Minding Ben

by Victoria Brown

  “I can’t stand her either, but look how Ule is the one who upped and disappeared.” I couldn’t believe that we were having this conversation.

  The nurse came out again and glanced at her clipboard. “Jacqui Fentson.”

  The black girl didn’t move.

  “Come with me, please.”

  Jacqui Fentson still didn’t move, and both Kath and I looked at her. She turned to Kath. “If you’re in a hurry, you can go before me, you know.”

  The nurse turned to Kath, and she looked at me and shrugged.

  “I told you I’m not in any rush, Kath.”

  She picked her bag up off the floor. “Ah shit, Grace, this chair uncomfortable as hell. Let me just get it over with.”

  “You sure?” I asked. But Kath had already got up and was walking toward the nurse. Jacqui Fentson nodded her approval.

  The nurse said, “Why don’t you leave your bag with your friend?” And Kath turned back and dumped the big red mess on my lap. “See you in half hour,” she said.

  I leafed through one of the college catalogs mixed in with the fashion magazines. The office was warm and still. No music played. Nobody came in. It was just Jacqui Fentson and me. She sat there in her robot pose, looking down at the floor. Outside the single window, the wind rose with a hollow whoop, and she grabbed my wrist in a vise hold. “Oh, my God, is that it . . . are they doing it?”

  “What?” Her hand was freezing cold.

  “That noise! Is that . . . the machine? The one they use to—? Oh, my God. What am I doing here?” And Jacqui Fentson released my wrist, picked up her backpack, and ran.

  In the end, Kath insisted that I not come home with her, just put her in a car. “You tell me I’m stubborn,” I said to her as we both held on to the cab door, I trying to open it and Kath pulling it shut from inside, “but you’re the stubborn one. Look, you barely have enough energy to hold on to the door.”

  “Grace, just let me go alone, okay. Thanks for coming, but I need to go home and sleep. I’ll call you when I come back to work.”

  I let go of the door, and she closed it with so little strength I needed to reopen and slam it again. Kath didn’t wave, only slumped against the upholstery and hugged her red bag close as the cabbie drove off.

  OF COURSE SUMMER WAS my favorite season. I loved the heat, the humidity, and the hot afternoon sun that was more brutal than anything I had ever felt at home. Ben had traded the sandbox for the sprinklers, and I often took him out again after lunch, when the sun was hottest and the other sitters had retreated to Evie’s for cards and soaps and naps. In the days after Kath’s abortion, I didn’t want to see any of them. I didn’t want to deal with Petal’s righteousness or Meena’s repeated awe that I was pretty even though I was black black, or Marva’s silent bruises. I wanted to be home reading in my gallery with my mother washing clothes outside, my father gone to work, and Helen taking a nap. I wanted normal.

  Ben looked me in the eyes one morning when I bent to buckle him into his stroller. “Why you so sad, Grace?” he asked.

  I almost lied to him, but then I said, “I miss my mommy.”

  He understood. “Don’t worry, Grace. You’ll see her when you go home.”

  And I wondered when that was going to be.

  Downstairs in front of Duke’s podium, I ran into Evie. “You going park?” she asked.

  As if there was anyplace else.

  “Wait then,” she said, “me will walk over with you.”

  Duke ignored me and saluted Ben. “Good morning, Mr. Benjamin, sir.”

  Evie angled the twins’ massive double stroller through the single doorway. I loved the wave of warm air after the cold air-conditioning. I followed Evie out to the pavement.

  “So me hear your lady not going back to work after she make baby?”

  “Maternity leave, Evie.”

  “Not that me talking about. I hear she not going back at all, at all.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Oh.” Evie pushed the twins back and forth as if she still comforted babies. “Is news I giving you, then?”

  They hadn’t told me a thing. “Who told you that, Evie?”

  She turned and looked at me full-on. Through the grease-clumped hair of her bangs, I saw peaks of ripened pimples on her forehead. “Oh, I not telling no tales on nobody, mama. When you see name call later, nobody can say Evie was involved in so-and-so. I learn my lesson with nigger people long before you was born. Anyhow, long time now me no see the thick, brown-skin girl with one piece of hair like donkey tail you lime with. She get fired for looking too nice?”

