Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford Page B

slippers and grocery bag of vinyl gloves in the trunk. She hopped in the back and saw the outline of a man’s head in the passenger seat.
    â€œMy husband, Alexei, he is here, too. He does not like me to drive alone in the night. There was a, what do you say, robbing of car with the lady in it on the highway last week.”
    Alexei, with short blond hair cut Hitler Youth–style and a leather jacket folded in his lap, raised a hand in a wordless greeting.
    â€œValeriya, thanks for driving me, but my father was supposed to pick me up. Is he working?”
    Valeriya took a fast, screeching right turn out of the parking lot. “Your father, pffft . He comes home and they are having fight.”
    â€œTonight? They were having a fight tonight?”
    â€œTonight, last night, every night. I tell Alexei that the American wives are very difficult with their husbands. In Russia, the women are not difficult like this. It makes for the fighting.”
    â€œWait, it was last night? Or tonight? Wasn’t he supposed to be in Wilmington until this afternoon?” Her father usually spent weekdays at his apartment in Wilmington, where his law firm was based.
    â€œMy first husband, in Russia, he always say that Russian women are most strong-headed of women. But I think this is not true. My first husband, he is easy at the house, and clean, clean like a woman, but he drinks. Vodka. What can you do? So I leave, and I am here.” She lay a fist on the horn, startling a pedestrian who looked up in alarm and sprinted across the street.
    â€œBut, Valeriya, you said my dad came home already?” Evelyn asked.
    â€œYour father, yes, he come already. Thursday. Wednesday.”
    â€œHe’s been there for two days? What has he been doing there?”
    â€œI tell you that it is difficult. Your mother, she close the door to her room and she tell me, from side of door, she would not let me clean inside, which is difficult because she need help. She say, Valeriya, was a mistake to marry this man. This is what she say.”
    â€œWhat? Valeriya.” Evelyn believed her mother had said that; she just didn’t believe she’d said that to the housekeeper. Her mother observed distinct caste lines, and with “the help”—she actually called them “the help”—spoke slowly and with an exaggerated smile. “Sorry, so, my father has been home since Wednesday?”
    â€œI tell you only what she say. I say to her, Mrs. Barbara, it is hard on the woman always. They argue over the charges. The charges this, the charges that,” Valeriya said.
    â€œWait, the charges? That’s what they’ve been arguing about?” Evelyn drummed her fingers against the window, then stopped when she saw Valeriya was glaring at the fingerprints she left. Her parents helped her out with money here and there, but the only charges she’d made on her parents’ credit card in the last couple of weeks were ones she’d specifically cleared with them. She’d bought a ticket to a benefit for underprivileged kids on their card expecting she could expense it, but Ann, the HR and administration person at PLU, had rejected her expense report, saying that Evelyn would have to pay for benefit tickets herself as they weren’t a direct business expense. She’d had to buy a dress for the benefit, too, as her dowdy black dresses wouldn’t work for a summer party, and had spent another $200 at Bloomingdale’s on that. Her father had said that he didn’t think they should cover these kinds of things, so she had promised to pay him back but couldn’t quite afford to at the moment, as her PLU salary was so low. Valeriya’s comments weren’t a promising start given that she needed to extract even more money from her parents this weekend. “They’re fighting about the charges, Valeriya? On their MasterCard?”
    â€œThe MasterCard? No, it was not this.”