Minding Ben

by Victoria Brown

  “Grace,” he shouted. “The tape end.”

  I jumped away from Sol.

  “Grace, wait. Go put him in the crib. Close the door. Ah, fuck.”

  I moved toward the door and said, “It’s done.”

  “What?” The king crab gundy was up again.

  “Your coffee,” I said. “It’s done.”

  “I KNEW YOU HAD it in you,” Kath said when I told her what almost happened.

  “I am royally screwed.”

  “So very very close,” she said.

  “Please be serious. Plus, I think she’s planning on firing me tonight, anyway. Jesus Christ.”

  “Then you should have gone ahead and fucked him for fucking him sakes, Grace.”

  “Why did I call you?”

  “Why’d you call me? Let me tell you why you called me, because I’m the only one who’ll tell you like it is. You know what?”

  “I think so, but what’s your what?”

  “I think you’re going to get fired tonight. She’s been building it up for you. I’m not paying you to go to school, go pick my strawberries? Can’t you even follow simple directions now? Give me a fucking break, Grace. Massa day done.”

  That was the campaign slogan of her father—he who had descended from indentured servants—the year it looked like the East Indian minority was going to take political power on the island. I laughed. “Shit, Kath.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “You know what I would do now if I were you?”

  “What would you do, Kath?”

  “I’d tear up that frigging place to see what I could find.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You heard me. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE to start. There was nothing in the bedside tables and nothing beneath the layers of clothes in the dresser drawers. The boxes on the top closet shelves held sweaters and long underwear, and Miriam’s smaller summer clothes left unpacked during her pregnancy. The shoe boxes held shoes. All the way in the back of her walk-in closet was a fat fabric garment bag. I unzipped the front expecting to see Miriam’s wedding dress and instead saw her black fur coat. I’d always wanted to try it on.

  I lifted the coat off the padded hanger and saw that it cloaked a large brown shopping bag. I felt sheaves of paper and envelopes. I draped the coat over my shoulders, surprised such a big, shaggy thing was so light, then I took the bag off the hanger and sat on the raffia rug. There were lots of greeting cards from Miriam’s Brooklyn family. Happy Easter, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, all addressed to Maria. I flipped through them the way Evie fanned the cards during a pause in our all fours games. And there were letters too. One fell out of a card, and I opened it to figure out where it belonged. “Dear Solomon,” it began in Miriam’s familiar looping script.

  Who knows, this might be the last letter I write to you. Whether it is or isn’t depends on your response, but I had to write and let you know that I’ll respect your decision, regardless. This is not how I pictured our relationship ending, me pregnant and contemplating not being and you being put in this god-awful position. Forgive me. You have to believe me when I tell you that this was an accident. I know what your mom is saying. I know what they want you to do. In the end, I can’t tell you what choice to make, and I’ll say it again: I’ll respect your decision.

  Do know that I love you.

  Your Maria

  Maria. Miriam . . . What Ettie must have put her through. And then to have suffered one of the nightmares my mother regularly dreamed for Helen and me, a baby born less than nine months after a wedding. “Jesus.” The letter had fallen from a white card embossed “For My Love.” Inside was a picture of a Miriam I barely recognized. Her hands were on her skinny waist, and she was laughing into the camera at something hilarious. Curly black hair framed her face and fell about shoulders. Her nose was different too—same as her father’s and siblings’ in Brooklyn. She looked young and beautiful and happy. I tucked it and the letter back in and, after running down the hall to check the door, continued going through the big brown bag.

  “Inspector’s Report.” The address listed was unknown to me until I scanned down further. “Also known as Duck Hollow” in brackets. Under the report were several mortgage approval letters on bank stationery. From Citibank, Chemical, Apple, Merchants. “What the—?” My body was heating up in the fur, and I shrugged the coat off into a luscious black pool around my hips. Then I knew. Miriam and Sol were buying Dave’s house in the country. It made sense. Dave had said that, when Vincent was alive, Sol and Miriam were always there. And she was crying at the house after our trip to the farm. I wondered just how much money Sol had, that they could afford to buy a weekend house, but when I saw the listing I understood.