  “No, Evie.” I laughed in spite of how bitchy she was. “Kath’s sick.”

  “And who take she work? The people looking for somebody to mind the baby? She coming back?”

  I stared at her for three seconds and pushed on, furious that she didn’t ask about Kath. She trotted to keep up with my stride. “Eh, like you want to leave Miriam to go and take that work instead?”

  I escaped with Ben to the sprinklers. None of the other sitters ever came into the water, and I didn’t mind getting wet with him. I grabbed Ben under the arms and ran him squealing through the spitting whales, and when I saw Bruce looking at us just outside the water’s reach, I grabbed him and ran him through too. Petal was nowhere to be seen, but through the rainbow spray I thought I saw Ule’s familiar profile. I couldn’t believe it. There she was sitting on a bench in the park, pushing a new carriage with her foot and holding a folded newspaper less than an inch away from her eyes. Evie’s double-wide was parked in front of the bench, and she and Margaret sat next to Ule, chatting.

  I ran over to her and jumped up and down like an idiot, getting water on them all. “Ule!” I squealed as loud as Ben had in the sprinklers. “What you doing here?”

  The paper snapped her forehead, and she kicked away the carriage. “But look my crosses. Child, is heart attack you want me to get heart attack and drap dead right here in the people park? Look how you make me heart beat fast. Is where you want me to be?”

  “I thought you were gone, Ule.”

  “Gone where, child?”

  “Just gone.” I looked over to the two of them sitting on the bench. “Margaret’s working for Linda Bloomberg, and Evie said—”

  Evie scrambled from the bench and looked at me. “What me say, missy? Come, let me hear what me tell you.” The twins looked up at her from their shaded seats.

  And then, come to think of it, I realized that Evie hadn’t said anything specific. She’d never actually said that Ule had gone. She tapped her foot. “Well, is wait I waiting to hear. You know why you have nothing to say? Is because is lie you lying. Not one thing me tell you. Always playing you so quiet.”

  Margaret rose too, nylon fabric rustling, and put her hand on Evie’s heaving shoulder. “Mind your blood pressure, now.” And to me she said, “Grace, is perhaps best if you said no more.” She bent to unbuckle Sammy and Caleb. “I cannot abide this heat. It is worse than in Bimshire, not true?”

  I wanted to choke her. “Why you wearing a tracksuit if you’re so hot, Margaret?”

  Ule tsked, and Evie answered for her fellow Bajan. “Is not everybody like to show off their body line to all Tom, Dick, and Harry, you know.”

  Ule said, “Especially them that don’t have body line to show off.”

  Margaret freed the twins. “Go frolic in the water,” she told them. “Evie will soon be with you.” They moved away like little old people, and Ule shook her head. “Is a sad sad thing to see little mongoloid children, eh?”

  Evie wheeled around with her hands on her hips and bent her face low to meet Ule’s. “Don’t call them that, you hear. Is Down syndrome them have. Don’t you call them no mongoloid.”

  “But, Evie, you acting like I insult your grand. Is not mongoloid we call them mongoloid in the West Indies?”

  “Well, we not in the West Indies now, is we? No need to act ignorant in this here America.”

  Ule set
down her paper and started to rise from the bench. “Who you say you calling ignorant, Evie? Don’t make me get off this bench here this God early morning. You best watch your mouf.” Her accent thickened, and I wondered if Margaret and I were going to have to part a fight between two grown women.

  Evie backed down. “Come, Maggie. I don’t have time this morning to sit down in idle hall. All I want is for black people to mind they own business and leave my name out of they comess.”

  They walked off, and I was stunned. I didn’t know what had just happened. Ule saw the look on my face. “Sit down,” she said to me. I sat next to her. “All me will say is this. You like me own daughter. You think I would up and leave and not tell you say me gone? Not give you a telephone number or a address on a piece of paper for you to come and look for me on a Sunday evening? That sound like me?”

