My Hollywood (37 page)

“What has happened? You met a prince at Fox Studios?”

“No, but I saw a good movie, for once,” she says, taking off her jacket. She peeks into the lit room of Laura. “She still out?”

“The phone did not ring.”

“Good for her.” Judith takes a banana and peels. “She’s really made a friend.”

“Now Lola has to make a friend too.” I say it to get a laugh, but it has been a long time only working. “Did you eat?” I take from the refrigerator leftovers, give her a plate, a fork, and napkin.

Claire
THE COMET OF 1999

“You still in the same place?” Sue asked me, in the parking lot. Small planes zoomed overhead. The baseball diamond was in a park that had once been a McDonnell Douglas plant, just south of the tiny Santa Monica Airport.

Bing had invited Will to his house for supper, so they climbed into the back of Helen’s van and I shouldered his bag to take home. I called to Helen that I’d pick him up in a couple of hours.

It was a warm night, still light out. Soup waited on the stove. I’d already set the table, but I wasn’t so hungry. I stood outside a moment, to shake off the sadness that overtook me whenever Will was away. The ocean, in the distance, was a clear deep blue, the waves breaking evenly. Japanese pines, planted on the cliff, seemed not to move at all. Then I ladled a mug of soup and carried it upstairs and sat down at the piano barefoot. Even though I was teaching more now and worried about money, it felt easier to work.

After an hour, the doorbell rang. Paul. We still talked every day; you do if you have a kid together. My old self had come back—the downs but the highs, too, sometimes over nothing but the sound of a human voice, its stops and implicit melody. Paul had been my Prozac.

There he stood at my door, the beginnings of gray in his hair.

“Got out early for once and thought I’d stop by and see him.”

“He’s at Bing’s. You want to go there?”

“No, I’ll leave him. How that going? With Bing?”

I shrugged. “Okay, I think. Baseball helps.”

“He’s staying for supper? Well, you want to have dinner?”

“Sure. I have soup. I can make a salad.” Most often when we ate together now, it was in my kitchen, when he came to drop off Will. I still fed him. He still got up right away when he was done. But I didn’t mind anymore.

“Let’s go out, in an an hour or so. I’ll run home and take a shower.”

“Like a date,” I said.

“Yes, Claire, like a date.”

In the restaurant, we gossiped about Helen and Jeff. Talking about them, we remained loyal to each other. When we’d first separated, Helen had arranged herself lavishly in Jeff’s arms, laughing up at him, in deliberate tableaux of intimacy. I supposed since she’d confided in me, she’d wanted to be clear: there was nothing deeply wrong with
their
marriage. Maybe divorce seemed contagious. But I’d heard the rumors about Jeff and Alice. Beth Martin said that it had gone on for years.
Years
, she’d repeated.

Paul shook his head. “He told me he couldn’t leave the marriage, he’d tried. But he said Alice was his great love.” He put his glass down. “So. Are you dating?”

“Not really. How about you?”

“I tell people not to fix me up, and every time I go to a dinner, there’s a single woman in her thirties seated next to me.”

“Well, that sounds good, I guess.”

“It does
sound
good, doesn’t it?”

On the way home, he said, “I should have done more with Will while we were married.”

Fluids moved under the skin of my face. Was he apologizing? I didn’t know.

“We were something,” he said.

“I’m still trying to figure out what.”

When Paul left he did a little twirl, then waved, his hand behind his back.

Paul runs now. He reads. His house felt like a certain kind of hotel, sunny, stylish, but where I knew all the smells. The last time we’d run together, I took a shower in his bathroom. After, I dressed in his closet and put on a pair of his boxers under my skirt.

After he left I called Helen. The boys were fine. They were talking about a sleepover, but it was a school night. She said she’d call when their movie was over.

I turned to my table in the dining room, where I had the photos spread out.

We hadn’t taken that many pictures. All of ours filled up just one album and that included quixotic pages, like the ones Lola had snapped of our party meals.

I finally started putting together our wedding album, for William. I wanted him to know that he was started in love.

The phone rang at ten.

