by Nia Arthurs
“Good. Good. You hear Elsie pregnant?” Mrs. Bailey said conspiratorially.
Elsie was the neighborhood ‘crackhead’. She was often strung out on drugs and had run away from all the facilities her family had tried to coax her into. She often sold her body for drugs and had seven children who had been taken away from her at one time or another over the years. Like a machine, Elsie kept on popping out those babies and miraculously, none of them had major medical issues.
“Not again.” Mali rolled her eyes. “Those poor pickni.”
“Yes, gyal.” Mrs. Bailey leaned back in her chair, her thin brown cheeks sunken in with stress. “I don’t know how she’ll pay for this one now.”
Mali shook her head as she contemplated Elsie’s plight for a minute.
“Anyway!” Mrs. Bailey said brightly. “Where yuh off to?”
Belize was a very small country and the people were friendly and warm. ‘Friendly’ was just another term for ‘nosey’ in Mrs. B’s case.
“I’m going to a job interview.”Mali informed her life-long neighbor.
“Really?” Mrs. Bailey fanned herself. “Dressed like that?”
Mali glanced down at her flattering red blouse and modest skinny jeans. They were the loosest pair that she owned.
“Yes,” Mali hopped down the three short steps to the weed covered lawn. “And I don’t want to be late. Ah going now.”
“Bye.” Mrs. Bailey called as Mali headed down the lane to the bus stop a few blocks away. “And tell your mom I praying for her!”
Mali waved her hand in acknowledgement and continued her journey. She passed the young boys on the corner who, inevitably, spread their comments through her airwaves. Pressing the volume on her phone, she tuned them out completely until they left her alone. Cat calls were a daily experience in The Gungalungs.
The bus stop was not crowded. It was nearly four o’clock and the children were either coming home from school or roaming the streets playing football and basketball in dirty, rundown parks. Mali leaned against a lamppost as she waited for the bus and then climbed on when one chugged down the lane and stopped before them.
She was nervous and excited when the scenery changed and she crossed into the north side of Belize City. Here the houses were almost all cement and the streets were wider and cleaner. Few children played outside, lured indoors by the hypnotic hold of technology. She pressed pause on her phone’s playlist and rolled her headphones into a careful shape to prevent future tangling.
“Bus stop!” She cried, getting up and holding the rails on either side of her head to keep steady as she pressed toward the front.
After paying the driver, she hopped off and walked a ways until she stared up at the two-story cement structure Mr. McCord had described. A fancy white gate surrounded the huge house and Mali couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated. She pressed the clear white buzzer beside the walk-in gate and stepped back, waiting for something to happen.
A few seconds later, footsteps sounded and a man emerged from a shaded enclosure at the base of the building. It was the tall albino from the store. Last night, she’d been so excited about the prospect of finding a good job that she hadn’t taken the time to observe her potential boss.
The man was tall and lean with definition in his arms that betrayed his well-maintained physique. He wasn’t bulky but he carried himself with an aura of confidence that belied his very unique appearance. His forehead was broad and his blue eyes framed by thick black glasses situated on a long nose. His pink lips were especially bright in the setting of his extremely pale face.
He wore a grey T-shirt over long jogging shorts revealing his pasty white legs. She couldn’t stop looking at his legs. For some reason, seeing the alabaster tone of his feet intrigued her more than the interesting set of his face.
“I’m sorry,” Stephen McCord said sheepishly. “I didn’t hear the bell the first time. How long have you been standing out here?”
He opened the gate and let her pass. “Not long.” Mali replied, walking up to the tiled flooring of his verandah.
“I didn’t realize it was so late. I should have left the gate open for you.”
She smiled shyly.
If she lived in a house this lavish, she’d never leave the gate open.
“Come on in.” Stephen McCord led her into a spacious living room. A hall ran to her left and she could see two open doors to the back and one near to the hall on the right side. He spread his arms wide. “It’s two stories, three bedrooms upstairs and a guest room down here.”
Mali took a look around the downstairs portion of his house. It could use a good dusting, but it was not the disaster that Stephen McCord and the pharmacist had made it out to be.
He caught her expression. She could faintly see the arch of his nearly non-existent eyebrows as he read her look. “Trust me, the real work is upstairs.”
He led her up a winding staircase made with metal and wood to the second floor.
“The bedrooms are up here.” He waved to the expanse of floor. The bathroom is that way. He led her to the room straight ahead and she gasped. “This is my office.”
