by Jodi Picoult
"Well, before you go thinking I'm your fairy godmother, Larry shot me down. He feels as badly as I do, honestly, but with his candidacy, it's just not a good time to be connected to something scandalous."
Scandalous. I taste the word, bite into it like a berry, feel it burst.
"We had a huge fight about it. I mean, like, I made him move into the second bedroom and everything. It's not like he's going for the neo-Nazi vote. But it's not that simple, I guess. Race relations are a mess right now, with the police commissioner under fire and everything, and Larry needs to stay as far away from that as possible or it could cost him the election." She shakes her head. "I am so sorry, Ruth."
My jaw feels too tight. "Is this why you had me over here?" I ask. "To tell me you can't be associated with me anymore?"
What had I been stupid enough to think? That this was a social visit? That for the first time in a decade Christina had suddenly decided she wanted me to drop in for lunch? Or had I known all along that if I came here, it was because I was hoping for a miracle in the form of the Hallowells--even if I was too proud to admit it?
For a long moment, we just stare at each other. "No," Christina says. "I needed to see you with my own eyes. I wanted to make sure you were...you know...all right."
Pride is an evil dragon; it sleeps underneath your heart and then roars when you need silence.
"Well, you can check this off your good deed list," I say bitterly. "I'm doing just fine."
"Ruth--"
I hold up my hand. "Don't, Christina, okay? Just...don't."
I try to feel through the chain of our history for the snag, the mend in the links, where we went from being two girls who knew everything about each other--favorite ice cream flavor, favorite New Kids on the Block member, celebrity crush--to two women who knew nothing about how the other lived. Had we drifted apart, or had our closeness been the ruse? Was our familiarity due to friendship, or geography?
"I'm sorry," Christina says, her voice tiny.
"I am too," I whisper.
Suddenly she bolts from the table and comes back a moment later, emptying the contents of her bag. Sunglasses and keys and lipsticks and receipts scatter the surface of the table; Advil tablets, loose in the bottom of her bag, spill like candy. She opens her wallet and takes a thick wad of bills and presses it into my hand. "Take this," Christina says. "Just between the two of us."
When our hands brush, there's an electric shock. I jump up, as if it were a bolt of lightning. "No," I say, backing away. This is a line, and if I cross it, everything changes between Christina and me. Maybe we have never been equals, but at least I've been able to pretend. If I take this money, I can't go on fooling myself.
"I can't."
Christina is fierce, folding my fingers around the money. "Just do it," she says. Then she looks up at me as if all is well in the world, as if nothing has changed, as if I have not just become a beggar at her feet, a charity, a cause. "There's dessert," Christina says. "Rosa?"
I trip over my chair in my hurry to escape. "I'm not really very hungry." I avert my glance. "I have to go."
I grab my coat and my purse from the rack in the foyer and hurry out the door, closing it tight behind me. I push the elevator button over and over, as if that might make it come faster.
And I count the bills. Five hundred and fifty-six dollars.
The elevator dings.
I hurry toward the welcome mat outside Christina's door and slip all the money beneath it.
This morning I told Edison we couldn't drive the car anymore. The registration has expired and I can't afford to renew it. Selling it will be my last resort, but in the meantime, while I try to save enough to cover the state and federal fees and the gas, we will take the bus.
I get into the elevator and close my eyes until I reach ground level. I run down Central Park West until I cannot catch my breath, until I know I will not change my mind.
--
THE BUILDING ON Humphrey Street looks like any other government building: a square, cement, bureaucratic block. The welfare office is packed, every cracked plastic seat filled with someone who is bent over a clipboard. Adisa walks me up to the counter. She's working now--making minimum wage as a part-time cashier--but she's been in and out of this office a half dozen times when she was between jobs, and knows the ropes. "My sister needs to apply for assistance," she announces, as if that statement doesn't make me die a little inside.
The secretary looks to be Edison's age. She has long, swinging earrings shaped like tacos. "Fill this out," she says, and she hands me a clipboard with an application.
