Becoming the Butlers Page 9

  “Shopping.”

  I dropped two bags filled with a second week’s supply of Table for One.

  “I’ve got great news for you, Rachel,” he announced with a grin.

  For a moment I thought my mother was hiding behind a doorway. “Silly,” she’d exclaim as we embraced, “did you really think I wasn’t coming back?”

  “Yes?” I asked breathlessly.

  “I’ve invited the Vasquezes to move in.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got everything planned,” he told me, lighting a cigarette on the gas burner. “Mrs. Vasquez and the baby will go into the guest room and George will sleep on the couch. Luisa can use the sofa bed in my study.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “A joke!” my father exclaimed. “I don’t think homeless people are a joke. The Vasquezes have been evicted. The new super is moving in tomorrow. Mrs. Vasquez can’t afford a hole in the wall with her maid’s salary and would be forced to live on the streets. This apartment has always been too big for us. Finally it’ll get some use.”

  “We’re not the Salvation Army.”

  “That’s right, Rachel.” My father put down his pancake spatula and took a long draw from his Marlboro. “We’re better than the Salvation Army.”

  “Hey,” I cried, “is this your way of forgetting Mom? Getting back at George?”

  “Of course not,” my father snapped, inadvertently inhaling smoke which made him choke for several seconds.

  “You can’t save them,” I insisted. “The Vasquezes aren’t like lost cats you pick up in Riverside Park.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” my red-faced father spluttered between coughs. “I want this apartment to be a home again. They’ll be good for you, Rachel.”

  “Good for me!” I shouted. “You make the Vasquezes sound like Vitamin C.”

  “I can’t be both mother and father to you. Look what happened in Madrid. Disaster would be a euphemism.” My father ground his cigarette in such an emphatic way that he could have been snubbing out our whole trip to Spain. “The Vasquezes will give me stability,” he announced in a clear voice. “Make me feel responsible again. I haven’t been coping very well since we returned, and I feel this decision will get me on the right track.”

  “So I guess I wasn’t enough,” I said sullenly, ripping off a paper towel in case my eyes started running. “Well I’m sorry I failed you as a daughter. I hope Pilar, Luisa, and Gloria will be enough. And you got a son too.”

  “All right, Rachel,” my father retorted. “I just have to finish these pancakes and then I’m going downstairs to help Mrs. Vasquez pack.”

  I had purposely avoided the Vasquez family. I didn’t want to see them, talk to them, and I especially didn’t want to answer their questions. I could keep the truth about my mother and George from James, but I was sure I’d spit out the whole story if confronted with Pilar’s fixed and withering gaze.

  “Wait a minute,” I exclaimed. “What about Pilar? Where’s she going to stay?”

  “With you. You’ve got an extra bed, and some closet place Actually…” My father looked away. “She just moved in when you were shopping.”

  “Thanks for telling me.” I heard footsteps in the corridor, and froze. “Do you mean Pilar’s here now?”

  “Of course. This is her new home. She’s free to come and go as she likes.”

  I ran down the hallway and opened my bedroom door. Pilar Vasquez stood in front of my mirror. Her glasses were pushed high on her head, and she squinted at her reflection. I didn’t remember giving her my blue Winfield Track jacket which clung too snugly around her shoulders. Pilar’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the way she stood, one hand on her right hip, her left leg bent sideways, reminded me of someone. Then she tugged at her earlobe, and I realized that someone was me. She jumped back when she saw my face next to hers in the mirror, and quickly pulled down her glasses.

  “Rachel, is that you?” she gasped.

  “Of course it’s me. This is my room, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t recognize you,” she said with a sheepish smile. “You did something to your hair.”

  “Why is Pilar Vasquez in my room wearing my track jacket?” I yelled into the hall.

  “Well, Rachel,” my father called back, “you remember how we always gave George your old clothes.”

  “But that’s my track jacket! And it’s brand new!”

  I knew I was whining, and took a deep breath and sat down on my bed. Pilar quickly unzipped the jacket and placed it neatly folded by my pillow.

  “Keep it,” I told her.

  “Oh, but I couldn’t, Rachel.”