I went to get Will from Helen’s and we walked home in the dark. When we looked up from our street, we saw the comet of 1999. Will didn’t want to go in and so I brought him a blanket. I made hot chocolate, and when I carried the mugs out, it was still there, brighter than the Los Angeles lights and the surrounding stars, its tail a bright white blur.

Lola
THE PHILIPPINES, MY PHILIPPINES

I read in a magazine Aleph Sargent said girls should buy jewelries for themselves, so I turn into a car dealership to take a tour. For my birthday, last day August, my kids each sent cards. Bong Bong made an ink drawing of our house. But this year I want a bigger gift. Silver Toyota RAV. Very cute. I set up the paperwork while Laurita plays with Georgia, and then I drive in it to pick her. Until now, I had the same used Honda the ex of Natalie found when I started with Laura. When Natalie first married that guy Ruth cried because he was only a mechanic, but that car he picked, it still runs. I can sell it to the slave. Ruth says she still does not want that anyone will see her eat; for her it is the same as people watching in the bathroom. Maybe I will just give it. I can afford.

Laura and I drive to Starbucks to celebrate, and there I see my old employer.

“You got a new car!” Claire says.

Filling out the paperwork for my loan, I did not think of my old employer seeing. “My kids in jobs, all but one married, my youngest doctor next year. Their school is paid. So”—I shrug—“enjoy your life.”

“Will you go home, then?”

She still wants me out! If I am not working her, I should be offshore. I used to tell Williamo I would return to the Philippines.
I will sit in my hammock
. But Laura, she looks up for my answer. “I will have to stay here. Who will make the payments for my car?”

“It’s sad. All of you here without your husbands.”

Maybe she does not want to tell me the divorce. I make a joke so she will understand I know. “People ask how we stay married so long. It is because he is in the Philippines and I am here. To live with a husband, that is very difficult.”

In the kitchen we tiled white, chopping, the window open over the sink, cricket noises lifting in—that was the two of us. I have questions about Williamo, but then she might ask for Laura and I do not want people gossiping. So I ask about her music. That was always an important topic that she could only talk with a hush. But today it is seems she had been waiting for me to ask.

“Oh. Well, I’m collaborating with a chamber group in Glendale. They’re performing a new piece of mine next month. I’m here working.” She lifts her paper with the notes, one-flag notes, two-flag notes. She taught me once, how to read the key signature. I still know that. Some-a-day I will teach to Laura. I am saving already to buy her piano.

That same day, on the way home, I lose a tooth. Just sixty, first new car, silver. An adult tooth. That will never come back.

“You need the tooth fairy,” Laura says. “Too bad you are her.”

A Friday night in October, Judith calls to say goodnight to Laura. “It’ll be a late one, Lole,” she says and she is still not home at ten. I check the girls—I have Georgia too for sleepover—and close the lights. I try to sleep, but my employer sometimes lets the door unlocked. After she is in bed, I always check. In a dream, I ride waves, a deep, pleasurable sleep, but then I push up, cover myself with a robe. I want to go back, but the worst is true. At the room of Judith, the door is open, the bed still tight. The window I leave for her to close hangs at a slant, the screen black, noises point in from outside.

Should I call police? It is after one in the morning. I have two girls asleep in the other room. But what if something happened Judith? The grandmother is old. Maybe she will get sick, and I will have to take care her too.

Judith said she would be late. But what if she had accident? Her car, it is too small. I think of Judith broken, by the side of the road, in the black skirt and purple blouse she wore this morning. At this hour, it seems unfair that she should have to be the breadwinner, Judith in those flimsy clothes. I make a deal. I will not call police, only hospitals. I am on hold with Cedars-Sinai—they ask the type of car—when I hear tires. I run to my room and shut the door. But I have seen the picture of the tight-made bed, a breeze running loose in the empty room.

At seven, I am up making pancakes when I hear her shower. But she does not come out. Laura runs there to say goodbye before ballet, and after, we come home to an empty house. That night, Judith walks in with her mat and I understand I will never learn what happened. We eat and then she takes Laura on Rollerblades while I clean.

Two weeks later, I am waiting again. After midnight, I hear the lock, then footsteps. The refrigerator sighs open. A pop and then voices. His and hers.