Since there is nowhere to sit, we lean against the wall. While Adisa searches for a pen in her cavernous shoulder bag, I glance at the women balancing clipboards and toddlers on their knees, at the men who reek of booze and sweat, at a woman with a long gray braid who is holding a doll and singing to herself. About half the room is Caucasian--mothers wiping the noses of their children in wads of tissues, and nervous men in collared shirts who tap their pens against their legs as they read each line on the form. Adisa sees me glancing at them. "Two-thirds of welfare goes to white folks," she says. "Go figure."
I have never been so grateful for my sister.
I fill out the first few queries: name, address, number of dependents.
Income, I read.
I start to put down my annual salary, and then cross it out. "Write zero dollars," Adisa says.
"I get a little bit from Wesley's--"
"Write zero dollars," Adisa repeats. "I know people who got rejected for SNAP because they had cars that were worth too much. You're going to screw the system the way the system screwed you."
When I don't start writing, she takes the application, fills in the blanks, and returns it to the secretary.
An hour passes, and not a single person is called from the waiting room. "How long does this take?" I whisper to my sister.
"However long they feel like making you wait," Adisa replies. "Half the reason these people can't get a job is because they're too busy sitting here waiting on benefits to go apply anywhere."
It's nearly three o'clock--four hours after we've arrived--before a caseworker comes to the door. "Ruby Jefferson?" she says.
I stand up. "Ruth?"
She glances at the paperwork. "Maybe," she concedes.
Adisa and I follow her down a hallway to a cubicle and sit. "I'm going to ask you some questions," she says in a monotone. "Are you still employed?"
"It's complicated...I was suspended."
"What's that mean?"
"I'm a nurse, but my license has been put on hold until an impending lawsuit is over." I say these words in a rush, like they are being purged from the core of me.
"It don't matter," Adisa says. "Imma break it down fuh you. She don't got no job and she don't got no money." I stare at my sister; I had been hoping that maybe the caseworker and I could find some common ground, that she might recognize me not as a typical governmental assistance applicant but as someone middle-class who has gotten a bum deal. Adisa, on the other hand, has whipped out the Ebonics, pushing as far away from my tactic as possible.
The caseworker shoves her glasses up her nose. "What about your son's college fund?"
"It's a five twenty-nine," I say. "You can only use it for education."
"She need medical," Adisa interrupts.
The woman glances at me. "What are you paying right now for COBRA?"
"Eleven hundred a month," I answer, flushing. "But I won't be able to afford that by next month."
The woman nods, noncommittal. "Get rid of your COBRA payment. You qualify for Obamacare."
"Oh, no, you don't understand. I don't want to get rid of my coverage; I want to just get temporary funding," I explain. "That's the health insurance that comes from the hospital. I'm going to get my job back eventually--"
Adisa rounds on me. "And in the meantime what if Edison breaks his leg?"
"Adisa--"
"You think you O
. J. Simpson? You gonna get off and walk away? News flash, Ruth. You ain't O.J. You fa sho ain't Oprah. You ain't Kerry Washington. They get passes from white people because they famous. You just another nigga who's going down."
I am sure that the caseworker can see the steam rising from my hair. My fingers are clenched so tightly into fists that I can feel myself drawing blood. I'm not quite sure what precipitated this transformation into full-on gangsta, but I'm going to kill my sister.
Hell, I've already been indicted for homicide.
The caseworker glances from Adisa to me and then down at the paperwork. She clears her throat. "Well," she says, all too happy to get rid of us, "you qualify for medical, SNAP, and cash assistance. You'll be hearing from us."
Adisa hooks her arm through mine and pulls me up from my chair. "Thank you," I murmur, as my sister drags me from the cubicle.
"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" she says, when we are out of earshot, standing next to a potted plant near the elevator bank. She is suddenly back to her normal self.
I round on her. "What the hell was that? You were a total asshole."
"An asshole who got you the money you need," Adisa points out. "You can thank me later."
--
MY TRAINER IS a girl named Nahndi, and I am old enough to be her mother. "So basically there are five stations," she tells me. "Cashier, headset, coffee headset, presenter, and runner. I mean, there are people on table too, of course, they're the ones who are making the food..."
