“Thanks,” I said and twisted my hair over my shoulder. “I’ve heard that.”
“This part of the city is very dirty,” she said and squinted at the passing cars. “I’m sorry Eduardo brought us here.”
Compared to Moema, the area outside the market was heavily traversed and wore a sooty sheen. But I didn’t see any trash on the street, not even a gum wrapper accidentally dropped, like I had in U.S. cities.
“I’m happy we got to meet,” I said. “Dennis really appreciates Eduardo and everything he’s done for him.”
“Eduardo loves Dennis.” She looked over at the market entrance. “He is like a son.”
She fumbled inside her purse, searching for the cigarette pack. When she pulled it out, I noticed a photograph of a stillborn infant on the back.
“Do you want one?” she offered.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not.”
She lit a flame for me, cupped inside her hands, and the two smoke streams converged in front of us.
“You are just the right amount of beautiful,” she continued. “You’re not so beautiful that you could make money from it. You’re not a model. But you are beautiful enough that people will treat you well in restaurants and stores.” She scanned my face. “You have good skin.”
“I guess I’ve never had trouble in restaurants.”
“I hope Dennis tells you you’re beautiful.”
The comment made me feel like I had to hurry to remember the last time you did say it, which made me feel self-conscious, and then absurd. I took a drag.
“He does.”
“My daughter is a model,” she said. “She looks like me when I was her age.”
“Does she live in São Paulo?”
“Milano,” she said in a feigned Italian accent.
“You must miss her.”
“She went to boarding school, then university in London, then Milano. I don’t remember what it is like not to miss her.”
Two children approached us with fistfuls of shell necklaces. The younger one held out her hand, offering them to us for fifty centavos, while her older sister spun behind her like a ballerina. Melinda bought a necklace and then shooed them away. Once far gone, the older sister threw a stone in our direction.
“Let’s walk,” she said. “If we stand here it will be like chocolate cake to a fly.”
We walked for a few blocks, slowly, at Melinda’s pace, and talked at length about her swim and yoga regimen. When the conversation reached a lull, she asked me about the apartment, if we had everything we needed, if the bed was comfortable, if we had enough towels and cutlery.
“Yes,” I said. “We brought a lot with us from the U.S. We probably have too much.”
“And how about Marta?” Her tone made me think that this was the question she had wanted to ask all along, and that her concern about bath towels was just a gateway.
“Marta? She’s doing fine, I think.”
“Is she treating you well?”
“Very well,” I said. She waited for me to say more. “If anything, I wonder if I’m treating her well.”
Melinda flicked her eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
The comment wasn’t meant to mean much more than that. I wondered if we were good hosts, but for some reason I found myself searching for a deeper explanation. The way Melinda framed her questions felt unobtrusively intrusive. She didn’t ask much, but I felt I’d already given her too much.
“I didn’t understand how this relationship worked, between her and me. How we were supposed to coexist. And so it was a little bit awkward at first.”
“Awkward?”
“Yes, awkward. I’ve never had a maid before, I’ve never had to share household responsibilities, and so I thought maybe it would be helpful if I helped her. But she didn’t seem to like that.” I trailed off, worrying now that I’d opened a vulnerability for Melinda to prod. “But anyway, I started painting and now things are good. She doesn’t have to worry about me meddling.”
Melinda chuckled. “This is a funny concept. We pay her to make you feel comfortable. You’re not getting paid to make her feel comfortable.”
“No. No, that’s not what I meant.” I could feel my vocal cords tense; my voice dissolved into a low rasp. I cleared my throat. “I don’t need to be paid to make her feel comfortable. Or anyone for that matter. I’m just not used to having her around yet. That’s all.”
“Don’t feel bad,” she said. “I’m not surprised you felt a little—what was the word you used?—awk-ward, when you first met Marta. She has a reputation for being quite an alpha for someone who works in a subservient position.”
“I kind of like that about Marta.”
Melinda shook her head as if she was exasperated by this. I thought, Don’t argue with her. It’s not worth the energy. Melinda was leading me down a precarious path, a conversation I would look back on with chilly humiliation. I was at the same time aware that you admired the Provost and his wife—in many ways, they held the ultimate power over your reputation as a professor. With the flick of a wrist, he could send you back to the United States with a scarlet letter emblazoned on your résumé. I couldn’t combat her. I reached inside my purse and pressed my finger against the sharp edge of one of my keys to try to contain my discomfort.
“She is too brave,” she continued. “Too brave for the world she’s been built in. It would be better for her to adapt, for her own good.”
I inched away from Melinda and closer to the road. The idea that you saw some of her in me, or me in her, made me retch. Her rant about Marta wouldn’t stop. She told me about a visiting neurologist from Nice who thought that Marta oversalted the food. Coming from a Frenchman, Melinda said, this was surprising, but he swore that he could taste quinine in the salt. He preferred the salt on the coast of France. Then one day, in the middle of a lecture, he fell forward from pain in his abdomen. Two of the larger students carried him to the men’s room, and he vomited into the toilet until a car arrived to take him to the apartment. While he was bedridden, Marta fed him soup until he got better. From that point on, all he had a taste for was Marta’s food. He asked for all of her recipes before he returned to France.
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said. “It sounds like he got sick and Marta helped him.”
“Sure. When I first heard the story, I felt it was innocent too.” She threw her cigarette into the street. “But then how do you explain the others?”