“But I will not take away the job from Lola, like that.”
“No, no, you wouldn’t be,” Helen says.
But she does not know! Lucy and Jeff go out into the other room.
When they come back the verdict is wrong. There is no place for Lola. Lucy stares down at Bing: her excuse. But she does not love him. If Tony were the one asking, she would jump. But Tony will not propose her. He will only honk.
I walk back to my place. I will have to move.
But then my employer comes, with her teeth. “Lola, we have to talk about what to tell William.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“In a way, the easiest thing is that you’re going back to the Philippines.”
What will I do in the Philippines? I need money. “But he will see me here. Then what?”
“Oh, okay. I thought if you were working in the Valley or something. Well, why don’t we just wait.”
The chop it is still secret. Before long, everyone will know.
By the end of the day, I have an idea. Maybe I should let her have her Tony. If I get for her her Tony, she will give to me my job. I hate my pupil now, but I cannot afford to. So I will broker the marriage. I call Tony myself; if he does not agree, I will tell Lita. But he right away said okay. We will meet. I borrow the car of Danny for the drive. On the freeway 405, I stay as far right as I can go, but then I have to cross, just to not get pushed out.
The naval base looks shabby, not like the U.S. government compound in Manila, where green lawns spread inside new-painted white fences and waves scallop the bay. Thirty feet above the beach, I saw a guy curled up asleep on the cupping branch of a chestnut, next to a fishtail palm. That is my Philippines.
In the café, Tony does not stand for me. Lita worked here in America when he was young; how could she teach the thousands of small ways? Manners, they are stitches sewn in the random hours. A frog into a prince, that is fairytale.
“You must be the one,” I say, pulling out my own chair. I suppose he is handsome, but the strings in him should be pulled tighter.
He opens a small rattan suitcase, what we call native. He lifts out clothes, a yellow blouse, the shell buttons browned. A skirt of pale linen. A black-and-white picture preserved in the garments; a posed tableau of a family, the father wearing a tilted panama hat, two boys, and a girl with a ribbon in her hair. The mother wears the clothes that are now dry as pressed leaves, cracking at the folds. “When she got here, they made her wear a chicken uniform, with real feathers. Filipinas dressed as chickens, serving chicken.”
I never knew that. Now Lita is proper, always a purse, not a pack. There is a restaurant I have passed in Glendale, built the shape of a chicken.
“Lickin’ Chicken. I didn’t see her for seventeen years.”
“Oh, that is too long.” But Lita did not have the green card then. “Lucy tells me that you are the one meant for her.”
He shrugs inside his jacket. “Never felt that.”
“I did not either. And I am married, thirty-four years.”
He turns around his chair. “Lucy’s a weekday—like air.”
“Air is important. But-ah, she may be Wednesday to you, to somebody else a weekend. Holiday even. So you have been a ladies man.”
He shrugs. “Girls like me, don’t know why.”
“According to Lucy, it is because you are handsome.”
He smiles.
“That is no compliment. You did not make your face. Your bank account, that is your doing.” I stand. “Show me a boat.” I have noticed with kids, they talk more easily in motion.
He flashes his U.S. military ID and we walk onto the big pavement. The boat looks more a parking lot. On the first deck, there are all kinds of planes.
“She never says when she goes to see him, but I can tell.”
Who does Lucy see? “The dentist?”
“I mean my mom. And the kid.” A wall opens. Lita had a child here? But then, I know; he is talking the one she took care.
“That boy must be grown by now.” We stand at the railing. Lita never told me she saw him; she only talks about the Chinese Adopteds. “My kids, too, they are jealous.”
“Rainy day, she was tickling his back, I was alone the other side of the world.”
I have missed things too. But I do not anymore mind.
“Strange power you get from a woman raising you who’s your servant. You kick her a little.”
“Williamo, he does not kick.” But more than once, he hit. “My kids, they probably say the same. But now they have their degrees.”
“I was too much of a fuck-up to stay in school.”