  SPACIOUS TWO-BEDROOM APARTMENT WITH SEPARATE MAID’S ROOM. TWO FULL BATHS. SWEEPING DOWNTOWN AND UNION SQUARE VIEWS. CENTRAL AIR. TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR LIVERIED CONCIERGE. HEALTH CLUB, HEATED OLYMPIC-SIZE POOL, AND DRY CLEANERS. MANHATTAN AMENITIES FOR UPSCALE, URBAN LIVING. SAT–SUN SHOWINGS ONLY.

  “Holy moly.” I closed the folder and put both my hands into the warm folds of the fur. And then I saw it. The manila envelope I had given to Miriam months ago with all the sponsorship forms filled out and my passport photos signed on the back and my money. “Oh, God.” I reached for the envelope, half hoping that it was empty. That she had transferred everything to another envelope and kept this one for reference, but it was full and still unsealed. I tilted it over onto the floor in front of the fur. It was all there. My seven twenties and one ten fanned out, and both photos fell facedown.

  It was 10:34. Twenty minutes had passed since I sat down, and everything had changed. Except of course nothing had. All this time I’d been waiting and asking and scanning the piles of mail not a damn thing had been going on. Now I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t confront Miriam about this because then she’d know that I’d been digging around and would fire me on the spot. But what if she did fire me tonight? I decided that, if she let me go, I’d ask for my money. In the meanwhile, I had to see Dave.

  He answered the door this time. “Hey, Grace. What a great surprise. I love it when you come up in the daytime. And look who’s with you. Hello, Benjamin Bruckner. Come on in, guys.” Brutus and Cesar had already found refuge from the sun in the short morning shadows, and Ben made off to pet them.

  “You want coffee?” Dave asked me.

  I shook my head, and Dave asked Ben, “How’s Daddy this morning?”

  “His hand is hurt, but my daddy strong, zio.”

  “He is,” Dave said, and then to me he mouthed, “Oh, please. Did they tell you what happened yesterday?” he asked. I nodded, and Dave said, “City slickers.” He hoisted a sack of the gorgeous compost delivered from the botanic garden onto the table. “So what’s going on with you, Grace Jones?”

  “Dave, how come you didn’t tell me Sol and Miriam are buying your house?”

  The penknife I’d given him slit the threaded edge of the burlap, and the rich fertilizer spilled out, dank and woodsy sweet. “Miriam told you? Finally.”

  So it was true then.

  “Oh, Grace, I wanted to tell you so many times.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me something?”

  “You don’t understand. I couldn’t. Miriam specifically told me not to mention it to you, or to the doormen. She outright asked me to not say anything.”

  “But, Dave, we’re friends.”

  “I know we’re friends”—he stuck the opened knife in the bag—“and I tried to drop you hints.”

  “When’d you drop me hints?”

  “In Brooklyn, that time in the garden when you told me about coming to New York. Remember? I asked you what you’d do if Sol and Miriam ever moved?”

  “That was a hint? Just last week I was telling you about going to school, and you said it was a great idea. Solid, you said. Bullshit, Dave.”

  “But it is solid. Grace, please. You’re so upset. Just listen to what I’m trying
to tell you.”

  But I couldn’t care less about what he had to say. “Ah, forget you.” Sylvia had said it to Bo over the weekend, everybody looked out for their own. And I was not his own.

  I WASN’T FIRED THAT night after all. When Ben and I came in from the playground that evening, Sol and Miriam’s bedroom door was closed. I fed Ben his dinner, gave him a nice long bath, and then took him into his room. After a while I heard Sol and Miriam’s shower running, and later, both their voices in the living room. Then they came in. Miriam’s hair was still wet and she had changed from her morning outfit into a white, strapless maternity dress. Her breasts were huge, and I saw little red hickey welts all over her neck. Sol stood behind her and she cocooned into him.

