As Karen took two wineglasses down from the shelf and emptied a recently opened bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc into them, the women commiserated about how ridiculously cold it still was outside. Then Karen pulled up a stool across from Michelle, who was already seated at Karen’s butcher-block kitchen island, and said, “So, what’s new in your life?”
“Seriously?” said Michelle, one eyebrow lifted as she raised her glass to her lips.
“Seriously,” said Karen.
“My husband, Benny, Mia, and me? We’re fine,” said Michelle. “But can I tell you”—she extended her neck forward—“Benny’s ex, Gisela? She’s literally killing me right now. Like, she and my stepdaughter, Juliana, just got evicted again.”
“Oh my God, are you serious?” said Karen, amazed at how forthcoming Michelle was being—it was almost as if she’d forgotten that she and Karen didn’t actually know each other—but also flattered to be entrusted with such personal information and happy for the distraction from her own problems. In truth, it alarmed and excited her to think that her daughter was only two degrees of separation away from the kind of people who got evicted.
“Totally serious,” said Michelle.
“What a nightmare,” said Karen. “So where are they living now?”
“Probably someone’s floor. Or a shelter. I don’t even ask anymore!”
“That’s terrible,” said Karen, shaking her head.
“I just feel bad for my stepdaughter, Juliana,” Michelle continued. “She’s, like, a sweet kid. But when she comes over to our house, she cries when it’s time to leave ’cause Mia’s got all these games to play with and her own room and stuff. And Juliana’s got, like, nothing.” She shrugged.
“Who can blame her?” said Karen, shrugging herself.
“But what can I do?” said Michelle. “I don’t have room for her. And I sure as hell don’t have room for Gisela.”
“Well, she can’t really expect you to put them all up.”
“I don’t know what she expects. But seriously, Karen?” Michelle pulled her stool in even closer. “Benny and I worked to get where we are. Like, we worked our butts off. So did my mami and papi—they always paid the rent on time. But Benny’s papi left his mami when she was eight months pregnant with Benny. Then he got AIDS and, like, died on the street, but that’s a whole other story.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful!” said Karen, even as a part of her wondered if Michelle was playing up her and Benny’s hard-knocks background for Karen’s own edification.
“Anyway, Benny knows that I will chop his you-know-what off if he leaves me for another girl. And he’s not going to, because he’s not like that. He’s working the night shift right now.”
“What does he do? I mean, where does he work?” said Karen, correcting herself. To her mind, the first question implied that the subject had selected one or another specialized field that provided, along with money, some sense of personal fulfillment, whereas one couldn’t presume that working-class people did their jobs for any reason other than that they had to. Or was that patronizing?
“He’s a security guard,” said Michelle. “It’s not ideal hours, but it’s steady money. And that’s where our priority is right now. We want to do what’s best for our family.”
“That’s why your life is good, and hers isn’t,” said Karen.
“Exactly. And Gisela—she wants to get high and buy stuff she doesn’t need. Hello? What about food for your children?” Michelle gestured elaborately with her long, perfectly manicured red nails, making Karen suddenly self-conscious about her own unadorned, vaguely filthy, and partially chewed-off ones.
“God, that is so depressing. I feel so sorry for Juliana,” said Karen, hiding her hands under the table.
“I feel sorry for her too. But I’m sorry—I have no sympathy for Gisela.”
“And why should you?”
“Seriously, Karen? I want to take her by the shoulders and shake her and say, ‘You know what? You need to get your shit together. No one is going to bail you out anymore.’”
“Gisela has to learn that,” Karen heard herself agreeing, even as she realized that the faith in self-reliance that Michelle was preaching and that Karen was now seconding was right out of the Republican Party playbook that Karen had spent a lifetime claiming to abhor because it placed all the blame for being poor on the poor.
“Oh! I completely forgot,” said Michelle, reaching into her bag and, to Karen’s secret horror, pulling out a large package of Chips Ahoy! chocolate chip cookies. On closer inspection, they appeared to have Reese’s Pieces candy embedded in them. “I bought a treat for the girls,” Michelle went on.
“That was so sweet of you!” said Karen, dark visions of polyunsaturated cooking oil filling her head. As she took the package out of Michelle’s hand, she racked her brain for an excuse why it shouldn’t be opened just then. “Will you forgive me if we save them for later?” she spluttered. “The truth is that we had a super-late lunch, and I let Ruby have this huge cupcake for dessert. And to be honest, she goes a little insane when she gets too much sugar! I mean, even more insane than she already is.” Karen laughed to hide her discomfort with lying.
“Of course!” said Michelle, shrugging and seeming unbothered.
But Karen couldn’t tell if it was an act or not. And really, why should Michelle believe her? Hadn’t Karen just offered the girls hot chocolate and, when that was turned down, promised to give Mia another sweet treat later? Also, who had lunch at four o’clock? “Anyway, back to Juliana’s mom,” Karen said shakily. “Doesn’t she have any other family she could live with?”
“I wish,” muttered Michelle.
Was it Karen’s paranoia or had Michelle’s voice grown suddenly chilly? Ten more minutes passed, during which time the two women wound up discussing the hell of pregnancy-related nausea—likely one of few common threads in their life histories. Then Michelle stood up and announced she had to run an errand, if that was okay.
“Go ahead!” said Karen.
“I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes,” said Michelle.
“Please, take your time,” said Karen, hoping it was more like an hour and twenty minutes, not because she didn’t like Michelle—really, she felt the opposite—but because she was now convinced that Michelle could see right through her. That is, see her for the neurotic elitist she really was. “The girls will be fine,” she continued.
“Well, if you’re sure…”
“Totally.”
Closing the door behind Michelle, Karen felt her chest expand as if with fresh oxygen. She sat down on her linen-upholstered, feather-down sofa, which she’d purchased on sale at Restoration Hardware—not Ikea—and closed her eyes.