Queen of the Trailer Park (Rosie Maldonne's World Book 1) (2 page)

3

My first hope for cash was already dashed after that call to Mimi. She could have at least lent me a twenty. Yeah, right. Why even bother with a cheapskate like that?

The trouble was, she was the only person I knew who had any cash. She didn’t have to watch every penny at the end of the month with the number of clients she had. It wasn’t the same for me. Ever since my grandmother stopped working the streets, that option had become taboo among the women in my family. We’re all for sexual freedom, but
true
sexual freedom.

I have to be fair. Mimi had another job with declared income. She was a waitress at Sélect, like me. Except she was on a full-time contract, and I worked when I could. With the three babas, that wasn’t very often.

Sélect is a coffeehouse in the Old Town. The boss, Tony, had always been cool with me. But only because he wanted to sleep with me. I’m not saying I didn’t like him—he was OK for an older guy (he was thirty-four). It’s just I’d never really considered it. My instinct told me that if I said yes, he wouldn’t keep me on as an off-the-books waitress any longer.

And that wouldn’t suit me at all. I needed the dough.

Plus, he let me work the hours I wanted, which came in handy with a bunch of rug rats.

And on Saturday evenings, Tony invited a band to play, and the last time, the musicians were really sweet—they let me wail like a banshee.

I love to sing. At home, it’s second nature: I sing from dawn to dusk. Maybe that’s why my mother sends me songs at night. I wake up with lyrics in my mind, and they follow me all day. They’re always songs she loved, which explains the dated repertoire. There are messages for me to decode. Mysteries. Enigmas. Puzzles to piece together. The following day, it’s rare I don’t understand what my mother wanted to tell me. The solutions to my problems can be found in the songs she sends. I just have to hit the right note.

The only solution for me that day was to head to Sélect with the three chickadees. I steered them toward the back of the coffeehouse with some coloring books.

I did a two-hour shift, enough so that Tony was happy to give me fifteen in cash. This clarified the lyric: I needed money, I wanted money, and now I had money.

We’d all perked up, so we headed out to treat ourselves to some Mickey D’s. That’s where we bumped into my best friend, Véronique, Véro for short. She worked afternoons cleaning for an insurance company.

Véro’s cool, but she’s misery personified. I don’t know how this girl manages to attract so much unhappiness, but it’s like clockwork. Either her landlord is kicking her out, or her boyfriend is beating her up. I say “boyfriend,” but I mean whatever guy just happens to be around, because she doesn’t have a steady man. I don’t have one either, of course, but it’s not the same. Véro spends all her time crying that she doesn’t have a man in her life. Me? I couldn’t give a crap. I’m not on the lookout for one, either. On the contrary, I’d say they were looking for me. A little too much. My problem has always been how to get rid of the latest one.

When we got to McDonald’s, my girls made a beeline for Véro’s older kid, Simon, and they all went off to play on the slides.

Véro had a face three feet long, and I could tell right away that something was up, but she didn’t want to tell me anything. For once in her life she wanted to listen to
me
do the talking. Her mind was elsewhere, but she listened anyway. She ended up saying, “If you’re short, I can lend you some money. I got an arrears payment through welfare. I’ll go to the bank tomorrow and give you some when I see you at Victor Hugo.”

Victor Hugo Elementary School is where my Sabrina goes. She’s in her third year, and Simon is in his second. They agreed to take Simon into the second level on the insistence of the shrink, even though his language skills are slightly delayed. Simon doesn’t like to talk. We’re not sure he really knows how. He stutters. Sometimes he busts out with a few snippets, and sometimes nothing. When he’s really tired, he won’t open up at all. Only Sabrina understands him all the time, even when he says nothing. She interprets for us.

Sitting outside McDonald’s, Véro seemed anxious. I asked her where Pierre, her younger son, was, and she burst into tears.

I was scared. When you ask a mother about her kid and she starts wailing, you immediately think about leukemia or something awful like that. Plus, Véro is so fragile and pretty, with her hair cut short and her big eyes, that you automatically feel the need to protect her. Seeing her cry like that made me upset.

“What’s the matter? Oh, Véro! Stop with the waterworks, please! Tell me! Has something happened to Pierre?”

