I said.

After Ben fell asleep, I poured a glass of their red wine and went to my room to think. Then I had another glass and thought some more and I came up with nothing.

MIRIAM WAS STANDING AT
the foot of my bed. “Grace.”

“What?”

“Telephone. It really is too late to have your friends calling you here.”

I thought so too. “Hello?” I said into the receiver.

“Grace?”

“Helen?” And all the blood in my body pooled in my stomach. “Oh, God, oh, God.”

“He back in hospital, Grace. They want to cut the other foot.”

“What? When?”

“Dr. Silverton say soon, maybe by Sunday.”

“What? This Sunday? Helen, what going on? I thought he was getting better.”

“Mammy didn't want to worry you.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You know how she is, Grace.”

“Okay, so you tell me. What happening?”

“You know how the general hospital does operate. Quick, quick to cut. If we could get him to Cumberland, maybe they could do something.”

“Well, he should be in Cumberland, then.”

“You know how much money that going to cost? Plenty.”

“Mammy know you calling me?”

“No. I just stopped by the lady on the hill coming from hospital. Was my turn today.”

It was so late for her to be traveling alone.

“Okay, listen, come back by the lady on the hill tomorrow. Come for noon.”

“You have the money?”

“Just come tomorrow, okay. Don't say nothing.”

“Grace?”

“What?”

“He was talking about you tonight.”

“Yeah, what he say?”

“You want to know?”

“What he say?”

“That he too too glad you not here to see him like this.”

“Oh, Hel.”

I COUNTED THE MONEY
three times to be sure. Two hundred dollars was missing. Late as it was, I called Sylvia.

“Sylvia, the money was there on Saturday when I gave Bo the twenty dollars.”

“What I could do?” Her voice rose. “You think I take your money?”

I didn't think so at all. But Micky and Derek had come to the house for a while on Sunday when Dodo had gone to church. “Just ask Micky—”

Sylvia cut me off. “What you saying in truth? You think my children take your money?”

“Sylvia, I have to send that money home.”

“You don't think I have enough problem in my life right now? Now you come from where you come from to accuse my children?” She was screaming at me. “You don't see Dodo was right in truth. I should have leave you right on Eastern Parkway where I find you.”

“Sylvia . . .”

“I don't want to hear it, Miss Grace, just come and get your thing before I put them on the side of the road. And find somewhere else to stay from this weekend.”

She hung up and I was stunned, but I knew I wasn't crazy. My money was gone. I rang Kath. “Don't worry,” she said after I'd told her what was going on.

“Don't worry? Kath, my fucking life caving in.”

“No, it's not, Grace.” She yawned. “Let me call Daddy. Call me back in the morning, early.”

WHEN I SAW MY
swollen face and puffy eyes in the mirror, I laughed. “Black Chinee for real,” I said to my reflection. Cold water didn't do much, and by the time I finally came out of the bathroom, Miriam was waiting for me in the kitchen.

“We have to talk, Grace.”

This was good, because I needed to talk to her too.

“You have to respect our home. You don't live here, you work here. I think you've been forgetting that lately. Sunday night I asked you to keep Ben away from Sol, and you did the exact opposite. You're getting personal mail here now. You're drinking our wine. And now your friends feel like they can call you up in the middle of the night?”

Sol came out of their room and stood in the hallway behind me.

Miriam went on. “Do you know what time I finally went back to sleep after you got off the phone last night? I didn't—I knew you kept calling friend after friend.”

“Mir.”

“No, Sol, this is not acceptable.”

It was my turn to talk. “Miriam, I need the money I gave you to file my papers.”

“What?”

“When I gave you the immigration forms, I gave you a hundred and fifty dollars. My sister called me last night. Our father's sick, and I need to send them money.”

Sol moved into the kitchen and stood next to his wife. “Is everything okay, Grace?”

I didn't want to, but I started to cry, because I had the feeling that everything was not okay.

“How do you know—”

But Sol cut her off. “Not now, Mir. Give Grace the money. Grace”—he looked me in the eyes—“is there anything we can do to help you out? Anything at all?”

I tried to dry my eyes, but the stupid tears wouldn't stop flowing. “No, Sol, thanks. Just let me have the money. I have to go call my friend.”

