September
“So what I need is someone to babysit about, oh, once a month. My son just moved in with me recently. He was living with his mom until about a year ago.
Actually, it’s been a bit of an adjustment, having him around. You know what I mean?”
Lena’s perfectly understandable response to this was, Not really, and Wow, that was way too much information.
Wisely, she did not voice such thoughts and instead, offered a smile and nod, in her case, empathetically.
*
Lena did not consider herself particularly sad or desperate. Like most Humanities grad students, she prided herself on some basic qualities: a commitment to intellectual excellence, combined with a keen awareness of one’s social responsibility in using that intelligence. At least, that was what she thought other graduate students were like.
Turns out this was all a complete delusion.
For one, Lena was rather desperate. Financially speaking, that is. Which is why $50 a night to babysit was practically a windfall, the likes of which did not come along often. This may appear a paltry sum to those gainfully employed, but not for graduate students, most of whom plunge themselves into the depths of massive debt to acquire various advanced degrees.
However, Lena liked children. She imagined taking him to the park, maybe baking cookies together. Sedating him with DVD’s Lena herself had enjoyed as a child. This aspect of the scenario would fullfill the aforementioned “sad” part.
“So you know what academic life is like.”
You mean poverty, frustration, exploitation?
“Lots of traveling. Conferences. I figured with your financial situation, this might help you while you’re helping me.”
Perfect. As long as I don’t have to do anything too weird.
“Think you can do it?”
“Uh, yeeahh—I think I can do that!” Suddenly, Lena straightened her neck and then gave a great sneeze.
“Bless you—are you alright?”
In response, she sniffled and answered, “I’b okay.”
“You’re sure…” The professor began evincing a slight whiff of what might actually be concern.
“Yeah, I’m alright.” Now that I can talk properly again.
“…Because I really need the help and I think you’re the perfect person. I asked another one of my students last year and it didn’t go so well.”
“No?”
“Weell, no.” He paused, uncertain as to the proper tone to take. “You see, I think it was because she couldn’t speak English that well.”
“What was?”
“Weell, he sort of pulled a knife on her,” he chuckled. As if that lessened the impact.
OMG! He what?! “Oh, really? What happened,” Lena asked with a smile. As if this was a completely normal occurrence. Happens every day, doesn’t it?
Relief flooded his face. He wasn’t going to get turned down. And he had done his duty, revealed the worst. “Yeah, they had a bit of a disagreement. But it blew over. Like I said, it was because of her language skills. You won’t have that problem. Being born here and all.”
Gee, thanks, next why don’t you ask me where my parents are from?
“Oh, I see.” Lena reflected that she had perfected the art of the bland and yet encouraging response. Maybe I should be getting a degree in Clinical Psych instead. Sure pays better. “Well, that must have been hard all the way around,” she smiled brightly.
“It was, it was. But I think he’ll like you much better. So you think you can still do it?”
“Yeah, sounds good.” In a parallel universe.
He smiled. “Well, that’s great! So here are the directions to my house and I’ll meet you there at seven on Tuesday. You can meet my son then, alright?”
Lena began to nod, which launched another sneeze. She rose, waved goodbye, and headed for home.
*
By the following week, Lena’s periodic sneezes had developed into a rattling case of pneumonia. It was the third time in two years and Lena’s ribs were sore from coughing. Her friend Meredith volunteered to drive her to the house and wait for her but Lena demurred and insisted she could drive herself.
When Lena arrived she walked up a pair of chipped steps towards a distressed, rather dilapidated stoop. Surprising since the house itself was located in a wealthy beach suburb. Paint peeling off the molding in large swathes. The door festooned with large pockmarks which resembled—bites? Could that be possible? And a forlorn pot in the corner sprouting a long-dead cactus.
Lena knocked on the door and waited. In response, she heard a cacophony of whooping. But nothing else happened. She knocked again, rapping harder this time.
Finally, a teen of about 15 opened the door and said, “Yeah?”
Lena coughed and he instinctively backed away. “Sorry. I’m supposed to meet Professor Grant here at seven?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
As she entered Lena espied several other similarly aged boys forming a rather surly welcoming committee. They paused en masse to look at Lena. The consensus was that she provided little interest so they proceeded, again en masse, towards a set of back rooms around the corner.
Lena realized that her charge was the teenager, he of the monosyllables.
Uh-oh.
He led Lena to the living room, straight ahead, and pointed to a worn leather coach.
Lena looked back nervously towards the noise emanating from down the hall. She clutched her bag close for protection as she sat down gingerly.
Her anxiety triggered a round of deep, wet coughing which sent her charge-to-be scurrying. Lena gazed up at the cavernous ceiling and realized that it was two stories, with shallow, sharp acoustics that amplified noise perfectly.
*
The constant hum of teenage antics punctuated by occasional shouts and the wafting of herbal “refreshment” made Lena increasingly nervous. After ten long minutes, she was relieved to hear the front door open and slam shut.
