Better With You Here (9781609417819) Read online

  I can’t think of an easy answer to that one. I remember how elementary-school kids can be. I know damned well they’ll make fun of him.

  Can I keep him home? No, not unless I call in sick myself. Which I can’t afford to do right now.

  It’s my turn to sigh. “You’re just going to have to ignore them if they make fun of you.”

  Stony silence. He goes back to staring at the wall. And I don’t blame him. It’s a crappy answer. It didn’t help me to ignore the kids who used to call me “Fatty,” or “Fat-tasha,” or “Jerry Curls.” And yet that’s the only advice my mother ever had for me.

  “Did I ever tell you,” I say, “about the time these girls in my class were making fun of me?”

  Alex sniffles. “For what?”

  “For being fat,” I say. I know he’s familiar with this concept. In our old neighborhood, there was a pretty chunky kid who lived down the street. More than once I had to point out to Alex and his friends that it wasn’t nice to call that kid names.

  “What did you do?” Alex asks me.

  “I ignored them,” I say. “Well, mostly. Sometimes I told them to shut up. Or sometimes I’d think of funny names to call them.”

  “Like what?”

  What were they? There was that one girl who tortured me all year. She came back from spring break with lice, and I called her “Bugs Bunny.” That made the other kids laugh and actually made me popular, kind of, through the end of fourth grade. But instead of telling Alex that, I say, “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I never let them see that it bothered me when they called me fat. Because if they’d known it was hurting my feelings, they never would’ve stopped.”

  He thinks about this for a while, then says, “But this is different. Having an accident at school is way worse than being fat.”

  “I know,” I say. “But you have to go back to school tomorrow and act like it was no big deal. If the other kids say anything about it, you have to laugh or make a joke or say, ‘Yeah, whatever.’”

  He remains unconvinced. No one can do a face of skepticism as skeptically as my eight-year-old son. “Look,” I say. “Let’s practice it now. Pretend I peed my pants, and make fun of me about it.”

  “Really?” says Alex.

  I nod, and that’s all he needs to sink into the role. His face transforms to that of a sneering second-grade bully, and he says, “Hey, Kinderbaby. You peed your pants! You stink like piss!”

  That’s a little harsher than I was expecting. But I compose myself and ignore the bully he’s portraying.

  He stands up and taunts more loudly, closer to my face. “Hey, Piss Baby! You got stains on your underwear?”

  I give him a look of studied, casual disdain. And, unable to resist the opportunity for a comeback, I say, “Why are you so worried about my underwear?”

  He’s taken aback but stays in character. “You’d better go to the bathroom, Piss Baby.”

  It’s really bringing me back, this fake bullying. I remember the faces of the little brats who called me Fatty every day at lunch. I feel a shrill retort welling up within me. I feel, all over again, the swelling of elementary-school rage. But I’m older now, and it’s so much easier to figure out what the best response would’ve been to kids like that. Kids who grow up to be adults like that. There are so, so many of them. All I want, right now, is to impart my grown-up understanding to my son. I look his bully character directly in the eye and say, in just the right dismissive tone, “You’re right. I’d better go to the bathroom, before I throw up from looking at your face.”

  He laughs, and now he’s my son again.

  I say, “Now I’m going to be the bully. Are you ready?” He nods. I say, “Hey, Pee-Pee Baby. Are you going to pee on yourself today?”

  He looks back at me, perfectly mirroring my expression of disdain—it’s almost like we’re related—and says, “Why are you so in love with pee? That’s all you ever talk about.”

  I act surprised and sputter, “No, you are! You’re the one who peed!”

  Alex executes a perfect fake chuckle and says, “Then why are you the one who smells?” Then he mimes going back to his schoolwork.

  “That’s really good. I think you’ve got it,” I say.

  He smiles. It’s good to see him smiling again.

  “And now I think you should probably take a shower.”

  Natasha

  I will call Mike, but not until later. Right now I have too much to do, and just hearing his voice puts me in a bad mood. So I’ll save it until after I do laundry.