“No, he’s fine. You know, it’s just that I’m so happy!”

Her answer left me speechless. “Happy? What do you mean, happy?”

When stuff like this happens, it makes you understand just how limited your vocabulary is. Take the word
happy
, for example. That day, I realized it was a word nobody around me ever used. Or words like
happiness
,
joy
,
tranquility
,
bliss
,
peace
,
satisfaction
,
well-being
,
serenity
,
ease
,
lightness
, and
ecstasy
. But as for
anger
,
misfortune
,
unlucky
,
misery
,
trouble
,
tired
,
fed up
,
exhausted
,
crap
,
drab
,
garbage
—we used them all. They were my daily life.

Yet Véro was
happy
: she’d met a man who was crazy about her. Some guy who’d been a teacher in the Haute-Savoie, but who’d grown sick of the snow and come south. He didn’t work as a teacher any more. He’d met Véro and fallen head over heels. She’d told him everything: that she had two kids; that her idiot ex, Michel, wouldn’t divorce her; that he’d torn the couch fabric into thin strips . . . everything. Well, this new guy—his name was Alexandre, like some emperor—was totally taken with her and the children, and today he was taking care of Pierre. They’d headed off on a bike ride together.

“Even all the shouting matches between Michel and me . . . well, I just don’t care about them anymore. I’m on a total high. I’m on top of the world.”

“Why? Have you seen that bastard again? Did he come back? What did he want? You fought, right?”

But she didn’t answer any of my questions. She just shooed me away. A lazy sweep of the hand.

With that, she stood to leave, smiling. I kissed her on both cheeks, and she walked away, taking Simon by the hand.

I returned home deep in thought. It’s not every day you bump into Happiness with a capital
H
. When the kiddos began rearranging anything and everything that could be moved in the Caravelair to build a fort in the middle of the living room, I didn’t have the heart to stop them. I put all three of them to bed right inside it.

Pastis had been hiding atop a cupboard through all the commotion, and as soon as the monkeys were asleep, he came down and set about rubbing against my calf. In other words,
What about me? Do you have a bite to eat?
I gave him the half a hamburger from lunch that I’d saved for him, but he didn’t want it. I told you he was odd. He sulked and meowed to go out—I think he was trying to catch a mouse. I opened the door reluctantly. He’s the only man in the family, and I like it better when he’s home with us at night.

I’m grateful Emma’s dad offered us this trailer. I know he only gave it to us because he couldn’t do anything else with it, given its condition, but he really did me a favor. I had just been evicted. I couldn’t risk going into one of those awful shelters for single moms. I’d rather starve.

You have to learn how to be grateful for what life offers you.

Thank you, Caravelair, my home sweet home.

Tuesday: A Cop Who’s Too Cute for His Own Good

4

It was Tuesday and school was back.

I woke up to the tune of “Love Me Do.” My mother had returned with her old favorites.

At first, I only had the tune, but on the way to school, the words came back to me and stayed for the rest of the day.

It was about love—a person who was looking for someone to love.

I couldn’t understand what message my mother wanted to send, except, like everyone who lives alone, maybe I needed a little love? My mother needed to explain herself better.

I didn’t see Véro at the school. I usually meet up with her when I take Sabrina to school, but I was so stressed for time. It’s often like that on a school day: I have to run with the double stroller, first to the school, and then to daycare. Getting the three little ones dressed in the morning is like running a marathon.

Lisa vomited all over her sweater just as we were leaving. So I was running and running and didn’t catch sight of anyone. I wished I had bumped into Véro. She’d promised to lend me some cash.

I spotted Simon at the playground and realized she’d already come and gone. Maybe she’d give me the money when we picked the kiddos up. I’d be sure to leave early so I wouldn’t miss her.

I went home and scrubbed the Caravelair from top to bottom, then went to EDF, the power company.

I waited ages on a plastic seat, two hours in total, hoping to see Benjamin, a buddy of mine who’d lent me some professional equipment to hook up a secret electric cable to my trailer. I wanted to borrow the equipment again to look at my hot-water hookups, which still weren’t working.

