Page 157 of If Looks Could Kill
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re looking for work?” she said incredulously. “Ican’t afford housemaids.” She humphed. “Nobody around here can.”
“Who’s there?” came the man’s voice from within. “Is that the building super?”
“Naw, Lem,” she called back. “It’s nothing.”
“We don’t want payment,” I told her. “We never take money. We’re only here to help.”
Her door opened an inch more. “You ain’t with city hall?”
“Not at all,” I assured her.
Pearl never could resist newborns. “Please,” she said eagerly, “may I hold the baby?”
“And I can occupy the older ones,” I added, “if you don’t mind.”
The woman studied Pearl’s mop and broom, and the cleaning supplies in my hands.
“Here.” She broke her doorway barricade. “I’m Becky Palmer. Comemeet my husband, Lem. If he says you can stay, you can stay. Heaven knows I could use help. If it’s free.”
We followed her in. The air was suffocating. It smelled of sweat and sickness and urine and cigarettes. The floor was wood, but you wouldn’t know it for the greasy dirt.
Pearl relieved Becky of her tiny infant, cooing all the while. I began making droll faces at the little one clutching his mother’s ankles. I fished underneath my clean rags for a colorful wooden toy duck I kept for just such occasions, and soon I wiped his nose, thank heaven.
Becky led us through the kitchen to the only other room in the flat, where a man lay sprawled on a bed while two older children, perhaps three and four, whacked each other with wooden spoons. They stopped and stared at us, wide-eyed.
“Lem, these girls say they want to help us,” she told the man. “Do-gooders. For free.”
The man sat partially upright and coughed at us. “Where’s the catch?”
“No catch,” I told him. “You don’t have a spare diaper, do you, for this little one?”
Becky drooped in embarrassment. “Nothing’s clean,” she admitted. “Just haven’t had time to haul water and get the washing done. Not since Lem’s been sick….”
“D’you know what?” I said. “I believe I have a spare diaper in my box. And look! I do.”
I caught a glimpse of Pearl rolling her eyes. She’d seen my Magical Diaper-Producing Act a time or two. The charm had apparently worn off. I grinned at her.
“I still don’t get,” protested Lem, “what you two are here for. You with some church?”
“We’re Slum Sisters volunteers,” I told him, “with the Salvation Army.”
“We’re not here to preach,” Pearl said. “We’re here to help.”
Lem sank back on the bed. “She needs help, all right. Never gets it clean around here.”
“What this room needs,” Pearl said cheerfully, raising ignoring to a professional level, “is more light and more air.” With her free hand, she raised the one window.
“You’re letting in the cold,” said Lem.
“Just for a moment.” She fanned the air with the curtain. “It’s mild out today.”
I finished diapering the toddler and set my sights upon the older two children. I pulled a colorful children’s book out of my magic milk crate and dangled it where they could see it, pretending as though I didn’t realize they could. They inched toward me like stealthy caterpillars.
Pearl, meanwhile, cradled the infant in her arms. Wintry light gilded her hair so it seemed lit from within, like a halo. Like the Madonna and Child, she was a picture of bliss.
When the light landed on Becky, however, it revealed fading bruises from a black eye.
Pearl saw it too. We glanced at each other and silently nodded.
