Minding Ben

by Victoria Brown

  I changed trains and this time couldn’t find a seat. I stood over a woman in a camel coat opened to show her navy blue suit and pink blouse unbuttoned at the neck. She wore very little makeup, no earrings, and a diamond on a thread-thin necklace rested in the hollow of her throat. When she glanced at her newspaper, her superlong eyelashes seemed to dust her powdered cheekbones. She looked only a few years older than me, sitting with her briefcase at her feet and her legs crossed reading her paper. She wasn’t wearing tights either, but her shaved legs stretching up from her high-heeled pumps didn’t look cold. I felt shabby next to her, almost ashamed, so I concentrated on reading the advertisements for straight teeth and beautiful skin: ALL PATIENTS SEEN BY DR. ZIZMOR PERSONALLY. The train took a bend, and her paper lightly brushed against my coat.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her gray eyes looking up through those beautiful, long lashes.

  I didn’t smile back. In fact, I glared. I glared down at all of her, at her coat and her suit and her blouse and her diamond necklace. I felt my nostrils flare, my whole face set with disgust. She looked down quickly, and I felt ashamed again.

  The number 6 pulled into Union Square. I thought I’d exited where Mrs. Bruckner had told me, but instead of the towers she assured me I could not miss, I was in a park facing an appliance store. Within the larger park was a fenced-off playground. As cold as it was, the sandbox was already filled with children, most of them minded by black women. They pushed small babies in bucket swings or stood by the monkey bars as bigger children lurched from rung to rung. Some sat barely visible under their muffling scarves and fluffy coats, talking to each other and keeping one eye trained on the children running around. I decided to ask for directions and then stopped. There, through the bare winter trees, was a tower.

  Actually there were four towers, and they stood at attention like sentries in a storybook. I laughed. Maybe only someone from the Caribbean still thought about storybook sentries. More like police marking the corners of Nostrand Avenue. Dull brown bricks and tall windows looked down on a semicircular driveway with dead flowers and evergreen bushes planted in the middle. A decorated doorman guarded the door. Another sentry.

  “Good morning. I’m here to see the Bruckners, twenty-two B. My name is Grace,” I said in a rushed breath.

  The concierge, black, shiny, and uniformed like Idi Amin, looked down at me. Slow and staring, he picked up the phone and jolly as ever said, “There is a Grace here, Mr. Bruckner.” He roiled his words together in a small-island accent I couldn’t place.

  Pause.

  Laugh.

  “All right, sir, you just call down when you ready.”

  To me in a much sterner voice he said, “Go in there and sit down. Me call you when them ready. Grace you did say?”

  I nodded.

  “You can’t talk now?”

  My mother’s child almost answered him politely, but I stopped her in time. “What did you say to me?”

  He laughed. “This one here talk fancy. Just go have a seat through there and wait.”

  The lobby was grand. Giants could have played checkers on the tiled floor, could have rested on the plump velvet chairs and waltzed to the wordless music padding the still air. Chandeliers, beaded like jewelry, twinkled high above, while mirrored walls reflected everything, even the concierge looking back at me. I watched him watching me, and then the walls opened. I started because I hadn’t realized I was standing in front of an elevator. A man stepped out leading a lion of a dog. No, not one . . . two. And the man wore shorts! I was cold in my new pants ($5.99, and they were not wool), but he was in shorts. I must have stared, because he smiled at me. I smiled back.

  “What kind of dogs are they?” I asked.

  “Chows. This is Brutus, and this bad boy is Cesar. Come on, boys, say hi to the lady with the nice eyes.” He pull their lead around. “They’re friendly.”

  I smiled again and, rubbing the springy fur on Cesar or Brutus, glanced back to see if the concierge was looking.

  The dog man looked too. “Morning, Duke.”

  “Morning, sir. You taking them for a morning walk, I see?”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna go get a paper.”

  Duke grinned. “Front desk provide that service, sir.”

  “Yeah”—he patted his trim waist—“but we need the exercise.”

  To me he said, “See you around,” and left through doors held open by the braided doorman.