I could tell today wasn’t going to pan out, so I carted my ass off to see Tony and work for a couple of hours. I needed to buy Emma a lunchbox. She’s been carrying her food in her pockets. When I looked at my Swatch, I saw it was a quarter past four, or “mommy pick-up time,” as they call it at school.

As always, all the dumbass moms stood around in front of the school, waiting to pick up the apples of their eyes.

This is one of the reasons I never show up on time. I can’t stand this crowd. Poor Sabrina always ends up waiting for me with her teacher, who throws me dirty looks, or with the TA—the teacher’s aide—who helps out in class.

The teacher hasn’t said a word to me since the day she made a remark along the lines of, “How do you expect children to learn the rules when their mothers are incapable of respecting school hours?”

Between gritted teeth I replied, “Hey! Are you talking to me? Come here and say that again! I’ll beat the shit out of you!” I said it low enough that my daughter wouldn’t hear me. Just because her teacher is deficient in neurons doesn’t mean my girl won’t respect her.

As for the TA, she’s always on her high horse. Whenever I show up, if she’s the one waiting with Sabrina, she just can’t help herself. “Here you go! Just in time for the last metro!” I don’t know why she says that, given that we live in an area without a single metro line.

Or she shouts, “Oh, you’ve shown up? Too bad! Sabrina and I were just starting to have fun!” As soon as she says it, she leaves, so I can’t respond unless I’m prepared to shout. And I’m not. I don’t want Sabrina to hear.

But I swear, one of these days, I’m going to smack that goody-goody face of hers.

When I arrived, Véro wasn’t waiting at the gate. I still hadn’t seen her since yesterday.

Emma began to cry in the stroller. She’d had a slight temperature that morning, and when she’s like that, spending time at daycare doesn’t help.

When I didn’t see any sign of Véro, I regretted having bought the lunchbox. I began listing everything I had left in the cupboards.

Pasta. Yes, there was always pasta. We didn’t have any butter, but I could put in some oil, and then . . . well, I didn’t think I had anything else. It pissed me off that I couldn’t give them something with a little calcium at least, or some protein. Not to mention fruits and vegetables. I still had the option of looking through the trash at the back of the mini-mart.

I cursed Lisa’s dad, who could at least occasionally send me some of the alimony he owes. After all, we were married once, and he was the one who made me go before the mayor and then the judge. But I don’t want to make too many waves, because with the slightest indication that he could get custody, he’d go for it in a heartbeat. A quick visit from social services and I wouldn’t stand a chance against his villa in the Var.

He’s actually a decent father. He sometimes takes her during school vacation, which is a start, right? He shacked up with some chick, and it looks like things are going pretty well for them. But I think she’s taken a bit of a shine to my Lisa. I’m better off not asking him for anything.

It was while we
moms
waited so obediently outside the school gates that the cops showed up.

There were two of them. In civilian clothes. Brakes screeching, lights flashing, doors slamming, the whole shebang. They rushed toward the gates and started shaking them. What a couple of cowboys. Pointless—the gates were locked. They’d have to wait like everyone else. They asked to see our IDs as if we were common criminals, or maybe they hoped to catch a few illegal immigrants. I was livid and refused to show them my card.

The younger cop clearly felt like a schmuck. He blushed. It weirded me out because I thought he’d go nuts or bawl me out or at least insist a little. You’d have thought it would perk me up to scream at a cop like that, but it didn’t. He was totally taken aback and returned to his car, sat down inside, and didn’t move.

His boss followed, looking pissed, and they began what looked like a lively discussion. It sounded like the young one was getting a lecture. That’s when I noticed he was pretty cute.

Some trashy-looking girl next to me said, “That dude’s doing his military service. He’s not a real cop. He has green trim on his hat.”

I pretended not to hear her because I couldn’t stand talking to these airheads. Since my dear friend Yasmina died in childbirth, I’ve had a total of two friends—Véro and Mimi—and two is more than enough for me. What on earth was this girl talking about, anyway? There’s been no such thing as military service for decades.

And he wasn’t even in uniform. He was wearing a
Titanic
cap. With green trim. This girl was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Hey, keep it up, sweetheart.
I thought it, but I didn’t say anything.