Becoming the Butlers Read online

  “Why do it then?”

  “Maybe because I want to do what’s best for you.” Mr. Gregory stepped forward and tentatively, so very gently, placed a hand on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t be punished for other people’s actions.”

  I wasn’t used to kindness, and it stunned me as much as if he had been cruel. Mr. Gregory had the tact to return to his curtain and study the tassels as I buried my face in my shirtsleeve.

  “There’s a box of Kleenex on the upper right shelf of the bookcase,” he said softly. “By the way, who should tell your father about the incident?”

  “I will,” I answered. But my father would not learn about my suspension that afternoon. That morning’s mail had brought two letters from Madrid, one from my mother, the second from my mother’s lawyer.

  ELEVEN

  “Your father’s back,” Hector, our doorman, said as I entered the lobby.

  “So what?” I asked.

  “You’ll see what I mean,” he answered, rolling his eyes.

  The apartment door was propped open with a nearly empty bottle of Stolichnaya. Stubbed-out cigarettes and empty glasses, like a trail of clues, led into the living room. A smell like burnt popcorn wafted from the kitchen, and a record played at top volume, the song unidentifiable because of a stuck needle.

  “Hello!” I shouted. “Anyone home?”

  James, in only his underwear and a sleeveless T-shirt, hobbled into the living room. His bare limbs, yellowish white and pimply with goosebumps, looked like the skin of raw chicken. He peered at me through bloodshot eyes, his hands trembling so that his cigarette looked like a streak of red light.

  “Hendrix!” he shouted.

  “Who?”

  “Jimi Hendrix. Your mother and I saw him at Woodstock. That’s where we met. She sat next to me, in a fringed poncho and paisley skirt that went down to her bare feet. Nobody wore shoes, even though the mud was thigh-high. You can’t imagine the dreadful scene: acres and acres of unwashed feet!”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked irritably. I was in no mood for one of my father’s drunken tantrums, not after what had happened at school. My father stumbled over to the stereo, where he examined the record jacket.

  “Maybe Hendrix didn’t play at Woodstock,” he announced, frowning. “Maybe it was the Monterey Festival. Now I don’t remember. I should have put on Joan Baez instead. I’m pretty sure she was there. The funny thing is, I hated Woodstock. I only went because my brother Joey wasn’t old enough to drive. You may find this hard to believe, Rachel, but I was supposed to be his chaperone. And I got lost instead.” My father crouched down and picked up a glass from the floor. He grimaced as he swallowed the cloudy remains, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Here,” he said, giving me his cigarette. “Can you put this out for me?”

  I dropped the butt into the glass he held, where it extinguished with a sizzle. My father’s breath smelled medicinal, as if he’d been downing Vick’s cough syrup, and I wondered just what he had drunk.

  “You don’t know how lucky you are, kiddo, skipping that whole hippie thing. I hated it. Peace, love, and understanding—what a bunch of crap! I never saw more heads being busted than at antiwar marches, and the real bastards weren’t the police. But I had to pretend to your mother, who wanted to be a thinner and prettier version of Janis Joplin. Let me tell you, the strain got pretty great. I liked Sinatra and Como, renting tuxedos and dancing cheek to cheek in the Waldorf ballroom. There was only so much fresh air and electric guitar I could take. Your mom and I were always pretending, from the moment we met. I told her I knew Jethro Tull, and she said she had just graduated from Miss Porter’s School and lived on Park Avenue.”

  “Something happened,” I said softly.

  “You could say that. Why don’t you pick up those two envelopes on the hall table. I think you’ll find the contents very interesting.”

  The flat envelopes were so light that they could have floated in my hand. Both postmarks were from Madrid, España.

  “Oh shit,” I exclaimed.

  “I’d be a lot happier if that was the actual salutation,” my father said quietly. “At least ‘oh shit’ shows some remorse.”

  The repetition of that one guitar chord was like a nail piercing my skull. Somebody began to knock on the door. Neither of us moved. “What fresh hell is this?” my father muttered, finally heading toward the hallway.

  “Yoo-hoo, Professor Harris!”

