Casey’s watching in an unblinking way that scares her. She reaches out and he flinches.
“Evicted? Like in The Grapes of Wrath? That book was about long ago. They can’t do that any more, can they? Aren’t there laws against it?”
Rosie’s tone begs for an answer and not the one she has to offer. It’s breaking her heart.
“They can,” says Casey suddenly. “It’s what happened to the people down the road. The cops made them leave and their houses are still empty. How come?” he asks his dad, who wears yesterday’s bewildered expression.
“Zack, say something.”
“You never know what will turn up,” he responds, then grins, and both kids look at her.
“Nothing will happen today or tomorrow or even next week. There’s time.”
“Time for what, Mom?” Rosie, again.
“To figure things out …”
“You know what I was thinking,” Zack says suddenly. “If our house burns down before we’re evicted, we have fire insurance. They’d have to pay us off or build another house.”
“Zack, for god’s sake!” He can’t incite the children this way.
“I said what’s true,” he responds stubbornly.
“Zack, we think all kinds of thoughts we don’t give voice to.”
“Mom, we need to get money.” Practical Rosie.
“I know, and we’ll try to do that.”
“But how?” Casey asks in a tone of deep concern.
“I don’t know yet. Finish your breakfast. I’ll start making phone calls.” She heads for the couch with no idea who to call. None whatsoever. Zack’s dead parents smile benevolently down on them from a photo on the breakfront.
12.
She’s out the door before her mother has a chance to ask where she’s going.
Too restless to wait for a bus, she begins walking the mile to the elevated train. The sun is baking hot. She decides to snag a car ride for the A/C, which is bound to be on. But as a car approaches, she hesitates. Her mother isn’t always right. Lots of people hitch. Then, with more determination, her hand goes up. A car stops. The window rolls down. A man older than her father, she guesses, checks her out. “Where you headed?”
“The train station.”
“Hop in.”
She does, and decides this is the first step toward everything in her life that’s about to change.
The A/C is on, the car messy, sand on the floor, beach gear strewn about. A man his age driving barefoot, is that normal?
“Going out to do something nice?” His easy tone says she’s a child.
“Meeting a friend in the city.”
“To do what?”
“A movie,” she lies. “Do you live around here?” She courts a casual voice.
“Nope.”
“Kids at home?”
“As a matter of fact they’re with their mom.”
“Oh, a divorced dad.”
He glances at her. “Not yet, but on the way.”
“I guess I should say sorry.”
“Depends,” he mumbles.
“I see.”
“Do you?” In his voice she hears humor.
“I do. I’m the product of a broken family. It gets better with time.”
“What gets better?” He sounds interested.
“You know, the situation, picking up, dropping off, holidays, all of it becomes more … I don’t know … tolerable.”
“Hope you’re right.”
“It does depend on the age of the children,” she adds for good measure.
“Well, Katy’s ten, and …” He falls silent.
She says nothing, not sure how much further to spin this tale.
“Hey, I’m driving into the city, I could drop you off.”
“Thanks but no thanks, I’m meeting my friend at the station.” How easily the lies come. Besides, riding with him is bound to get boring.
She climbs the warped stairs to the ancient outdoor platform with its wobbly, wood-slatted floor and graffiti-covered ads. The sun burns steadily. She ducks inside a phone-less telephone booth for shade. Her family life is falling apart. No doubt about it. Eviction could split them up. She and her dad in one place, Casey and her mom in another. Might be interesting. On the other hand, they could end up in a shelter, but not her, no way, she’s not going there. She’ll quit school, get a job, nanny, waitress, whatever. She considers phoning Mirabelle to tell her about the eviction, but Mirabelle’s you’re-worrying-too-much attitude will piss her off. Siri, however, will be sympathetic. They’ll find a small flat. Isn’t that what they call it in Pakistan, or maybe London? Or they’ll rent someone’s furnished basement and keep house for a while. They’ll …
The elevated train asthmatically climbs the inclined track and screeches to a halt. She waits impatiently for the old doors to tremble open. The A/C inside is weak to nonexistent. It’s Sunday morning, only a few riders. Across the aisle, two tough-looking dudes eye her. Nothing new. She passes guys like them daily. They hang out near her school. Usually she smiles daintily in a good-girly way, then averts her eyes.