Messy was the understatement of the year. Files sat in boxes and toppled over chairs and overflowed on a desk with two huge monitor screens. Soda bottles and empty cans filled the trashcan and spilled onto the floor. The heavy curtains on the windows shaded the room in gloomy darkness. She glanced at the thick window shades.
“Oh,” Stephen said, feeling adept at interpreting the emotions sweeping across her face as she surveyed his home. “My bedroom is worse.”
Mali moved to the curtain. “Why is your house so dark?”
He moved over to her and held out his arm. “My eyes are very sensitive to the light and much of my work is done on the computer so I prefer to suffer from only artificial light than both.”
Mali nodded her head, keeping that piece of information in mind. Stephen cast about for a free space in his office and, finding none, he swept a pile of papers on his black couch to the floor and offered Mali a seat. She took it primly and regarded him with interest as he brought his swivel chair closer to her.
It seemed the novelty of his shade was now of interest to the woman.
Stephen smiled. Now that he was used to. “Okay.” He rubbed his hands together. “Here’s what I’d like you to do if you still want the job.”
Mali leaned closer so that she could hear.
“Feel free to correct me at any time. We’re both relatively new to this so I’ll need your input as well.” He tilted his head to the side. “I agree with all the basic services you pinpointed in your proposal.” He pushed off his desk and scrounged around until his hand alighted on the specific page he’d printed of her contract that morning. Shoving his glasses back up his nose, Stephen spoke as he skimmed. “I just have a few things I’d like to add if that’s okay.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“You have offered cooking services and I think that would be…” He glanced up and smiled. “Heavenly.” When she smiled back at him, he was slightly distracted by how the grin transformed her face. Stephen quickly looked away. “How do you feel about grocery shopping? It always slips my mind and I never keep my cupboard stocked.”
“That’s fine.” Mali said, nodding her head.
They finagled the details of that service before Stephen added.
“Okay, you said here that you go to school. Will your schedule be able to handle the hours we agreed on?”
“Yes, sir.” Mali jerked her head up and down. “This will coincide perfectly with nursing school. Most of my classes are at night anyway.”
“Perfect.” Stephen offered his hands. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mali tilted her head. “But, don’t you want to wait for my reference letters or taste my food first?”
Stephen stood, “I called the references you provided in your résumé. They all had excellent remarks about your character and skills.”
She
narrowed her eyes dubiously. Mali was anxious to earn this job. Mr. McCord had agreed to her demands with no fuss at all! She felt a little guilty now for charging such a strict price and wanted to convince both him and herself that she was worth that investment.
“Please sir, let me cook something for you today before I leave.” She insisted.
That way, he could ensure her talent in the kitchen and Mali could redraft the contract tomorrow with a clean conscience.
Stephen shrugged. “If you feel so strongly about it then go ahead. I doubt you’ll find anything gourmet in the kitchen.”
“That’s no problem.” Mali excused herself and trekked back downstairs.
When she was younger, Mali and her mother would make a game of creating the best dishes out of the bare supplies in the cupboard. It was a game that Mali won more frequently as she got older. She knew what to do with a hodgepodge of ingredients. The task did not scare her at all.
Mr. McCord’s kitchen was top of the line though the stove looked like he hadn’t used it in forever. She padded to the cupboard and opened the doors wide.
Pssh. He had a completely different definition of the term ‘empty cupboards’, than she did. Mali began pulling out the ingredients she’d need and then set her phone on the counter top, running through her playlist of piano instrumentals.
Classical music was her favorite and though she enjoyed her rap music, reggae and souls (you can’t live in The Gungalungs and not enjoy soul music), she much preferred the rising climax of a cello solo or the haunting melody of a harp.
She sliced and diced, sautéed and dashed. She was a good cook and if her desire to help people hadn’t been so strong, she would have pursued cooking as a career. She loved it and most of that love came from the bare cupboards of a tiny house. She had a lot to be thankful for and her mother’s bravery in the face of her many health and emotional issues with raising a child alone was one of them.
In less than half-an-hour the food was ready to be served. The meal of gourmet macaroni and cheese with sliced Italian sausages and Caesar salad was an easy recipe that Mali could prepare in her sleep. When she had better staples like rice and beans, she could really show Mr. McCord how food was supposed to taste. For now this humble but hearty meal would just have to do. Nervously garnishing the salad on his plate with a slice of tomato, Mali climbed up the stairs to her boss.
***
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