“You were younger. Mine, before I left, they already started university.”
“We shuffled through days. Then a package would land and we practically killed each other ripping it open. Now she’s trying to make up time. First Christmas here she gave me a stuffed animal. Lady—man, I’m twenty five, I said. We can’t have those years back.”
“But you forget how poor you were.”
“I know. All the little chants of America.”
The ocean here looks different than the ocean in Santa Monica. Water churns brown bits of debris and chips of wood flicker. “These the years for Lucy,” I say. “If you are not serious of her, you should leave her be.”
“I like Lucy. Only thing with her, I never get that rush. Usually, there’s something I want to find, some chase.”
“Her friends, they are asking, What was he doing here nine years that he has no savings?”
“Did my digging for gold in the square of light on a bedroom floor.”
“They are warning her against you.” Lucy, she is thirty-four almost.
“Sometimes when I hear piano playing, I’m not getting it through my ears but my chest, you know? Sex was like that. For healing.”
Nearby, we hear a foghorn. “Tony, this is a workday for me.”
“My sad stories, I told to a married lady I was in love with. She made them into coins.”
“Where is that lady now?”
“Still married.”
“And what will those coins buy? But anyway, I am asking you to let Lucy alone. Because there is someone else, someone good for her.”
His whole face becomes more up, the strings pulled. “Some other guy?”
“It is a friend the employer. Dale. A white.” I bring out the book from my backpack. “He thinks she looks like the woman of this painter. Very famous.” I nod. “Museums around the world.”
Telling him the white—that is my trick. But the trick will not last.
Still, nothing lasts. And he is a sailor. Soon his ship will go again to sea.
For the second time, I have a gift for Lucy. I know from taking care kids, there are many kinds of gifts. Candy and arcade quarters buy a smile, but they do not add much to the pole strength inside. Tricks wrapped in shiny paper look like presents. I lent Lucy this job; she could use it, but not keep it. I wanted it for my insurance. Then she stole it from me. The gift I am carrying now, I really do not know. Like toys I sometimes buy Williamo, they may not be good for him, but anyway, maybe they will not harm. Some believe all sugar is bad; Claire wants that Williamo will have only music of orchestras, things that will teach him to do well in school, not songs from the Disney movie. But I want Williamo and my pupil, too, to hold the bubbles that look perfect to them, once upon a time in their hands.
Of course bubbles will break. But everything breaks.
The cars of my weekend employers are absent, so I let myself in. I find Lucy on the nursery floor, cutting out pictures from a magazine with child-rounded scissors. A table. A bed with four posts. Next to her a jar of paste. She is making a book.
“What are you doing?”
She jumps. “For our place.” She and Cheska, they are fixing the family house. Maybe this is good enough a life.
I am tempted to get up and take my gift, unused.
“In our place, we have lots of woods. To pay a gu
y to build, it is so cheap, Lola. I will just show the picture.” She has a look, part proud and part embarrassed. Even without children, Lucy has a purpose.
I look around the room. At the changing table, I remember my pupil, after the wipe patting on powder, chanting Shoushou. She pictures herself a young mother, everything pretty. Sleepysleep, she says when she closes the light.
I tumble ahead. Two and two onto the ark. I suppose it is best if everyone gets married. Do I still believe that? But my pupil is romantic; the dad Florencio, the mom Florencia, and they named their children all the same. “You better stop planning for your house in the Philippines,” I say. “You will have your children here. I have talked to Tony.”
Only a few times, I have seen on the face of Williamo what fleets across the features of Lucy now. The eyes open; the mouth falls. Hope, it is a temporary mirage.
It will break soon. But everything breaks.
“I will take back my job,” I say to my pupil, at the park.
“Yes, Lola,” she says.
So I can tell Williamo: I will still see him every day. Once a week, I can pick up Williamo and Bing together, so they become friends again. Claire, she worries that. But my pupil does not say when. Maybe Tony did not propose her yet. What is the lag? Almost two weeks already I am chop. Claire and him, they will give me one-month severance. I will use that for the first half August tuition. The rest and September, I can pay with savings. But October, there will be nothing.