“Where you going, pretty girl?”
The guy has tiny gold-hoop earrings, a red bandana around his forehead, a vest open over a T-shirt. His upper arms are thick and tanned.
“Downtown,” she says.
“Times Square?”
“No.”
“Hey, share.”
“Thirty-fourth Street.”
“The girl’s going to Macy’s,” he tells his friend, who couldn’t care less.
She takes out her phone and begins scrolling.
“Yo! Don’t like what you see?” Bandana guy again, his face animated, his green eyes sharp, his dark-blond curls his prize.
“I don’t know if I like it or not. I’m not interested.”
“Girl isn’t interested. What do you think of that, mate?”
Mate doesn’t smile.
She looks around the car. Two old women.
“You’re alone with me and my dude here.”
She stares back to let him know he’s not scaring her, though he is. A bit, anyway.
“Staring isn’t polite. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”
“More than yours, asshole.”
“The girl has courage.” One giant step and he’s across the aisle sitting beside her. Up close his face looks gentler, younger than she thought, though much older than Siri.
“What exactly do you want, because truth is, I’m seriously not in a talking mood? My family’s about to be evicted.” She can’t believe she’s said it.
“Hey, you all will find something else. A new place is clean, shiny. Don’t despair. I’ve been there.”
“Are you being poetic?” her tone as sarcastic as she can make it.
“That’s what I do. Rap, poems, talk a lot of fast thoughts. I have a gig in Queens tonight, want to come?” A sweet smile flits across his face.
Queens? Nowhere near the destination she’s planned, though the idea of doing something entirely new appeals to her.
“Maybe another time. I have someplace to go right now.”
“Your choice,” his smile opens into a surprisingly lovely grin.
“Do you have many gigs?”
“I’m wanted on every corner. And I have a You Tube channel. I’ll give you a CD for nothing, well, not for nothing, for being so upstanding.”
“Upstanding?”
“Lots of beautiful girls aren’t courageous, they just preen to be seen and wait to be queen.”
“Can you talk normal?”
“Maybe. Are you interested in what my mama calls me?”
She smiles. “What does your mother call you?”
“Sonny. And you?”
“Rosie.”
“I knew it was a flower. I told myself Daisy or Iris, but Rosie’s good. I’ll call you Rosy-Posy, cause that’s what I do, rhyme and rap and rendezvous.”
“And how do you do that?”
“I
don’t know, it happens. I’m talented. Everyone owns talent. We have to find yours, Rosy-Posy.”
Again she smiles. She can’t help it. He’s morphing into an interesting, handsome guy who’s capable of lifting her spirits.
“I get off at Jackson Avenue, next stop,” his voice filled with mock sorrow.
“South Bronx?”
“Hunts Point and below is the true burn-’em-up South Bronx.”
“My mom grew up in the projects.”
“No wonder you’re special. Rosy-Posy, so here’s what I impart, your number here, close to my heart.” He produces a pen and his arm. “Write it.” His friend is already waiting at the door.
She considers … decides, jots down her cell phone number.
“You will surely hear from me.” Two fingers brush her cheek.
As the train leaves the station he taps on the window, hand on heart, big smile on his too-handsome face.
She exits the subway strangely elated by the encounter, amazed at how the unexpected can intervene to change the moment. Walking along the narrow, hot sidewalk of 28th Street, she passes tiny shops selling Indian fabrics and Indian spices. The restaurant where Siri works is what her mother would call a hole in the wall, but she’s not her mother. She descends three worn, concrete steps into a cool, dark chamber, where she sees no one. Siri told her he arrives early to straighten up before the place opens for lunch, but he’s nowhere to be seen. A large man rises from a dark corner, startling her. “Yes, please, can I help you? We are not serving yet.”
