CLEANING LADIES
Part Four of Four
by Marie Delgado Travis
After my last cleaning lady cleaned me out, I interviewed another housekeeper, this one willing to live with us. But when she said that she was Dominican, I balked and told her of my experiences with Olga. She said that it was sad that "For one person, we all pay." But my trauma was still recent and I wasn’t quite ready to hire her. Instead, I hired a small, stocky Puerto Rican lady named Annie, who chain-smoked and insisted on calling me Vilmarys, despite my constant corrections. I finally gave up and accepted the name change. It was easier that way.
Annie was a demon cleaner. So much so that she removed all of the wood stain from a very expensive rattan chair, by cleaning it within an inch of its life. ¨Oh, Annie. This is terrible, ¨ I cried out in dismay, when I saw the chair. ¨What on earth did you use to clean it? ¨ ¨Tilex, ¨ she answered innocently. Ouch, no wonder.
But Annie was a good old bulldog, who defended me with canine loyalty anytime a neighbor complained about anything. ¨There’s a drought and we’re using too much water to clean the patio? Ah, you just don’t know my Vilmarys. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. If you knew her the way I do, you wouldn’t think of complaining.¨ And the neighbor would leave, shaking his head, wondering, ¨Who the heck is Vilmarys? ¨
Unfortunately, when I moved to another neighborhood, her fierce loyalty ended abruptly. ¨I don’t know where that is, Vilmarys.¨ ¨Okay, Annie, I realize that, but I can tell you where it is.¨ ¨I’ve never been there.¨ ¨Yes, Annie, but it’s on one of the principal streets here in Puerto Rico, not all that far from here¨ ¨I don’t know where it is.¨ Until I finally gave up. It was easier that way.
I remembered the Dominican woman’s comments about equal opportunity employment when I hired Noelia. She turned out to be an excellent worker with no noticeable bad habits and a good heart. She sent most of the money she made to support her elderly mother back home en La República. But one day, she went home to visit her Mom and La Migra didn’t let her back into the U.S. Caramba, it’s hard to get help these days.
Marie Delgado Travis is proud of her Nuyorican* roots. She possesses Masters Degrees in Literature and Law and worked in Advertising / Marketing for top international companies for 20 years. Although relatively new to writing, Marie has quickly won recognition for her writing in English and Spanish, poetry and prose. She is the author of LA VENTANA / THE WINDOW, a bilingual (Spanish-English) poetry collection, which earned Honorable Mention at the Ninth Annual International Latino Book Awards ceremony, held at BookExpo America in New York City this May 2007. The book's title poem, "The Window" won Second Place in the international Tom Howard Poetry Contest in 2005 (over 1,600 entries received). Two of Marie's poems were commended in the same competition
Marie's work has appeared in the anthologies CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE LATINO SOUL (2005) and ACROSS THE LONG BRIDGE: An Anthology of Award-Winning Poetry (2006). Her work has been spotlighted in Texas literary journals, SPIKY PALM and LUCIDITY. Marie's readings at book fairs and literary venues throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico are very popular. She has been invited to perform a reading at San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in December. She and her husband, Edmunds, a retired attorney, live in Houston, TX. Her books are available through major online bookstores, including Amazon.com. Please visit Marie's web site: http://hometown.aol.com/marilutravis/index.html
* Native New Yorker of Puerto Rican ancestry.
