Ginny Palm wants to wait, because she feels that her mom might come walking up the street with a bag of groceries and her keys out, ready to unlock her front door. She crosses the street and sits on one of the small stoops to stake out her mother’s childhood home.
She was never allowed to come here. She asked her mother about her grandparents, and her mother always said, “Don’t worry about it.” Her grandmother died, and she knows that her grandfather retired and moved upstate, so Ginny doesn’t know who’s living in this house. She guesses it’s been sold. She tries to imagine her mother playing in this front yard, but it would look strange to play on this sterile square of grass. Also, Ginny’s not good at pretending things like this. Her sister would be better. She’s about to stand, pat the dust off the seat of her jeans, give up, and go home when she hears a voice.
“You’re not supposed to be sitting here.” It’s a boy, around her age, maybe a little younger. He’s shorter than Ginny, has a scooter, and wears a bike helmet. “If my mom catches you, she’ll yell at you.”
“My dad says the stoops belong to the city. To the neighborhood.”
“My mom says you’re loitering.”
“Whatever. I’m leaving anyway.”
Ginny stands and crosses the street back to the house. She looks at the attic window again.
“What are you doing?” the boy asks. He’s behind her, and he’s left his scooter on the stoop, but he’s still wearing his helmet.
“None of your business.”
“My mom says Sandy is a drunk.”
“Who’s Sandy?”
“The woman who lives here.”
“Oh. Yeah, how does she know?”
“Sandy hangs out at a bar all day. She doesn’t work either. My mom says she gets disability checks because she’s crazy but that she’s crazy because she’s a drunk. If you don’t know Sandy, why are you staring at her house?”
“I was looking for someone else.”
“Who?”
“No one.”
“Come on, tell.”
Ginny Palm looks at the short boy and thinks, why not tell? It might feel good.
“My mom left us.”
“So? My dad lives in Queens with his girlfriend.”
“No, I mean, like, she’s gone.”
“My dad’s gone too.”
“No, like missing.”
The boy, in the end, admits that Ginny’s situation is worse. He looks at the house with Ginny for a while and then he says: “Sandy once came outside in only her underwear and yelled about income tax for an hour. My mom called the cops.”
Ginny laughs, and the boy laughs too. He mimics Sandy, waving his arms around, practically crowing, and pacing the sidewalk. It’s spectacular. Then the front door opens and the boy yells, “Run!” Ginny turns, catches a glimpse of a woman a decade older than her mother, with frizzier hair, holding a bag of garbage. Ginny and the boy run until they are panting joyfully two blocks away. The boy raises himself on his tiptoes and kisses her on the lips. His helmet knocks her forehead. He runs away.
A confused Ginny returns to the train station and swipes her MetroCard again. The platform is now a different kind of busy. It’s all high schoolers in groups having uninhibited conversations, eating candy bars, and taking large swigs from plastic soda bottles. There are smaller groups of girls and larger ones with boys and girls. Some of the girls wear jackets that are too large for them, and let them drop below their shoulder blades. Some of the boys wear tight pants and hold skateboards and have chains swinging from their belts. Some have cigarettes behind their ears. Even the ostensibly nerdy kids loom large over Ginny, because they speak easily with one another. They have energetic conversations and laugh hard, with their whole bodies.
The train arrives, and Ginny tries to find a place to be. A seat opens up, and she takes it. She digs through her backpack for her headphones to listen to music. She sits with her backpack on her lap; her ear cartilage cups the earbuds, music pipes in, but voices invade anyway. To mute them she turns her music up, but there is a girl in front of her, snapping fingers in her face. Ginny pulls one earbud out, and the music is half replaced by a whisper of girlish profanities. This young girl, this stranger, pretends that she is a boy looking forward to devirginizing Ginny. She invites Ginny to suck her cock. The train is crowded; this girl’s words aren’t heard by anyone else, or if they are, they are not acknowledged. The girl is murmuring, gesturing at her own crotch and Ginny’s breasts, and Ginny is now too frightened to put the earbud back in her ear. She’s transfixed by this anonymous bully. The girl asks Ginny a question, and repeats it until Ginny must respond: “Yes, I have a boyfriend.” Ginny calculates this is the safer response. The girl laughs, leans closer so Ginny can smell her spearmint breath. “No, you don’t, bitch. Why do you lie?” Ginny rises and moves to the doors. She turns and the girl has taken her seat. She’s snapping open a makeup compact.
This sort of thing would never happen to her mother, even when she was Ginny’s age. Her mother would still have her seat, and the frightening girl would have to stand to apply her makeup.
Smiling
After her first day as a cleaning lady, Marion takes the train home and despises her body. Her fingers smell of disinfectant. Her scalp sweats and causes a curly halo of thin hair to appear around her head. Her housecoat is balled up in a plastic bag she found in one of the kitchen cabinets. She was lucky to find it, as most of the cabinets in the kitchen were empty, save for a few cheap and flimsy skillets and one spatula. She imagines all meals are delivered to the Russians, including coffee in the morning. Including the milk in the coffee. Marion looks at all the other women in wrinkled slacks on the train at 5 p.m. After Park Slope, a seat opens for her, and she’s with the remaining women, and they are strong, beefy women with smile lines, though they clearly don’t smile often.
Marion’s in bed with achy joints when Sveyta knocks on her door. Marion rises up and lets her in. Sveyta still wears her outfit, but with slippers. Her good heels swing from two fingers on her left hand. An envelope is in her right. Sveyta’s arms are crossed, and Marion is worried she oversold her cleaning skills. An American woman will never be as good at cleaning as an Eastern European, after all.
“I went by the apartment,” Sveyta says. “You did a good job.”
Marion exhales. “I’m glad you think so.”
“A good job, yes. I think the family will be pleased. If they are, this could be a permanent position. If you are interested.”
No, Marion thinks. I am not interested. I am better than this. “Sure, yes, that would be great.”
“Good.” Sveyta hands Marion the envelope. “For today. I’ll let you know about the position. They will expect you there five days a week from eight to twelve. And you will need to purchase a uniform.”