The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel - By Hector Tobar Page 0,29
painters. The numbers their spreadsheets spit out, Scott now knew, were inflated by narrative inventions like those Sasha “the Big Man” Avakian used to confabulate at meetings with venture capitalists. Scott had learned these lessons while watching the Big Man run their company, but unfortunately he had no way to apply them to his own investment decisions, and he had spent several frustrating years moving the “go-away” money from MindWare around the market and into various “instruments.” Five years ago the charts and graphs pointed, unmistakably, toward exotic new fields being tested in Research Triangle laboratories, and if they had continued to follow that logic Scott would not be working at Elysian Systems today, he would not have a mortgage to worry about, and Pepe the gardener would still be cutting the lawn and tending to the backyard garden and Scott would be liberated of his wife’s complaining to him about it.
As was their custom, the regulars at Laguna Municipal Park South began arriving around noon. They brought packed lunches, strollers stuffed with extra diapers and moist towelets, and carried pay-as-you-go cell phones to talk to the barrio relatives who were watching over their own children as they earned dollars caring for their patrones’ boys and girls. The weekday routine of the park was broken this morning by the appearance of a new woman, a fellow latinoamericana who occupied the bench by the play structure, and who instantly reminded the regulars of locales deep to the south, and not because of her broad face and caramel skin, or the way she slumped on the bench and sneered at the play structures. No, it was the uniform that reminded them of their home countries, the excessive professional formality of matching pink pants and the wide, pocketed blouse that was known back home as a filipina. It was the uniform of the high-society domestic back home, though hardly anyone wore one in California, where most employers preferred their domestics in the sporty and practical attire of jeans and tennis shoes, complemented with the odd gift garment from the boss: a quality hoodie from Old Navy, or a sturdy cotton blouse from Target. The new woman in the park was sitting with her arms folded defiantly across her chest, as if she were a prisoner taking some fresh air in the recreation yard, watching over two boys who themselves were very familiar because they used to come here with Guadalupe, a favorite of the group.
“¡Buenas tardes!” announced a perky older woman in sweatpants and a loose-fitting blouse as she took a seat next to Araceli. “Those are Guadalupe’s kids.”
“Así es,” Araceli said.
The woman introduced herself as María Isabel and pointed out that she had brought a girl to the park who was about Keenan’s age. Araceli watched as the girl and Keenan stood on opposite sides of the elaborate play structure, as if contemplating the gender divide and the walkways of plastic and compressed rubber that stood between them, until Keenan made another mouth explosion and returned to the game with his older brother.
“I heard that Guadalupe might quit,” María Isabel announced. “So, you took her place?”
Before Araceli could answer, María Isabel rose to her feet to push the girl, who had run over to the swing, and then turned toward Araceli in anticipation of an answer.
“No, we used to work together.”
“That Guadalupe was a funny girl. Always telling jokes. Did she ever tell you the story about the little boy getting lost in the women’s section in the mall?”
“Yes.”
María Isabel gave the girl another push, the wide fan of her charge’s blond hair catching the air and billowing in the moist morning air, her pendulum movement and the creaking of the apparatus keeping a kind of harried time. “Push me higher, María,” the girl yelled, and María Isabel obeyed and gave another heave. María Isabel was a woman of oak-bark hue with freshly dyed and aerosol-sprayed short hair, and she was wearing smart matching accessories of gold earrings and a thin gold chain on her wrist that were mismatched with the bleach-burned T-shirt draped over her short frame. This woman arrives at work dressed as if she were a secretary, and then strips down into janitor clothes. “You tell a few good stories and the time just flashes by,” María Isabel continued. “A lot of us come here every day. Later on we’ll probably see Juana. And Modesta and Carmelita. Carmelita is from Peru and the nicest woman you’ll ever meet. Maybe