  A crowd of women waited inside the back room. “Anadder one?” the woman closest to me said. “But ’ow much people so them call for this two-hundred-dollar work?” She was short and fat with a raisin mole under her eye sure to scare small children.

  The women talked to each other, their voices bouncing off the walls like the sounds of a village market turned down low. The one at the entrance was Jamaican. The two younger girls in the corner were from home, and the women huddled together at the far end of the room sounded like Sylvia’s Haitian super.

  One woman I recognized. She wasn’t in the nylon tracksuit she wore to get her Irish Echo, but I had no doubt who she was. She had dressed for the interview like a bank teller, in a navy suit not unlike that of the woman on the train, and sat reading a newspaper. I stared at her for a long time, but she never lifted her eyes to meet mine.

  The woman on my left leaned in and whispered, “Me don’t really want this job, you know.” She looked hot, still zippered in her puffy coat, still wearing her hat, scarf, and gloves. “Child, you mustn’t come outside so in this New York, you know.” She inclined her head to the woman on our right, who was in a lightweight summer dress, and not wearing tights either. She raised her eyebrows. “People does catch cold and drap dead from pneumonia in this country, quick quick. Me”—she choked her neck with one hand—“I don’t ever take off my things until you see I reach inside.”

  I didn’t mention that she was inside.

  “Me don’t really want this job,” she repeated. “I like baby-nurse job. To mind the little one and them just born. Them can’t give you no lip. These white children talk to you like them is man, and the parents don’t tell them no better. Calling you by your first name like them is you company. I does want to wring they lips good.”

  I was wondering how long I’d have to wait until my turn when the doltish concierge came to the door. “Mabel?” He looked over his half glasses. “Who Mabel?”

  Mole woman followed him. Another woman came to the door and beckoned, “Allay, allay,” and both Haitian women left. Feeling relieved not everyone had come for the interview, I walked to where several dog-eared magazines sat fanned out on a corner table and picked up an old issue of Mademoiselle with a torn-off address label. The room fell quiet.

  “Them didn’t put that for we to touch, you know.” It was the woman who didn’t really want the job.

  I looked at her. “Is just to read.” The remaining Jamaican laughed, and I put the unopened magazine on my lap. The woman to my left nodded in a satisfied way that reminded me of my mother.

  In about seven minutes mole woman was back.

  “What”—her friend looked at her watch—“is finish you finish already?”

  She looked around, dusted her hands together, and said for all to hear, “She no want no babysitter, sah. Me din leave Jamaica fih be nobody slave in New York.” She snorted, and her mole moved. “She coulda pay two thousan’ dollar and me still don’t want she work.”

  The concierge came to the door. “Grace?”

  Surprised, I looked to see who else was named Grace. No one moved. He looked at me. “Grace?” And realizing he meant me, I got up, leaving the magazine on the couch.

  “Is there where you find that?” He pointed to the seat.

  “Oh.” I turned and quickly moved to put the magazine back on the table. The young girls cackled.

  “But they were here first,” I said to him once we were out in the lobby. “You sure is my turn?”

  He drew himself up. Shoulder to shoulder I was taller,
but the top hat gave him an advantage. “What time your interview?”

  “Ten.”

  “And what time it is now?”

  I looked at my watch. “Just past ten.”

  “So what kind of stupid question you ask me?”

  Then I got his accent. He sounded like the cabbie who drove me from the airport on my first day in America. Bajan.

  Chapter 3

  I counted the lit numbers up to twenty-two, checking to make sure there truly was no thirteenth floor. I still hadn’t got accustomed to the idea of living in an apartment. How could you live without a yard to step out in any time you wanted? Without trees and dirt? At 22B, I took a breath and rang the bell.

  A tall man opened the door. Tall and lean with green eyes, curly orangy brown hair, and a nice smile.

  “You’re Grace?” One orange eyebrow arched to an upside-down vee. His voice sounded like a Muppet’s, coming from the very back of his throat.

  Willing myself calm, I smiled back. “Yes.”

  “I’m Mr. Bruckner . . . Solomon.” He stuck out his hand. “Come on in, Grace.”