  “I don’t need it. The coach threw me off the team.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pilar said, sitting down next to me. She smelled a little like onions.

  “Don’t be. I called her a Nazi after she made me do an extra ten laps at practice.”

  Ask me anything, I prayed, except for news about your father. Pilar pulled the elastic band away from her head and smoothed down the static strands of hair with her palms. I remembered one Halloween when Pilar and George Jr. went trick-or-treating in their everyday clothes. The other children laughed at them, and Larry Ash’s mother, who was trying to be kind, explained to Pilar about Halloween and that she and her brother should be wearing costumes.

  “But we are in costumes,” Pilar argued. The mother asked her if she understood what the word “costume” meant, and Pilar’s face grew red as she angrily declared, “Yes, I can speak English now.” Mrs. Ash didn’t know what to say after that, and the children resumed their jeers. Pilar, her head bowed, took her little brother’s hand and retreated down the stairs. But I understood what she meant. Her family were foreigners, and their new life in America seemed like Halloween—Levi’s jeans, Pro Keds, Snoopy shoelaces, tube socks—all part of the costume.

  “Your father’s very kind,” Pilar said, shyly looking down at the floor. Her eyeglasses slid to the end of her nose and she pushed them back, a habit I found annoying.

  “He’s a regular Mother Teresa,” I snapped.

  “But Mother Teresa’s a woman,” Pilar chided. I sighed and lay down flat on my bed. My ceiling looked awfully similar to the one in our suite at the Ritz, the once white paint now a moldy, cracked gray.

  “Pilar, don’t you find this a little strange?”

  “A little,” was her answer. “This must be more strange for you than me, and I’m very appreciative. We had nowhere else to go. Ever since my father left…”

  I abruptly sat up. “Well, where do you want to put your things?”

  “I hope you don’t mind that I already put my books on your shelf.” I looked across the room and saw a row of Chemistry I, Trigonometry II, Advanced Biology, Advanced Physics.

  “Who’s taking all those courses?”

  “Why, me,” Pilar exclaimed, standing erect. “I was first in the Science Fair last year. I’m going to be a periodontist.”

  “A what?”

  “Someone who specializes in gum disease.”

  I laughed, and then abruptly stopped when I saw Pilar’s serious expression.

  “Rachel, gingivitis is not a laughing matter.”

  “Gingivitis!” I cried. “What’s that? A new kind of soda?”

  “No, it’s inflammation of the gums. Your teeth fall out, and your breath smells rotten.”

  “Oh. Where are your clothes?”

  “Right in front of you.”

  I looked down and saw a small, neatly folded pile of sweaters and skirts. She had also brought her own sheets, pillowcases, and blankets, all emblazoned with the Holiday Inn logo. Mrs. Vasquez obviously took advantage of perks at her hotel job.

  “But where’s the rest?” I asked.

  “That is the rest.” We both didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then Pilar leaned over, picked up her clothes and asked, “Can I have one quarter of your closet?”

  “Sure. You can even take half.” I walked
over to my bedroom window and stared out over the bare trees of Riverside Park to the Hudson. The river was a sheet of ice, the sky dark and gray as a pigeon’s molting feathers. I glanced over at Pilar, who was busily arranging her clothes. She had even brought her own hangers—the cheap metal kind used by dry cleaners.

  “Who’s the famous writer?”

  I turned around, not sure I heard her correctly.

  “What?”

  “You wrote that my great uncle thought that Mr. Harris, I mean your dad, was a famous writer.”

  “I don’t remember.” I looked out the window again and saw one brave soul in sweatshirt and shorts trying to jog through the dirty slush.

  “But I only got the postcard yesterday. You signed it Keep the Faith. It made me feel so hopeful.”

  To my relief I heard my father shouting down the corridor.

  “Rachel, Pilar, can you give us a hand?”

  James stood in the hallway, surrounded by boxes held together by frayed cord. Mrs. Vasquez, unlike her daughter, brought her life’s possessions. She held her howling baby in one arm and a shiny black bowling ball with the other, and wore on her back a huge knapsack bulging with pots and pans. George Jr. swayed under the weight of a giant green duffel bag almost his size, and even Luisa stumbled about with a mammoth suitcase plastered with peeling airport stickers. I thought my father said their apartment was tiny. Where had all this come from?

