Sue looked at me as if Will were a criminal. “You want to just try another day?”
I said hurried goodbyes. “Don’t worry,” Melissa said, a hand on my arm, her eyelids half closing.
Helen sat, stilly regal. “Call you later. I have to talk to you about Lucy’s wedding. I told her I’d do the cake and I need help. We can all go together. Lola’ll be there too.”
“Well, I hope you’re happy,” I said, in the car. But back in our yard, I felt glad to be home too. “We can still have a good day,” I said as he sluffed in. “But, Will, you have to get along with the other boys. You’re going to want friends.”
“He’s mean, though. He just doesn’t do it when you’re there.”
I sat on our little stoop, arms around my knees. “That happens. That happens even with grown-ups. But sometimes when people are mean, it’s good to just ignore them and play with the other people. That’s what I do.”
“Why can he be mean and I can’t?”
A profound question. “Well. It’s just a way I manage.”
“It’s all right, Mom. Let’s not talk about this anymore.”
He knelt on the floor, running a truck over my knee. I sat with a book. We were finding things to do together for longer.
“Do you like the playclub?” I asked after a while.
“Not really.”
“Did you before, with Lola?”
“Not that much. I just liked being here with her.”
“Well, we don’t have to go again.”
We stayed there for another hour. Maybe we could live without Lola.
The Saturday before the pilot aired, Paul took Will to buy a new TV. Molly drove over that night to set it up. On the day, I made a fish stew, rouille, and molten chocolate cakes for twenty, which I planned to serve with a sprinkle of powdered sugar through a sieve. Without Lola, this took me all day. I felt happy, though, handing out plates to the writers and their wives. They laughed through the show, hooting and footstamping at the actress’s jokes, so I suppose I was wrong about her. They left right after. A school night. Paul kept answering the phone. I had a sense of accomplishment, washing dishes. Everything had turned out.
But I heard Paul in the night, as if the dark had metal parts. He woke me, banging into the dresser, and seemed annoyed.
“I don’t know what we’re gonna do.” He sat in a chair, in his boxers, letting me stare at him. “The ratings are awful.” He shook his head.
I needed to adjust. I should’ve taken this in hours ago. Mechanically, I remembered handing two guys second helpings of the warm cakes. They’d been laughing. “I can’t believe it.”
He’d written numbers on an envelope, what he’d prepared for all these years.
“Doesn’t it take a while for a new show to catch?”
“Usually the first week’s higher and then it falls. If they’d advertise or something. But with ratings like this they won’t. All that work.” He let the envelope drop. “They’re probably not going to renew my contract. I thought it was funny.”
“It is funny.”
“I guess people just didn’t think so.” He sighed, flopping on the bed.
What he’d said about his contract terrified me. What could I do? The Da Capo had commissioned Annabel Grass. I didn’t earn enough from Colburn for us to live on. But I heard William waking. I’d have to make breakfast. Still, it didn’t feel right to leave Paul. “What can I do?” Noises lifted outside.
Just then Willie appeared, a truck dangling from his hand. I got him washed, dressed, breakfasted, and then stopped in the doorway. “I’ll take him and be right back.”
It was a glorious day, clear, the ocean dark blue and choppy. But we’d be broke. I didn’t know if I could recover as a breadwinner. I gave Will a quick kiss and signed him up for Funcare. Then I ran home, fixed eggs and toast, and carried in a tray. “Why don’t we stay in today? I’ll go to Vidiots. We’ll get your favorite comedies and watch.”
He frowned. “That won’t help.”
“Well, I mean, when I have a defeat I guess I end up going back to what I love.” I thought of deep chords pounding. A kind of warning. A kind of command.
“I don’t work that way. I get things from magazines, or just from life.”
“Well, you tell me, then. What would help?”
The phone rang. He lurched. “Not going to be anything good.” He walked around, buttoning his shirt, talking. “You think there’s a chance they’ll advertise?”
I sat on the bed, pulling up a corner of the comforter.
“Okeydoke. Thanks, Rich.” The other line was ringing. “Let me get that.”
