From the Corner of His Eye

Chapter 6

Except for the effects of pregnancy, Agnes was petite, and Maria Elena Gonzalez was even smaller. Yet as they sat catercorner to each other at the kitchen table, young women from far different worlds but with remarkably similar personalities, their clash of wills over payment for the English lessons was nearly as monumental as two tectonic plates grinding together deep under the California coast. Maria was determined to pay with cash or services. Agnes insisted that the lessons were an act of friendship, with no compensation required.

"I won't steal the adjustments of a friend," Maria proclaimed.

"You're not taking advantage of me, dear. I'm getting so much pleasure from teaching you, seeing you improve, that I ought to be paying you."

Maria closed her large ebony eyes and drew a deep breath, moving her lips without making a sound, reviewing something important that she wanted to say correctly. She opened her eyes: "I am thanking the Virgin and Jesus every night that you have been within my life."

"That's so sweet, Maria."

"But I am buying the English," she said firmly, sliding three one dollar bills across the table.

Three dollars was six dozen eggs or twelve loaves of bread, and Agnes was never going to take food out of the mouth of a poor woman and her children. She pushed the currency across the table to Maria.

Jaws clenched, lips pressed tightly together, eyes narrowed, Maria shoved the money toward Agnes.

Ignoring the offered payment, Agnes opened a lesson book.

Maria swiveled sideways in her chair, turning away from the three bucks and the book.

Glaring at the back of her friend's head, Agnes said, "You're impossible."

"Wrong. Maria Elena Gonzalez is real."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Don't know nothing. I be stupid Mexican woman."

"Stupid is the last thing you are."

"Always to be stupid now, always with my evil English "Bad English. Your English isn't evil, it's just bad."

"Then you teach."

"Not for money."

"Not for free."

For a few minutes, they sat unmoving: Maria with her back to the table, Agnes staring in frustration at the nape of Maria's neck and trying to will her to come face-to-face again, to be reasonable.

At last Agnes got to her feet. A mild contraction tightened a cincture of pain around her back and belly, and she leaned against the table until the misery passed.

Without a word, she poured a cup of coffee and set it before Maria. She put a homemade raisin scone on a plate and placed it beside the coffee.

Maria sipped the coffee while sitting sideways in her chair, still turned away from the three worn dollar bills.

Agnes left the kitchen by way of the hall, through the swinging door, rather than through the dining room, and when she passed the living-room archway, Joey exploded out of his armchair, dropping the book he had been reading.

"It's not time," " she said, proceeding to the stairs.

"What if you're wrong?"

"Trust me, Joey, I'll be the first to know."

As Agnes ascended, Joey hurried into the foyer behind her and said, "Where are you going?"

"Upstairs, silly."

"What're you going to do?"

"Destroy some clothes."

" "Oh." "

She fetched a pair of cuticle scissors front the master bathroom, plucked a red blouse from her closet, and sat on the edge of the bed. Carefully snipping threads with the tiny, pointed blades, she turned the blouse inside out and unraveled a lot of stitches just under the shoulder yoke, ruining the front shirring.

From Joey's closet, she extracted an old blue blazer that he seldom wore anymore. The lining was sagging, worn, and half rotten. She tore it. With the small scissors, she opened the shoulder seam from the inside.

To the growing pile of ruin, she added one of Joey's cardigan sweaters, after popping loose one bone button and almost completely detaching a sewn-on patch pocket. A pair of knockabout khaki pants: quickly clip open the seat seam; cut the corner of' the wallet pocket, then rip it with both hands; snip loose some stitching and half detach the cuff on the left leg.

She damaged more of Joey's things than her own solely because he was such a big, dear giant, which made it easier to believe that he was constantly bursting out of his clothes.

Downstairs again, as Agnes reached the foot of the stairs, she began to worry that she had done too thorough a job on the khakis and that the extent of the damage would raise suspicions.

