Notes on a Near-Life Experience by Olivia Birdsall Page A

she going to clean your apartment?”
    I lower my head in embarrassment and hope that this woman doesn't speak English very well.
    Keatie's limited experience with Hispanic women has been her close association with our Latin American housekeepers, who also sort of acted as babysitters to her. Now that we're all old enough to watch and clean up after ourselves, we don't have a housekeeper. Anyway, none of them were anything like Paloma. They were all kind of round and motherly; not Paloma—she's wearing a tight black minidress and strappy high-heeled shoes. I wonder where Dad found her, and if she hiked around the jungle in outfits like that.
    “Paloma is, uh, my, ummm, my new special friend,” Dad stammers.
    “What do you need a special friend for? You don't even have time to play with us,” Keatie reminds him.
    Allen and I look at each other and smirk. No one is going to give Dad any help on this one.
    “Yeah, Dad, what are you going to do with a special friend?” Allen asks.
    Dad says something about how Paloma showed him her country and now he is going to show her his.
    “So it was kind of this thing where you were like, ‘Hey,Paloma, you show me yours, I'll show you mine.’ Something like that, Dad?” I try to sound like I am genuinely trying to help him out.
    Dad ignores me.
    At that moment everyone at the table looks in Paloma's direction to see her reaction to the argument that centers around her. She is applying lipstick and looking into the mirror of her compact but quickly puts the stuff away when she realizes that our conversation has ground to a halt.
    “Sorry,” she says, her accent thick. “Everything okay?” she asks, smiling, trying to figure out what to say.
    “So she
does
speak English,” I say aloud, before I can catch myself.
    Before Dad can say anything, Allen is on his feet. “I gotta go.”
    I stand up. “Yeah, me too. Early-morning practice.”
    Keatie looks confused. I try to motion toward the door with my head.
    “What?” she asks.
    “Do you want to stay or go?” I try not to sound mean.
    “Go, I guess.” She looks like she is about to cry as she gets up from the table. “But we didn't even eat. And Dad has surprises.”
    “If he has any more surprises, I'm sure he'll bring them over later,” Allen says, putting his hands on Keatie's shoulders and turning her in the direction of the restaurant's entrance. “We can eat at Wendy's.”
    Although Keatie could eat nothing but chicken nuggetsfor the rest of her life and die happy, she doesn't quite accept this bribe the way she normally would. Once she's gotten her nuggets, she eats only one and a half before handing the box to me and telling me she's full.
    I nibble on my bacon cheeseburger even though I'm not hungry, either.
    When we get home, Keatie tells my mom about Paloma. “Daddy made a friend named Paloma in Peru and now she's visiting Daddy and she speaks Spanish. Allen wouldn't shake her hand.”
    When she hears this, Mom looks the way she did when we were at this Indian restaurant and she found out that her curry was made with goat meat. “Hmmm,” she says.
    Allen tries to make her feel better. “She's nothing, Mom. She's just visiting. And she's an idiot, she barely put a sentence together.” I've noticed that Al does this a lot with Mom, tries to take care of her.
    That night, I fall asleep imagining Dad's reasons for bringing Paloma home with him. Maybe he's just trying to make Mom jealous. I bet he'll ship Paloma back to Machu Picchu as soon as Mom takes him back. I run through this scenario twelve times in my head, unable to make myself believe it, no matter how hard I try.

K EATIE'S SCHOOL IS HAVING A RECYCLING DRIVE, AND WHICH -ever class brings in the most paper, cans, and whatever else to be recycled wins an ice cream party. She is plundering the house for all things recyclable and keeps interrupting me while I'm trying to choreograph.
    “Is this recyclable?” she asks, holding up a milk carton, with