  I stepped in and, dazzled by sunlight from the wall of windows, tripped into him.

  “Are you all right?” He put a hand on my back.

  “Fine, I’m fine. The light made me blind.”

  “Yeah, it’s bright in here. Stand for a sec.” He was still holding me.

  I stepped out of his touch. “No, no, I’m good.” My eyes adjusted, and I did a quick look around. A rug ran the length of the corridor, leading into a sunlit living room. It was a neat and cheery space, but the cushions on the couch were messy, as if someone had slept there. A dining table with four chairs was pushed against the wall under a sunflower clock, and a television, much bigger than Sylvia’s, sat in an open cupboard with a VCR, a stereo system, and a cable box. Next to the TV was a set of shelves filled with glass and ceramic barnyard animals: scratching hens and puffed-up cocks cast midcrow, fat sows with suckling piglets, grazing cows and sheep, a horse with a cart. Someone had arranged clusters—still life on a busy farm. Take away the horse, jumble the livestock, and this could be my yard back home.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Mr. Bruckner asked. “Some coffee?”

  Coffee was the last thing I needed, but still I asked for a cup. It seemed like something I should do. “Yeah?” He seemed surprised. “How do you take it?”

  “Milk and no sugar, please.” He went off, and I looked around some more. I expected chandeliers like in the lobby, but the ceiling was bare and nubby, a texture that made my forearms itch.

  “Grace, you’re still standing?” Mr. Bruckner had returned with a big mug that said HUSBAND #1. “Take off your coat. Please, sit. Anywhere.” He gestured around the room with the mug.

  I sat in an easy chair and sank like Goldilocks into Mama Bear’s soft cushions. “Whoops!” I said, struggling out of the folds and feeling like an idiot. “Anywhere but that one, right?” Mr. Bruckner laughed, and when he handed me the mug, I realized that I’d got the caption wrong and it actually read #1 HUSBAND.

  “Miriam’s coming out with Ben. In the middle of all this, we’re getting ready for shul. Coffee okay?”

  “It’s fine, thanks.” Somewhere between asking and telling I said, “You’re interviewing a lot of women.”

  Mr. Bruckner sighed. “Tell me about it. Miriam wanted a range. Duke’s rung up every fifteen minutes since eight-forty-five. I think we have more coming on Saturday.”

  That didn’t please me at all, and I held the warm mug close to my lips without sipping. Down the hall I heard voices, a woman and a giggling child.

  Mr. Bruckner crossed his legs and flashed his patterned socks. “Dreidels,” I said, trying to flaunt what I had learned at Mora’s. I didn’t mention that dreidel season was long past. He twisted his ankle to look, but, before he answered, his wife and child came in. Wrapped and tied tight in a fluffy white robe, Mrs. Bruckner’s body waged war between thick and slender. Blond with shoulder-length hair and eyelash-grazing bangs, she had the narrowest nose I had ever seen, dark brown eyes, and her face glistened. She was short, but the high heels of her pointy red shoes threw her forward and up. Hel and I called those kick-and-stab, and they were forbidden in our house.

  I stood, but Mrs. Bruckner waved me down. “You can sit.” In person she sounded even more stuffed up. She turned to her husband. “Sol, finish Ben up in a bit?” To me she said, “It’s Purim, so we’re going to shul.”

  Mr. Bruckner reached for the boy. He had freckles dotting his nose and his father’s ginger hair. “Hey, buddy, this is Grace. Say hi to Grace.”

  “Hi to Grace.” He hid his face but peeked at me from between spread fingers.

  “So you’re Grace,” Mrs. Bruckner said. “You’re not at all what I was expecting.”

  I wondered what she’d expected that I wasn’t. “Yes, Mrs. Bruckner,” I answered. “I’m Grace.” I smiled, as if my name could give me an advantage.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Bruckner said, “so I’m Mrs. Bruckner, this is Ben, and you’ve already met Mr. Bruckner.” Her thin lips parted only slightly when she spoke. “Before we start, I should tell you again we’re paying two hundred dollars. After a year there’s a twenty-five-dollar raise. You’re okay with that?”

