Hemingway's Girl (5 page)

Pauline stood, picked up her book, and left the room. Jinny followed her sister. When
the women left, Mariella slipped the peach into her pocket for the girls and stepped
out onto the back lawn. She thought how nice it would be to have a full enough stomach
to take a bite of a peach and leave the rest of it on a table for the flies. It made
her dislike Pauline.

That and the fact that it seemed Pauline knew who Hal was but pretended otherwise
so she wouldn’t have to talk about him.

And the way Pauline assumed Mariella couldn’t read.

Jesus, she didn’t know whether this would be worth the money.

As she walked away, she could feel their eyes on her. She turned and looked up to
see Pauline and Jinny on the upper balcony, watching her.

“See you ’round,” called Jinny.

“Bye,” said Mariella. She walked away but could still hear their voices.

“So, what do you think?” said Jinny.

Pauline waited a moment to answer. Mariella strained to hear her reply.

“She’s a peach.”

Mariella’s stomach dropped when she opened the battered yellow Cuban espresso tin.
She could almost hear her father’s raspy voice in her ear.

No withdrawals.
Only deposits for the business. Pretend it’s not even there.

But everything was different now. She’d been bleeding it for rent and food for months,
and now all that remained was forty-one dollars and thirteen cents. She’d have to
use the rest to keep off the landlord. The doctor would have to wait.

She dropped in her tips and some change from turning in old bottles she found in trash
cans. She closed the lid in disgust and shoved it back in the corner under her bed,
covering it with an old, threadbare blanket.

Why did she continue to entertain her foolish dream? It would cost her a thousand
dollars or more to start the business. Her mother had told her that her father’s boat
had been battered beyond repair and had been hauled away to a boat graveyard somewhere
on Stock Island, or farther north. It was bad enough when they just needed to replace
the engine. Now she needed a whole new boat, a slip at the dock, money for fuel, and
a million other things.

Mariella stood and put on one of the two identical work
dresses Pauline had sent over—a starchy navy blue smock with white trim. Though she
hated the idea of working indoors, away from the water and in a dress all day, she
was at least glad she didn’t have to do it in any of her ill-fitting, worn clothing.

She crept out of her room, grateful that Eva still slept. They’d fought the night
before when Mariella told Eva about her new job with the Hemingways. Mariella could
have told her she was working as a prostitute and gotten a better reaction. Eva thought
Hemingway wrote filth and had a bad reputation. Mariella said that might be true,
but he also paid well and regularly—four dollars a day, and overtime for weekends
or parties. That would almost cover rent, and if she could win gambling money and
keep up with odd jobs, they could survive.

On her way to the kitchen, Mariella looked into her mother’s room. Eva lay asleep,
curled around one of Hal’s old shirts. It filled Mariella with sadness, and she felt
guilty for being hard on her mother, but she just made it so difficult.

Mariella continued to the kitchen and made Estelle and Lulu a quick breakfast. They
had only two eggs and a heel of a bread loaf left to split, but it would have to do.
They were lucky to have anything for breakfast at all. She knew of many families who
didn’t, and had herself gone to school and work with an empty stomach plenty of times.
Mariella was at least glad the sisters at the free Catholic school would give the
girls a good lunch.

After dropping off the girls for morning prayer, Mariella arrived at the Hemingway
house. In spite of her nerves, she admired it in the early-morning sun. Twin porches
wrapped around the Spanish-styled facade, and its thick, tropical landscaping seemed
reminiscent of Eden. She passed two peacocks grazing in the grass and walked up to
the front door to knock. She suddenly felt very anxious and out of place while she
waited for an answer.

A minute passed, then two. The butterflies in Mariella’s stomach now felt like full-on
nausea, and she wondered whether she
should try another entrance or just leave. She made a move to step off the porch when
the door was opened by a heavyset black woman. She took no trouble to hide her impatience
and looked Mariella over from head to toe before suddenly breaking into a huge, warm
smile.

“The answer to my prayers!” she said. Mariella had an urge to look behind her, but
knew that the woman was speaking about her, and smiled.

“You must be Mariella,” said the woman, opening the door and thrusting an apron at
her. “I’m Isabelle, and I need a pair of young hands around here.”

She grabbed Mariella’s hands and grunted in approval before hustling her into the
kitchen. It didn’t take long for Mariella to learn that the household wasn’t as peaceful
within as it looked from the outside.

Hemingway’s boys, six-year-old Patrick and three-year-old Gregory, played an intense
game of cowboys and Indians all morning. They jumped on the furniture, slammed the
doors, and rattled the china. Pauline shooed them out to the yard, but Jim, the gardener,
shooed them back in. Isabelle spanked their hands when they tried to steal food from
the kitchen, and Ada spanked their behinds when they fought or cried or yelled.

Pauline pulled Mariella away from Isabelle, much to the cook’s dismay, and instructed
Mariella on which floors to clean on which days. Then Pauline left to do some shopping
in town. Just after she left, as Mariella walked into the family room to sweep, she
tripped over Patrick as he dropped a large, struggling peacock on the floor. Mariella
used her broom to send the bird back out to the yard, and had just turned back to
the house to scold Patrick when she ran into Hemingway himself.