  That’s what I miss most about being married—my washer and dryer. And I miss our old neighborhood, of course. To this day it annoys me that Mike didn’t want to buy the house we were living in. They gave us the option to rent instead, and that’s what he convinced me to do. He wanted to see if they’d drop the price after a few years. That was Mike: always holding out for something better. Never making decisions until I forced him to.

  Sears sells little washer-and-dryer sets that stack one on top of the other. I could fit one in the corner of my bedroom if it had the right kind of connections on the wall. But it doesn’t, of course, and the likelihood of convincing the property manager to install them seems pretty nonexistent. We need to move to a better place. Or else I need to save my money and try to buy my own house. But I can’t do either yet. I’ve only been working full-time for the past year, and the kids just got settled in this new school. So now I’m the one who can’t make decisions—who has to sit back and wait. I hate it.

  Time to quit thinking whiny thoughts and haul this basket to the laundry room. Lucia wants to go with me so she can beg me for quarters for the candy machine, but I’m going to make her stay in the apartment.

  This complex isn’t too bad. The paint in the hall could use retouching, sure. But our doors are nice and strong. It’s pretty difficult to get into the parking garage without a security card, which is a good thing.

  But some of the people living here are a different story. There’s the one guy who haunts the laundry room like a perverted ghost, looking into the windows and then creeping around the dryers that people leave filled with clothing. I know he’s probably looking to steal some college girl’s underwear. I don’t put anything in the dryers unless I have time to monitor them religiously. Which is annoying, because it means standing around the stuffy laundry room for half an hour instead of doing something useful upstairs.

  I should have brought my paralegal study guide with me, so I could read while I waited. Too late now.

  And, speak of the devil, here he is. The Laundry Pervert himself, approaching a gently spinning load. I walk into the room and set my basket on one of the washers, avoiding eye contact with him. Very slowly, he turns and oozes over to the soda machine. Stands there like he’s trying to decide between orange and lemon-lime. He’s older. He wears a greenish jacket and cap that look like they came from an army-surplus store. I pretend not to notice him as I push my dollar bills into the change machine. And he pretends to ignore me. But there’s a sickly web of tension between us. I wish he’d leave.

  I pretend to read the notices on the bulletin board next to the detergent vending machine. Oh, look—there’s an advertisement for computer repairs. And here’s a lost Chihuahua. Wait…here’s something of interest: a baby-sitter.

  Expereinced Grandmother. Home cooked meals. Call Geronima.

  I’m tempted to pull one of the sign’s hanging tabs, painstakingly imprinted with the woman’s phone number. I can’t help but notice the misspellings, her strange name. Maybe she’s from Mexico and English isn’t her first language. Would I leave the kids with an old woman who doesn’t speak English? Would that be safe?

  Who am I kidding? I can’t leave them with a stranger.

  I’m getting a headache from holding my face in this rigidly neutral position. Holding my arms crossed in front of me defensively while Laundry Pervert slowwwly shuffles around the room. God, I wish he’d leave.

  Someone else c
omes in. A short woman with long hair. She hauls two plastic laundry baskets, pink and yellow with broken mesh that makes holes for her dirty clothes to puff out of. I’ve seen this woman around the complex before—she lives on our floor, I know—and she always looks familiar to me. Probably because she reminds me of my cousins on my mom’s side—the ones with all the kids and no husbands. This woman has a little girl following her now, like a shadow with wildly curly hair. I think she has one or two more children, in addition to this girl. I’ve seen them in the parking garage, getting into an old brown sedan.

  I pass the time by watching this woman load her washer with what seems like hundreds of little dresses and T-shirts and tiny socks in every color of the rainbow. And so does Laundry Pervert. And now I hate him with renewed passion. Alex and Lucia are waiting for me. I want to get back to them. But I can’t leave, because I’m afraid this guy will mess with my clothes. Maybe it’ll be safe to leave now, though, now that this other woman is here.

  “Can I help you?”

  She’s speaking to him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her looking directly at Laundry Pervert, addressing him in a wrathful voice. He’s just as surprised as I am and can’t seem to think of a reply.