  “Yes.”

  She leaned in, and I saw that she had applied a cosmetic masque to her face. It had begun to dry into tiny gills at the corners of her mouth. I wanted to ask her if she was comfortable, but instead I sat with my hands folded in my lap, waiting to hear her out. Ben knelt, squeezing his father’s cheeks between his chubby fingers and kissing the pouty lips he made.

  “This is a very demanding job,” Mrs. Bruckner went on, and the masque around her lips whitened on demanding. “I’ll go over what we’re looking for.” She read the list of duties from two handwritten sheets and included some she’d left out before. “Anything I’m forgetting, Sol?”

  “I think you covered it, Mir.”

  “It’s a lot of work, but you’ve got to factor in what free room and board in this city is worth.” She lifted one shoulder and turned her head to the side. “On the phone you said you could read?”

  “Yes, I can read.”

  “Hold on.” She clicked off down the corridor.

  “Hey, Ben”—I faced him and his father—“how old are you?”

  “Three years old.” He held up four fingers and slid down his father’s legs. He reached for my hand, bent my thumb and forefinger, and said, “Three.”

  “You’re good with numbers. Do you go to school?”

  “When I’m four years old I get to go on the school bus.”

  Solomon started singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” Ben balled his fists and made rollover motions. “Sing, Grace, sing.”

  Surprised he remembered my name, and knowing my rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus” could get me the job, I sang along, feeling foolish. Mrs. Bruckner came in on “All over the town.”

  “The last nanny said she could read”—she shook her head—“so don’t think this has anything to do with you personally.” She passed me a children’s storybook. “This is one of Ben’s favorites. Start from the title.”

  “Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch, by Nancy Willard.”

  Ben laughed and said, “Pish, posh,” in an English accent. I smiled and, trembling slightly, read, “Once upon a time there was an artist named Hieronymus Bosch who loved odd creatures. Not a day passed that the good woman who looked after his house didn’t find a new creature lurking in a corner or sleeping in a cupboard. To her fell the job of feeding them”—Ben recited along with me—“weeding them, walking them, stalking them, calming them, combing them, scrubbing and tucking in all of them—until one day—”

  “Uh-oh, she’s gonna get mad,” said Ben.

  Mrs. Bruckner was nodding, Mr. Bruckner smiling, and Ben, bless his heart, said, “More, more. Read more, Grace.”

  I read on until Mrs. Bruckner turned to her husband. “Time
to finish dressing him, Sol.” He scooped Ben in his arms, and the two of them disappeared down the hall, Ben saying, “Pish, posh, pish, posh.”

  “You’re an excellent reader”—she emphasized excellent—“but reading is only a small part of this job.”

  She looked at the sunflower clock. “Hold on,” she said and went into the kitchen, where I overheard “Duke? Duke, it’s Mrs. Bruckner. How many are still there?

  “It’s ten-fifteen now,” she continued, “if anyone else comes, say the position’s been filled.” Yes! Mrs. Bruckner paused. “Yes, filled.” She sounded annoyed, but then she said, “Okay, take the names and phone numbers. Tell the ten-fifteen a few minutes more. Actually, don’t tell her anything.” There was a click, and she came back into the living room. Her masque had turned opaque white, like the hardened flesh inside a dry coconut. “Here”—she passed me a pen and notebook—“write your name and address.”

  Mora had done this too, and later confessed it had been to see if I could write. Mrs. Bruckner looked at the page and said, “So, Grace, tell me what you think I need to know about you.”

  “I’m from Trinidad—”

  “Amazing,” she interrupted. “You read and speak so well for someone . . . from the islands.” Mrs. Bruckner laughed and shook her head. “You know, the last nanny, Carmen, Jamaican, she said she could read, so I never bothered to test her. I just took it for granted she had some kind of education. Well, Sol and I figured something was wrong after we told her to keep a list of, you know, things we needed. Cheese.” Mrs. Bruckner snorted. “Ben likes yellow American grilled cheese sandwiches. C-h-i-e-s, that’s it. That’s how she spelled cheese. Can you believe it? Now, everyone reads at the interview.”