Finally, she thought.
“Hello, Lena! Sorry I’m late. You know how traffic is. I guess you’ve already met my son—Ryuta!”
The boy who answered the door emerged from the back rooms and grunted towards his father in acknowledgment.
Professor Grant gestured vaguely towards his son, “So, this is my son.”
“I gathered,” rasped Lena.
Admittedly such answer left little options for response so instead Professor Grant smiled apologetically and said, “And have you met my wife, yet?”
Lena shook her head and then coughed.
“Wow, that’s some cough. Are you alright?” he bent solicitously over Lena.
In answer, Lena produced a few more coughs and managed to wheeze, “Well, actually, I have pneumonia.”
“Oh goodness, that’s awful!”
This exhausted the reservoir of Professor Grant’s concern for at that moment his wife walked in. She was barely older than Lena herself. In fact, Lena seemed to recall her flitting around the department a few years earlier.
“Ahh, here she is! Midori! Come and meet Lena.” He turned to Lena, “You may remember my wife. She was a student of mine a few years ago.” He beamed.
“Yes,” Midori agreed. “I told him that I could either be his student or his wife, but not both! So we decided it was better to get married, right honey?” Midori simpered. She bent over Lena, “You look a little green—are you alright?”
Lena just shook her head and motioned the couple on as she began a bout of coughing.
*
“So! Let’s take you on a tour of the house and tell you about your duties, okay?”
Lena nodded as she glanced back at the raucous noise emanating from the downstairs hallway. Wisps of smoke languished in the air.
Will and Midori turned their backs.
Midori smiled determinedly at Lena and said, “I want to thank you personally for agreeing to do this. We’ll both be going to the conference and obviously we don’t want to just leave Ryuta home alone.”
Gee, lucky me.
But what Lena said was, “What’s the conference on?”
“Oh, we’re really looking forward to it. It’s on Japanese Art during the Muramachi period—Will here is giving the first paper,” Midori said proudly.
“Really? Wow, that’s really great.” Such platitudes, Lena found, were an extremely useful component of grad student-ese.
Will nodded a thanks and then said, “Well, shall we start our tour? So this is the kitchen area as you can see,” Professor Grant swept his arm expansively, showcasing counters covered with food wrappings, half-masticated meals, and piles of dirty dishes.
Lena coughed loudly.
“Of course, we won’t expect you to clean all this up,” he said quickly. “In fact, part of your job is to make sure that Ryuta and his friends don’t get too out of hand. I don’t really want him to have friends over, but I don’t think we can prevent that. Ha ha! You know high school kids. Your main job will be to keep an eye on him and make sure they don’t do something crazy. Once when we were gone, they were dive-bombing into the pool from the sunroom. So basically you’ll be watching to make sure nothing goes too wrong.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, we’ve already told him that you’re basically going to be his warden. You know, watching over him and out for him,” said Midori.
“Ahh.” Nothing more could be reasonably said, could it?
Midori laughed a bit sheepishly. “Well, we do have to admit that we had a slight problem with this before. I guess Will told you about asking one of my friends to stay with him?”
No, he hadn’t mentioned that she was your friend. Ugh.
“Wasn’t that a great time, honey?” Midori slipped her arm through Will’s and they smiled at each other in remembrance. “Anyway, that was when Ryuta had just moved in with us. I’m sure that’s why they had that problem.”
“Of course,” Lena asked.
“Communication problems—you know how teenagers can be,” she smiled encouragingly.
In times of distress, monosyllables are extremely reliable. Especially when one Lena was constantly being reassured that she must already be familiar with presumably mundane situations which were in reality quite alarming.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Midori reassured with another smile.
“He’s not going to play some prank on me? Put a frog in the bed or something? Is he?” Lena looked at Professor Grant, then Midori, and back again.
Silence ensued. Will and Midori looked at each other, uncertain how to respond. Then they laughed as if her question was a merely joke that required no response.
“No, really.”
Midori’s voice suddenly grew harsh, “He better not! It’s our bed, after all.”
*
Professor Grant clapped his and rubbed them together in transition, “So! As I was saying. Your duties. We thought that you could cook a little dinner for him, maybe pack a lunch, that sort of thing. Is that alright?”
And with that the issues were settled, at least to his satisfaction. So with those words, he turned and headed towards the stairs.
“Let’s go on up and I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
Lena trailed behind Will and Midori to the first landing, adorned with an enormous painting by a contemporary Japanese artist, spotlighted under a lamp.
She then proceeded up to the landing on the second floor.
Chaos.
It was a much larger landing with solid, waist-high walls that overlooked the kitchen and living room below.
It looked like an enormous, horizontal closet.
Every inch was covered with of mounds clothing strewn about haphazardly.
Midori said, “Oh, you can just ignore that.”