What is this? I feel like a mother hearing what I should not hear—the romance of my children. Glasses ring, I pick out words, never a whole sentence, and I fall asleep, but only lightly. A thin blanket over me. Too soon in the cold, I wake up to check the door. When he left, maybe she forgot to lock. I walk through the kitchen—yes, this is the back of romance, crumbs over the counter, eggs left on a plate; ants will come. Two-thirty. I check the door. See! It is unlocked! How many hours already! Somebody could have come in. And Laura sleeping.

Even my children, when they had parties, they knew to put away food. Olives spoil on the table. I pour wine down the drain, scrape eggs into the garbage. Laura and Judith will sleep straight; noises do not wake them. As I wash, I tick off the areas: to the right the sink, the counter, wipe the table down. I will have to sweep. There are crumbs and a lump of cheese on the floor, and then my eyes hit something. Shoes. One next to the other, facing forward. He left his shoes! Then I hear a slow run of water in the loop of pipes. He is still inside! Do I go in my room and pretend sleep? Then her door opens, and it is a man stooping down to pick up shoes.

He walks like that across the floor, diagonal, bent over. Out the front.

I keep doing what I am doing, because I know how. A little more, a little more, until done. Is this their romance? What of courtship? Did not the mother tell her?

There will be no courtship now.

But it is backward here. After Christmas, Judith calls from the car to say, have Laura with the hair in the black headband, for the three of them to go out. That Sunday, he brings Chinese food, so many bags they gave eight pair chopsticks. No florist deliveries. Only him.

With each daughter, I hoped for a doctor or lawyer. Instead I got a tilapia farmer, a manager, and an engineer. This one, he is never married. Maybe he is okay.

The night of the first sleepover, when Judith came in loose armed, that was the start of Allen. Now, he stays. In the morning, he goes jogging and then returns to shower. The house, after him, it has a different smell. I drive Laura to school and do my shopping, so when I come home he will be gone and I can open windows. Her room, it is not holy anymore.

Today the principal from the school of my children will eat at my table. Here on a tour of America, the old nun had to skip Disneyland to see me.

“Now your president is scrubbing toilets,” I say. She knew me when I was more. President of the Parents Association, five terms.

“You are still the president to me,” she says. “Anyway, we are all servants.” She means servants of God, but to be a mother, that is service also. Then she tells me news of my officers: my treasurer died of kidney, my secretary has gone fat, and my vice president is now living in Saudi. Mothers she names wish me well; the one who washed the blankets pesters her, Will Lola ever come home? She tells me about the fund-raising drive, then asks, “What has your life been here?”

I tell her the children I took care. Williamo, my first, who juggles. Bing, the whistling baby. And now Laura. She can hula for almost half an hour and not only the waist; she can do also the neck and the arms. I tell her about Aileen. We talk until it is time for me to get Laura; then I drive her to the hotel. At her age, almost ninety, we may never meet again. She will not return to American soil. “Once in a lifetime,” she says.

“I will go back in oh-six for my class reunion,” I say. “The fiftieth. I am the only one working domestic.” But six years. That is a long time for her.

She blesses me on the forehead, the chest, left, right.

That night, on our knees, I explain to Laura:
Lola, Inday, Nanay
, and
Ate
. Williamo, he never asked that. To this day, he does not know my given name.

When I was living in my own language, in my house in the Philippines, I did not have to think where I was, but I never knew how to pray. That is something I gained here. It started around the time I began to hear Spanish. Esperanza taught me words one by one, and then we hooked them together. She invited me to her swearing in. I would like to attend, but it is too far. A city courthouse in Arcadia. But she will now become U.S. citizen. One day long ago, falling in line at Whole Foods behind two housekeepers, I understood what they were saying. A minute later, I remembered they were talking in Spanish. The same thing happened praying. I tried to teach Williamo words Tagalog. With Laura, we kneel down next to her bed.

Lola
is grandma.

Yaya
for nanny.

Ate
, older sister, she can say for the Chinese Adopteds.

Tita
for auntie, she will use with Lucy. Lita.

Inday
, little sister—she can call the younger girls at school.