  Mrs. Rosen stuck her head inside and took two small steps toward us. She was dressed in black, and held a prayer book. Her forced smile faded as she caught sight of my father in his underwear.

  “Well, excuse me,” she said, lowering her eyes.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Rosen,” my father cried, “but who do you think you are, barging into my apartment, barging into…” He stopped, staring at her somber attire. “Did you just come from a funeral?” he asked quietly.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Mrs. Cohen in 7D. But I feel like I just walked into another one.”

  “Well, what can we do for you?” My father was now ashamed. He grabbed The New York Times from the coffee table and draped the business section around his hips.

  “I only came to tell you to turn the awful music down. You can hear it down in her apartment, and her family is trying to sit shiva. I thought it was a bunch of teenagers having a party in here.”

  “You’re right, Mrs. Rosen.”

  “Of course I’m right; the music’s too loud.”

  “No, not the music. Look, I’ll turn it off right now.” My father did more than take the record off the turntable: he shattered the disk against his knee and then kicked the broken shards across the room. Mrs. Rosen gave a little moan of surprise and stepped toward the door.

  “Sentimentality never did anyone any good,” James explained with a sheepish smile. “What I meant, Mrs. Rosen, was that you were right about the Vasquezes. I can’t help them, and they can’t help me.”

  “Good for you, Professor Harris,” our neighbor said. “Now you can pull yourself together again.”

  “I’m not a professor, Mrs. Rosen.” The newspaper kept sliding down my father’s hips. He looked ridiculous, but I wouldn’t dare laugh. “I barely finished my Masters and I’m a lousy teacher. My students should be paid for listening to my garble.”

  “Please listen to me,” she said. “Even though you try hard not to be, you’re a very intelligent man, too intelligent to be pathetic. Your wife left you. You think you’re the first man this ever happened to? Your heart’s broken. So cry and wail, but get on with it. You have a daughter, a home. Not all men can claim that.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” my father said with a shrug. “Rachel, you might as well read your mother’s letters out loud. The first one is from her lawyer from Madrid, who is barely literate in English or Spanish. The message is fairly indecipherable and we’ll skip it for now. The only two important words are divorce, which Señor Lopez spells d-e-b-o-r-z, and immediately, which he surprisingly spelled correctly.”

  “I don’t want to read it,” I told him.

  My father now studied me with one eye closed. I slipped the folded white page out of the envelope and clutched it between my sweaty hands. The edges of the thin paper were sharp enough to slice my fingers. My mother hadn’t written the letter in her usual beautiful calligraphy, but typed it, as if the matter were strictly business. I couldn’t remember her having typed anything before, and the small black letters looked heartless. My tongue stumbled on every other word as I read, and by the end of the letter my voice had faded into a whisper.

  Dear James,

  Enclosed please find my lawyer’s request for an official divorce. Please check that all pages are signed before you return them to me. George informed Rachel of our situation when she saw him in Madrid. Please tell her that if the baby is a girl, we’ll call her Rachel (two) too. Sincerely, Elizabeth

  “Not a particularly forceful interpretation, Rachel,” my father remark
ed quietly, “but you got the gist of the emotion. Don’t you just love the pun about the twos? I never considered your mother very witty. Well, Mrs. Rosen, what do you think?”

  “It’s not my business,” she grumbled.

  “That’s right. But since you’re here anyway, I’ll let you in on my own thoughts. At first I was astounded. Nothing made sense. As far as I knew, all Rachel did in Madrid was bleach her hair and write a lot of postcards.”

  “It’s true,” I told him. “I saw George. I kept it a secret because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Didn’t want to hurt me?” James said softly. If he had been screaming I would have felt better. Mrs. Rosen looked disappointed about the anticlimax. “How do you think I feel now? You lied to me, Rachel.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she doesn’t love you anymore,” I stammered, my face growing hot. “And I couldn’t tell you that.”

  “Is she happy with George?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is he happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still beautiful?” James asked, opening his eyes wide as if trying to see her all those miles away.

  “In a different way. Her hair’s short now.”