“I’m looking for my friend Siri. We go to the same school.” She feels a need to explain the connection. For all she knows, this could be his uncle.
“He’s up from the cellar any minute, take a seat. Water?”
“Yes. It’s very hot outside. Thank you so much.” Her mother’s teachings of politeness ever there, she sinks down onto a thickly padded wicker seat near a glass-topped table, with an upside-down plate and a slim, white vase with one daisy; the soft velvety petals tell her it’s fresh.
The man places a glass of water in front of her, then turns and says, “Sirhan, your friend from school, she’s sitting here.”
“Rosie? What happened?”
She catches the genuine concern in his voice as he enters through the front door and places the carton he’s carrying on a table.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
He leads her to the back, parts a heavy, beaded curtain, behind which is a small room with shiny, sequined pillows scattered along a vinyl banquette. “We can talk here.”
Relieved that the man doesn’t follow them, she quickly relates the sad tale of the coming eviction and her desire not to live in a shelter where, she adds, young women like her are raped. She reveals as well her idea that they should set up temporary quarters together. “I would get a job and help pay the rent, of course.” Even as she says all this, she realizes it’s not what she wants after all, which is weird, considering it’s why she’s come.
“Rosie, the news you bring is bad, very bad, indeed. But I cannot believe my aunt and uncle will approve the plan you have. If they don’t, they could send me back to Pakistan. I don’t want that. You shouldn’t either.” His eyes, pleading and sad, are steady on her. Is it sadness for her or for himself?
Suddenly, none of this matters. “I need to go home now,” she says.
“Wait, Rosie. Are we still going to the movies?”
“Call me. I have no idea what my life will be like by Friday.” She parts the curtain and walks quickly out of the restaurant onto a blinding sunstruck street.
Her phone rings. It’s a number she doesn’t know. She answers anyway.
13.
Stu scans the whiteboard above the bar. It’s habit. The pub menu never changes: chef salad, burger, minestrone soup, and once in a while chili, in tiny print near the bottom. Whatever he orders will taste wrong, but he doesn’t care. He’s glad to sit here and take a beer with his overdone burger. In the evenings Manny’s Pub is three-deep with workers from the nearby plant. At noon, it’s empty.
Once upon a time he would’ve announced to the men that he was heading off to Manny’s for a beer. Today he didn’t say a word. He left them at chow time, like prisoners jostling for seats at the long metal lunch table, undoing paper bags, cursing plastic wraps, but keeping their complaints about work to a minimum. Strange suits now roam the floor, listening, watching, calculating, noting down procedures. Ask the foreman who the assholes are and he shrugs his bony shoulders. Nerve-wracking. The plant has gone from one hundred fifty workers to seventy-five, but who’s counting? Still, even after all these months, the guys haven’t entirely forgiven him for fucking over his team. Then again, if worse happens, what he did or didn’t do won’t matter a bit.
Right now, none of this bothers him. He’s excited, maybe even elated, though he can’t tell because it’s been so long since anything other than the next drink got him high.
It was Dory’s text this morning: Zack, Lena, and family being evicted! It came to him immediately. Of course, he’ll check it out with Dory first, but she’ll agree. He feels it in his bones. Rosie and Casey could share the guestroom, Lena and Zack could have the basement. It’s nearly finished. He’ll help Zack build a tiny bathroom down there. It’ll do. It won’t be forever, but for now, what better could they ask for? They’ll lick their fingers with his brunches, five fancy ways to serve eggs plus French toast, plus Bloody Marys. And on Saturday nights, add music to the drinks, maybe a TV movie, their own little party. Why would anyone say no to that? Lena does have a way of spoiling his fantasies, but would she rather live in a shelter with two kids, for godsakes? Even if they scrape up some money, it’ll only buy them another month in their house, tops. The answer to their emergency is a free place to live while they seek work. No-brainer.