Two weeks ago, I ask Claire, “It is okay I am still here?”
“Course, Lola,” she said.
“For how long it is okay?”
“Forever,” she said.
I still take care Williamo. Because he does not know. But Claire comes out to tell me she will write me a reference, and again she has the teeth. I hate her now.
“I will go,” I say, “as soon I am needed.”
Then I call to tell Ruth I am chop. It is not so hard, even when her voice hushes, because I hold a secret. She does not know it is a jungle swing, from one job to the next. The weekend will become the five-day, seven days even. One-ten a day, I will become rich.
Ruth says Sunday Danny will drive her here to move me to their place. Then I will have to tell Williamo.
• • •
As Ruth and Danny carry my boxes, Claire comes with an envelope of money. She hugs me, but I stiff; I do not like her touch. The guy, he is inside watching TV. I feel a grinding in my jaw. He is the one who harmed me.
Last is Williamo. He stands hands in his pockets.
“Give me high five,” I say. “Buddy buddy, I will see you very soon, okay?”
But he will not look up the ground. He stands like that as we drive away.
“You have to become an agency now,” I tell Ruth. “I cannot go the Valley or Hollywood. Because Williamo. He is not yet five.” Right now I want day work, just to clean. She says she can find me live-out. Wednesdays, she thinks.
She cleared a bottom bunk for me already, below Mai-ling, next to the slave. She is not ready to work yet. Ruth took her to a doctor the priest knows. Because her body, it is marked with bruises that do not go away. From that guy throwing her down, she does not have hearing in one ear. And Ruth cannot send Mai-ling out for a new job either. Any employer will want references. She was in that house thirteen years.
“China is still sleeping,” Ruth says. “Coma. I heard from Lita who knows from Alice.” China is God’s way to remind me a chop is a smaller thing, but his trick does not work; I still feel sad for myself. I worry for China but from far, the way we do for movie stars, when I read Julia Roberts, she is getting a divorce.
“Next job, I will do everything. I will work by night.” Mai-ling stands on a chair, dusting each one the Venetian blinds, the way she used to in the house of Sue. The apartment does look very clean. “Maybe I am on television. Most wanted.”
“No, Mai-ling,” Ruth says. “In America, they have crimes with sex in them. Nobody wants you.”
Mai-ling made a mistake I would never forgive my yaya. I lost my job too, and I did not let anybody drown.
“Remember,” Ruth says, “your pupil went to New York with her employers and she met Filipinas in the park? She says they are earning big. Maybe we will drive Mai-ling to there.” Danny has the 1975 Mercedes, pale green, that I drove to the naval base. He has owned it five years already, but this trip will be its first journey across the continent.
“I will wish upon a car,” I say. “But what about your jobs?”
“I can get an off. But Danny will have to quit.” She shrugs. “Not now. Not with Candace.” It takes me a minute to remember Candace is the slave.
Mai-ling shuffles as we talk about her. She does not want that her son will be a drug addict. She thinks she did a wrong when he was small. Some strength she did not build, some might. But she hopes for his daughter. If she can get her in a good school, a Catholic. Inside her suitcase is the picture she made of China. She has confused China with the granddaughter she has never seen, so when she looks at the Polaroid she is praying for both girls. She believes she can hear the picture breathing.
I am sorry for her, but I have too many things to think.
She gives me a small sandwich bag. Without any of us knowing, Mai-ling took China to Echo Park and had her baptized. This is the baptismal certificate she wants me to give to Sue. “She will thank you, yes.” She nods.
“When will I see Sue?” I say. “I am not even working now Williamo.” But I take the certificate in wax paper in my pocket.
“Lita says her employer, she changed. Alice sits on the floor now and tries to play her kids. She is not anymore doctor full-time.” Ruth raises her eyebrows. They think Alice is running around with my weekend employer. Because the day China drown, no one could find either one them. Maybe she will divorce. Ruth says before they divorce here, they start to spend more time with the kids.