  “Her hair? She cut her hair?”

  “And she’s heavier.”

  “Of course. She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

  “Dad, I’m so sorry…”

  “It’s a little too late for apologies. Excuse me, Mrs. Rosen. I’d better get dressed or I’ll start acting like a man used to dressing in the business section of The New York Times.”

  My father walked swiftly down the hall, his bare feet slapping against the tiles. Then he walked into his closed door. “Don’t bother with me,” he shouted. After he disappeared into his bedroom I turned around to confront Mrs. Rosen. Her face was so close to my own that I could smell her breath, which reeked of cherry Life Savers.

  “Are you happy?” I asked accusingly.

  “Happy?” she repeated with a shrug. “Why should I be happy?”

  “Why should anyone be happy?” I told her, grabbing my jacket and running out of our apartment door.

  The sky above Central Park was the color of rusting metal, and the air smelled industrial, like the inside of a dry cleaning shop. Crushed beer cans littered the parched brown grass, and a mongrel splattered with mud picked at something with feathers caught in a bush. I trudged toward Wollman Ice Skating Rink, hoping for comfort; some sign of solace. The rink was still open, but I knew as soon as I saw the unsavory-looking group of skaters that I had made a mistake. The men wore shiny baseball jackets and black cotton sweatshirts bearing the names of rock bands; the women had fake fur jackets and earmuffs and wore gloves without fingers. They all smoked cigarettes, and their shouts were punctuated with tinny-sounding coughs. One man screamed at his son, who kept skidding and falling against the wall with an audible thwack. The boy was puny and whiny, and wiped his runny nose against his sleeve—an obvious disappointment to his father, who even in this weather wore only a tight T-shirt that exaggerated his overly muscled, tattooed arms. The father’s face looked sunburned, his cruel mouth a slash of black. The mother, in tight Spandex pants and a white fluffy angora sweater, yelled at her husband and started crying, her red lipstick smeared like a bruise across her chin. Their un-happiness too closely resembled my own misery, and I wondered if I would ever find a happy family I could call my own.

  I returned home to find my father gone and the Vasquezes ignorant of any trouble. They were patiently waiting for him at the dinner table, with the steaming plate of chicken growing cold.

  “James never misses dinner,” Pilar remarked, her voice edgy with worry. “I hope he’s all right.”

  To avoid answering her I began to eat my rice. The rest of the Vasquezes followed. The dining room was eerily quiet except for the clattering of silverware and the sporadic wails of the baby. The phone rang once; Pilar leaped to answer it, but by the time she reached the hall the ringing had stopped. No one ate much and Mrs. Vasquez’s head was cocked continually in the direction of the door. Luisa made a mountain of her rice and blew bubbles with a straw; the baby threw a spoon to the floor and then sunk her fists into her bowl of applesauce. George Jr. elbowed Pilar in the ribs as he grabbed the salt, and his mother reached over and slapped him hard across the face. The boy didn’t protest, but sat there in sullen silence, the red mark, like badly applied blush, fading from his cheek. Mrs. Vasquez had shadows beneath her eyes, and when she finally cleared the table, she picked up every plate with a mournful sigh. Things weren’t going well at work, Pilar had told me. The immigration authorities were cracking down and her mother didn’t have all her papers. The hotel’s kitchen had been busted and two dishwashers from El Salvador were sent home. They wouldn’t know what to do if her mother lost her job. Mrs. Vasquez went to Mass every morning to thank Jesus for providing a roof over their heads. Saint James, Mrs. Vasquez called my father. She understood why he drank, and hoped God would see him a way out of his pain.

  “Maybe he went to the movies!” Pilar hopefully suggested. “Didn’t he want to see that new film about the Chinese Emperor? Maybe we can call the movie theater. What do you think, Rachel…Rachel?”

  I was overcome by a crushing sensation, as if all the Vasquezes were pressing against my chest. The phone rang again, and this time I ran into my father’s bedroom and answered it myself. All I heard was static, and then an operator with a foreign accent saying something about a collect call and Elizabeth Harris.

