Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [82]
“What happened, Rita?”
“I ran out to an herbal store. I got something to ease the pain and to flush out her system.”
“You’re amazing, Rita.”
“Not so amazing. I told her mother that we would pay for a gynecologist so Claudia could get treated. But her mother refused.”
“Her mother what?”
“Refused. Because abortion is illegal, her mother is afraid that she’ll get in trouble if someone finds out that Claudia gave herself an abortion.”
“Her daughter was in danger of dying!”
“I know. I kept giving Claudia herbal medicines and finally the vomiting and bleeding stopped. She’s still weak, but I think she’ll be all right now.”
“Your knowledge of herbal medicine is remarkable, Rita. How’d you learn?”
“My mother. And I was always interested. But I wasn’t sure I would save her, Margaret. She could have died.”
“What are we doing, Rita? This is so hard for you.”
“There’s more.” I looked at her. “Let’s go somewhere else for coffee and I’ll tell you.”
We wandered into a relatively quiet side street and sat at the counter of a small café that both Rita and I liked.
“You’re back?” the waiter, Reinaldo, asked me as he wiped the counter in front of us. “Can you take me back with you in your suitcase?”
“I’d love to,” I said. “But you’ll have to shrink somehow.”
“Your feet are too big,” Rita said. “Now get us some coffees. Mediums. With milk.”
“I know what you want,” Reinaldo said, and he flicked his towel at Rita.
Rita picked up the sugar container and shook it aimlessly. “It’s all falling apart, Margaret. Maybe we shouldn’t have started this.”
Reinaldo slid our coffees across the counter. He looked at our faces and politely left us alone. “Is it the girls’ parents?” I asked.
“That, but no, it’s more. It’s Mary, that volunteer from the States. She knows how to run an organization much better than I do. Maybe she should just take over. I don’t know how to do this.”
“Rita, what are you talking about? She’s supposed to be helping you. You’re running it.”
“Yeah, well. I feel I don’t do stuff fast enough for her. She wants our registration done now. It’s wonderful of her to help, don’t get me wrong, but then she gets annoyed because an office is closed, or she comes back for some papers and no one has looked at them yet, or I haven’t finished what she asked me to do the day before. She doesn’t seem to realize I have another job, that I’m trying to do my photography as well.”
“She probably doesn’t realize that.”
“She wants meetings; she gets upset when people don’t show up on time; she wants things she calls ‘time plans.’”
I laughed. “Welcome to the United States. She’s North American, Rita. Poor Mary.”
The corner of Rita’s mouth curled up in spite of herself. “I don’t think she understands that she’s offending people. But she acts as though she understands Bahia better than I do!” She paused. “And I made a mistake, Margaret. You and I have to get email or talk on the phone more. I know it’s expensive, but somehow we have to do it. I started talking with Mary about management issues—I needed someone—and then she just gradually began to think she should make most of the decisions herself. People will listen to her more easily than they will to me. She’s the kind of person they expect to see as director of Bahia Street, not me. I can’t do this, Margaret. We have to make a decision, either Mary becomes director and I quit, or you get Mary to leave.”
“Me? How can I tell her to leave?” Rita stirred more sugar into what was left of her coffee. “But, Rita,” I said, “I was like that too when I first arrived in Salvador. It’s our Northerner attitude, our belief that ‘efficiency,’ as we define it, works not only for our own Northern lives and businesses, but also for people about whom we know nothing. When I first moved to Salvador, I also kept trying to ‘get things done’ in a timely fashion. It was hopeless. Obstacles seemed thrown in my way all the time. But then I relaxed, went with the rhythm of the place, and I met just the person