No matter how much money there was to hand out, her father always brought home fresh custard doughnuts and bloodshot eyes. She would break open a warm doughnut and watch her father’s weary face transform as he told of the night’s exploits. It wasn’t just bragging, she knew, for her father was what they called a card-counter, and a good one. He was not a compulsive gambler, but a man blessed with a mathematical mind and cursed with the absence of opportunities that might provide other outlets for his talent. His only problem with gambling was finding people to bet against a that often supports four sleeping bodies for at least part of the night. Breakfast is luxurious, and Kyla is thankful again, although she thinks the world is unfair for defining the simple pleasures of life as luxuries. There are fresh strawberries and lush pieces of whole wheat toast with home-made apple butter and the chatter of children with food on their faces. There are curtainless kitchen windows, open to admit the tropical February breeze and the glimpses of red and pink hibiscus waving to the sun. There is the humming of her own washing machine in the garage and a selecpaper, novelty notecards and postcards by local artists. Rose is one of Kyla’s few clients whose business shows a substantial profit. Kyla considers it one of the limitations of her present life that Rose is also one of her best friends. “What’s up? Ijust thought I’d stop in on my way to the shop from Nita’s. Nita and I were just talking about you and the children. How brave you are to raise them all by yourself. And,” Rose pauses to smooth the backs of her hands under her shoulder-length hair and flip it in the humid air, “how your children look so much alike.” Kyla attempts the time-tested diversion of offering libations, in this case, a cup of tea, with a litany of choices including Rose’s favorite, orange blossom. No matter how often it happens, Kyla is startled when Rose chooses to divulge gosthat have guided her course in life. The numbers that were always the solution to her father’s “I’m thinking of a number from one to ten.” It was just a matter of choosing which one of the two, and her father usually allowed her guess to be correct. “Of course, you know that everyone in town wonders. I mean it’s only natural.” Rose sips her steeping tea. “And I wonder what will happen when this man finally appears to claim the fruits of his seed.” “Life is not like a soap opera.” “Oh, I don’t know about that. I had a friend in New York who used to write for one of those things. All she did was read the newspaper and remember her childhood. Have you ever watched any? Some of those daytime- dramas are very realistic.” sip to its subject. Kyla knows that people “You mean the scenes where the darHe was such a man, with his blond crewcut, his talk about her. After all, she and the children inhabit a close community in a tourist trap on the southern tip of Florida. Kyla also knows that although she is respected for the fees she keeps reasonable with her unerring efficiency and the ling little boy—who has aged five years in two weeks while no one else has gotten any older—has survived a terrible car crash and needs several gallons of a rare type of blood and the hospital loudspeaker blares for the real father of little angular six foot six frame, his large hands scarred by machines and his hard blue eyes that bulged like frogs’ eyes when he was angry. She couldn’t imagine that she’d look like him when she grew up. white man who always seemed to win; a man who inspired distrust because he did not drink or smoke. She’d eat too many doughnuts and her jeans would get tighter and tighter. She’d make her father a second, and then a third cup of coffee. As she got older, she’d look at the man on the other side of the table and wonder if people were right when they said she was the “spitting image” of her father. It was hard for her to tell. He was such a man, with his blond crewcut, his angular six foot six frame, his large hands scarred by machines and his hard blue eyes that bulged like frogs’ eyes when he was angry. She couldn’t imagine that she’d look like him when she grew up. After all, though her father -was fairly handsome, he’d look pretty ugly as a woman in a culture which admired women who were delicate. The intensity of her speculations would be dissolved by the routine of the remainder of Saturday. Her father would go to bed, reading the newspaper until he fell asleep. Her mother would go off for a half a day of overtime at the shirt factory. Kyla would be left alone with her list of chores. Washing clothes was what she hated most. There was always a crowd in the basement laundry room of the apartment building. No matter how thoroughly she’d checked the pockets, it always seemed that a stray piece of paper or tissue would make its appearance known. She tried to clean out the washing machine as casually as possible, hoping that none of the fretting women in the small hot room would notice. But even if they did not see the inside of the machine, no one could ignore the paper shredded all over the wet clothes. Kyla’s children are waking her up by putting their fingers in her nose, in her mouth, in her ears. She usually enjoys sleep like a good cleaning, but today she wakes up feeling tired and dirty. Pieces of dreams still cling to her like shreds of soggy tissue. Her secrets often tumble out of their pocket in the watery world of sleep. “You kids,” she says, trying to be stern. Yet she is already smiling, already putting the names and faces of the night behind her. She finds it difficult to resist admiring her children, as Rachel, Donovan and Marina giggle and exchange the conspiratorially innocent looks of creatures still seeking a workable vocabulary. She kisses and cuddles each of them in turn, but in no particular order, and then all of them together. They tumble around, laughing and shrieking, Kyla thankful that she invested in the queen-size bed tion of Japanese “new-age” music on the public radio station. Kyla wants to know why everyone can’t live like this—and she isn’t interested in hearing economic theories. The music seething from the stereo’s one working speaker is enough theory to digest in one morning. Then there is the colorful rush of getting four human beings outfitted for one day: matching socks, a pair of striped cotton overalls to iron, a purple barrette for the baby’s hair, rainbow shoelaces tied in double knots and the search for the missing red shirt. Scurries to the car, a short ride, kisses good-bye and Kyla is pulling . back into the alley with JQ only the baby, Marina, in the carseat. The older two children have started their day, equipped with lunchboxes and new beeswax modeling clay, at the Free Hearts Alternative School. Kyla and Marina do not enter their stucco house from the same door they exited. Instead, they walk from the wide gravel driveway around to the front of the house where they are greeted by a huge woodburnished sign: KYLA DADE C.P.A. The office is windowed, neither small nor large, neither neat nor disheveled, with a few framed photographs of children scattered on the wall among the diplomas and political posters. The slightly rusted baby swing welcomes Marina, who watches as Kyla flicks on the computer and sifts through the account books and tax forms on a long wooden table. Kyla puts on her glasses and begins to work on the pitiful income statements of Spectrum, a cooperative art gallery whose members are contemplating Kyla's suggestion to apply for nonprofit status. The brass bells tied to the door ring at about half past two, while Kyla is breastfeeding Marina and eating a slice of date bread piled with cream cheese. It is Rose, of Rose’s Paper Works, a small shop near the ocean selling handmade 14 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 services she performs with her unremitting reliability, she is considered slightly inferior because she is not an “artist.” Her art of accounting is disparaged, as if it is merely a technical skill. There is no one in this town who shares j Kyla’s conviction about the magical nature of numbers. There is no one here who understands the mystery of Kyla’s favorite numbers, three and seven. The numbers
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