Seeing her, Joey leaped up front his armchair again. He managed to hold on to his book this time, but he stumbled into the footstool and nearly lost his balance.

"When did you have that run-in with the dog?" she asked.

Bewildered, he said, "What dog?"

"Was it yesterday or the day before?"

"Dog? There was no dog."

Shaking the ravaged khakis at him, she said, "Then what made such a mess of these?

He stared glumly at the khakis. Although they were old pants, they were a favorite pair when he was puttering around the house on weekends. "Oh," he said, "that dog."

"It's a miracle you weren't bitten."

"Thank God," he said, "I had a shovel."

"You didn't hit the poor dog with a shovel'," she asked with mock dismay.

Well, wasn't it attacking me?"

"But it was only a miniature collie."

He frowned. "I thought it was a big dog."

"No, no, dear. It was little Muffin, from next door. A big dog certainly would have torn up both you and the pants. We've got to have a credible story."

"Muffin seems like such a nice little dog."

"But the breed is nervous, dear. With a nervous breed, you just never know, do you?

"I guess not."

"Nevertheless, even if Muffin assaulted you, she's otherwise such a sweet little thing. What would Maria think of you if you told her you'd smashed poor Muffin with a shovel?"

"I was fighting for my life, wasn't I?"

"She'll think you're cruel."

"I didn't say I hit the dog."

Smiling, cocking her head, Agnes regarded him with amused expectation.

Scowling, Joey stared at the floor in puzzlement, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, sighed, turned his attention to the ceiling, and shifted his weight again, for all the world like a trained bear that couldn't quite remember how to perform its next trick.

Finally, he said, "What I did was grab the shovel, dig a hole really fast, and bury Muffin in it up to her neck-just until she calmed down."

"That's your story, huh?"

"And I'm sticking to it."

"Well, then, you're lucky that Maria's English is so evil."

He said, "Couldn't you just take her money?"

"Sure. Or why don't I pull a Rumpelstiltskin and demand one of her children for payment' "

"I liked those pants."

As she turned away from him and continued along the hall toward the kitchen, Agnes said, "They'll be as good as new when she's mended them.''

Behind her, he said, "And is that my gray cardigan? What did you do to my cardigan?"

"If you don't hush, I'll set it on fire."

In the kitchen, Maria was nibbling at the raisin scone.

Agnes dropped the damaged apparel on one of the breakfast-table chairs.

After carefully wiping her fingers on a paper napkin, Maria examined the garments with interest. She carried her living as the seamstress at Bright Beach Dry Cleaners. At the sight of each rent, popped button, and split seam she clucked her tongue.

Agnes said, "Joey is so hard on his clothes."

"Men," Maria commiserated.

Rico, her own husband-a drunkard and a gambler-had run off with another woman, abandoning Maria and their two small daughters. No doubt, he had departed in a spotlessly clean, sharply pressed, perfectly mended ensemble.

The seamstress held up the khakis and raised her eyebrows.

Settling into a chair at the table, Agnes said, "He was attacked by a dog."

Maria's eyes widened. "Pit bull' German sheep',"

"Miniature collie."

"What is like such a dog?"

"Muffin. You know, next door."

"Little Muffin do this?''

"It's a nervous breed."

"Muffin was in a mood."

Agnes winced. Already, another contraction. Mild but so soon after the last. She clasped her hands around her immense belly and took slow, deep breaths until the pain passed.

"Well, anyway," she said, as though Muffins uncharacteristic viciousness had been adequately explained, "this mending ought to cover ten more lessons."

Maria's face gathered into a frown, like a piece of brown cloth cinched by a series of whipstitches. "Six lessons."

"Ten."

"Six."

"Nine."

"Seven."

"Nine."

"Eight."

"Done," Agnes said. "Now put away the three dollars, and let's have our lesson before my water breaks."

"Water can break?" Maria asked, looking toward the faucet at the kitchen sink. She sighed. "I have so much to be learned."