Francesca's Kitchen (6 page)

T
he newspaper lay in an orange plastic bag at the bottom of the front walk when Francesca looked out the window early the next morning. The sun had only partially risen, so the front yard was still in shadows. From where she stood, the newspaper looked like some sort of small, bright orange creature curled up asleep on the icy pavement.

Francesca let out a grunt of consternation. Once upon a time, the paperboy would have at least made certain that he tossed her morning newspaper up onto the front step so that, one, it would stay dry, and two, she wouldn't need to go traipsing through the snow or rain to retrieve it. She remembered Jimmy, their paperboy when she and Leo had first moved into the house. Jimmy had been up every morning at the crack of dawn, his sack of newspapers slung over his shoulder as he pedaled his bike from house to house before school. In those days,
The Providence Journal
also put out an afternoon edition,
The Evening Bulletin
, so Jimmy would come around again after school. He was the nicest, most polite young man she had ever met, and she always gave him something extra when she paid him each week.

Nowadays, though, there was no longer an afternoon edition of the newspaper, and one person in a car did the job of ten paperboys. This arrangement, she presumed, is what some people referred to as progress. Francesca did not think of it that way. Whoever it was that drove by every morning at five a.m. had no time for niceties such as making it easier for an old lady to pick up her newspaper. She often awoke to the sound of the newspapers plopping against the sidewalks on her street. As best as she could discern, the driver never stopped, but simply flung the papers out the window as the car passed, letting them land wherever. Sometimes hers came to rest within easy reach; sometimes it landed in the middle of a puddle on a rainy day. Francesca was lucky, she supposed, that her daily newspaper had not yet ended up stuck in a tree someplace—but then again, it was probably only a matter of time.

At lunchtime, the newspaper still rested on the same spot. Lately, the headlines had been proclaiming nothing but gloom, something that Francesca felt she already had in ample supply; there was no need to hurry out to get more. Besides, it was a bitter cold day, and she had been disinclined to brave the elements that morning. Instead, she had spent the early part of the day upstairs, rummaging through the bedroom closets. It always amazed Francesca to discover how much clutter her children had left behind. No matter how many times she straightened out the attic or closets, she inevitably found something that she had previously overlooked. Truth be told, much of what was left was old clothes that were beyond use. Many of these she simply tossed out from time to time, when she had the chance. The clothes that were out of style but still in good condition she usually gave away.

Certain things, however, were still too precious to Francesca to give away when she came across them. Whether it was a dress Rosie had once worn, or perhaps a bonnet Alice had adored as a little girl, the clothes from when her children were small were always the ones that affected Francesca the deepest. On this particular morning, she held up a little blue cardigan sweater that she happened to pull out of Joey's closet. Her son had last worn it, she well remembered, for Christmas back when he was all of four years old. Hanging beside it was the shirt and the pair of corduroys Francesca had dressed him in that day. Down below on the floor, she found the tiny pair of shiny black shoes in which he had clomped about the house so proudly. She knelt to take a closer look at them. Holding the shoes up, she recalled how he had looked so adorable that day that everyone had just wanted to pick him up and hug him for all they were worth. Joey was too much of a little boy, of course, to let anyone hold him, so he inevitably managed to squirm out of their arms before long.

Now, as she knelt there thinking back on that day, remembering her son and daughters as they were, wishing for all the world that she could have them back like that again for just a little while, Francesca breathed in the scent of the wool and squeezed the little sweater to her heart. In her mind, she understood that time marched on, that these things for which she sometimes yearned could not and should not ever be. Still the tears ran freely from her eyes, until she carefully placed the sweater back on its hanger and tucked the shoes back in their place. Then, drying her cheeks with the back of her hand, she closed the closet door and returned downstairs.

Later, Francesca finally went out for the newspaper while the last of the soup she had made the previous weekend was heating up on the stove. Muttering something uncomplimentary about whoever it was that had delivered her newspaper, she hurried back inside with it, hoping she wouldn't slip and fall in the process. A shiver raced up her spine when she finally made it back into the front hall. She shook off her coat and went into the kitchen to warm up.

