Minna continued without seeming to note the pause. “I was the ugly runt of the litter. My oldest sister was a model in Paris. Now she’s married. She lives in the south of France. In Cannes.” Minna smiled and nodded, sipped her wine.
The conversation made Claire feel countrified, rough, and without style. She imagined the girls, if they had any sense, felt the same. A new silence stretched until it reached discomfort.
Minna sighed and continued as if the situation required it. “My middle sister lives in Florida. She invests in the real estate market. She has the most beautiful, modern house.”
“You must miss them,” Lucy said.
“I do. But when the three of us were children in Dominica, all we could talk of was getting away. It was so isolated and backward on the plantation. Can I tell you the funniest story?”
“Please do,” Mrs. Girbaldi said.
“My oldest sister was an art student in London when she was discovered by a photographer for Vogue. All fine and well. But they wanted her to be more of a story. A sensation. So they invented this story that he had found her in Haiti, living in the slums and starving, breaking coconuts with her bare hands or something equally absurd. Very much like the stories of Iman being a goat herder.”
“Why would they lie?” Gwen asked.
“I guess to make themselves feel progressive and liberal, feel proud of plucking one of a million from a fate of misery. The wild savage redeemed.”
“But you aren’t even from Haiti,” Lucy said, outraged.
“People always mix up Dominica with the Dominican Republic. It’s all the same to them. Close enough.”
“I am so proud of my girls,” Claire said, resolute, ready to close the deal. “They wanted to take care of me, but I don’t want them upsetting their lives.”
“Lucy told me that you are a very special family,” Minna said.
“You’re hired if you want the job,” Claire said.
Minna opened her eyes wide, grinning, while Lucy jumped up and clapped, rushing to kiss Claire. “Good for you, Mom.”
Gwen and Mrs. Girbaldi remained seated and silent.
“That’s very kind of you. But perhaps you should speak with your family in private. It’s a big decision, bringing someone new into your home.”
“Wise girl,” Mrs. Girbaldi said, before Claire could get in a word of protest.
“The job will probably last only six months. After Mom is well, she’s selling the ranch,” Gwen said.
“Sad to leave such a wonderful place,” Minna said.
“Yes.” Claire looked at this girl, her dark Cordelia.
Another too long pause in the room.
“Can you direct me to the loo?”
“Down the hall,” Gwen answered.
Minna left the room, and they sat in a divided silence.
“I guess I’ll start on the dishes,” Lucy said.
“Not just yet,” Gwen snapped.
No one moved, and they listened in silence to the sound of high heels going back and forth on the wood floor in the hallway, doors opening and shutting. Minna popped her head back in the room.
“Sorry, but I can’t find it.”
“I’ll show you,” Lucy said. “How about I make you a snack in the kitchen.”
“Lovely, I’m starving.”
“I can’t believe how you are acting,” Lucy hissed as she left the room.
Mrs. Girbaldi hiccuped. “A beautiful girl.”
A few minutes later, Minna returned, gathered her purse and sweater. “I’m leaving now. Why don’t you give me a call in town once you’ve decided.”
“Could you wait in the entry for a minute?” Claire said. Then she faced down Gwen. “I want her.”
“You shouldn’t rush—”
“Why not? How much better do you think we’ll know anyone else?”
“What about references?”
“She worked in a coffee shop.”
“I wonder,” Mrs. Girbaldi said, as she poured herself a glass of wine, “how well she’ll adapt to life here. It certainly isn’t Cannes, or Cambridge, or even Berkeley.”
“Well?” Claire pushed.
“It feels funny,” Gwen said.
“She’s very smart.”
Gwen frowned, threw her hands up in defeat. “It’s your decision.”
“Tell her to come in,” Claire said.
And just like that, opposition to Minna crumbled like a house on a false foundation. Or perhaps, the resistance had been halfhearted; already Gwen and Lucy were making plans of escape. Even Gwen seemed satisfied that she had put up an honorable fight. A release of tension, a giddiness, enveloped them now that a solution had so propitiously fallen into their lap.
* * *
The next morning, Claire woke to the smell of coffee. In the kitchen, Minna was dressed in white polo shirt, white jeans, and white tennis shoes. True, the girls’ intuition had been correct in that it felt odd to have a stranger living with her. The habit of solitude was entrenched. This was a shotgun decision — her only way to get what she wanted. Still, she felt a sense of astonishment and relief that Minna was made flesh, not a dream, despite the evidence the previous night when the girl went to Lucy’s car and pulled out of the backseat all her worldly possessions packed in two cardboard liquor boxes. Her sudden appearance as companion so improbable that it distracted from Claire’s preoccupation with her illness, a welcome relief. She poured coffee.
Minna was frowning. “Sorry, but where do you put your trash?”
“Trash? There’s a can under the sink. For big stuff, there’s a bin in the garage.”
“I couldn’t find it anywhere. You Americans, always hiding everything ugly away.”
Claire gave a polite shrug.
“I walked in the orchard this morning. So beautiful. On Martinique we grew sugarcane and bananas mostly, but we had some avocados and citrus for the local markets. It reminds me of my island here. I squeezed a pitcher of juice for us.”
“I thought you said your plantation was on Dominica.”
“We had plantations on different islands.”
“That’s what I recognized in you,” Claire said.
Minna looked up then, embarrassed.
“You appreciate the land.”
“Your daughters are unhappy with my staying here?”
“Unhappy with me,” Claire said.
* * *
Claire backed out the ancient Mercedes from the old carriage house that served as garage. Forster’s family had insisted on buying American cars, starting during the war — a succession of Fords, Chevrolets, and then with Forster’s generation Thunderbirds and Mustangs. But despite their vehement patriotism during that period of the forties and fifties, fruit with the Germanic Baumsarg name did not sell; the produce had to be sent to a middleman, who relabeled the source, at a significant discount. They were krauts, enemies no different from the Japanese. Hanni had told stories to Claire about the deprivation suffered while she was a young woman, when the only butter available was lard colored with food dye.
Since the eighties, the choice had centered on the most economical. The diesel Mercedes belched a black cloud when Claire gunned it and shuddered at stoplights from its worn shock absorbers. The odometer had clocked over 250,000 miles, and the car still had its original, albeit peeling and fading, silver paint job.
Minna sat behind the wheel and ran her finger over the lacquered-wood dash. “Nice.” She had put on a headscarf and large hoop earrings for the outing to the airport.
“Hardly nice,” Claire said. “I hope you’re good on freeways.”
“I love to drive. I’ve driven cross-country five times. Up to Alaska once. Down to South America.”
“Where to?”
Minna looked at her feet, suddenly shy. “Colombia. And Costa Rica. Peru, of course.”