  The doorbell rang, and two elevator men carried in a refrigerator. We already had a refrigerator; what did she need another one for? George Jr. dropped the duffel to the floor and ran over to the television in the living room.

  “Wow!” he squealed. “Does this have video games? Can I play Pac-Man?”

  “The best it can do is Dan Rather in black-and-white,” my father told him. He wasn’t happy about the cheap set he’d had to buy to replace the one my mother gave to Mrs. Rosen.

  “What? You can’t even play Space Invaders?”

  Mrs. Vasquez said something sharp to George, who kicked at the floor with his hightop Pro Keds.

  “You said this was going to be fun,” he whined. “You said our new house would have games and a Ping-Pong table and a VCR. I don’t see any VCR. I want to go home.”

  “But this is your home,” James said quickly. “I’ll buy you a VCR if you want.”

  “Will ya? Do you have cable too?”

  “George,” Pilar cried, entering the room. “You haven’t even thanked Mr. Harris.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  Mrs. Vasquez was busily directing the elevator men in Spanish where to put all her boxes. A six-foot cactus was carried into the library, along with a framed picture of Ronald and Nancy Reagan and the largest American flag I had ever seen. Our apartment would look like an army recruiting center. The baby’s howls grew louder as her older sister Luisa joined in. George said he had to pee real bad, and my father showed him the bathroom. Several seconds later I heard James yell: “Aim for the bowl, son, not the wallpaper!”

  Up to that moment, I never really believed George’s family would be living with us. Pilar would be just another sleep-over, ready to leave the next morning. Inching past an enormous trunk tied closed with rope, I slowly made my way to the front door. The doorbell rang again. Please, I prayed, no more boxes. I undid the locks and saw Mrs. Rosen.

  “I heard so much noise,” she said, trying to shove past me, “that I thought I’d better see if everything’s all right.”

  I suddenly wondered about the legal aspect of the Vasquez family’s move. I was sure there was probably a clause in the lease that two families in a single apartment was illegal. The landlord would love to get rid of us: one of the last of his rent-controlled tenants in one of the building’s biggest apartments. I was torn between protecting the Vasquezes and turning them out. Mrs. Rosen’s nostrils quivered in malicious delight, and I decided this was one neighbor whose nosiness had gone too far.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Rosen.”

  “Tell your father he still owes me for that C.O.D. letter!” she shouted, pulling back her arm before I slammed the door. “And don’t think you can fool me! I know who’s in there and it’s shameful!”

  “Who’s that?” my father asked, stepping over Luisa Vasquez, who had set out an enormous jigsaw puzzle in the middle of the floor.

  “Mrs. Rosen.”

  “Great. I’m sure she’ll report us to the landlord. We’re going to have to be very careful: sneak out the back door, look twice before walking down the hall.”

  “I’m going outside,” I told my father. “I need some air.” Before I unlocked the door, I turned to him and said, “Dad, do you really think this is going to work?”

  “Of course. Where’s your faith, Rachel?”

  I had heard something like that right before we left for Madrid. But I wasn’t going to remind him of that now. He would save the Vasquezes. He’d buy all the children new clothes so no one could call them rag dolls again. He’d teach Mrs. Vasquez English, enroll her in a high school equivalency course, find her a better-paying job. He’d talk to Mr. Gregory, Winfield’s principal, and see if he could get Pilar and George scholarships. I realized perhaps this was the only way James could forget my mother. But he was also forgetting me.