Francesca looked over the newspaper while she sat at the kitchen table, eating her soup. As she often did, she gave the front page only a cursory examination before going directly to the obituaries. Perhaps it might seem odd that someone who was feeling so gloomy would be so anxious to read the death notices. In truth, though Francesca read them with dread, praying that she would not find the name of anyone she knew, it seemed like wakes and funerals were the only time she saw her old friends anymore. In an odd sort of way, they were something to look forward to. Besides, when Francesca was feeling glum, as she did at this particular moment, the fact that she did not find her own name listed there was something of a consolation.

Relieved to find that none of her acquaintances had chosen to leave this world, Francesca turned her attention back to the front page and looked over the headlines of the day. As she leafed through the rest of the paper, she found little that held her interest among the usual accounts of scandal and calamity. She set the paper down for a moment and gave a sigh; she just wasn't in the mood for it all. Francesca often wondered why they called it the news when it seemed like nothing truly new ever happened. With each turn of the page, she always hoped to find some newsworthy item that would spark her imagination, something that would inspire her and snap her out of the doldrums. As she stared blankly across the room, her gaze fell on the clock above the stove, and suddenly she became acutely aware of the passage of time. It was then that Francesca realized that what had been troubling her most that day was the feeling that she had grown weary of reading about what other people were doing, of watching them on television, and of hearing of their exploits, as if her time had passed and now she was only a spectator and not a participant in life. She was sick of the feeling that she was just sitting on the sidelines, watching it all go by. She longed to get back in the game—for however long God would allow her to play.

Francesca looked down at the newspaper. She was just about ready to fold it all up and toss it into the recycling bin when she noticed the classified section peeking out from the bottom. Not sure of exactly what she was looking for, she pulled out the section and opened it to the help-wanted ads. Her gloom turned to dismay when she beheld the columns of employment opportunities. As she scanned the page, she found nothing for which she was even remotely qualified. Francesca was good with numbers, but she was certainly no accountant. She was as good a cook as any restaurant could hope for, but she had no formal training or license. She possessed no bachelor's degree in any subject, nor did she have any computer skills. She would have loved to offer her services to the local school district as a substitute teacher, for she was certain that there was a lot she could teach the kids, but even those temporary positions required a degree and certification from the state.

Francesca sighed and put the paper down again. She had just made up her mind to forget about the whole thing and toss the paper out when her eye spied a very small help-wanted ad near the bottom of the page. Her first inclination was to skip over it, but then she leaned closer and gave it a quick read. Then she read it again more carefully. Somewhere inside the back of her mind the light of a new idea suddenly flickered to life. At first, she tried to dismiss the notion, but try as she might, it only seemed to glow that much brighter. Francesca sat there for a time, wondering what she should do. It would help to talk to someone. She
needed
to talk to someone, but who? Rosie and Alice were sure to have a conniption if they found out what she was contemplating, and Joey was off to the other side of the world. She stayed there, turning the matter over and over again in her mind, until at last she came to a decision and stood. A few minutes later, bundled up in her coat and hat and boots and gloves, Francesca grabbed her book bag and opened the front door. She stood there for a few moments, wondering if she was doing the right thing.

“I've waited long enough,” she finally muttered. Then she stepped outside, locked the door behind her, and went to the car.

“Y
ou want to do
what
?”

Peg gaped at Francesca with wide-eyed incredulity. Francesca had found her, as she had hoped she would when she had left the house, back in the library computer room. Natalie was there as well, gazing at Francesca with much the same look. Connie, Francesca suspected, would have been making the same face had she not been off in some other part of the library, looking for a book.

“Frannie,” Peg continued, “I can understand you want to keep busy, but do you really want to be a nanny for someone else's brats?”

“Really,” Natalie chimed in. “Are you crazy?”

“It's not really a nanny the ad said she's looking for,” Francesca tried to explain. “It's more like a babysitter, ‘a responsible person' is what it said, to look after a couple of children at their home for just one or two hours after school every day. What's so bad about that?”

“Ayyy, that's how it starts,” warned Natalie. “Trust me, you don't know what parents are like these days. First they tell you that they'll be home at five, next they ask if you would mind staying a little later because they're busy at work, and before you know it, they're out till all hours, gallivanting around every other night, while you're stuck there watching
their
kids. Believe me, I've seen it happen, so I know what I'm talking about.”