Miriam said, “Grace, I didn't know.”

I nodded and moved past them to ring Kathy.

I
had taken this drive in reverse a lifetime ago. I had come in the cold, and Kath was leaving at summer's peak. Leaving hot for hot. Kath and I talked nonstop as if nothing had changed. I guess for her it hadn't. But I was two Graces, because inside I was numb. How could I be going to the airport but not going home? How could I let Kath get on a plane when I was the one with the dying father? Because I had no doubt he was going to die soon.

Every fifteen minutes or so, Kath remembered how come she was leaving and that I couldn't go and she quieted down for a while. But then she remembered that she was going home, Grace, home. And her daddy was going to let her manage the new store. I didn't want to take that away from her, her happy return. I was all mixed up. I wanted to stay in America, but I wanted to go home too. Just for a while to see my father. But I couldn't because my daddy didn't know every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

“Kath?”

“Um?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what, Grace?”

And I said nothing again, because how could I tell her that I wanted to switch places with her and that she should give me her ticket and her passport and I should get on the plane and she should drive back to Brooklyn with Brent?

“You remember I told you that Dave's boyfriend died from AIDS?”

“What? Vaguely.”

“Well, he had cancer. And, go and see Daddy when you get home, okay. Tell him you used to see me all the time, and that I'm settled.”

“Oh, Gracie, you don't have to tell me to do that.”

Brent squeezed the back of my neck. Kath had refused to see Donovan her final night in the city. “No fucking way, Grace,” she'd said to me. “Never again. None of that baggage coming home with me. I'm shedding the shit I picked up in this city.”

She had also shed her hair. That morning when I got to her room, now my room, and Kath opened the door, I screamed. Shivani came running down the stairs to see what was wrong.

“Do you like it?” Kath, in a short khaki skirt and matching jacket, turned slowly around. She had a slanted bob just like Ettie Bruckner's. It didn't flatter her new, desiccated frame.

“Oh, Kath,” was all I could say.

It was Shivani who spoke up. “What you gone and do that for? Look how you had all that nice nice
coco-'pañol
hair and you gone and chop it off. Watch how you spoil yourself, girl.”

Kath only laughed. “Go back upstairs, Shivani.”

Shivani splayed her fingers at her own neck and looked worried. “You know, I did never give you back that pack of maxi pad you lend me that time.”

I looked at Kath, but she laughed again. “Don't worry about it, Shivani. I forget about that long time now.”

Kath and I moved into the room. It looked exactly the same. The white, quilted spread on the bed, her frilly curtains tied with white ribbons hanging in the window, her tubes and tubs of makeup on her dresser. “Kath, where's your luggage?” I had expected a row of suitcases, hastily packed and bulging, but instead she pointed to one carry-on bag on the floor.

“That's all?” I opened the closet door, and the closet was bare. “What happened to your clothes?” I asked, astonished.

“I threw them all out, Grace. I told you I wasn't taking any load, and I didn't want to leave baggage for you either. Everything I need in that one bag.”

That bag was the size of one of her larger pocketbooks.

“Anyhow, remember idiot-boy paid rent until the end of September, so don't let that crook Bajan try to jack you. Brent call already to say he on his way.”

I closed the closet door. “Brent called?”

“Yeah.” Kath nodded, and her newly short hair snapped like shutting blinds in front of her face. “I didn't tell you he driving me to the airport? He'll bring you back too.”

I hadn't seen Brent since the night of Kath's birthday. And now, as we drove closer to the airport, with the planes flying low and gigantic, he and I didn't talk to each other much. Kath jumped out when we arrived at the terminal, and I got out with her.

Brent leaned over. “Me soon come, yeah. Make me find a park.”

Kath tucked her bob behind her ear. “No, B, just wait a minute.”

She turned to me. “Grace, don't bother to come in with me. Is not like home anyhow. Once I check in, I gone.”

“So what, you want us to leave you here on the curb?”

“Look how you turn American already, saying
curb
.”

She was stalling. “Come on, Kath, I'm not letting you go in alone.”