  “Okay, Grace,” she said, “we’re going out, so you’re on tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where you going, Mommy?”

  “Daddy is taking me dancing.”

  “Wow, that sounds like fun,” he said and slid off his chair and danced a jig.

  I looked past Miriam to Sol, and he winked at me.

  “Have fun,” I said.

  After Ben fell asleep, I poured a glass of their red wine and went to my room to think. Then I had another glass and thought some more and I came up with nothing.

  MIRIAM WAS STANDING AT the foot of my bed. “Grace.”

  “What?”

  “Telephone. It really is too late to have your friends calling you here.”

  I thought so too. “Hello?” I said into the receiver.

  “Grace?”

  “Helen?” And all the blood in my body pooled in my stomach. “Oh, God, oh, God.”

  “He back in hospital, Grace. They want to cut the other foot.”

  “What? When?”

  “Dr. Silverton say soon, maybe by Sunday.”

  “What? This Sunday? Helen, what going on? I thought he was getting better.”

  “Mammy didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “You know how she is, Grace.”

  “Okay, so you tell me. What happening?”

  “You know how the general hospital does operate. Quick, quick to cut. If we could get him to Cumberland, maybe they could do something.”

  “Well, he should be in Cumberland, then.”

  “You know how much money that going to cost? Plenty.”

  “Mammy know you calling me?”

  “No. I just stopped by the lady on the hill coming from hospital. Was my turn today.”

  It was so late for her to be traveling alone.

  “Okay, listen, come back by the lady on the hill tomorrow. Come for noon.”

  “You have the money?”

  “Just come tomorrow, okay. Don’t say nothing.”

  “Grace?”

  “What?”

  “He was talking about you tonight.”

  “Yeah, what he say?”

  “You want to know?”

  “What he say?”

  “That he too too glad you not here to see him like this.”

  “Oh, Hel.”

  I COUNTED THE MONEY three times to be sure. Two hundred dollars was missing. Late as it was, I called Sylvia.

  “Sylvia, the money was there on Saturday when I gave Bo the twenty dollars.”

  “What I could do?” Her voice rose. “You think I take your money?”

  I didn’t think so at all. But Micky and Derek had come to the house for a while on Sunday when Dodo had gone to church. “Just ask Micky—”

  Sylvia cut me off. “What you saying in truth? You think my children take your money?”

  “Sylvia, I have to send that money home.”

  “You don’t think I have enough problem in my life right now? Now you come from where you come from to accuse my children?” She was screaming at me. “You don’t see Dodo was right in truth. I should have leave you right on Eastern Parkway where I find you.”

  “Sylvia . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Miss Grace, just come and get your thing before I put them on the side of the road. And find somewhere else to stay from this weekend.”

  She hung up and I was stunned, but I knew I wasn’t crazy. My money was gone. I rang Kath. “Don’t worry,” she said after I’d told her what was going on.

  “Don’t worry? Kath, my fucking life caving in.”

  “No, it’s not, Grace.” She yawned. “Let me call Daddy. Call me back in the morning, early.”

  WHEN I SAW MY swollen face and puffy eyes in the mirror, I laughed. “Black Chinee for real,” I said to my reflection. Cold water didn’t do much, and by the time I finally came out of the bathroom, Miriam was waiting for me in the kitchen.

  “We have to talk, Grace.”

  This was good, because I needed to talk to her too.

  “You have to respect our home. You don’t live here, you work here. I think you’ve been forgetting that lately. Sunday night I asked you to keep Ben away from Sol, and you did the exact opposite. You’re getting personal mail here now. You’re drinking our wine. And now your friends feel like they can call you up in the middle of the night?”

  Sol came out of their room and stood in the hallway behind me.

  Miriam went on. “Do you know what time I finally went back to sleep after you got off the phone last night? I didn’t—I knew you kept calling friend after friend.”

  “Mir.”

  “No, Sol, this is not acceptable.”

  It was my turn to talk. “Miriam, I need the money I gave you to file my papers.”

