When Jim comes home Wednesday night, he has a woman with him. A skinny-assed woman around twenty-eight, with a kid about four dragging behind—Italian or Puerto-Rican. She has a head full of gorgeous black hair.
“Jean, this Teresa,” he says. “She’s a waitress at The Bull. You’ve heard me talk about her. She needs a place to stay.”
I smile nice and bend down to say Hello to the little girl. But I’m fuming. When I first saw them from the parlor window, I figured he was bringing her home for dinner, and that pissed me off enough, without him telling me beforehand. But it sounds like it’s going to be more than dinner.
Like the fool I am, I bring the woman into the parlor. I say, “Here honey, sit down.” I swat the cat off the couch and move some newspapers. “How about some tea or some coffee? Or something cold?”
“Coffee would be great,” she answers.
She has this matter of fact voice which makes me wish I had never called her “honey.” She’s still in her uniform from work, and her skirt is creeping halfway up her ass.
I feel my head begin to throb, but I keep acting real polite.
“There’s some toys in that box over there,” I say to the child. “The kids will be home soon and then there’ll be somebody to play with.”
I feel sorry for the little one. She has this bewildered look and she’s wearing this dress that she could probably wear for her first communion.
“Jim, maybe you could give me a hand in the kitchen.”
I nod to Miss Señorita and go into the kitchen.
“What the hell’s going on,” I whisper.
He’s wearing his sheepish grin—the one that used to always win me over—but I’m in no mood for it today. He says, “Jean, it’s not what you think. Her husband’s this crazy Hispanic guy. She can’t leave him. He’ll kill her. So she just needs a place to run to.”
“What about us? What’s he going to do to us?”
“Nobody needs to know. He won’t come into the bar, and we’ll just bring her here as best we can.”
“Do you want some?” I rasp in a tone of disgust. I place a teaspoon of instant coffee into a cup for her, and I prepare one for myself. He shakes his head no, and then reaches into the refrigerator for a beer.
“It won’t be long. Or if it is, it might be fun. She can baby-sit every so often”—and he actually has the nerve to give me a little pat on the rear—“and she can help out with some of the bills. Christ, she makes as much as me.”
I yell into the parlor, “How do you like your coffee?”
“I’ll fix it,” she says, as if I’m too stupid to know how to put cream or sugar in someone’s coffee, and she comes on into the kitchen with her little one following right behind, so that there are three adults and a child maneuvering in a kitchen that’s crowded with just me and the cat.
“Is there a problem,” she asks, looking at my husband with the kind of eyes that remind me of those women doctors or writers you see on the talk shows, all smiles and brains and seriousness, but her looks makes me think that there’s more to this deal than just a place to hide out.
“No Terr, everything’s fine,” says Jim. “How about if I go upstairs and try to fix something up for you and Lisa?”
And that coward grabs his beer and hustles up the stairs, two at a time, leaving me in the kitchen with Teresa. He’s always been like that. Avoids confrontation like the plague. In fact, in eighteen years of marriage, I can’t remember ever having a real argument. We disagree plenty, but it never comes out. He just gives me the silent treatment when he’s angry or simply gives in when he doesn’t care enough to fight.
So anyway, it’s me and the young woman in my kitchen, and her overdressed daughter clinging to her legs. And there’s nothing to say. Luckily, I was planning on spaghetti tonight anyways, and there’s always plenty, so I just hand her six plates and tell her to put them around the table.
The evening is awkward. The kids spend most of the night playing with the little girl, but when it’s time for them to do their homework, she seems a bit lost and nestles close to her mother’s side. To be truthful, I feel a bit sorry for both of them, but still I hope the mother realizes the problems she causing in my house.
She goes up to bed early with her daughter, and for a long time, I can hear her unpacking—Jim took the summer clothes out of the spare dresser and put them in the attic, so our pair of guests have somewhere to put their things.
Jim and I talk late into the night, far later than normal. Usually, I’m asleep before the news, but then I’m the first one out of the house in the mornings. Tonight, though, I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.
He promises that it won’t be any problem, and that there’s nothing more involved that his big old Good-Samaritan heart. The crazy thing is, I guess I believe him, but I’m not completely sure yet.
The little girl, he tells me, will still be at the same day-care where she’s been all the time, and Teresa is more than willing to pull her weight.
“Besides,” he says, “she’s a terrific cook.”
Both Teresa and Jim don’t start work until eleven—they have the eleven to nine shift—and Teresa’s still in bed. Jim comes downstairs with me and helps get the school lunches ready. They don’t leave until 8:15 but he’s got everything ready by 6:45. I zip up my parka, give him a kiss, and notice that he’s already shaved.
“We’ll see you about ten,” he says, and I head off for work.
The next couple of days go fine. The kids treat Lisa like she’s some kind of doll, and the poor girl’s probably never had so much attention in her life. Really, she’s a sweet thing and very lovable. Last night she sat up close to me on the couch and watched me cut coupons, and after a while I read to her from one of the books the kids had when they were her age.
Monday is Teresa’s day off, and when I come home, the house is filled with the smell of onion and garlic and something else I can’t place. I remember Jim saying that she’s a good cook, so I go straight to the kitchen. I lift the lid off a simmering pot and take a deep breath from tonight’s dinner.
There’s a note on the table saying the stew should be ready by 6:00. There are instructions to stir it every so often. I take a slice of bread and dip it into the pot, soaking it with the juice. I finish it in two bites, my head stretched over the sink so as not to drip on the floor, and then I go upstairs to see the kids.
“Where’s Teresa?” I ask the oldest. “I don’t know,” she says, barely looking up from trying to slide some pants onto a Barbie doll. “She went out.”
Around 7:30, I feed the kids, not setting a plate for myself but dipping slice after of slice of bread into the stew. The little one eats quietly, looking up at me every so often. I guess instinctively she knows.
At 9:00, I put the three of them to bed and go down to the kitchen. The kid’s plates and the bowl of stew are still on the table, but I’m too tired to clear them. I grab a fork and stab at one of the potatoes in the bowl. Then a piece of beef, a carrot, another potato, an onion. Bite by bite, I eat everything in the bowl, and then wipe it clean with a last slice of bread. It’s after midnight when I turn off the kitchen light and go up to bed.