The Madonnas of Echo Park (8 page)

When I finished my assigned chores, there was an hour or two left over that I didn't want to cheat the Calhouns out of. I sorted the stacks of unopened mail and the towers of unread, outdated magazines and catalogs stuffed into overflowing wicker baskets, arranged the dozens of small trinket boxes on shelves, dusted the unused candlesticks and china, and swept dust bunnies off the cool marble floors.

It was one of these extra jobs that led to our first conversation. It had been eight—maybe nine?—months since I started cleaning their house. It may have been as long as a year. I can't be sure, because when you spend your life waiting, time
no me importa.
(I know this word
waiting
has two meanings in English, and I mean it both ways. Either I am waiting
on
someone, serving them, or I am waiting
for
someone, to answer a question, to give me freedom, to love me.) Mrs. Calhoun came into the kitchen holding a magazine.

“Did you,” she said and clenched the magazine into a rolled-up wand. “The magazines,” she said, “some of them are . . . did you . . .”

“I don't understand,” I said.

She slapped the flattened magazine in front of me. She pointed at it and grunted “Uh-huh.” Then she pointed at the trash can and grunted “Uh-uh.”

“Magazines, yes,” she said, clutching it to her chest. “Trash, no. Understand?”

“Magazines yes, trash no?” I asked.

“Yes. Magazines, yes, trash no,” she shouted.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Calhoun. I thought you finish them.”

“Oh, you, you understand,” she stammered. “You knew what I was . . . I'm, I'm sorry.” She tossed the magazine on the ground and ran out of the kitchen. I went through the rest of my cleaning routine on tiptoe until the day was over.

I wanted to apologize before going home, but I couldn't find Mrs. Calhoun. Then I heard a low whirring sound coming from a rear unused bedroom near the three-car garage. Mrs. Calhoun was lying in bed wearing a knee-length lavender bathrobe, open down the middle, with a large white baton between her legs. She moved her arm in broad circles, tossing her head back and flicking her blond hair against the headboard, the sound it made like rain lashing a window. This wasn't shocking to me; I'd done this many times since Hector left, with ribbed corncob holders, candles, and a special, hand-carved “happy stick” a
curandera
sold me, but never with anything mechanical. I was ashamed because I was stealing pleasure away from her, the pleasure she got from being alone. I backed out of the room but jerked the door too fast, slamming it shut. Halfway down the hall, I heard the noise stop and her bedroom door open. Her bathrobe was tied tight, her face flushed, her hair stringy and frazzled. She
had balled her fists up as if to fight someone, but there was a weird, crooked smile on her face, ready to collapse into laughter at the silliness of two women being ashamed at sharing the secret of how unnecessary men are.

A handwritten note on the dining room table was waiting for me on my next cleaning day. It was too long to make sense of it on my own, so I asked Aurora to translate. She read the unsigned note in a slow, halting voice:

“What are you doing over there?” Aurora asked. “Walking around and bothering Rick's wife like you do me?”

When I arrived the following cleaning day, Mrs. Calhoun was lying on a chaise that had been moved inside and set next to the sliding glass doors that looked out on the grotto. Jacaranda trees sprouting white, unripened buds shaded the water. I unfolded the sheet of paper I'd begged Aurora to write out for me and tried to remember how she pronounced the words, which she refused to do more than a couple times because she said I'd never learn otherwise.

“Mrs. Calhoun,” I said, “this is my answer to your letter,” though
answer
was the wrong word, because Mrs. Calhoun hadn't asked me
a question. She didn't want a back-and-forth conversation. I used the slow, dramatic “give me one last chance” voice Hector used whenever he begged me to take him back.

“I'm sorry I walked in on you during your ‘happy time,'” I said with difficulty, eyes focused on the paper. “I won't say ‘good morning' to you anymore, but please no more lies about your teeth brushing. My daughter read your note, and I don't want her to think her mother isn't doing her job.”