Don’t know if that’s possible, thought Lena, but if you say so.
Silence can prompt responses like no words can.
As if compelled, Midori explained, “When I quit the department, I decided I wanted to try something different. And I just love clothes. So it seemed logical to try to get into the fashion industry. And Will has been so supportive.”
On cue, Will stroked Midori’s hair and they grinned in unison at Lena.
Lena smiled weakly.
“I think it’s so important to follow your passion, don’t you? And I just love shopping. So I thought I would try fashion design. Or costume design. Something like that. That’s what all this is. I’m actually working with the costume designer at the community theatre up the street right now,” she said.
Again with the too much information, thought Lena.
“Anyway, you won’t need to come in here. As you can see, on your left is the bathroom. To the right is the bedroom. That’s where you’ll be sleeping,” she explained.
Lena peaked into the bathroom and espied a mint green bidet. With a plant in it.
“So, do I have to water the plants, too?”
Midori followed Lena’s gaze on the plant. “Oh, that?” Midori giggled. “Well, yes, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d appreciate it if you could water the plants. But I’ll take it out of that first.” With another giggle, Midori walked over and lifted the plant out of the bidet and set it instead in the bathroom sink.
Turning resolutely towards the bedroom, Lena suddenly sneezed, which led to a series of bone-racking coughs.
Midori made sympathetic cooing noises as she and Will waited to show Lena the bedroom.
It was actually one large room, split into two by ceiling-high bookshelves, forming a library/office.
The best part of the house, as far as Lena could tell. No trash. No mess. And some really beautiful cherry-stained bookshelves. Nice bookshelves always inspire envy in an academic. As does a library inside a house. Lena sighed. She ran her hands admiringly over the shelves and then began looking idly at their book collection, covetous daydreams occupying her mind.
And another thought: Can I go now?
That, of course, would have been far too easy.
For just then, a thunderous clomping could be heard, exactly like a herd of elephants, or so Lena imagined.
“Dad! Midori!” Ryuta bounded up the stairs, shouting as if his father and his stepmother were across a distant field. “Come quick! There’s a fire downstairs!” Five of his closest acquaintances were clattering behind him.
There’s that herd.
Lena flattened herself against the wall of the stairwell as Will and Midori hurtled down the stairs after six teenage boys who now had to turn around and rush down the stairs.
Seconds later, sounds of recrimination began echoing sharply off the two-story ceiling.
Lena tentatively went downstairs a few moments later. She looked around towards the kitchen and saw Will, Midori, Ryuta and his friends, all huddled near the kitchen, gazing in awe as flames leapt towards the ceiling. Uncertain what to do, she elected to guard the escape route by the front door. She figured, after all, that with all those degrees, they would know what to do.
The fire was caused, evidently, by a disagreement between the burner and an excess of bacon fat. Will shouted at Ryuta who shrugged his shoulders helplessly. A crack was revealed in Will and Midori’s relationship as he then turned to her for assistance.
“Could you not just stand there? Could you please find the flour?” Will’s asked with restrained sarcasm.
“Hey, don’t take this out on me. I did not do this, if you recall.”
“Oh, helpful. Very helpful.” He stood there glaring at her.
“Dad! Do something!” Ryuta shouted.
Will was recalled to the fire-extinguishing task. “Where is the flour?” he demanded.
Midori took her time in locating it in the back corner of a cupboard. She walked back to Will and coolly handed him a small bag. “Here.”
Will took it impatiently and then began liberally sprinkling flour over the fire. Once the fire was quashed and the initial excitement was over, certain residual duties remained: shutting off the smoke alarm, cleaning up the bacon-fat-flour spatter, contemplating the singed ceiling, and of course, tending to the rest of the house tour.
Sharp inflections echoed through the house, accompanied by acrid fumes. Which launched Lena into another coughing fit. Professor Grant and Midori recalled themselves and Will gave a discreet cough of his own by way of transition. He walked over to Lena with an exaggerated heartiness. “Well, can you believe this? We never lack for excitement in this house.”
“I can see that,” replied Lena, with not a little irony in her raspy voice.
“At least it will keep you on your toes, right?”
Lena nodded and said, “Well, I can see you have a lot of things to do here—.”
“Right, so how about if I give you a key right now and I’ll leave you a check on the dining table. Just be here next Tuesday after you get off class, is that okay?” With this directive, he looked pointedly back at his delinquent son. He accompanied Lena to the door and shut it firmly behind her.
She looked back at the door: paint had flecked off, revealing additional layers of paint underneath. The molding looked as if it had been chewed by a dog even at its uppermost reaches. Could a dog really be that tall?. Forlorn plants in cracked clay pots were strewn around the step. A distressed exterior to match a chaotic interior. Lena sighed and opened her car door. And then she rooted for a Meiji Dark bar in her bag, for just such emergencies, sore throat be damned.