  “What?”

  “When I gave you the immigration forms, I gave you a hundred and fifty dollars. My sister called me last night. Our father’s sick, and I need to send them money.”

  Sol moved into the kitchen and stood next to his wife. “Is everything okay, Grace?”

  I didn’t want to, but I started to cry, because I had the feeling that everything was not okay.

  “How do you know—”

  But Sol cut her off. “Not now, Mir. Give Grace the money. Grace”—he looked me in the eyes—“is there anything we can do to help you out? Anything at all?”

  I tried to dry my eyes, but the stupid tears wouldn’t stop flowing. “No, Sol, thanks. Just let me have the money. I have to go call my friend.”

  Miriam said, “Grace, I didn’t know.”

  I nodded and moved past them to ring Kathy.

  Chapter 36

  I had taken this drive in reverse a lifetime ago. I had come in the cold, and Kath was leaving at summer’s peak. Leaving hot for hot. Kath and I talked nonstop as if nothing had changed. I guess for her it hadn’t. But I was two Graces, because inside I was numb. How could I be going to the airport but not going home? How could I let Kath get on a plane when I was the one with the dying father? Because I had no doubt he was going to die soon.

  Every fifteen minutes or so, Kath remembered how come she was leaving and that I couldn’t go and she quieted down for a while. But then she remembered that she was going home, Grace, home. And her daddy was going to let her manage the new store. I didn’t want to take that away from her, her happy return. I was all mixed up. I wanted to stay in America, but I wanted to go home too. Just for a while to see my father. But I couldn’t because my daddy didn’t know every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

  “Kath?”

  “Um?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what, Grace?”

  And I said nothing again, because how could I tell her that I wanted to switch places with her and that she should give me her ticket and her passport and I should get on the plane and she should drive back to Brooklyn with Brent?

  “You remember I told you that Dave’s boyfriend died from AIDS?”

  “What? Vaguely.”

  “Well, he had cancer. And, go and see Daddy when you get home, okay. Tell him you used to see me all the time, and that I’m settled.”

  “Oh, Gracie, you don’t have to tell me to do that.”

  Brent squee
zed the back of my neck. Kath had refused to see Donovan her final night in the city. “No fucking way, Grace,” she’d said to me. “Never again. None of that baggage coming home with me. I’m shedding the shit I picked up in this city.”

  She had also shed her hair. That morning when I got to her room, now my room, and Kath opened the door, I screamed. Shivani came running down the stairs to see what was wrong.

  “Do you like it?” Kath, in a short khaki skirt and matching jacket, turned slowly around. She had a slanted bob just like Ettie Bruckner’s. It didn’t flatter her new, desiccated frame.

  “Oh, Kath,” was all I could say.

  It was Shivani who spoke up. “What you gone and do that for? Look how you had all that nice nice coco-’pañol hair and you gone and chop it off. Watch how you spoil yourself, girl.”

  Kath only laughed. “Go back upstairs, Shivani.”

  Shivani splayed her fingers at her own neck and looked worried. “You know, I did never give you back that pack of maxi pad you lend me that time.”

  I looked at Kath, but she laughed again. “Don’t worry about it, Shivani. I forget about that long time now.”

  Kath and I moved into the room. It looked exactly the same. The white, quilted spread on the bed, her frilly curtains tied with white ribbons hanging in the window, her tubes and tubs of makeup on her dresser. “Kath, where’s your luggage?” I had expected a row of suitcases, hastily packed and bulging, but instead she pointed to one carry-on bag on the floor.

  “That’s all?” I opened the closet door, and the closet was bare. “What happened to your clothes?” I asked, astonished.

  “I threw them all out, Grace. I told you I wasn’t taking any load, and I didn’t want to leave baggage for you either. Everything I need in that one bag.”

  That bag was the size of one of her larger pocketbooks.

  “Anyhow, remember idiot-boy paid rent until the end of September, so don’t let that crook Bajan try to jack you. Brent call already to say he on his way.”