  “Is anyone there?” a woman shouted over the crackling line.

  “Hello, Mom!” I shouted, exuberant that the day had changed from disaster to triumph. “When are you coming home?”

  “What?”

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Hello…hello… Is Elizabeth there?”

  “Isn’t this Elizabeth?” I asked faintly.

  “I want to speak to Elizabeth!” the speaker demanded. “This is Sandra Silvers. I’m calling from Hawaii. I’m on my honeymoon.”

  “Who?”

  “Sandra Silvers.” The woman sounded like she was eating, every word punctuated by a long smacking slurp. “My mother called several months ago about the missing wedding invitations.”

  “I guess it’s a little late now,” I told her.

  “You could say that,” Sandra Silvers said stiffly. “Look, we want our deposit back right away. I mean now. We’re running out of money here in Honolulu, so could you send it Federal Express?”

  “Listen lady,” I retorted, trying to keep my voice low. “I don’t know where your money is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My mom’s not here anymore so I…”

  “Where the hell is she?” Sandra Silvers began to make stifled choking noises as if a slice of pineapple was stuck in her throat.

  “Madrid, Spain! So why don’t you try there instead!”

  My father would find this hysterically funny, I thought, as I slammed the phone down. Then I made myself look at his room and admit to myself that he wasn’t coming home. His bed was stripped of sheets, pillows, and blankets, the naked mattress sagging and stained. The room was gloomy and damp, the faded wallpaper peeling in spiral strips. My teeth began to chatter as I walked about, trying to find clues. My father’s wallet was gone, but that made sense; you didn’t go out for a walk without your wallet. His clothes and shoes were in his closet, his bath towel still damp from a recent shower. If it weren’t for the stripped bed, I’d think James was just down the hall, learning Spanish with Mrs. Vasquez, playing Nerf basketball with George Jr. My sneaker kicked at something white, and I leaned down to discover my mother’s letter, folded like origami.

  The Vasquezes still didn’t have to know the truth. I easily found matches in my father’s desk and unfolded the letter and placed it on the window ledge. Someone would think I was a pyromaniac the way I kept burning things. The letter kept blowing from my gr
asp, and I imagined Pilar discovering it on the sidewalk, or, more likely, Mrs. Rosen. The paper easily ignited and crumbled into a fist of flame. I was so tired of secrets. This would be the very last one.

  “Rachel, are you in here?” Pilar called. I shut the window as the last flame consumed my mother’s words.

  “Uh, I’ll be out in a sec,” I shouted, running to lock the door. Pilar casually strolled in, her hands in her jean pockets.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I answered, nearly tripping over one of my father’s chairs. No wonder James had so many bruises; his belongings seemed positively out to get you.

  “Who phoned?”

  “No one,” I answered.

  “What do you mean, no one? The phone rang—I heard you answer it. You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you?”

  “What’s for dessert?” I said instead.

  “Rachel Harris, I know you’re lying ‘cause your gums start turning white.”

  “My gums?”

  “That’s right. Look in the mirror yourself.”

  I then tried to run out the door but Pilar blocked my way. She was at least six inches taller than me and I was trapped.

  “What’s going on, Rachel?” Pilar demanded, pushing me firmly down on my father’s bed. “We have a right to know.”

  “I guess he went on a little trip,” I said, trying to squirm out of her grasp.

  “Did he take his wallet?”

  “Sure, but there’s nothing strange about that.”

  “What about his passport?”

  “His passport? Why would he take that?”

  “You never know. Why don’t you just check, Rachel?”

  “I forgot where he keeps it.”

  “Then I’ll look for it,” Pilar announced, walking to my father’s desk. I wouldn’t tell her that James always kept his passport in the bottom of his laundry bag. My father always said he didn’t care what any thief took as long as they left his passport alone. He was convinced they would sell it to a terrorist, and one day he would find himself kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured by the Israeli Secret Police. As Pilar opened and slammed drawers I jumped up and moved stealthily to my father’s closet, my hands groping in front of me for the nylon bag. I felt soft lumps like washcloths and underwear, but no hard leather passport case.