“Should I turn it off?” Jeff had once ripped a phone plug out of the wall.
“No,” he said, slapping a magazine in his palm. “I better get going.” He sighed. “We’ve still got a table read Friday.”
I felt his disappointment more sharply than my own. He’d tried so hard! This wasn’t fair. But Paul seemed to want to go it alone, so I tried to stay out of his way.
The second week’s ratings fell, as he’d predicted. Five shows aired in all, and the network pulled it, as by then we knew they would.
A familiar stone tied us down. I couldn’t leave him now.
Lola
A PAY CHAPEL
Too many mothers of the bride.
The first time I see Claire again, she looks up, nervous of me. Both my Santa Monica employers bend into the Jeep trunk. They have a Mixmaster there in a box.
“We didn’t make the buttercream yet, Lole,” Claire says. “We’ll frost on site.”
“But-ah, the dairy will go bad.” It is hot, dull, typical Los Angeles weather. A sapling grows beside each parking meter. On Wilshire Boulevard long ago, large elms gave shade, Lita told me. In Los Angeles, you hear many rumors about trees. “Where are the naughty boys?”
Helen points. They snore, asleep, seatbelted. They are big now, long.
My date wears her gray-blue party dress with the matching ruffled bonnet. Her arms wave out in front, like feelers. But the place of the wedding is a pay chapel. Why do they not marry in a church? “When you get married,” I whisper down to the Snugli, “we will have a high mass. Organ music.” I remember then, this one she is not yet baptized.
The groom stands filling out forms for a lady behind an iron cage. My pupil, she has been dieting to fit her dress. Tony said, You just spend for that, she told me. She shows the bouquet: waxy orange blossoms with dark leaves, the wood stems wrapped in white ribbon. “I made myself.” She must have polished; orange leaves fur with dust.
“Well, that’s good,” Tony says, not looking at her flowers.
Maybe it is already broken.
Compared the wedding of Ruth, this one, it feels small. On foldout chairs, Natalie sits with her Korean. Her mother not here to see, she is the way Ruth would want her, the hair clean, wearing a dress. I know from Ruth that this Korean, he wants to be writer.
“Maybe some-a-day you will write the story of Lola,” I say.
He manages the tree nursery of his parents in Bonsall. One night a week, he drives to Orange County for a novel class he has to pay to attend. But I can see that Natalie loves this Korean. She sits knees together. Feet straight. She unfolds from her purse a clipping from the Los Angeles Times about another escaped slave. The California Court ordered the former employer to pay 1.5 million dollars damages. But most of the people Ruth helps, they are illegals. She feels afraid of lawyers. “We will save this,” I say. “For the book.” In the place of Ruth, there will always be a next person. “Where is Aileen?”
“Playdate.” Natalie, her mouth loves the word.
The bride and the groom stand facing each other, her breast lifted, his hands behind his back. Cheska tears open a box of Minute Rice. I want a handful for Laurita. “Here is your throwing rice,” I say, but she pushes her head into me.
Filipino weddings, you pin money to the bride and groom. I have a one-hundred bill, but I do not want to tear
her dress with the tail. That one-hundred bill makes me think all the money my pupil the bride stole from me. But I only say, “Can I borrow from you your husband?” I pin the cash to his sleeve.
Lita stands, clapping along.
“Congratulations,” I say. “Filipino grandchildren. Guaranteed. You will be the only Lola.”
Lita stays close to us. She has elected me for the wedding. I do not want to be near Lucy. I do not want to be next Claire. I am the ball on a pool table avoiding too many holes. Then I see Williamo wake up. Williamo! I open my arms.
But he does not come to me. He stays with the mother.
We drive to Barrio Fiesta, the Chasens of Filipino food, located here in a mall. The bakers of the cake ask at every small store if they can use electricity to fluff their butter, and a beauty salon says yes, so I have to kneel on old hair to plug the cord while they unwrap cakes. I do not like to help, but Helen paid me two hundred forty for this weekend.
“The Cake Bible?” I know all the recipe books of Claire.