  EIGHT

  The front door was unlocked when I returned and I heard sounds I hardly recognized. Laughter. My father’s, and a woman’s too. The laughter came from the dining room, which hadn’t been used in years. It was too formal, too large; my mother wanted to seal the doors and leave it alone. Plastic covered the chairs, and on top of the table was an assortment of odds and ends: outdated and wrinkled McCall sewing patterns, left-over wedding invitations, brochures for trips never taken. No one ever went into the room, and I imagined mountains of dust, even something expired beneath the clutter. The smell would be awful. But the doors of the room were open wide, and the tableau before me was of a happy family; maybe not all-American as a Norman Rockwell painting, but close enough for a Kodak commercial. My father sat at one end of the table, Mrs. Vasquez at the other. The baby, in a high chair, was placed next to her oldest sister, while Luisa and George Jr. huddled together as they played with their food. Rice and chicken and shrimp were heaped on each plate. Paella. I had never had the dish while I was in Madrid.

  Someone, probably Mrs. Vasquez, had cleared the debris, removed the plastic, wiped, polished, dusted, vacuumed, and purged. The plates were paper, the forks plastic, and Luisa picked at the rice with her fingers, but this was a real party with warm conviviality. My father conversed easily and Mrs. Vasquez, who probably understood only his sympathetic tone, nodded with enthusiasm. Pilar sang to the baby and George Jr. showed Luisa how to cut the chicken off the bone without cutting herself. James had found himself a family. He was rebuilding his home, and this time I wasn’t needed. Pilar would be my replacement. She had wanted to be me anyway, posing in front of my mirror. No one seemed to mind or notice my absence. I could just sneak out, never to return.

  “Is that you, Rachel?” my father called out.

  I stepped forward, my head bowed, feeling bashful and a little bit lost in my own home.

  “Sorry to interrupt...” I began.

  “Where were you? We waited until the food almost got cold. I told you to be home by dinner. Sit down now and have some of Isabel’s excellent Paella.”

  Isabel? Were the two on such familiar terms already? Mrs. Vasquez (she could never be Isabel to me) wore a red nylon dress that shimmered in the light and big colorful earrings that looked like grape bunches. No place had been set for me, and a stepladder, which I often used as a stool, had to be brought in from the kitchen. I sat at a sharp corner of the table and picked at the cold rice.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” my father asked me.

  “Not really.”

  “She was the same way in Madrid,” he went on, “didn’t eat a thing.”

  “Didn’t you like the food, Rachel?” Pilar asked.

  “Can I be excused?�
�� I asked my father. “I don’t feel very well.”

  “Not until we have the birthday cake.”

  “Who has a birthday?” I felt tired and cranky and not in any mood for celebrations.

  “Why, me!” James cried.

  “You?” I sat up in my seat. “Your birthday’s June eleventh.”

  “Maybe. And maybe not.”

  “This is ridiculous. You can’t just make up your birthday. Who do you think you’re fooling?”

  Mrs. Vasquez was no longer smiling. Pilar looked down at her plate and the baby, drooling over her bib, started whimpering.

  “You promised a birthday cake,” George Jr. grumbled to his sister.

  “Don’t worry, George, we’ll have cake. At my age,” my father declared, “you should be able to choose your own date, and I think I deserve a birthday.”

  Mrs. Vasquez rose and with a wink went through the door and into the kitchen. Pilar stood up and dimmed the lights. Luisa began to sing “Happy Birthday” and George Jr. told her to shut up, it wasn’t time. Then the kitchen doors swung open and Mrs. Vasquez nearly toppled under the weight of an enormous cake ablaze with candles. She practically dropped the thing in front of my father. I leaned over and read the inscription in pink icing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! CHAU-PING WONG! followed by three Chinese symbols. James saw my expression, shrugged, and said, “Mrs. Chau-Ping forgot to pick up the cake, so they gave it to me for five bucks.”

  Mrs. Vasquez and Pilar sang “Feliz Cumpleaños.” My father’s face basked in the light of the candles, and as he was about to blow them out the back doorbell suddenly rang. Everyone stopped talking and glanced nervously at each other. The landlord, I thought gleefully.

  “I’ll get it,” I announced, jumping up and running to the door.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Mrs. Rosen cried as she stumbled into the kitchen, “but I must speak to your father.” The old woman stamped her wet boots and flung her scarf across her shoulder as if she were about to weather a storm. Her bright red hair—a wig, my father insisted—was speckled with bits of glittery snow. I realized I should offer to take our neighbor’s coat, but I didn’t want her to stay.