One Financial Center, part 1

The boss is nervous, Zosia can see that. Strands of yellow hair cling to her neck, and when Gustavo knocks over the vacuum Sue Ellen jerks her head toward him, like a squirrel in the park twitching in fear but sticking to its hoard. It's a good sign. You're in trouble when she shows up smiling in her aqua business suit, tapping a shiny nail job on her clipboard: so everyone waits for an hours cut, or else a bummer new assignment, like when we sealed the floor in the fitness center with a new chemical that burned our eyes, and everybody started throwing up, and the Brazilian passed out and that was the last we saw him around.

Zosia's early in the food court like usual. Her laundry job was busy all day: she puts her feet up on a chair, listening to the talk around her dip and twitter like birds' songs. After two months she can mostly tell the Dominicans and the Salvadorans from the Colombians, but hardly gets a word. While they fiddle with their carts and wait for the pre-shift meeting to start she spaces out, staring off at the bright plastic signs of the restaurants closed for the day, Hong Kong, Bombay Spice, Dunkin Donuts, Happy's, Island Breeze.

All shit she guesses, of course nothing Polish. Why would they. Zosia brought a baloney sandwich, and stuffs it into a corner of her cart because they don't have a refrigerator in the office since the area manager found that beer a few months ago. Sue Ellen blamed the African girl, putting on a big show of waving the plastic six-pack rings like some bloody evidence on a TV police show, and they all sat glumly as the girl was bundled out the door by the security man even though everybody knows Sue Ellen is drunk half the time. By the end of that night's shift we can smell her sweet sharp breath when she fumbled with the keys.

The tears had jumped to Zosia's eyes when the guard jerked that girl's arm while she tried to put her coat on, her eyes first angry and then blank. And my sisters, Zosia thought, where are they anyway and who's watching out for them? She was about to say something but Filomena put a hand on her arm and whispered: "No talk now, not helping anyway." The first words any of us said to her.

The atrium above the food court is four stories high with glass at the top. When Zosia started the job in the summer, the tables were still lit up at six o'clock, and people in business suits stood at the railings overlooking the food court talking on cell phones, or clicked along on the shiny floors. By now the sun's going down at five, a pinkish-orange light creeping up the windows above them and nobody's up there at all. The light slants in like the Cathedral at her confirmation, when organ music swirled up in the arches with curlicues of dust, and the bishops gliding in tall hats like sails, and mama in her gloves and her sisters slouched down, secretly chewing gum. How long ago, Jesus?

Now Sue Ellen hops up again and stalks to the office, grasping the piece of paper she keeps folding and unfolding, her pumps thudding on the rubberized floor, and the birdsong voices get louder. The rubber surface is a bitch to clean: Zosia hopes to get an assignment upstairs on the office floors, where you just dry and wet mop, easy.

"Una carta del amante," says Filomena to the others at the table, "Mírala pinche erre sudando."

"She says that Sue Ellen is sweaty because she has a love letter," whispers the girl next to Zosia.

"La erre ya empezó tomando," Filomena adds, pursing her lips toward the office. "Already drunk," she adds to Zosia.

"What do they always call her?" Zosia whispers to the girl, who shakes her head, a giggle creasing her round face. "What, Ana?"

"Miss Fila calls her la erre, it stands for..." Ana looks at the other ladies, "¿Como dices R-C-C-N en ingles?"

"¿Porqué la preguntas?" calls out a woman at the next table. "What they teaching you in college profesora?"

"Oh my god," Ana sighs. "It just means she's stuck up, I mean. Rubia con cuca negra means, you know, blonde hair up here, but dark hair..." she brushes her hand over her lap. The shrieks of laughter bring Sue Ellen out of the office, clutching her clipboard and the bag of keys. She looks suspiciously at the fifteen women and Gustavo ranged around the food court tables, and Jean the tall Haitian leans on his broom gazing into space.

"I guess you think it's all a fun game, you smarties," Sue Ellen shouts, "Well tonight is a serious time for all of us. It is a wake-up call, maybe some of you are familiar with that expression." She takes a deep breath, swaying perceptibly. Another wave of giggles sweeps around the tables.

"Today will be our last day together," says Sue Ellen. "The owners of this building, for reasons I will not go into here, are closing down their business and so the contract is cancelled. Everyone is laid off."

Jean the Haitian murmurs something in his deep baritone and laughs softly, a surprisingly high light sounds that travels up the atrium.

She looks around wildly. "What's the problem?"

"Nothing," Jean rumbles. "Excuse the interruption."

Gustavo puts up his hand. "Miss Sue Ellen, necesito otro vacuum, el mio no funciona," he says, and Ana addresses Sue Ellen: "His vacuum is broken."

"Same assignments except Zosia and Jean, third floor," Sue Ellen says, "there's a lot of trash to pull on the third floor, a lot." She tosses the key bag on the table, spins around and totters off, while Gustavo shakes his head.

"Hace dos semanas el vacu' no sirve y la puta no hace nada."

"Ni modo, mojado," Filomena says, "Somos despedidos." Zosia loves to watch Filomena tell jokes, the dark folds of her face elongated and stretched, her mouth and eyes contorted to match the different voices, but she's frowning now, with a quiet little knot of women standing around her. The three Dominican girls stand together by the entrance, looking from the office to the other workers, posing like movie stars, with the sparkling earrings and dark sad eyes. They make her feel clumsy, pale and solid, though back home people sometimes called her pretty. She was, said the boy she stopped writing back to, a flower. When Zosia opens her eyes the girls are gone.

Ana bends down to Zosia: "Did you understand, what laid off means?" Zosia nods, she is going to the third floor, to pull trash with Jean who's rolling his cart toward the elevator. Something else's up, it's fuzzy, a few more months and then she'll get everything. She was always surprising people at school, bright with math, bright with language, so when the plants started closing she told mama, I'm going to talk to that agency. Zosia hurries to catch up with Jean.

2

Not a bad job really, six to ten and they pretty much leave you alone in this building. One time when they had the refrigerator Celia claimed that Zosia stole her lunch and some of the Salvadorans hissed at her and gave her little pushes for a couple of days, so Zosia came to work the following night with a plan to grab Celia's hair and pound her face. But Filomena pulled them both aside and stared from one to the other, until they shook hands.

"Pa'lante hermanas, no seamos perras," Filomena had said. "We all together here. No more shit."

Sue Ellen screams at someone each week and leaves the rest be, sitting at her desk watching the little TV. It's better than Zosia's supervisor at the other building, Osvaldo who always offered overtime, detail work, smiling at her in his office. These people are so uneducated, you will see, he said, not like us. We all came here on different ships but we're in the same boat now. And then his hand on her arm, guiding her to the elevator, and then his hand on her ass. There's no problem like that here, of course Gustavo tried like he does with everybody: "Hello, my darling, I can make love you," but only touching the tip of her shoulder lightly with his rough farmer hand.

She thought he was a drunk but then Ana said his eyes are red cause he doesn't sleep much, he has another part-time plus a full-time. "Don't worry about Gustavo," Ana said, "he talks like a horn dog but he's OK."

"No echame flores, muchacha," Gustavo told Ana, "Puedo amarte también."

"Cállate, huevon," Filomena interrupted, and Gustavo stalked off muttering.

"She says him to shut up?" Zosia asked Ana.

"Oye, look at you girl. Ella habla español, she speaks Spanish. You know what's huevon? Like big stupid guy or big lazy guy. What do you call that in Polish?"

Zosia shrugged. "Cienias, I guess, or dupek. Dupek." Filomena shouted with laughter: "I learning Polacka now."