Read Online A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
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to repay the high interest and at last, in desperation, she forged checks. She was immediately caught at a 7-Eleven in Vineland and arrested, taken away to jail, booked, and she pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a county judge to eighteen months' probation. But now, if Essie Spivak was arrested again, her old record would be held against her, she'd be sent to Glassboro State Facility for Women.
"I will kill myself first, Katya! I promise I will! You won't let that happen, honey, will you? As soon as I'm paid what is owed me—there are people here who owe me —I'll send a check to you right there in Bayhead, honey. I swear I will. Put that Mrs. Eggstein on the phone, let me explain to her, she's a mother like me, it's a family emergency, a medical emergency, which is no goddamned lie, three hundred dollars will be repaid with interest. Honey, help me! I need your help. I love you, Katya"—sobbing now, pleading and desperate and yet still aggrieved, angry—"—my only girl left now, my only baby, the others have grown up and moved away and don't give a shit about their mother, that they have broken her heart—" and Katya said, "All right, Momma. Give me the address there."
Heimweh: was that the word? Homesickness.
In Bayhead Harbor she'd missed home. Yet she was never so homesick as when she was home in the house on County Line Road in Vineland.
She'd have liked to ask Mr. Kidder about this. How you could be homesick when you were home...
For it was an earlier time, before Katya's father had left, that she missed. She'd been only nine when he'd disappeared from their lives, and only vaguely could she remember Daddy lifting her in his arms, laughing at her frightened expression, calling her "Pretty Baby" and kissing her, promising her he'd be back for her birthday, but the worst of it was, Daddy had been so often away, returning and then leaving again, and it was a secret where Daddy was when he was gone—unless Katya's mother blurted out in drunken fury that Daddy was staying with another woman—and then gradually it became a fact that Daddy was gone. And Katya asked, Gone where? and the answer was blunt and ungiving: Gone.
7
S HE KNEW : this was a mistake.
Even before the knife-blade frown appeared between Mrs. Engelhardt's dark-penciled eyebrows.
Katya spoke of a "family emergency," a "medical emergency," and at once her employer became upset, indignant: "Katya, you aren't leaving us, are you? We are counting on you"—for Mrs. Engelhardt was a woman to seize an emotion and wrest it from you and run with it, appropriating it as her own, to intimidate and confound—"at this time in mid-July we couldn't possibly replace you with another girl." So that Katya was forced to say quickly, apologetically, "No, no—I'm not leaving, Mrs. Engelhardt. Of course not. I would never do that," and Mrs. Engelhardt said, incensed, "Well! I should hope not! That would be highly unethical."
Haltingly, as if Essie Spivak were close beside her, nudging her in the ribs, Katya tried to explain that her mother had called because there was an "emergency situation"—money was needed for medical care—but Mrs. Engelhardt stared at her without evident sympathy and did not speak. Katya said, "I have some money saved. I would need to borrow only two hundred thirty dollars—from my salary, I mean—for the next two or three weeks," and Mrs. Engelhardt said coolly, "'Only' two hundred thirty dollars! Katya, your salary is one hundred eighty-two a week before taxes and other deductions. This is well above the minimum-wage guidelines for minors, and we provide you with what we believe to be quite generous room and board here, as one of our family practically. No, Katya, borrowing from your future salary is not feasible. I know exactly what Max would say: 'What if she quits? We're hardly likely to sue a nanny for unearned wages.' That's how Max is, Katya. So I'm sorry. But borrowing such a sum of money at your age is not a
"I will kill myself first, Katya! I promise I will! You won't let that happen, honey, will you? As soon as I'm paid what is owed me—there are people here who owe me —I'll send a check to you right there in Bayhead, honey. I swear I will. Put that Mrs. Eggstein on the phone, let me explain to her, she's a mother like me, it's a family emergency, a medical emergency, which is no goddamned lie, three hundred dollars will be repaid with interest. Honey, help me! I need your help. I love you, Katya"—sobbing now, pleading and desperate and yet still aggrieved, angry—"—my only girl left now, my only baby, the others have grown up and moved away and don't give a shit about their mother, that they have broken her heart—" and Katya said, "All right, Momma. Give me the address there."
Heimweh: was that the word? Homesickness.
In Bayhead Harbor she'd missed home. Yet she was never so homesick as when she was home in the house on County Line Road in Vineland.
She'd have liked to ask Mr. Kidder about this. How you could be homesick when you were home...
For it was an earlier time, before Katya's father had left, that she missed. She'd been only nine when he'd disappeared from their lives, and only vaguely could she remember Daddy lifting her in his arms, laughing at her frightened expression, calling her "Pretty Baby" and kissing her, promising her he'd be back for her birthday, but the worst of it was, Daddy had been so often away, returning and then leaving again, and it was a secret where Daddy was when he was gone—unless Katya's mother blurted out in drunken fury that Daddy was staying with another woman—and then gradually it became a fact that Daddy was gone. And Katya asked, Gone where? and the answer was blunt and ungiving: Gone.
7
S HE KNEW : this was a mistake.
Even before the knife-blade frown appeared between Mrs. Engelhardt's dark-penciled eyebrows.
Katya spoke of a "family emergency," a "medical emergency," and at once her employer became upset, indignant: "Katya, you aren't leaving us, are you? We are counting on you"—for Mrs. Engelhardt was a woman to seize an emotion and wrest it from you and run with it, appropriating it as her own, to intimidate and confound—"at this time in mid-July we couldn't possibly replace you with another girl." So that Katya was forced to say quickly, apologetically, "No, no—I'm not leaving, Mrs. Engelhardt. Of course not. I would never do that," and Mrs. Engelhardt said, incensed, "Well! I should hope not! That would be highly unethical."
Haltingly, as if Essie Spivak were close beside her, nudging her in the ribs, Katya tried to explain that her mother had called because there was an "emergency situation"—money was needed for medical care—but Mrs. Engelhardt stared at her without evident sympathy and did not speak. Katya said, "I have some money saved. I would need to borrow only two hundred thirty dollars—from my salary, I mean—for the next two or three weeks," and Mrs. Engelhardt said coolly, "'Only' two hundred thirty dollars! Katya, your salary is one hundred eighty-two a week before taxes and other deductions. This is well above the minimum-wage guidelines for minors, and we provide you with what we believe to be quite generous room and board here, as one of our family practically. No, Katya, borrowing from your future salary is not feasible. I know exactly what Max would say: 'What if she quits? We're hardly likely to sue a nanny for unearned wages.' That's how Max is, Katya. So I'm sorry. But borrowing such a sum of money at your age is not a
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