Tatjana Soli - The Forgetting Tree

“Pass the salad,” Forster said. “We need to discuss some things. We are all going to have to pull together.”

“Mom’s getting a maid,” Lucy announced.

“Do you want me to talk with Sofia?” Octavio said. “She could come back from Rosarito. Or should I ask Paz?”

“Isn’t she in school?” Claire said.

“It could be arranged,” Octavio said.

“I don’t want anything to interfere with her studies.”

“Finally,” Mrs. Girbaldi said. “This place was always too much to take care of by yourself.”

“I wouldn’t call her a maid,” Claire corrected.

“What else do you call someone who washes your floors?” Lucy said.

“Not your boyfriend,” Gwen said.

The girls’ catting was like the background noise of a television, muffled yet reassuring.

“She’ll do some cleaning,” Claire said. “But also driving me, cooking meals, running errands. A nanny for adults.”

“Still, it’s a stranger.” Lucy had remained quiet while she might have been called on to stay, but now she pouted at not having been asked.

“Unless you have Paz,” Octavio said.

“Usually maids are strangers,” Claire said. “Until you get to know them.”

“Like a man,” Gwen said to Lucy, “before you’ve slept with him. Lucy doesn’t know some of them after she’s slept with them.”

“You just said she wasn’t a maid.”

Claire sighed. “Let’s call her an assistant.” But to assist in what? Illness? A handmaiden for illness.

“You’re not going to like a stranger in your house,” Gwen said.

At that moment Claire wanted so badly to please the girls, to show her gratefulness at their coming. “Here’s the deal. After I’ve finished all the treatments and am healthy again, I’ve decided to put the farm up for sale.”

Gwen’s face lit up. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.” It was as easy as that. Peace would descend for the limit of her treatment, and she would deal with the rest later. She was surprised that deception was so easy and could give such pleasure when truth almost always led to disappointment.

“That’s good,” Forster said. “Really good. I’m surprised.”

Even Lucy gave her a wary yet pleased nod, convinced her mother was finally shaking off the ghosts of the past.

* * *

For days women from an agency came in a long, supplicant line of battered cars, oversize models from a decade or more earlier that Claire recognized from when shy boys had picked up the girls for dates. The women came shuffling in, wearing scuffed shoes, most speaking halting English. A young, sweet-faced girl, Angelita, had good references, but not till half an hour passed did she reveal she was pregnant and would leave early for Mexico. Dolores, a middle-aged, heavyset woman, wanted access to a gym for three hours a day to lose weight. A Scottish nurse, Moira, with purple lipstick, was born-again and insisted on installing religious pictures in the house. A Vietnamese lady wanted to move in with her aunt and three children.

Octavio again suggested that Paz do the job, defer her admission to law school, but Claire refused.

Claire spoke a fair amount of Spanish, enough to get the basics across, but this was more complicated. Many of the women didn’t like driving. Most had to care for their own families at night even though the job description had stated live-in. The younger ones weren’t educated enough to read English, follow medication instructions. Lucy was right. Everyone did feel like a stranger. How to admit that Claire was looking for a kindred spirit in these women while they were sensibly looking at this as a dull, servile, low-wage job?

Claire did not resent the new immigrants the way some of the old-timers did. She didn’t yearn for the old days of Midwestern farmers, polyester-suited developers, bedraggled surfers, Velveeta cocktail-party canapés, and dinner theaters that featured Hello, Dolly! But she needed a real companion for this undertaking back to health.

* * *

After a week, despairing of finding anyone, Gwen wanted to hire a full-time nurse in addition to a cleaning lady. Mrs. Girbaldi, who treated them as a surrogate family, listened to the hiring woes while the girls cooked dinner.

Claire complained that she couldn’t afford to hire two full-time new employees. “Besides, all the attention will make me feel like I’m sick.”

“Why don’t you take Paz once a week just to clean?” Mrs. Girbaldi said. “It would please Octavio.”

“Maybe. Then I could look for an assistant only. Maybe a college student?”

Gwen frowned. “Not such a great idea. They’ll be distracted — boyfriends, going out, future jobs. No way they’ll do grocery shopping.”

Lucy sighed, filing her nails. “I could come home.”

“No,” Claire said. “You’re excited about this Santa Fe job.”

“Thing is, I met a girl today. At the coffee place.” Lucy continued filing her nails, while the rest of them stood around the kitchen.

“Yes? And?” Gwen finally blurted out.

“I didn’t think you were listening.” Used to being the baby of the house, Lucy was always off guard at being taken seriously. Her brows furrowed as she pulled together the thought that she’d thrown out so casually. “I said I needed an extra shot because they always make the cappuccinos so weak, and this girl said, yes, not like in Europe. I asked her where she was from, and she said from Florida, by way of London and France. She learned to be a barista there. Born in the Caribbean. You should have seen the pattern she made in the foam — a perfect leaf. I think she said she’d studied political science at Berkeley. She wore the most beautiful canvas shoes from India, embroidered with all these sequins and—”

“Does this sound as bad to anyone else as it does to me?” Gwen asked, already turning away.

Mrs. Girbaldi sighed, tearing lettuce leaves, so much they had enough to feed twenty. “Let the girl talk.”

“And she’d want the job why?”

“Oh, I forgot the whole point of the story — she got fired while I was there. She was crying, and I offered to take her for a sandwich to calm down. She hadn’t eaten the whole day and was starving. She was hysterical — said she couldn’t pay the rent that was due. She owed money to some boyfriend, something like that.”

“I don’t think so.” Gwen continued peeling potatoes.

“Why did she get fired?” Claire asked.

“That was what was so strange. There was some old guy who came in every morning whose eyesight was failing, and she always brought him his coffee. That morning she took off with his briefcase — just left the store. The manager accused her of stealing until the old man came back and explained that she had returned it to him. She told the manager to f— off anyway.”

Claire felt determined about something for the first time that day. “I don’t want you giving up your job.”

“I should to be here with you,” Lucy said without conviction.

“This coffee girl isn’t the kind of person we are looking for,” Gwen said finally, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“Why not?” Lucy said.

“Remember when Mom was out of bay leaves? And you went outside and picked leaves off the tree, insisting they were bay leaves?”

Lucy’s face turned blotchy. “What are you talking about?”

“And Mom thanked you and pretended to put them in the soup?”

“Oh, my God. I was six years old!”

“For all you knew, they could have been oleander. You could have killed us all,” Gwen said.

“Can you get hold of her?” Claire asked.

“Who?”

“The coffee girl!”

“I know the apartment I dropped her off at. But she was moving out,” Lucy said. “Maybe I should drive over now? Get her name and cell number.”