  She says, “Hey, I’m talking to you. What are you doing here?”

  In a voice like a cough, he says, “I’m…uh, washing my clothes.”

  “No you aren’t.” She’s shorter than this guy by a good six inches, but the way she’s leaning into him now, you’d think she was two feet taller. “You don’t have any clothes. You’re always in here, and I never see you wash anything. What the hell are you doing, old man?”

  He just stares at her. He’s as shocked as I am.

  “Boy,” this woman says, and she takes a deep breath like she’s winding up to punch him. “If I ever find out you’re in here messing with my clothes…” She points to me now. “Or her clothes, or anybody else’s, I will beat your ass down. You hear me?”

  He says, “Now, hold on. I’m not trying to do nothing.” His words come out all garbled. From alcohol or fear, I don’t know.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” this woman says. “Just get the hell out of here, before I call security.”

  As he shuffles out of the laundry room and down the covered walk, she calls out the door, “And don’t let me see you in here no more!”

  This whole time her daughter’s been standing directly behind her, twirling like a ballerina. She’s not even afraid, this little girl. She’s used to her mom going off on strangers, apparently.

  Her mother turns to me. “Sorry about that. But that guy’s been giving me the creeps for two days now.”

  “No, don’t worry about it,” I say. “I’m glad you told him something. He’s been creeping me out, too.” I smile down at her daughter for good measure. The little girl avoids making eye contact and runs over to the candy machine.

  The woman goes back to sorting through her children’s laundry but keeps talking. “Sometimes you just have to tell these dudes, you know? Guys like that see a single mom and think they’re gonna take advantage, you know?”

  I do know. I’m starting to know, now that I live here. Watching this woman, listening to her, makes me realize that I need to dust off the skills I learned in high school, which was full of girls like her and my mother’s cousins. Skills that kept me from getting my butt kicked.

  High school…

  “You went to Lincoln, didn’t you?” I say.

  She glances up at me with a black eyebrow lifting into an arch. “Yeah. You just figured that out? We had gym together. Natasha, right?”

  I nod. What is her name? I do recognize her now. She’s older, and her hair is black instead of purplish red, but I remember her sitting in the back of my health class, fast asleep in a flannel shirt. Now she’s standing here in shorts and a Tweety Bird T-shirt. She could pass for a high-school student still, if you didn’t see her face. Her face is hard, angry. Or maybe just…wary. As if she’s always expecting trouble.

  I think back to Coach Romeo calling the roll. Fernando, Jasmine, Edgar…“Sara.”

  “Right.” She smiles, and it makes her look like a different person. A friendly, happy young mom in place of the growling mother bear who was just standing here. She says, “Are you thinking about taking your kids to Geronima’s?”

  What? Who? Oh, the name on the baby-sitting flyer. “Um. I don’t know. I was just looking at it. But I don’t really…” I don’t really need a baby-sitter, I’m about to say. But that’s not exactly true.

  Sara says, “She’s good. I’ve been taking my kids over there for a few months. She cooks them dinner and everything.”

  I don’t say anything. I’m still absorbing all that’s just happened: The stress of being here with Laundry Pervert, the shock of watching a tiny woman chew him out and send him packing, then finding out this woman knows me and is recommending a baby-sitter.

  Sara says, “You want me to take you to meet her? Let me just get this shit started up.” She means her laundry. She fishes her electronic card out of her pocket and inserts it into each of the three washers she’s filled. Then she says, “Come on,” to me and barks, “Monique!” over her shoulder. Monique is her daughter’s name, apparently, because that’s the little girl’s cue to shuffle reluctantly from the candy machine to Sara’s side.

  “Okay,” I say.

  I follow her out the door, back to the covered walk that leads to my building, as opposed to the other building in the complex, where Laundry Pervert apparently lives. Good—this Geronima lives close to me. I feel like I’ve been away from my own apartment forever, but it’s really been only ten minutes. Alex and Lucia won’t even notice for another ten or twenty.