Peg nodded her head in agreement. “She's right, Frannie,” she said. “These people will take advantage of you every chance they get. It happened once to my daughter, Judy. She agreed to watch one of her neighbor's kids one day after school. The mother said she had some big important thing to do at work, and that neither she nor the husband would be able to get home on time. The next day, she asked my daughter to do it again. At the time, Judy figured it was no big deal, since the little girl went to the same school as my granddaughter and they were friends. All of a sudden, though, the mother's calling Judy from work practically every day, asking her to watch the little girl for her. Naturally, Judy always winds up having to feed her supper too, and even helping her with her homework. She was more of a mother to the little girl than her own mother! Well, before long, the kid was showing up at the front door even when the mother didn't call. They sucked Judy right in. It went on for quite a while like that, until one night when the parents didn't pick her up until almost ten o'clock. That's when my daughter finally got up the nerve to put a stop to it.”

“How sad for that little girl,” said Francesca.

Her two friends were not telling her anything that she didn't already know. It was nothing new. She was well aware of how selfish some parents could be, of how indifferent they often behaved when it came to caring for their own flesh and blood. They looked upon parenting, she could only assume, as some sort of chore that had to be avoided whenever possible or, at best, squeezed in somewhere between their busy work and social lives. In truth, Francesca had always believed that such people had no idea of what they were missing. It was the plight of the children, though, that saddened her most. In a land of plenty, there were so many, rich and poor alike, who went without the simple things that counted most in life.

“Forget about it,” Natalie advised. “Why would you want to do it in the first place?'

“I don't know,” Francesca admitted. “I guess it's almost like asking me why I breathe. I don't understand how or why it happens, but I know if I stop doing it, it's all over for me. That's kind of the way I feel about this whole thing. It's just a way to keep me breathing.”

“If I were you, I'd stop and take a deep breath, and then think about this some more before I went ahead with it,” said Peg.

Just then, Connie appeared at the door. Peg and Natalie soon filled her in on Francesca's plan.

“What are you, crazy?” she exclaimed.

“They've already asked me that,” replied Francesca. She was finding it hard to suppress a smile, because the more they all tried to dissuade her, the more she felt convinced she was doing the right thing.

“But who are these people?” asked Connie. “What do you know about them?”

“Nothing,” replied Francesca with a shrug. “The ad just said, ‘Working mother seeks responsible person,' to watch her kids after school. That's all I know.”

“All the more reason why you shouldn't do it,” said Natalie. “You never know what kind of creeps you might end up involved with.”

“Oh, don't worry, girls,” Francesca told them. “I know how to take care of myself. Besides, who's to say that I'll even get the job? And there's nothing that says that I have to take it even if they offer it to me. I just want to give myself the chance, that's all.”

“Well, it's your life,” said Peg, turning back to her computer. “But if you asked me, I'd say that you're just looking for trouble.”

“Maybe, but what else is life for?” she replied.

Later, Francesca left the others to their computer fun and stopped by the front desk to check out some books she had found on babysitting. She tucked them into her book bag and headed to the exit, where she saw Connie waiting by the door.

“Need a ride home, Connie?”

“No,” her friend answered. “I'm on my way to do some grocery shopping. That's if my idiot husband can manage to find his way back here without driving himself into a snowbank someplace. God forbid.”

“I'm sure he'll make it,” laughed Francesca. “Just be careful out on the roads when he does.”

“And you be careful too,” said Connie. “You know what I'm talking about.”

“I will,” Francesca promised.

With that, she nodded good-bye and walked out to her car. Once inside, she started the engine and sat there for a moment, turning things over in her mind. Francesca wondered if perhaps Peg and the others might be right. Maybe it was a crazy idea to respond to the ad. But then she began to wonder about the person who had placed it, and a thousand intriguing questions danced in her head. Where did this woman live? What kind of person was she? Why did she need someone to help her? What were the children like? Could Francesca help them?

There was, Francesca well knew, only one way to answer any of these questions, so she took a deep breath, made the sign of the cross, and started on her way back home.