I had a paper route. I think mine was the worst in the city. I had street after street of multi family houses filled with people who didn't answer the door on collection day and moved out under cover of the night leaving me (and probably their landlord) holding week after week of unpaid bills.
I also baby sat twice a week, over a three year period, for a child who didn't like me. The kid literally growled at me from his high chair while I tried spooning Kraft macaroni and cheese, the only food he'd eat, behind his little chiclet teeth clamped down with rage.
Those gigs were a whole lotta "have to" and not a lot of "want to".
Then I began working for our hometown YMCA. In the summer, I was a camp counselor (loved it). During the week, I worked at the front check in area, handing out keys and towels (liked it). On the weekends, I was a fitness instructor within our Nautilus room, all suited up in my Hind running tights, kick ass Nike Pegasus, and my Y-issued white popped collar polo shirt, smelling of bleach and Giorgio (loved the outfit). I did this for three years and made some money, which I spent as quickly as I earned it.
But then becoming a high school senior, I was one hundred percent burnt out on work and life. I wanted a less demanding schedule before embarking upon college. Also, my living situation was a little upended and I was looking for part time employment where I could make decent money without feeling harried. Two or three hours of calm per day was desperately needed. Nervously, I threw caution to the wind, quit the Y at the end of August and started looking for something different.
One morning, while reading the paper before school, I saw an ad in the help wanted section for a "Mother's Helper". Curious, I called. It was 7:30 am. I figured mothers were awake. Needing to hustle off to homeroom, it was the only time I had available to me.
"Aughhhh! Yell-OH?", a voice choked into the receiver.
"Uh...hi. I'm calling about the ad?"
A sizable clattering bang followed, though I couldn't place what it was. I didn't hear any children or other people in the background.
"Can you come by this aftuhnoon to intuhview?", she asked. Her voice seemed impeded by something in her mouth, impossible to say what.
"Sure", I said. We mutually agreed on a 3 pm arrival time as she lived a half hour walking distance from the high school. She asked me my name. She gave me the address. I was going to a really nice neighborhood and I was psyched.
Quickly, before leaving for school, I put on an outfit that shouted "Nanny". I pulled all of my crazy hair back into a smooth ponytail. I wore pegged jeans, rolled up above the ankle, my Sebago Docksides with no socks, and an ivory pullover which was heavy cotton, but knit to look like a chunky Irish fisherman's sweater. My pearl studs completed the outfit, along with my class ring and oxblood Aigner purse. I had no idea how perfect this getup was until I got to the house.
I knocked twice at the mammoth glossy black front door using the substantial and expensive looking gold Claddagh shaped doorknocker, and Aisling yanked it open with a flourish.
"Oh my GAWD are you Irish?" she yelled.
"Ummm...yes...a little on my grand..." I started explaining but hearing nothing more, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me, stumbling, up a single tall step into her beautiful brick home.
She started rambling a mile a minute, gesturing to the inside of the house. Her eyes darted back and forth and her breathing seemed awfully labored for someone just standing in her foyer. It quickly became clear that she needed help. Nowadays, I might have noticed her actions, her words and the information which she so readily disclosed as clues to post partum depression but back then, I just thought of her as mildly unhinged.
She led me further inside. Every curtain in her huge formal living room was floor to ceiling black velvet, drawn tightly shut, despite it being a gorgeous September afternoon. There was white carpet but it was in need of a good vacuuming and there were colorful toys strewn about. The floor scene reminded me of fruity pebbles floating in a big bowl of milk. The coffee table held at least a week's worth of mail and two leaning piles of magazines with celebrities on the cover.
Her eyeliner and mascara were noticeably smudged. I suspected that perhaps she'd had it on since yesterday and it'd become muted and stippled due to an overnight's worth of sleep and eye rubbing. I got that idea because mine looked like that too on a lot of recent mornings.
As she was talking a blue streak, and I was observing the surroundings and her appearance more than I was taking in her words, I caught a bit of information here and there. She said something about recently having relocated from a big city in Pennsylvania. She was tired. She needed someone to help her deal with her kids, her house, and her life. I nodded. Just then, a little boy came peeking around the corner from a hallway. He padded over to me in mismatching socks, one brown, one green, and touched me on the arm with a dirty index finger. I could tell that she was slightly annoyed and distracted by his presence and that they had somehow made an agreement for him to stay put for a few minutes, but the few minutes was up and he wanted to see who was in his house. She let him stay, conceivably to see how our interaction would play out. I hadn't said one word since my half-answer to her family heritage inquiry.
"Are you heppy?", the child canvassed me quietly, looking me in the eye.
It took me a second...heppy? But then I understood. Leaning down to his pensive little face I said, "Well, not all the time but today, yeah, I'm pretty heppy."
He looked up at Aisling and grinned.
She asked me when I could start.
I stayed with Aisling that afternoon because she was in the middle of a frenzied kitchen cabinet cleanup that clearly required two people. She wanted it done before her husband, an emergency room doctor, came home at 5:15 from the hospital.
She asked me to call her "Ash". Her son was Terence who they called "Terry" and her baby daughter, less than a year old, and sleeping in her crib, was Aibhlinn, better known as "Evvie". Terry was bright eyed and gorgeous with a mop of thick dark hair and ruddy cheeks. He scampered up into a tall ladderback chair with arms and proceeded to slurp his Ectocooler drink box while his mom pulled items from within the lower cabinets.