  It didn’t sound like her at all, and I wondered if I just wasn’t very bright. That it was so easy for Evie to fool me. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t help it. Tears slid down my face, and I pulled in my lower lip. Ule put her arm around my shoulder, and I leaned into her, crying more. Ben paid us no mind as he and Bruce dodged in and out of the mist.

  “Come now, Grace. You can’t let people get you down. This America is a hard hard place, and sometimes you got to harden yourself to get by. I sure your mother tell you not all skin teef is grin?”

  And boy had she. Whenever the comess women waved at us sitting in the gallery, or told her that she was lucky to have such good daughters, she said it low and urgent: remember all skin teeth is not grin.

  “You good now?”

  I blew my nose, and Ule swung the carriage around. She reached in and took out a tight single bundle, fat like a caterpillar ready to burst its cocoon.

  “Ule, that child too hot. Is ninety degrees out here,” I said to her.

  “Don’t start with your stupidness.” She cradled the baby in her arms and pulled the blanket away from its face.

  “Okay,” I said, “this is a good-looking baby.” The tiny pink face was perfect. No blotches or splotches, no cone head, no squashed nose. No marks at all to mar pure beauty. I stared at the baby’s face, and then she yawned long and opened bright blue eyes. “Here”—Ule passed her to me—“hold she let me get the bottle. The mother saving she breasts for Miss America.”

  I couldn’t believe how light she was. How whole. I shifted the baby in my arms and looked down at her small, round head, the crescent-moon slices of her closed eyes. And then I started to cry again.

  “But what trouble is this.” Ule sat back and looked at me. “Child, don’t tell me say you making baby, you know. Them likkle and nice, but is one whole heap of work and money it take to raise them right.”

  I didn’t say anything. Ule looked at me for another second and went back to rooting around in the baby’s bag.

  Later, after Ben was dried and drowsily sipping juice in his carriage, and Ule had agreed to unwrap one layer of the baby’s swaddling, the other sitters began to leave the playground for cooler climes. Bruce passed by, and a small Chinese woman with a wide rice-picker’s hat held his hand.

  “Where Petal, Ule?”

  “Long gone like she was never here, child.”

  Chapter 29

  One late June morning Miriam announced that the baby was demanding fresh strawberries.

  Sol snapped his newspaper. “And why, pray tell, didn’t Grace get strawberries at the farmers’ market yesterday?”

  “Because, male of the species”—there was laughter in her voice—“yesterday your fetus wanted my mother’s meatballs. Today it’s strawberries.”

  Ben smacked his lips. “I love red strawberries, Mommy.”

  “See? We’ll drive up to the country. I’m not doing anything else.”

  I listened from the kitchen, happy with what I had heard. Driving to the country to pick strawberries sounded so American. The countryside would be fresh and clean, a minty green place for picnics with checkered tablecloths, crustless sandwiches, and tall glasses of cool iced tea.

  “Planning to stop by Duck Hollow?” Sol asked.

  “If I have the energy, maybe.”

  “Well, take the keys,” he went on. “Maybe a visit will tempt you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Miriam was over six months pregnant and so big already she waddled. “Grace, we’re going to the country to pick strawberries. Pack Ben’s bag and make me smoked turkey with honey mustard, jalapeños, and sprouts. Mmm, lots of jalapeños. Make yourself a sandwich too. But use the bologna. It should still be good.” Her voice seemed to have thickened with the weight of her pregnancy.

  “When are we leaving?” I asked. I wanted to change.

  “Soon as you’re done with lunch and Ben’s ready.”

  I hurried and, between making lunch and dressing Ben, slipped into my brand-new halter. I’d been waiting for the right day to wear it.

  “Come on, mister,” I said to Ben as I turned off Pooh. “Time to go pick strawberries.”

  He slid his bottom off his furry chair. “You look very nice, Grace.”

  “Thank you, Ben.” I kissed the top of his head, realizing that he’d just made me really, really happy.

  “Grace, can I wear my orange shirt too? Then we match.”

  “Of course you can. Let’s find it.”

  “Oh, and my choo-choo pants, then I can look like a farmer.”

  “Okey doke.” I found his Wednesday overalls and dressed him on the floor, the two of us making up verses to “Old MacDonald.”

