Didn't I Feed You Yesterday__ A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos - Laura Bennett [17]
WHEN I MARRIED PETER, ZOILA WAS IN THE PRE-NUP. OR AT LEAST, she would have been if there had been a pre-nup. The first time I came up to Peter’s apartment, I couldn’t help but notice that he already had a wife: there she was, putting away the laundry.
“Laura, this is Zoila,” he told me as she was pulling on her coat and I was taking mine off. “She knows where the bodies are buried.”
Nice job description, I thought.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Laura,” she said. I liked her instantly. She wears ankle socks, and a cardigan, and she changes her sneakers for Dearfoams slippers when she is in the house. The woman is standard-issue sitcom—Alice from The Brady Bunch, with a Guatemalan accent.
“Mr. Peter, I picked up your shirts and bought some new vacuum cleaner bags—and here.” She handed him a little pile of business cards, receipts, and what looked like pennies wrapped in lint. “From the laundry.”
After Zoila left, Peter explained to me that he’d been seeing her for nearly twenty years. She had outlasted every girlfriend, casual date, and broken betrothal. Some women had objected to his deep connection with Zoila, claiming that they, too, could starch a collar or take a complete message, with area code, should he not be at home to receive a call. Those women are history; Zoila remains.
“So you see,” he told me, “she’s part of the deal. If you have a problem with another woman going through my pants and maybe even keeping secrets from you, then you might as well tell me now.”
“Can she cook?” I asked. “Because I don’t.”
“No, she’s not a cook,” he said. “But I don’t really eat.”
“She can stay.”
This was a smart move on my part, as in all my years of marriage I have never had to remember a thing that involves my husband. People tell me it must be nice to have a housekeeper, but I prefer to think of her as a Peterkeeper. She doesn’t run my household, just his Elba-like piece of it.
But Zoila’s value to me is also immeasurable: she never forgets a child’s birthday (and has even had to remind me a few times), but, most important, she has never, ever told me anything about Peter that I might not want to know. I’m not saying that there’s anything to tell, but I gain peace of mind from the confidence that I wouldn’t have to bother with it if there were.
WHEN I CRAWLED HOME, PREGNANT AND EXHAUSTED, FROM THE challenge part of Project Runway, I was faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of creating a twelve-piece collection in two months all by myself. No pattern makers, no cutters, no beaders, just me. This was going to be a full-time task, and I knew that the boys would be too much for Alicia without me, so she brought in Nicole. Now I can’t imagine our house without her.
The only thing Alicia and Nicole have in common is that they are both from the Caribbean. While Alicia is petite, Nicole is six feet tall and weighs two hundred pounds, most of it pure muscle. I like to introduce her as my bodyguard.
Every week she shows up with an intricate hairstyle involving hair that is not her own. She seems to think no one knows it is a weave.
“Hey, Nicole, did you hear about the woman who was shot in the head but saved by her weave?” I tease.
“I wouldn’t know about a weave,” she replied with a gold-capped smile. I think that was her reply, anyway. I can’t understand a damn thing she says through her heavy Trinidadvia-Brooklyn accent.
Nicole also has a thing for Baby Phat clothing, and a severe case of body dysmorphic disorder. A dangerous combination because Baby Phat tends toward the hoochie side. Whereas most women who suffer from this affliction think they are three sizes larger than they are, Nicole insists on fitting her size 16 body into size 6—the result being endless repairs of burst seams on my machine. She always blames the