I remarked on Terry's good looks. "He looks just like his FATHAH." she said, throwing Tupperware around the kitchen floor. Not knowing what we were doing, exactly, I gathered up everything she tossed and stacked it on the kitchen table. She would occasionally stop yanking and sit on the tile with her back up against the cupboards, sweating and running her burgundy nails across her scalp, pulling strands of hair out of her eyes. It was dark brown, textured like mine, and looked like she might have tried to cut it herself, unsuccessfully.
We worked as she ranted and volleyed plastic containers to me. She told me she wasn't any good at organization. She also told me that she was lonely, had no friends, and hated living in our small town. She told me people were narrow minded around here. She told me she was restless as fuck. Ten minutes in, she abruptly stood up, swept two black garbage bags off of the countertop and said, "Let's throw this shit out".
Hundreds of dollars worth of perfectly good food storage went into the bags and then out the back door, flung upon a beautifully appointed large wooden deck. She squinted in the sunshine for a minute before leaning on the door, still ajar, and said, "Can you go rouse Evvie?" I looked over at Terry, still sitting in his chair. I'd been around lots of 2 year old children and had never seen one sit still for so long. I nodded to her and said to him, "Come with me." He hopped down leaving the drink box. He willingly took my hand.
Evvie's room was painted a violent shade of purple that seemed more Studio 54 than newborn baby. She was just waking up. I leaned over the white rail and talked to her in a singsong voice. At first, she wrinkled her brow confusedly with a look of solid concern and possibly tears to come, but then she saw Terry and smiled. She looked like a bald little Ash. Oddly, she was outfitted in a red party dress that squeezed her tiny biceps with too-tight elastic sleeves. There were piles of baby clothes all over the floor. Feeling wetness, I quickly scanned the room, found what I needed and changed her disposable diaper. Because there was no garbage pail in sight, I handed it to Terry and said, "Go ask, ummmm, Mama to throw this away outside." I didn't know what he called her, because he hadn't addressed her in front of me, but he understood, grabbed the white plastic bundle and trotted off toward the hallway. I picked up Evvie, smoothed her little eyebrows, touched her button nose, and carried her out into the kitchen.
The screen door banged like a shotgun and startled the two of us. Ash walked in, thanked me profusely for changing Evvie, guided Terry back to his chair, and washed her hands in the sink. I could tell she had just taken a few drags off of a cigarette and eventually came to learn that she kept her ashtray on the deck, choosing not to smoke in front of the kids. Her Marlboro Lights were in a drawer right near the backdoor. Her Bic lighter was housed in a silver sleeve festooned with turquoise and red coral pieces. I thought it might have had the words "Rock and Roll" engraved on it. Intrigued, I tried getting a look as she shoved it away under the phonebook.
"BTK" she said.
"What?"
"Before the kids."
It wouldn't be the last time she said the letters "BTK" to me. In fact, they came up every time I worked for and with Ash. That day she told me the story of a long-ago trip to the desert with her husband and buying the lighter cover from a Native American Trading Post. It was the only time during our two hours when she seemed relaxed.
After I buckled Evvie into her high chair and gave her a handful of stale Cheerios to push around, I told Ash I had to go. I hadn't anticipated staying that day and needed to get home. She said "Oh! Sure! Of course!" and apologized for having kept me. Walking me toward the door, she asked me if I could come again the next day and looking at Terry in his little Ghostbuster tshirt, I told her definitely, absolutely, yes.
On my way out of the heavy door front door, ornamented with thick glass windows on each side, a singular light source in the sundowning darkness, I wanted to ask her if she was paying me for my time...and how much. She didn't and I didn't either. Ash was only able to focus on one thing at a time and right then she was trying to figure out what to do for dinner for herself, Terry and his father who was expected home at any minute.
I walked outside and down the concrete steps, trimmed in brick. After she shut the door, I turned around and looked at the house. Its façade was so stately and moneyed. It spoke of success, genteelness...surely a happy Monopoly playing, cocoa drinking, perfect dental appointment every six months family lived here. But having spent two hours throwing kitchenware about, and looking at what needed to be addressed, it in no way belied what was going on within. I felt certain that my time there was not going to be any less stressful than the YMCA jobs but I also thought, perchance I could make a bigger, more satisfying difference with Ash and the kids. I also really liked her.
I put my Walkman on, turned up my Journey Evolution tape, and walked to my Mom's, eagerly anticipating our next afternoon.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Please Note: All names have been changed.
Aisling means "dream" or "vision". In Ireland it also means "a beautiful woman in peril".
Terence means "one who aids or assists".
Aibhlinn means "wished for or longed for".
If you want to hear more about my year with Ash, her husband and her two children, who became my two hour a day responsibility, let me know in the Google Blogspot comments; or by commenting in Facebook on my Mushroom Tumbler page or my personal page. I have many stories to share pertaining to this time in my life. Some are happy, some are sad, but overall, they speak quite loudly to me right now as a woman working in and through a transitory period herself.
Being 50 is where it's at, y'all.
Finally, thank you for reading what I write. I appreciate your support.
#1970s #1980s #postpartumdepression #mushroomtumbler