  Sol appeared in the doorway. “You guys almost ready?”

  In fact we were. I pulled Ben up by his arms, and we turned to face his father, who wolf-whistled. “Grace, you look smokin’ in that top,” he said. He looked at Ben. “Hey, buddy, tell Grace orange is a pretty color.”

  “I already tell her she look nice, Daddy poopy.” He ran to hug his father’s legs.

  Miriam came up behind him. “Sol’s right, Grace. Orange goes well with your black skin. Why did you put Ben in overalls?”

  “Because I’m Old MacDonald, Mommy. We going to a farm.”

  Before she could say anything about our matching colors, I said, “And Ben chose his orange shirt himself. Didn’t you, Ben?”

  He tugged on his collar. “Look, Mom, me and Grace twins like Caleb and Sammy.”

  Sol looked at his watch. “Okay, I have to get going. You guys have a good time. Grace”—he raised both eyebrows—“look out for the farmhands.”

  “Is everything ready, Grace?” Miriam asked.

  It was. “Good,” she said, and then added, “You might want to wear a shirt over your top. It can get hot out in the sun.”

  “She’s an island girl, Miriam. I bet you Grace loves the heat.”

  “I know what kind of girl she is, Sol.” Miriam bit her lip. “All I’m saying is that she might want to take a cover-up, just in case.”

  I didn’t want to put a shirt over the top that I’d waited so long to wear, but I didn’t want to piss off Miriam either. “I’ll get a shirt. Better safe than sorry,” I told them. It was something my mother said at least twice a day.

  “Hurry up, Grace. We’ve wasted enough time already this morning,” Miriam said.

  And again I hurried, even though I knew full well that I hadn’t done anything to slow us down.

  TACONIC. I LIKED THE sharp edges of that word—Taconic. Ben had fallen asleep, and Miriam, driving I thought a little too fast on the curvy road, talked to me more than she ever had. Mostly she asked questions.

  “So, Grace, how come you don’t have a boyfriend?”

  “I haven’t met anyone.”

  “Don’t you go out on the weekend? Clubbing at Limelight and Webster Hall? Palladium?”

  I didn’t know what those places were. “No. Sometimes I go out with Kathy. But not too much.”

  “I went out all the time before I got married. I’d come into the city with my brother and we’d dance all night long.”


  She turned off the air conditioner and rolled down the windows. Before we’d left the house, she’d tied a yellow scarf around her yellow hair. When it was pulled back, you could see her darker roots.

  “Miriam?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Nothing’s come for me in the mail?”

  “Why would you get mail at our house?”

  I supposed I couldn’t expect my business to occupy her mind, but I had been thinking about the mail nonstop. “My green card application. I thought something might have come from INS by now.”

  “Of course.” She looked over at me. “You know I’ve completely forgotten about that.” She pushed another button, and the sunroof slid soundlessly back. “Why don’t you just get married to an American, Grace? Wouldn’t that be much easier?”

  We were just done talking about me not having a boyfriend and now she was asking me why I didn’t get married? “I don’t have an American to marry.”

  “Yeah, but you could get a man like that.” And she snapped her fingers like Bridget had. “A white man, even. Hey”—she glanced away from the road to me—“what about Danny?”

  “Danny the doorman?”

  “Yeah, Danny. You two should go out.”

  I thought about Danny and his mouth full of overlapping teeth. I thought about him breathing on me and laughed. “Danny’s not my type, Miriam.”

  “Well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t begging, but instead I watched the trees. Whenever the forest cleared or the car crested a hill, beautiful rolling farmland, laid out in neat squares, stretched forever. This was what I had always thought a farm should look like. My mother’s garden was reclaimed jungle land. Her crops were divided not by banked hillocks and ancient stone walls but by tall plantain patches clumped together like old higue sisters.

  “How long you think it’ll take INS to get back to us?” I asked.

  Miriam shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea how that stuff works.” She felt around the dashboard and turned on the radio. R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” I sang along, feeling hopeful and homesick at the same time. Miriam laughed. “Your voice might actually be worse than mine, Grace.”