He drains the Sam Adams. Okay, man, be honest. His offer isn’t completely kosher. She’s his best friend’s wife, but what’s wrong with enjoying her presence, basking in her proximity? Of course, a few too many drinks, and dangerously revealing words could ooze from his sodden brain. And the kids will be there. Actually, it’s scary, the thought of her living so close, her scent, the sudden cleavage as she bends over the sink, her eyes, mostly those eyes, which are bound to be dewy grateful for being given a home. Truth is, he can’t trust himself. Truth is, he’s a certified bastard. Ask anyone at work. But man, he has only one life, and it hasn’t been going well for way too long. Why shouldn’t he take what he can where he can?
Ideally, and this is the dumbest thought in his still sober mind, he’d like to ask Zack’s opinion. How crazy is that? I want your family to live with us, but I’m scared I might jump your wife. Zack, I’d like to offer your family a place to live, but my feelings toward Lena … Can’t say that either. Can’t say any of it to anyone, ever!
Though the offer isn’t really about him, is it? A family in need, and not just any family, but their best friends. Could he let them end up in the gutter, homeless? Of course not. What kind of friend would do that?
Who’s he kidding? And maybe they’ve already found their own way out of their dilemma. Maybe they’ve chosen to live with some never-before-mentioned aunt in the boonies. And what could he do about that? Doubt, always waiting to jump him, raises its demonic head. From elation to confusion in two minutes. How does he do it?
He sighs. Manny looks up from behind the bar, then goes back to his racing form, which he reads with a magnifying glass. Too fat by far, he’s owner, bartender, janitor, and numbers-taker on the side. Always present but never a participant, he’s not someone you chew the fat with. Once he asked Manny where he lived, which got him a minute-long stare. People don’t usually ask me anything personal, Manny then said, leaving him to wonder if he’d crossed some line. He taps the empty glass on the bar for another beer, which Manny produces in no time at all.
14.
It’s already four and she’s phoned no one, because who in the world that she knows would have tha
t kind of money to lend? Instead, she’s been on the couch for hours, staring at the room or gazing out at the maple tree in full leaf, a view she’s about to lose. For a while after her father died she’d wake up each morning and have to remind herself that he was gone. It was as if she hadn’t quite absorbed his presence, so his absence was difficult to take in. It’s the way she feels now about the house: the colorful scatter rugs placed smartly across the living room floor, the two brass lamps that arrived slightly scratched but that she loved too much to return, the leather club chair from their first apartment, dented and scuffed from wear, but so comfortable.
Rosie tears through the front door, an air of excitement about her, and drops into the chair. “You haven’t changed out of your robe. That’s not helpful,” Rosie scolds, her face so alive.
“Go bother your father.” Where is Zack, anyway? Why isn’t he at her side, trying to sort out the next steps?
“Is that what I am, a bother?”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Do? Mom? What’s the matter with you? You need to talk to us.”
“We talked at breakfast.”
“That was hours ago. We have ideas too …” Rosie’s voice suddenly taking on the challenging tone she’s come to know so well.
Can she say they’re drowning, that she hasn’t a clue how to save them? “Where were you all day?”
“I went into Manhattan, walked around.”
“By yourself?”
“Of course, I’m not a child. That’s when I decided I should live with Mirabelle, and Casey could live with his good friend Robbie, and you guys, well, I couldn’t figure that one out.”
“We don’t split up the family.”
“Then you better come up with a solution fast.” Rosie studies her. “How come you didn’t notice when I left the house?” The suddenly plaintive note catches her off guard. It dawns on her that she expects, actually prefers, Rosie to be strong, combative, feet planted solidly on the ground.
“I must’ve been in the kitchen getting coffee.”
“No. You were on the couch. Didn’t you care that I was leaving?”
“I always care.”
Every Body has a Story Page 7