“Don’t tell anyone, but we ordered these. After that Boston cream disaster, I lost confidence. I can’t do it without you, Lole.” She has a strange laugh now.
“You bought? Then why did not the bakery frost?” If I pay, I want the expensive bakery roses. For the wedding of Laurita, we will have those.
I should have known they did not bake this cake. To bake, they need me to grease their pans. And Helen gave me an off. Anyway, I want to quit that job. Last week, she told me to fix his study. The Academy movies, I asked, can I get those? I found, stuck in a book on the floor, a note: You always felt to me, in every way, exactly right. The problem was the envelope, addressed not for Helen but to Alice, the mother of the Chinese Adopteds. The employer of Lita. So all they are gossiping, it is really true. I did not want to give the envelope to Alice, but I did not want to leave it either. So the cardboard box or the black garbage bag? Where once I carried the soul of China, it now waits in my pocket. Not even licked shut.
This room is arranged the style of a Filipino wedding, the bride and groom at one table facing the rest, so we can watch them eat.
“All that time I was taking care Max, I loved my own kids,” Lita says. “I thought God would see and reward them.”
“God did see,” I say. “He gave you Lucy.” But she is not such a gift.
Under tablecloths, boys run together, Filipino and white. A look from the daughter of Lita stops hers. That daughter, she is now RN here. I follow Williamo, everywhere he bounces, like a woman in a room with her husband and her lover. But I wanted you, I cannot explain to him.
“I loved them but I did not know the details,” Lita says.
“You were working.” Lita missed too much, it is true, but that is over now.
“Hello, Mother, thank you for everything.” Lucy kisses the cheek and Lita winces, but this is what she wants!
“Lucy, if you have children,” Lita says, “do not do what I did. Fine to nanny now, but when you have your own you quit. And I will help you.”
Lucy’s head holds still, like a bird. Now Claire and Helen carry in the cake. Before, I was always proud for Claire. Glad to be a part of her achievement. But I heard they have other helpers. Everyone claps the cake. Five layers and little candied violets at the edges. Some take flash pictures. In Tagalog, people say the employer esteems Lucy that she is the one to bake the cake. But Helen, she cannot bake. Who knows what else they lie?
Waiters circulate heads of pigs in pots, partnered with plates of fried skin.
“She’ll take her tests for here,” Helen says.
But Lucy will not be passing doctor tests. Bride at thirty-four.
“I married him,” Lita says. “The day after, he asked what was wrong. I told him, My kids. I thought God would stop their favors because their mother was not clean. After that he never bothered me again. We were animals from different parts of the world that only in this modern time would be in the same cage. Still, everything of his, I wash and iron. I missed thousands of days. But if I went back, we would have had to take them out of the school.”
Now comes seafood, with bitter melon, very expensive. Who is paying this?
Then like the heel of a footstep, I know: Lita.
“Every month when I sent home my pay, he added. Finally I told him, I still love my husband in the Philippines. I called my husband and he said, You stay with that guy. I thought it was because I was used. But later on I found out he had another girl.”
A man hunches in the front snapping pictures. Lucy calls Lita to be in.
“That’s Tony’s mother?” Claire moves her chair, to see. She chop me. She hires others. Williamo, he is busy with new things. Baseball, Lita told me. “She’s very elegant.”
Lita wears a yellow dress, the shoes and purse match. Just then, while the flash sputters, her employer arrives. Alice. I look through the crowd to find Helen. Helen is squatting, wiping the face of Bing. Alice looks away. She does not act guilty. She stands like an Africa queen. I touch the pocket of my backpack, where I keep the letter. She does not know I stole a piece of her life.
I will really quit that job. My weekend.
Why you need me? I said last Sunday, the parents both at home. I will go.
“So you think Judith sneaks out to see her lover these weekends?” Helen asked.
“I do not know. You are the one with a husband working Paramount.” But my employer, she is lower down. Judith told me she never sees Jeff Grant.
The wives, they are all looking for a romance story. And they have their own—a bad one we do not yet know the ending. I remember the first time Helen, she cried for him. Maybe there is really something to cry for. In our country, a woman with a guy like that, she will take the kids and go back with her parents.