The words didn't sound angry like they would have in Spanish, didn't poke through the air with the same fire or conviction. I stood there, having emptied my paper but not my thoughts, shuddering with anger at being humiliated in front of my daughter and fearful that what I'd said sounded much worse to Mrs. Calhoun's ears than to mine.

When neither of us said anything, I started cleaning the kitchen, banging pots and slamming cabinets, working twice my normal speed throughout the house, expecting Mrs. Calhoun to march over at any moment and fire me. By the time I had stuffed the vacuum cleaner in the closet without wrapping up its cord, I couldn't tell whether she was even at home. When I grabbed my purse to dig out my bus pass, I found a slip of notepaper inside. Written in large letters, the words were easy for me to understand: “Would you have lunch with me?”

With uncharacteristic patience, Aurora prepped me for our lunch. She told me what questions she thought Mrs. Calhoun would ask, and what answers I should give in reply. “Whatever she asks,” Aurora said, “lie. If she asks you how you're feeling, it's always ‘I'm feeling great.' Americans are never honest at lunch or in the bedroom. I learned that on
Dynasty,
” she said, a TV show about rich, catfighting white women she loved to memorize quotes from.

With a change of clothes on a wire hanger in a plastic bag, I came
in the Calhouns' home without saying “good morning.” It felt wrong to enter a house this way,
como una ladrona.
Is this how criminals and cheating men feel when they invade a home? Is this how Hector felt?

The sound of running water was coming from the bathroom next to the kitchen. Steam and heat poured out the door, and every surface was damp with condensation. The water was hitting something in the tub. Behind the shower curtain near the drain was a large mound of bright pink and yellow flesh the size of a baby, frothing under a stream of hot water.

What I remember next is a firm hand patting my face and rubbing my cheeks. The water had been turned off. Mrs. Calhoun was kneeling by my side, panic-breathing as she tried to revive me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You saw the turkey and passed out,” she said.

“Turkey?”

“I'm so embarrassed,” she said and lifted me up onto the toilet seat. “I bought a big frozen turkey. A turkey,” she repeated louder, pointing to the tub. Americans always think you will understand them if they talk loud enough. Through the curtains I saw the pale, wrinkled yellow skin, smelled the undercooked meat.

“I put it in the fridge to thaw it out. But it didn't thaw. I thought if I ran the turkey under hot water, it would thaw out. This was supposed to be our lunch,” she said.

“For us?” I asked. “Big, too big, Mrs. Calhoun. This is for ten people, not two.”

“I ruined all this food,” she cried. “What do I do?”

“I can cook,” I said. “I will make the food.”

“No, you can't cook,” she said.

Offended, I said, “I'm a good cook, Mrs. Calhoun.”

“I mean you can't cook when I invited you to lunch,” she said.

“There may be some leftovers,” I said. “In your boxes, in the kitchen.”

“I can't serve you leftovers. But we could order something in,” she
said, dabbing at her eyes. “Order in? You know, delivery? We call,” she said, motioning with her fingers on an imaginary phone, “and they bring the food to us. I have menus. Lots and lots of menus.”

Mrs. Calhoun leapt to her feet and ran to the kitchen. She rummaged through a utensil drawer and spread out on the counter dozens of glossy, colorful take-out menus. “Whatever meal you want,” she said, “we can get it here. Thai, Greek, Mexican . . . um, maybe not Mexican.”

She pointed to the menus and suggested different dishes, most of whose names I didn't understand. I nodded when she said “pizza,” and she circled a couple of items from a yellow-and-black checkerboard menu.

“My address is on the back,” she said. “Their number's at the top of the menu.”

“Number?” I asked.

“Yes, to call, to order. Order?” she said and made the same dialing motion with her hand.

“Oh, no, I make a mistake,” I said.

“It's easy,” she said. “I circled what we're going to eat. Say your name, the address, and give them the numbers. It's easy.”

“You should call,” I said. “I make a mistake.”

