Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,67

a different cleaner, because my work was that disposable. But what he saw was that those coupons were paid for by government money, the money he’d personally contributed to with the taxes he’d paid. To him, he might as well have personally bought the fancy milk I insisted on, but I was obviously poor so I didn’t deserve it.

Would my clients like Donna, the ones who confided in me like a good friend, who gave me coloring books and crayons for Mia, do the same if they saw me at the grocery store? How would they view a cleaning lady on food stamps? As a hard worker or as a failure? I’d become so self-conscious about these things that I tried to hide the details as much as possible. In the middle of conversations, I’d wonder if the person’s view of me would change if they knew I was on food stamps. Would they assume I had less potential?

I found myself wondering what it would be like to have enough money to be able to hire someone to clean my house. I’d never been in that position before, and I honestly doubted I ever would be. If I ever had to, I thought, I’d give them a big tip and probably offer them food or leave them good-smelling candles, too. I’d treat them like a guest, not a ghost. An equal. Like Wendy, Henry, Donna, and the Cigarette Lady did with me.

17

IN THREE YEARS

As far as I know, only one of my clients—the one who owned the Farm House—used hidden cameras. She told me this so matter-of-factly, it caught me off guard. I tried my hardest to nod, as though hidden cameras were totally normal. The Farm House was two stories of navy-blue carpet covered in white hair from her cats and dogs. The stairs had carpet as well, and the hair would become trapped in the corners and creases of each step. Before I had started working there, Lonnie explained that she’d gone through every cleaner at the company trying to find someone suitable for the Farm House—I was their last chance at keeping the client.

It wasn’t ever clear what I did so differently than the other cleaners, and since I rarely cleaned with them, I wasn’t able to compare our skills or work ethic. I had a fear of being caught not working. Plus, I never could shake when, in an argument with Jamie, one of the many of its kind, he had said to me, “You sit around here all day, doing nothing but taking care of the baby, and the grout is filthy in the bathroom.” I never forgot that feeling. Even though I felt like I did everything I could, I was never doing enough.

Subconsciously, I wore the social stigma of being on government assistance even more after the encounter with the old couple in the supermarket. It felt like a weighted vest I couldn’t take off, or like someone had hidden cameras on me all the time. People I talked to rarely assumed I needed food stamps to survive, and they always said “those people” in conversations. Yet “those people” were never people like me. They were immigrants, or people of color, or the white people who were often referred to as trash.

When people think of food stamps, they don’t envision someone like me: someone plain-faced and white. Someone like the girl they’d known in high school who’d been quiet but nice. Someone like a neighbor. Someone like them. Maybe that made them too nervous about their own situation. Maybe they saw in me the chance of their own fragile circumstances, that, with one lost job, one divorce, they’d be in the same place as I was.

It seemed like certain members of society looked for opportunities to judge and scold poor people for what they felt we didn’t deserve. They’d see a person buying fancy meats with an EBT card and use that as evidence for their theory that everyone on food stamps did the same. Surely, someone was keeping tabs on me. Sometimes I felt that way in what was supposed to be the safety of my own home. If I wasn’t working or taking care of Mia, I had to be taking care of something. I felt like sitting down meant I wasn’t doing enough—like the sort of lazy welfare recipient I was assumed to be. Time lounging to read a book felt overly indulgent; almost as though such leisure was reserved