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Authors: Julie Gerstenblatt
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get together soon, and then she disconnects
midsentence.
Inside the house, the kids are glued to the television
set and Laney is nowhere to be found—again.
I actually panic for a moment: Did she leave early? Could
the kids have arrived home from school without her waiting there to open the
door? Child neglect! I think of the court case I’ve been assigned to.
I will have to prosecute Laney.
But then I will be prosecuted for hiring an illegal. No
good.
I know she didn’t arrive until after the morning rush,
because I had to put the kids on the bus. Then she gave me some attitude and
disappeared into the depths of the house. And after that? My mind flashes to a
terrible scene: Laney lying dead somewhere, our immigrant babysitter, with no
identification except her Planet Fitness membership. How would I describe her
to the police? As a beautiful, twenty-two-year-old Latina who chose to tramp
herself up with long blond Shakira hair and really tight stretch jeans? A man
in blue would come to my door with just a diamond belly stud in his palm, and I
would burst into tears.
“Laney!” I shout. “Donde esta?”
She emerges from the basement slowly, with her head down.
I can tell instantly that she’s in one of her black moods, but I don’t care.
She’s not dead! My children were not neglected, exactly. I practically hug her.
“Hola,” she mopes.
“Hola!”
Laney sighs. “There is so much laundry.”
“Yes!”
“I just couldn’t…” She gestures toward the kitchen. I turn
and see that nothing—and I mean nothing —has changed in the kitchen since
I left the house at 8:00 this morning. Some dishes are piled in the sink and
some are holding firm at the spots on the island where the kids ate half their
breakfast. It’s like a ghost-town kitchen, or something dug up from Pompeii,
abandoned yet completely intact. It’s an art installment at the Whitney: Still
Life with Sour Milk .
“What the—?” I crush an enormous ant underfoot for
emphasis.
“I just couldn’t…” She trails off. Because really, what is
there to say? We both know that she hasn’t cared about her job for a long time.
We stand in silence for a moment, evaluating the tangled
mess of the kitchen and the inertia in our respective lives.
Then I remember Laney’s text from earlier in the day,
which I never responded to. She perks up considerably when I tell her that,
yes, she can leave a half hour early tonight to catch a train into the city for
a concert at Madison Square Garden.
She consults her watch. “So, I go in…twenty-seven
minutes?”
“Sure, Laney. Knock yourself out.” She does mental
calculations. That gives her roughly seven minutes to clean the kitchen and
twenty minutes to style her hair—no doubt with my ceramic straightening
iron.
“Okay!” she decides, clapping her hands together like, now
I’m really going to get down to work !
When Laney calls out her good-byes a few minutes later and
the screen door slams behind a trail of spicy perfume, I breathe a sigh of
relief.
My house, my kids, my little world. “Ben and Becca! Time
for dinner!” I sing, imagining the nice family conversation we will have
huddled around the table.
“Ow!” Ben cries from the sunroom.
“Give it back!” Becca wails.
“No! It’s mine!”
There is a crashing sound. I reach the sunroom in time to
tear my kids apart, yelling something asinine like, “Stop it this instant! One
of you could lose an eye!”
When that doesn’t get them to lay off each other, I reach
deep into my bag of mom tricks for more powerful weapons. “No television for
the rest of the night! No dessert! No stories before bed?”
Not working. Ben is now kicking Becca and she is pulling
his hair.
I throw a biggie at them. “If you don’t get off each other right now, Jackie won’t come to babysit this week!”
Instantly, they jump apart. Becca smooths her hair back
from her face, and Ben sucks his lips in tight. Both are straight-backed and
midsentence.
Inside the house, the kids are glued to the television
set and Laney is nowhere to be found—again.
I actually panic for a moment: Did she leave early? Could
the kids have arrived home from school without her waiting there to open the
door? Child neglect! I think of the court case I’ve been assigned to.
I will have to prosecute Laney.
But then I will be prosecuted for hiring an illegal. No
good.
I know she didn’t arrive until after the morning rush,
because I had to put the kids on the bus. Then she gave me some attitude and
disappeared into the depths of the house. And after that? My mind flashes to a
terrible scene: Laney lying dead somewhere, our immigrant babysitter, with no
identification except her Planet Fitness membership. How would I describe her
to the police? As a beautiful, twenty-two-year-old Latina who chose to tramp
herself up with long blond Shakira hair and really tight stretch jeans? A man
in blue would come to my door with just a diamond belly stud in his palm, and I
would burst into tears.
“Laney!” I shout. “Donde esta?”
She emerges from the basement slowly, with her head down.
I can tell instantly that she’s in one of her black moods, but I don’t care.
She’s not dead! My children were not neglected, exactly. I practically hug her.
“Hola,” she mopes.
“Hola!”
Laney sighs. “There is so much laundry.”
“Yes!”
“I just couldn’t…” She gestures toward the kitchen. I turn
and see that nothing—and I mean nothing —has changed in the kitchen since
I left the house at 8:00 this morning. Some dishes are piled in the sink and
some are holding firm at the spots on the island where the kids ate half their
breakfast. It’s like a ghost-town kitchen, or something dug up from Pompeii,
abandoned yet completely intact. It’s an art installment at the Whitney: Still
Life with Sour Milk .
“What the—?” I crush an enormous ant underfoot for
emphasis.
“I just couldn’t…” She trails off. Because really, what is
there to say? We both know that she hasn’t cared about her job for a long time.
We stand in silence for a moment, evaluating the tangled
mess of the kitchen and the inertia in our respective lives.
Then I remember Laney’s text from earlier in the day,
which I never responded to. She perks up considerably when I tell her that,
yes, she can leave a half hour early tonight to catch a train into the city for
a concert at Madison Square Garden.
She consults her watch. “So, I go in…twenty-seven
minutes?”
“Sure, Laney. Knock yourself out.” She does mental
calculations. That gives her roughly seven minutes to clean the kitchen and
twenty minutes to style her hair—no doubt with my ceramic straightening
iron.
“Okay!” she decides, clapping her hands together like, now
I’m really going to get down to work !
When Laney calls out her good-byes a few minutes later and
the screen door slams behind a trail of spicy perfume, I breathe a sigh of
relief.
My house, my kids, my little world. “Ben and Becca! Time
for dinner!” I sing, imagining the nice family conversation we will have
huddled around the table.
“Ow!” Ben cries from the sunroom.
“Give it back!” Becca wails.
“No! It’s mine!”
There is a crashing sound. I reach the sunroom in time to
tear my kids apart, yelling something asinine like, “Stop it this instant! One
of you could lose an eye!”
When that doesn’t get them to lay off each other, I reach
deep into my bag of mom tricks for more powerful weapons. “No television for
the rest of the night! No dessert! No stories before bed?”
Not working. Ben is now kicking Becca and she is pulling
his hair.
I throw a biggie at them. “If you don’t get off each other right now, Jackie won’t come to babysit this week!”
Instantly, they jump apart. Becca smooths her hair back
from her face, and Ben sucks his lips in tight. Both are straight-backed and
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