“Felicia,” she said, and her mood blackened in an instant. “If we are going to have lunch, you are going to have to call. You have to learn how to ask for what you want in English, too.” She left me in the kitchen to dial the phone in private.

An annoyed woman took my order and told me how much the meal would cost (twenty dollars for two people—an incredible expense). I changed into my lunch outfit—a simple long-sleeve blouse with an ankle-length skirt—and went to help Mrs. Calhoun set the table.

“You're dressed for church!” She laughed. “This wasn't going to be anything fancy.”

“I see. I can change back.”

“No, I mean you didn't have to go to any trouble. God, no wonder I hate talking.” She finished setting the paper plates and utensils on a rectangular white dining room table next to the sliding glass doors overlooking the grotto. “Let's have a drink while we wait for the food.” She poured white wine into two etched glasses from the china cabinet and handed me one.

“Isn't Los Angeles beautiful?” she asked, pointing outside, from behind the glass.

“Yes,” I said. “Maybe we eat outside? It's a warm day, very beautiful outside.”

“Too hot,” she said. “I don't enjoy going out there. Better indoors with the air conditioner. Keeps us cool,” she said, rubbing her forearms.

“What about your pool?” I asked.

“No, no,” she murmured. “If I got in that pool, I'd never want to come out of it.” She paused. “How was calling in the order?” she asked, dialing her imaginary phone.

“Yes, easy,” I said. “Too expensive, though, too expensive. I am fine with a sandwich.”

“How about a turkey sandwich? We have a lot of that,” she said, and we laughed. “See how easy that call was?” she asked.

“I like to speak English,” I said. “But it's hard to learn.”

“We have the opposite problems. I hate to talk, no matter what the language is. I can get you English lessons on cassette tape,” she said and sipped her wine, a big gulp. “You can learn English while you clean.”

“That would be very nice,” I said and figured it was okay to sip my wine, too. The drink made my cheeks flushed, and I felt hot. There was a pause in our conversation, and we both glanced at each other and the pool many times, while I waited for her to speak.

“You need a Walkman. You have Walkman?” she asked, putting her hands over her ears and bobbing her head up and down.

“Oh yes, my daughter, she has Walkman.”

“How old is your daughter?” she asked.

“Twelve,” I said. “Straight A student, speaks English very good. Too good. She forgets her Spanish. Her English is much better than mine. But she doesn't help me practice.”

“Why not?”

“We do not talk a lot.”

“Well, she's at that age. Isn't she? Don't girls go through a ‘phase'?”

“We used to talk, like friends.”

“I don't think I ever left that phase. Talking's overrated. Silence is better. Silence can bring people together.”

“Silence with my daughter is good?”

Mrs. Calhoun stared out at the grotto. “What you don't say can mean more than what you
do
say. Look at us. You have a hard time with English and I don't know any Spanish. But we get along great. Appreciate the silence between you and your daughter. She's angry, but in time . . .”

“She has no reason,” I said. “No reason to be angry.”

“Maybe she's upset over that shooting. It sounded like a terrifying moment,” Mrs. Calhoun said. “That poor girl who was killed.”

“My daughter was never in danger. Never.”

“How about you?” Mrs. Calhoun asked. “How did you feel about what happened?”

“How did I feel?”

“Yes, how do you feel now?”

I remembered what Aurora told me. “I'm feeling great.”

Mrs. Calhoun had a strange, confused grimace on her face, and I wasn't sure if I'd communicated what I meant to say.

The doorbell rang, and she slid over two twenty-dollar bills. “One for the meal, one for the tip.”

“Twenty-dollar tip? No, too much.”

“It's fine, Felicia. Answer the door,” she said and gazed back out at the grotto. The jacaranda tree's blossoms were almost in bloom, and a breeze was swaying its branches over the water. When I returned
with two small pizza boxes, Mrs. Calhoun hadn't moved. Inside each box was a pizza the size of a flour tortilla. How did white people get away with charging so much for so little? I slid the pizzas from their cardboard boxes to paper plates and sat across from Mrs. Calhoun.