She hoisted her bag and looked more like a flight attendant than like a passenger. “You've never let me go alone, Grace. Is just, I have to do this.” I kind of understood what she was saying, but still. “Go, Grace. Go back to the room and have some fun, finally.” She winked and smiled at me, showing her wide-spaced teeth. “I'll see your dad soon.”

We hugged, everything we'd been through pressed tight between us. Kath turned and walked through the revolving doors. They swept her in, and I didn't see her again.

IT WAS STILL MORNING
when we got back to Kathy's block. It still looked the same. Children squealed as they ran in and out of the spray from the fire hydrant. Teenage boys in baggy shorts and white undershirts hung around waiting for the day to pass. West Indian women carried grocery bags from Bravo or vegetables from the Korean market. Brent stopped in front of Kathy's building. I didn't hesitate. “Coming up?” I asked him.

We climbed the four flights, and once inside, Brent was so big in that small space.

“Go ahead, sit on the bed,” I told him.

The sounds of Brooklyn's summer came up, kids, cars, water, all accompanied by the nonstop Puerto Rican anthem,
Nen-neh-neh, nen-neh-neh.
The room was warm.

Brent patted the quilt. “Come sit with me.”

Somewhere in this world my daddy was dying, and all I had left of him was some spilled dirt in the bottom of my bag. I knew what was about to happen between Brent and me, but I couldn't stop thinking about my father. I closed my eyes, and the tears landed on my bare legs. Brent wiped away the drops with his thumb, searing me.

“Darkie, watch me,” he said.

He held my chin with his fingertips and guided my head to face him. I wouldn't open my eyes.

“Watch me,” he said again, and I took a deep breath and looked at his beautiful face so close to mine. He lifted his eyebrows and I smiled and then he laughed and said, “Good. Things gone be all right, you know. You can't believe it now, but mark what me say, yeah. You especially gone be all right. Come.” He leaned over and, instead of my lips, kissed the corner of my eye. “You want feel likkle better?”

I nodded.

“All right then.” He kissed me on the mouth, and my body flared hot and liquid. Heat rose up from my chest and flushed my face, and I was sure he could feel the warmth coming off me. I tried to pull back, but instead he crushed me to him and murmured, “Uh-uh.”

“Wait, Brent,” I said, and he stopped kissing me at once. “Wait.”

I slid off his lap and stood between his opened legs. I unbuttoned my shirt and then kicked off my slippers and stepped out of my shorts. I undid the banana clip holding my hair off my neck. I unhooked my brassiere, then stepped out of my panties and straightened up. I wanted him to see all of me.

Brent made a noise. He knelt in front of me, burying his face just under my navel. He kissed me lower, and to steady myself I held on to the back of his head. His breath was hot on my legs. His hands clasped low around my waist, holding me.

“Come,” he said.

I sat on the bed's edge and watched him take off his shirt and lower his jeans; then he came back to me and we lay down together. His hands were cool and hot. Cool on my breasts and hot on my hips and scorching between my legs. I liked that he could fold me up in his bear body, that he could almost consume me. I liked his full weight pressing me into the bed, that he kept whispering “Darkie” in my ear, and how slick his back felt when I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into me. I liked the pain, and when he tried to pull away after I winced, I wrapped my legs around him too.

We slept for a long time afterward, and I smiled, drowsy, and thought what a roundabout way to finally experience the luxury of lying in on a summer's weekday. Later, I watched him get dressed, and when he was ready to go, he came back to the bed and kissed me. “So, me can stop by tomorrow after work?”

Tomorrow was Saturday. “And Sunday, too.”

After he left, I stayed in the bed. Lying on my stomach, I could feel my heartbeat thudding into the quilt and blood pulsing through my neck and elbows. I was truly alone in America, and I didn't mind at all. In fact, I was thirsty. I went to grab a glass from Kath's cupboard to go to the house's communal kitchen. I opened the door and laughed when I saw her BeDazzler. Right next to it, bulging like pirate's booty, were two bags of recovered gems waiting for their rightful owner.

WHEN I'D LEFT WORK
Thursday, no one had said anything about the next week. So here it was Sunday night, and I was back at the towers.

“It's Princess Grace and her pretty face,” Danny said. I made up my mind then and there to ignore him. Either he'd stop being a pest or he wouldn't, but I couldn't be bothered.