Judith works weekends the reason I do. The majority of mysteries, they are not glamorous. At the bottom of most lives is the need for money. Judith gets a lady from the agency, a new one each week. The one last Sunday, I caught watching TV: loud shouting in Spanish! And this baby, she easily scares. The women sleep in my bed and do not change the sheets. I line up the bottles and write everything down, but they still forget to give the medicine. It is Laura too. She will not eat from anyone but me. When I go back Sunday night, I see her bones. She reaches for me from the sitter. Only when I hold her, the shaking stops. Ah, Laurita.
I take her outside now, to change the diaper. I kneel down; spread the mat on hot pavement. Middle of the day Sunday. The few cars in this mall look old. In the distance, pink and beige apartment buildings crowd under bent palms. The air is still, hazy. Some-a-day I will leave this place. But what will become, then, of Laura? She burrows her head into me. Her right hand, it is a little crumpled. She wants to hold it to her chest.
We give the bride a present from the Philippines, sent by Lettie Elizande. She remembered my pupil chipping in one hundred to her ticket home.
For the wedding of Lucy and Tony—
Buko Pie
SANGKAP
3 cups flour
2½ tbsp. sugar
¾ tsp. salt
¾ cup vegetable shortening
3 egg yolks
½ cup ice water
Filling:
2 cups young coconut, shredded
½ cup young coconut juice
½ cup condensed milk
½ cup 1% milk
4 tbsp. sugar
½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
½ cup cornstarch
½ cup cold milk
PAGLUTO
To make the pastry, combine flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Combine egg yolks and ice water and blend into flour mixture until it turns into dough. Add a little more water if dough is still crumbly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. With a rolling pin, roll dough thinly, about ¼ inch thick, on a lightly floured board. Bake the piecrust, set aside, and cool. Combine pie filling ingredients except cornstarch in a deep saucepan. Cook ove
r medium heat, stirring constantly. When boiling gently, add cornstarch, stirring fast, until combined mixture has thickened. Pour mixture evenly into prepared piecrust. Let cool, then refrigerate until firm.
For Lettie, this was the recipe for wealth at home.
Claire and Helen walk over as I give to the bride. Now I am with all I do not want. “I am the one to arrange this marriage.” I tell how I said, Show me a boat.
“Didn’t Tony want to propose?” Claire asks.
“It is fine. The way we do.” Lucy puts down her glass, a period.
“I will not anymore come weekends,” I say to Helen. “Your Monday-to-Friday, she will need extra money.”
I watch Claire: she has to down her mouth from smiling. She wants me out from everywhere. I reach my pack and feel the letter from Jeff. I almost think it is written to me. Williamo comes, out of breath, to stand by his mother. Maybe we were only a boy and a babysitter. But then he falls onto me and for a dark moment, it comes back.
Claire grabs my elbow. “Your new employer called for a reference. So is it a good match?” She has the teeth again, waiting my answer.
“Yes,” I say. “There is chemistry.”
I am the one to plan the baptism. The priest gave me a form; my employer signed. Then when the day comes, she cannot get an off. Only Laurita and I and some elderly at the back of the church. “There,” I say to her after. “We have insurance.”
At the park, all over, they are asking, Is that your daughter? Because she is dark.
“No,” I say, “I am just babysitter.” But a smile opens in my back.
This job it is not only Laura but also the house, the grocery, the dry cleaner, the videos, even the gas-meter reading. I say to Judith what I said to Claire. “Soon this one will be crawling. And if it is a choice between the house or the baby, I will have to chose Laura.” Every Westside babysitter I know has said this, to get a once-a-week cleaning woman. But here the trick does not work.
“Well, Lola, there’s only two of us. I’m working hard too, and I can’t pay you more.”
That is plain. She comes home tired, the short skirts and blouses wilted by the end of the day. I wonder if, at one time, flowers arrived here. The mother of Judith lives far away in Minnesota. Judith eats leftovers holding a paper towel under for a plate. Even with the silver VW, more calls come for Lola than the mother.