They are names but they are not exactly names. They are positions. I do not teach her
kuya
or
tatay
. Then we say together the rosary.
Aba Ginoong Maria, napupuno ka ng grasiya
. Sometimes we pray for
bago. Bago
means new.
Bagong
car,
bagong
life.

Something restless roams in the mind of Bong Bong. I feel him rambling around our house. We made the final payment to Far Eastern. Now it is different than the other times; he has been waiting too long. We were fine before. We had to be. My working here was necessary, for more important things than our lives. Now we have the American problem of choice. He wonders if the answer I am not telling is
forever
. I always said to the other babysitters,
I hope my Bong Bong is faithful
. Because I knew he was. But this time I think, Go. Use your life. I am not there. I cannot be.

While we move in the boxes of Allen, I remember the night of the date. Then I thought almost any decent guy would be better for Laura. But at seven o’clock, he says,
Isn’t it her bath time, Lola? Shouldn’t she be getting ready for bed?

And Laurita and I angeled over Judith, sitting cross-legged before the door mirror, putting on her fairy powders and glitter.

After six weeks, Judith stomps into my room and says they would like me to iron his shirts.

“I cannot iron,” I say.

“Lola, Laura’s in school all day now. From eight until two.”

Laurita has been in school three years already! I do not answer. The next day I take Laura without saying goodbye.

But that night Judith returns. “Lola, the budget is tight, and we hope you can do your part. We really need you to do a little ironing.”

Well, why is the budget tight? Before, Judith paid all. Now there are two. I have not received a raise. They stay long time at the table, and I clean twice, first from Laura and my dinner and then theirs. But I cannot ask my employer why her boyfriend will not help. In our place, even a cousin boarding, she will chip in. Buy an equipment. I have not seen any new machine here.

“I never iron,” I say. “My own clothes, they have wrinkles. See. Like Lola.”

Wednesday, we have an appointment with the developmental pediatrician. Once every year we come to this office. The tests they have changed, from stacking blocks, simple puzzles, and raising the left arm, to a paper portion, and then the doctor checks her reflexes, her strength. The first time here, in the waiting room, a boy banged his head against the wall again and again; I thought we were embarking on a train, Laura and I, taking us far from what we knew.

When the door opens today, though, Dr. Hallian smiles. “A-plus report card, Lola. We’ll see her again in two years.”

“So we have graduated?”

The doctor looks at me. “She’s a success story, Lola. You’ve done an amazing thing.”

I feel glad with this in my pocket. But when we arrive home, Judith calls from the bedroom, “Where’ve you guys been? You’re late.” She has forgotten again the appointment, even though it is written on the calendar I put every month on the refrigerator door. After Allen moved in, the Winnie-the-Pooh magnet we had used since Laurita was a tiny girl was replaced one day with a plain steel one that looks like a bolt, no picture of anything. Winnie-the-Pooh, he must have taken and thrown far away, because I could not find him anywhere. (After a party once, at the house of Claire, I recovered a missing fork in the alley garbage can, but I never found this magnet again.)

I wait to tell my employer alone what Dr. Hallian said. Allen, he will not understand.

But in my bedroom a large Mexican pushes an iron not ours back and forth over the board. “This is Marta.” Judith explains, she works housekeeper for a guy at her job, she does not speak much English, but she can give me a lesson. “Just watch her. She can go over it as many times as you need.” After this, Judith turns and clacks out, leaving me with this woman in my room that smells metal. Steam puffs out of the iron. She keeps smiling at me and then nods down at the board. I sit on the bed, in this house where I painted with Laura every wall and every ceiling and every trim, and decide, as she goes back and forth her whole arm pumping over the sleeve of his shirt, then shaking it out, careful, with the peak of the iron to dainty his collar, No, I cannot, I will go.

Late the next night, a piece of paper comes sliding under my door. A poem.

Ode to Ironing

Poetry is white:
it comes from the water covered with drops
,
it wrinkles and piles up
,
the skin of this planet must be stretched
,
the sea of its whiteness must be ironed
,
and the hands move and move
,
the holy surfaces are smoothed out
,
and that is how things are made:
hands make the world each day
,
fire becomes one with steel
,
linen canvas, and cotton arrive
from the combat of the laundries
,
and out of light a dove is born:
chastity returns from the foam
.