“Jesus, daughter, I hope I never do anything to earn that look from you,” he said.

She blushed to her toes and reached up to smooth her hair.

“I guess I’m not used to boys,” she said. “I have sisters.”

“You’re lucky,” he said. “I’ve always wanted a daughter; just don’t make ’em, I guess.”

She laughed, a little shocked at his reference.

“You’re actually just who I was looking for,” he said. “Follow me.”

Mariella followed, still carrying the broom. He walked her up the stairs and to his
bedroom. He stopped for a moment by the bed and gave her a mischievous smile. She
broke into a cold sweat.

“Not here,” he said.

He turned and opened a door on the side of the room that led to the walkway to his
writing cottage. She walked along the narrow walkway and tried not to look down. She
hated heights. He pulled a key out of his pocket and opened the door. She followed
him into the room.

The cottage was an oasis. Cool from the morning air, it smelled like the books stacked
on its shelves around the room. Papa’s writing table sat in the middle of the room
like an altar—the typewriter some kind of holy instrument of transformation.

“I’d like you to clean in here,” he said. “I trust you not to move anything or talk
about any of the writing you’ll see when you snoop.”

Mariella had an impulse to deny that she’d snoop, but thought he’d know better.

“So you’re okay with me snooping,” she said.

“Snoop away; just never talk about it. You never talk about a book till you’re done
with it.”

Mariella was surprised how easy it was to be herself around him, and how easily he’d
taken to her. She thought their meeting at the dock had been the right way to start.
It was neutral territory. Now they could just continue on without the formality. Still,
she wondered.

“Why do you trust me?” she asked.

“Because you’re honest. If you’d have tried to deny you’d snoop, I’d have told you
I changed my mind. You passed the test.”

Mariella was glad she hadn’t tried to lie. It didn’t seem like much escaped his notice.

She turned away from him and leaned the broom against the door so she could walk the
perimeter of the room. An antelope hung from the wall, and a lion-skin rug splayed
across the center of the room. She crouched down to look at its teeth up close.

“Just got these beasts mounted, stuffed, and gutted,” he said. “From our Africa trip.”

Mariella stood and walked to his desk. A roll of half-typed paper stuck out of the
typewriter. She looked at the words and then at him. He nodded, and she leaned in
to look at it closer.

“It’s when my companion was talking about great writers,” he said. “He admired them,
but I knew they were a bunch of miserable saps.”

Mariella read the words for a moment and then looked at Papa. “And he asked you who
was the best writer?”

“My husband,” said Pauline. She stood in the doorway regarding Mariella with an icy
stare.

“Back so soon?” he asked.

“My stomach’s killing me.” Pauline looked pale. “Mariella, come draw the curtains
and see that the children are kept out of my room. I need to lie down.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hemingway.”

Mariella walked over to pick up the broom and followed Pauline. As she turned to pull
the screen door to the cottage closed, she met Papa’s gaze. The way he looked at her
made her blush. She turned away so he wouldn’t see her burning, and hurried to catch
up with Pauline.

Mariella’s shoulders ached from hanging and folding laundry, and her hands were cracked,
but she felt the satisfaction of a good day’s work. She pulled the last of the towels
off the line and folded it into the basket. It had been a week since she started and
she already felt comfortable. Once Jinny left for home and Mariella no longer felt
scrutinized, she actually experienced pleasure in keeping up the house. Except for
the gruff, distracted governess, the staff was kind to her. The boys were already
growing on her, with their vitality and their sweet faces. And as for the Hemingways,
Pauline stayed out of her way, and Papa stayed in her way. As much as Mariella hated
to admit it to herself, she liked it.

After her first day of work, Mariella had signed up for a library card and checked
out
The Sun Also Rises
, figuring she’d see what Hemingway was all about. She was surprised how quickly the
book grabbed her. She identified with Jake, the main character—a man who had no patience
for phonies—and she wondered how much of himself Hemingway put into the book. It was
hard to put down, but she forced herself each night so she wouldn’t be too tired for
work.

After she finished the novel, she found herself further intrigued by Hemingway, and
quite sure that he’d put all of himself into it. Those people he wrote about were,
no doubt, real people. His mixture
of love and disdain for them fascinated her, as did the complexity of a volatile man
like his character Jake. She thought he was like Hemingway in all ways except, of
course, his impotence. Mariella contemplated this while she carried a tower of towels
up the stairs and into the Hemingways’ bedroom, where she ran into the very object
of her thoughts. The towels dropped to the floor at their feet. She moved to pick
them up, and he bent down to help.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll get it.”

“Let me help you,” he said.

They made quick work of the cleanup, and both reached for the last towel at the same
time. His hand closed over hers and their faces were inches away. She looked at him
when he didn’t remove his hand.

“Your hands are raw,” he said.

“Laundry day,” she said. She went to pull away, but he kept a firm hold on her hand
and turned it over in his. He ran his thumb over the dry surface of her palm.

“Pauline’s probably got some lotion you could try.”

She pulled her hand away. “It’s fine.”

Mariella felt his eyes on her as she picked up the last towel and folded it. She heard
him walk out the door and down the stairs and was surprised to find that she was holding
her breath. She caught sight of herself in the mirror across the room and saw the
flush on her skin and knew he’d seen it, too.