  Geronima lives on the top floor, two above me. The carpet up here is a different color: deep red instead of the Astroturf-ish green on my floor. Sara leads me to the door marked 312 and rings the bell. The woman who answers is not the frail little Mexican lady I imagined, but a big, sturdy grandma with wiry copper hair and a bright flowered dress that smells like baby powder and bacon. She’s wiping her hands on an apron—a real live apron, with an embroidered rooster—and she greets Sara by saying, “Hi, m’ija.” Sara introduces us, and Geronima says, “Natasha? Hi. Well, come on in.” Her eyes are crinkly but sharp as she smiles, and I feel like she’s taking in everything about me. But in a friendly way. And now she’s ushering us into her apartment.

  It looks like she’s lived here for decades. The living room is crammed full of flowered furniture and doilies, reminiscent of my mother’s house, but more old-fashioned and less dusty. There’s an old man, thin and well dressed, asleep on the overstuffed couch, snoozing upright as if he just fell under a spell. “That’s Oscar,” says our hostess, waving at him as she leads us directly to the kitchen. Her apartment has the same floor plan as mine. Two bedrooms over there. Only one bath. But Geronima’s somehow made her kitchen look twice as big as mine, and she’s filled it with ten times as much stuff. There’s no breakfast nook. She’s enhanced that space with an additional butcher block, which is loaded down with food. They must eat in the living room, then.

  “Are y’all hungry?” Geronima says to us. I see the source of the bacon smell. Two, no three pans on her stove, all sizzling. There’s beans, meat with vegetables, and some kind of sauce.

  “No, thank you,” I say. I wonder who she’s cooking all this food for. It’s way too much for her husband and herself.

  “Oh, you don’t have to be polite,” she tells me.

  “Gero, we just came by to say hi,” Sara says. “Natasha wanted to meet you ’cause she’s thinking about getting you to watch her kids.”

  “How many kids do you have?” Geronima asks me. Meanwhile she’s begun warming a tortilla on the stove’s last burner, directly on the open flame. She flips it with her fingers once, then picks it up and smears a thin layer of beans on it, folds it into a skinny cylinder of a taco, and hands it to Sara’s daughter. The little girl takes it and po
ps it into her mouth without saying anything. Like a bird or a squirrel.

  “I have two kids. A boy and a girl,” I say.

  “Do they go to Zapata Elementary?” she asks me. I’m wondering if she’s going to make me a taco, too. But instead she wipes her hands on her apron and focuses on my face with a smile.

  “Yes, they do,” I say. “Alex is in second grade, and Lucia’s in kindergarten.”

  “Oh, then Lucia might be in Tiffany’s class.” Tiffany, I suppose, is one of the other children she baby-sits. Geronima turns to stir the pan of meat. It’s beef and yellow and green squash, I see now. I’ve had that dish before, a long time ago. It’s called…carne guisada. My mother used to make it, back when we were really young, when she still cooked. And the third pan on Geronima’s stove is full of roasted chili peppers simmering in tomato sauce. She’s making her own salsa, it looks like. She sees me looking at the food and says, “Why don’t you bring them over for dinner?”

  “Oh, no. Thank you. I couldn’t,” I say. Dinner. Jeez. I need to get back to my own apartment and make something for the kids. There are two bags of Chicken Magic left in the freezer. I’ll make the Chicken Magic Alfredo—the flavor Lucia complains about least.

  “Are you sure?” Geronima says. “I wish y’all could come over. I made way too much food for just me, Oscar, and Tiffany. Sara’s coming over with her kids. Aren’t you, Sara?”

  “Sure,” Sara says. I get the impression that she’s a frequent guest here.

  I say, “No, I really shouldn’t.” But I’m starting to wish that I could. The meat and beans smell so good. As if to tempt me further, Geronima lifts the lid on a round container next to the stove, overflowing with orangey-yellow Spanish rice. It really is too much food for just three people. And it looks so much better than a bag of Chicken Magic.

  “Well…” I find myself saying. “Are you sure you’ll have enough?”

  Geronima laughs and says, “Of course.” Behind her, Sara nods and gives me the thumbs-up.