Sol opened the door. His thick brown bandage had been replaced with a much smaller white one. Last week's fat
gundy
was now a pair of pincers. There was no hug tonight. “Mir had a rough weekend,” he said. “Sit down for a second.”

I sat on the edge of the armchair, the one that had sucked me in on the day of my interview, the day he had told me that I reminded him of someone.

“How's your hand?”

Sol sat too. “So much better. I can even move my thumb a little bit now. How's your father?”

I bit my lower lip. “He's in a different hospital, but it looks like they're going to have to amputate his other leg anyhow. This is the island, you know.” I was sure he didn't know.

“Again, if there's anything we can do, you just let us know,” he said.

I wondered if Sol even understood what his words meant, that they were an offer of help. What they could have done was filed my immigration papers, or told me they were moving, or not paid me forty dollars less for taking last Friday off. I was so tempted to tell him these little things that they could have done, or to ask him what specifically he was offering to do, but all I said was “Thanks, Mr. Bruckner.”

“Anyhow, Mir and I talked, and she's fine. She's sorry, you know. She had no idea that it was your sister on the phone. We didn't even know that your father was an amputee, Grace.” He exercised the thumb a little and reached for the remote control to unmute the baseball. “You gonna go see Dave tonight?”

There was no awkwardness on his part. Sol acted like nothing had happened, and, after the weekend with Brent, I realized that nothing had. His game was already on. “I'm tired from this weekend too,” I told him. “I'm going to bed.”

MIRIAM CAME OUT OF
her room looking ready to deliver. Her hair was unwashed, her bare feet red and swollen. Her pregnant belly was huge. She held a tall glass of iced water in one hand and massaged under her robe with the other.

“Morning, Miriam. How are you feeling?” I said.

She gestured with the glass and grimaced. I grabbed Ben before he could dash to her.

“Grace and I going playground, Mommy.”

“You are?” She had no oomph in her voice. “Good. Give me Rabbit, and I'll snuggle up with him until you get back.” I set Ben down, and he handed his mother the toy. I was waiting, waiting to hear if she would ask how I'd known about the unfiled forms, or that the money had still been there, tucked away with their important papers. But she didn't say a word.

On our way to the park, Ben twisted in his carriage. “Grace, your daddy only has one foot?”

I wondered who he'd heard that from. “He does.”

He nodded. “Wow, that's a big cut. Your daddy strong, Grace?”

I made bodybuilder arms. “Very strong.”

“How does he walk around?”

“He hops like a bunny rabbit, or a froggy.” I bit my lip hard, remembering my father coming to the living room without his crutches on the night I left home, and how hard he had breathed after going the short distance.

“Really, Grace? Can he hop for a long time?”

“Uh-huh, for hours.”

Ben hopped over the sprinklers. Soon, Sammy and Caleb and Bruce and all the other kids were hopping in and out of the sunlit spray. I sat on the bench next to Ule and Meena. Evie stood by the swings talking with Margaret and Marva. After that morning in the park, we had spoken to each other only when the children played together. She and Ule were through. Now she came over. “So how everything go?” She had watched Benjamin on Friday, and my forty dollars had gone to her.

“Good, Evie. Thanks for asking.”

But this was Evie. “So they cut the other foot?”

“Chut, man,” Ule chided without saying her name.

“What? Is only ask me asking.”

“Not yet. They still waiting to see how things go.”

Marva shook her head, the bruise on her temple barely visible. “Me, mama? Me don't trust West Indian doctor to come cut my toenail, far less come for cut foot. When you see I go Montserrat, is nearly the whole pharmacy I does take,
oui.
”

“Is the same thing I was thinking,” Evie said, “and Bimshire ain't no backwater island like where you come from, Marva.”

I laughed and Ule and the rest too, like we used to before. Marva wasn't too sure what we were cracking up about, and she looked around at us. Gradually, as the morning temperature rose and the humidity started to smother, they left, but I stayed on the bench with Ule. When it was just the two of us sitting there, Ule said, “Skin teef. She and that one waistband Duke, the two of them aiming to dominate domestic work. That woman is a
mapepire
.” She opened her bag and pulled out a few pieces of paper. One by one she brought them very close to her eyes.