I trail her, tugging at my uniform, which has an itchy tag at the neck. I am working an eight-hour shift, which means I get a thirty-minute break and a free meal and minimum wage. After exhausting all the temp agency office job positions, I'd applied to McDonald's. I said I'd taken time off from work to be a mom. I didn't even mention the word nurse. I just wanted to be hired, so that I could give up some of the benefits I'd received at the unemployment office. For my own sanity I needed to believe that I could still, at least in part, take care of myself and my son.
When the manager called to offer me the job, he asked if I could start immediately, since they were short-staffed. So I left a note for Edison on the kitchen counter saying I had a surprise for him, and caught a bus downtown.
"The fry hopper is where the fries are loaded. There are three basket sizes to use, depending on how busy we are," Nahndi says. "There's a timer here you push when you drop the basket. But at two-forty, you need to shake it so the fries don't just become one giant blob, okay?"
I nod, watching the line worker--a college student named Mike--do everything she is saying. "Once the timer goes off, you hold the basket over the vat and let the oil drain for about ten seconds. And then dump them into the fry station--watch out, that's hot--and salt them."
"Unless it's a no-salt fry order," Mike says.
"We'll worry about that later," Nahndi replies. "The salt dispenser puts the same amount on every batch. Then you toss with the fry scoop and press a timer. All those fries need to be sold in five minutes, and if they're not, they get dumped out."
I nod. It's a lot to process. I had a thousand things to remember as a nurse, but after twenty years, that was muscle memory. This is all new.
Mike lets me try the fry station. I am surprised at how heavy the basket is when it's dripping. My hands are slippery in their plastic gloves. I can feel the oil settling through my hairnet. "That's great!" Nahndi says.
I learn how to bag properly, how many minutes each food item can sit in a warming basket before being discarded, which cleaners are used on which surfaces, how to tell the manager you need more quarters, how to push the medium-size button on the register before you push the button for Number 1 meal, or else the customer won't get fries with his order. Nahndi has the patience of a saint when I forget ranch dipping sauce or grab a McDouble instead of a double cheeseburger (they're identical, except for one extra slice of cheese). She feels confident enough, after an hour, to put me on table, assembling the food.
I have never been one to shy away from scut work. God knows, in nursing you have your share of holding emesis basins and changing soiled sheets. What I always would tell myself was that after an episode like that, the patient was even more uncomfortable--physically, or emotionally, or both--than I was. My job was to make things better as professionally as possible.
So getting a job as a fast-food worker really doesn't bother me. I'm not here for the glory. I'm here for the paycheck, as meager as it might be.
I take a deep breath and grab the three-part bun and set the pieces in their spots in the toaster. Meanwhile, I open a Big Mac box. This is easier said than done while wearing plastic gloves. The top part of the bun is sesame-seed down in the top of the box; the middle piece sits balanced on top of that; the bottom part is bottom-side down in the bottom half of the box. Two squirts of Big Mac sauce from the giant metal sauce gun go on each side; shredded lettuce and minced onions are sprinkled on top of that. The middle piece gets two strategically located pickles (they should be "dating, not mating," said Nahndi). The bottom gets a slice of American cheese. Then I reach into the warmer for two 10:1 patties, and place one on the top and one on the bottom. Lift the middle piece and place on the bottom part, place the top of the bun on that, and the box is closed and given to a runner for bagging or counter service.
It's not delivering a baby, but I feel the same flush of a job well done.
Six hours into my shift, my feet hurt and I reek of oil. I've cleaned the bathrooms twice--including once after a four-year-old got sick all over the floor. I have just started working as a runner to Nahndi's cashier when a woman orders a twenty-piece McNuggets. I check the box myself before putting it on a tray, and like I've been taught, I call her order number and tell her to have a nice day as I am handing it over. She sits down ten feet away from me and eats every last piece of chicken. Then suddenly, she is back at the counter. "This box was empty," she tells Nahndi. "I paid for nothing."