That night, I cannot sleep. I look at another mattress through the bed slats. I miss my own place.
So it is over, no more Williamo and Lola. How can that be?
When I wake, there is already a crowd. Filipino bread on the table and boxes American cereal. Ruth has for me a cleaning job Wednesday, Fridays.
The second week August, I go to the park and ask my pupil, “So is there a date for the wedding?”
Because all the time I am thinking. Even when she quits, they may want her to stay two weeks. Three weeks. For transition. And starting now, I am sending savings.
“Not yet, Lola,” she says, “I will talk to Tony.”
September 1, I see my pupil again. Already it is five weeks since I talked to Tony. My savings are down to two hundred and ninety dollars. “I do not want to rush the honeymooners,” I say. “But I need this job.”
She shakes her head, kicking the playground sand with her foot. “Lola, Tony, he says, I have to keep working. He says we will need the money.”
Once, long time ago, I told Ruth we should start an agency and call it Crooks and Nannies. When I could still joke. Now I sit in an agency I took a bus to. They photograph me, take my fingerprint, and Xerox my license and SS card for criminal search. I look like a criminal in the pictures. Front and profile. But the little folder they make says, Introducing … Lola, a fifty-six-year-old, one-hundred-pound Filipina with a green card who drives and speaks English. She has a big smile (all her own teeth) and a big heart.
I ask why the teeth, they are important.
The lady smiles. “Dentures scare kids.”
The only nanny I know with false teeth is Ruth. She takes them out just at night, alone, in her bedroom; she floats them in a glass of water.
Now I have three weeks to make an extra thousand. A terror streaks in me; how? I am trying to be the old Lola. But they typed that I have all my own teeth. What if I lose one? I have not yet written home. They think I am still with Williamo. Because I have never once missed a payment. Far Eastern, they will not wait. My savings they are gone. I have only twenty
days to earn more than I can earn in twenty days. And no job.
In the slow parts of the day, I touch my pocket, as if I am carrying the small soul of China, made of fog. I think of her in a coma, the climbing child finally still. Maybe when I tap the paper, China feels. I do not believe in heaven, but baptism it is still worth something; like a vaccination or a diploma, you join the club.
What you think about yourself really depends on your circumstances. The moms here, their number one concern is that their children, they will be confident. Nothing we do, nothing another kid does, should nick that confidence. But these kids, they will be confident because the world now, it is their way. Once, that was true in the Philippines. Then there was a day the stock market fell, and my father sat for hours in his study, lifting his glasses off and on. For us, it took years to go from being one kind of family to another. First we were a family that had what it needed—schooling, lessons, eyeglasses—and then, no longer. A bicycle stolen did not mean we could purchase another.
My pupil thinks of herself as a hundred-dollar-a-day nanny. She believes that is something inside her. But I am proof it is not. She gets a hundred dollars a day because now they will pay that. If they chop her, and they will if they want for some reason she may never even know the truth, it will not be so easy again. Most things do not transfer. When Lita finally got her kids here, only the daughter had good marks in school. Lita took the folder, with the transcripts and letters of recommendation, to Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount. But those papers were not worth anything here. The daughter had to start all over at community college.
I am interviewing again. I sit, listening to careful questions and two teams tackle each other: the confidence of Lola against the fear. If I cannot pay next month, Issa will suffer. Not Williamo. I should have put my own first. I could have been working two years already, for one hundred and ten a day.
Eleven interviews and still no offer. Ruth finds an opening for Second Nanny in Woodland Hills. I will have to drive freeways every day and be underneath the First Nanny. Danny takes me for the interview, but that night Claire calls to say they called her and asked about my breathing, if I am healthy enough to last. I must have breathed too loud. Ruth heard of other jobs from the priest, but those are low paying. Once, long ago, when I wanted to quit Claire, I told Ruth, Find for me a good job.