Becoming the Butlers by Penny Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

flamenco dolls in the tourist shop across the street.”
    Didn’t James know I was too old for dolls? I took out several bills from my father’s wallet and said good-bye. In the lobby I stopped at the tourist shop and bought two packs of cigarettes along with a postcard and stamp. Even though I knew my father was suffering I had the immediate urge to tell someone about our trip. The problem was I had no one to write to. My ex-school-friends would be insulted that I had left without telling them, and then wonder why I was in Spain. I could write to Nicole Rudomov, my closest friend, whose mother had also run away. But her mother left her father for a very famous French actress and the story was written up everywhere. Nicole now had celebrity status: there would never be a photograph of George and my mother in Vanity Fair. Nicole was a little flaky and I wasn’t too sure she’d keep her mouth shut. Pilar Vasquez was really the only person I could trust. She had said good-bye to me the morning before our departure, standing shyly in the doorway. Her mother had sent her with a note we were supposed to read to George once we found him. Pilar had translated the letter and read it to me in a quavering high voice:
    George—
    Stop this foolishness now! Come home or the baby will grow up without remembering her father. A temporary man who cannot fix anything comes twice a week, but never picks up the garbage. Mr. Oakes in 9C is still waiting for you to install his air conditioner. It’s been nearly a year. The priest is willing to hear your confession.
    Your grieving wife
    I didn’t think George, hundreds of miles away, would give a fig about Mr. Oakes’s air conditioner. Pilar had given me the letter and let her hand brush meaningfully against my own.
    “You’re very brave, Rachel,” she told me in a quaking voice. “My mother prays everyday that your trip will be a success.”
    “Oh, well…,” I began, backing away. Pilar scared me with her shiny eyes burning behind her thick glasses. Her long, oily hair dangled before her eyes, and she kept yanking the stringy strands behind her ears. Pilar was six inches taller than me, and looked thirty years old. Her large hands were always chapped and smelled like dishwashing detergent. I was nervous then that someone would see us together and wished she would leave. Although we were the same age, Pilar had never been my friend; Pilar was the super’s daughter, and even liberal Upper West Siders abided by faint but still distinct class lines. The other kids in the building always taunted Pilar and George Jr. on their way to school, calling them “Rag Dolls,” because they always wore our old, cast-off clothes. The only reason the Vasquezes lived in our Riverside Drive building was that George knew how to fix toilets.
    The card I bought depicted a little girl in a flamenco dress holding a bouquet of yellow and purple flowers. I borrowed a pen from the reception desk and wrote this short message:
    Dear Pilar,
    We just got here and not much has happened. Your great uncle thought my father was a famous writer and acted pretty funny. He didn’t know anything about your dad and my mom, but keep the faith, we’ll find them.
    Yours truly,
    Rachel Harris
    Keep the faith—I was beginning to sound like my father. But I had a feeling Pilar would find the slogan hopeful. Before we left, Mrs. Vasquez was worried that their family would be evicted. Maybe they were already gone, and my postcard would be lost, “Address Unknown.” If my mother and George ever married, Pilar would be my sister.
    The drugstore was easy to find (Farmacia, with a little red cross) but I couldn’t find any of the words I wanted in my phrase book. The only ailments listed in the “At the Pharmacy” section were indigestion, diarrhea, nausea, and constipation. I was not looking forward to Spanish cuisine. A young girl in a pharmacist’s uniform saw me poring over my book, and stepped away from her