"I'm so sorry," Nahndi says. "We'll get you a new one."
I sidle closer, lowering my voice. "I checked that box myself. I watched her eat all twenty of those nuggets."
"I know," Nahndi whispers back. "She does this all the time."
The manager on duty, a cadaverous man with a soul patch, approaches. "Everything all right here?"
"Just fine," Nahndi says. She takes the new box of nuggets out of my hand and passes it to the customer, who carries it out to the parking lot. The manager goes back to the presenter position, handing out food at the drive-through.
"You've got to be kidding me," I mutter.
"If you let it get under your skin, you won't make it through a single shift." Nahndi turns her attention toward a high-spirited group of kids who surf through the door on the wave of their own laughter. "After-school rush," she warns. "Get your game face on."
I turn back to the screen, waiting for the next order to magically appear.
"Welcome to McDonald's," Nahndi says. "Can I take your order?"
I hope it's not a shake. That's the one machine I don't feel confident running yet, and Nahndi already told me a story about how, her first week, she forgot to put in the pins and the milk exploded all over her and onto the floor.
"Um, I'll take a Big Mac meal," I hear. "Dude, what do you want?"
"I left my wallet at home..."
I spin around, because I know that voice. Standing in front of the counter is Edison's friend Bryce, and beside him, hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket, is my son.
I can see the absolute horror in Edison's eyes as he scans my hairnet, my uniform, my new life. So instead of smiling at him, or saying hello, I turn my back again before Bryce can recognize me, too. Before I have to hear Edison make yet another excuse for the situation I've put him in.
--
EDISON IS NOT home when I arrive, strip off my uniform, and shower away the smell of grease. I text him, but he doesn't answer. So instead, I cook dinner, pretending that nothing is wrong. By the time he finally comes
home, I have just put a casserole on the table. "It's hot," I tell him, but he goes straight to his bedroom. I think he is still upset about my new job, but a moment later he appears, holding a giant Mason jar full of coins, as well as a checkbook. He tosses these on the table. "Two thousand three hundred and eighty-six," Edison announces. "And there's got to be a couple hundred more in the jar."
"That's money for college," I say.
"We need it now. I've got the whole spring and summer to work; I can make more."
I know how scrupulously Edison has saved his earnings from the grocery store where he's worked since he was sixteen. It was always understood that he'd chip in for his education, and between scholarships and FAFSA and the 529 plan we started for him as a baby, I would swing the rest of the tuition. The thought of taking money that is earmarked for college makes me feel sick. "Edison, no."
His face crumples. "Mama, I can't. I can't let you work at McDonald's when I have money we could use. You got any idea how that makes me feel?"
"First, that isn't money, that's your future. Second, there's no shame in a good honest day's work. Even if it's making French fries." I squeeze his hand. "And it's only for a little while, till this is all cleared up and I can work at the hospital again."
"If I drop track I can get more shifts at the Stop and Shop."
"You're not dropping track."
"I don't care about a dumb sport."
"And I don't care about anything but you," I tell him. I sit down across from him. "Baby, let me do this. Please." I feel my eyes fill with tears. "If you asked me who Ruth Jefferson was a month ago, I would have said she's a good nurse, and she's a good mother. But now I have people telling me I wasn't a good nurse. And if I can't put a casserole on the table and clothes on your back--then I have to second-guess myself as a mother, too. If you don't let me do this...if you don't let me take care of you...then I don't know who I'm supposed to be anymore."
He folds his arms tight across his chest, looks away from me. "Everyone knows. I hear them whispering and then they stop when I get close."
"The students?"
"Teachers, too," he admits.
I bristle. "That's inexcusable."
"No, it's not like that. They're going out of their way, you know? Like giving me extra time for papers and saying that they know things are rough at home right now...and every time one of them is like that--so nice, and understanding--I feel like I want to hit something, because it's even worse than when people pretend they don't know you missed school because your mother was in jail." He grimaces. "That test I failed? It wasn't because I didn't know the stuff. It was because I cut class, after Mr. Herman cornered me and asked if there was anything he could do to help."
