Chapter 4. The Kitchen

A new idea

By Juliana Barnet

Samantha bursts into the kitchen through the basement door, cradling the rice jar and the big stuffed bunny.  

 “Apagaste la luz?” Marlie takes the jar and the bunny.

The girl does an about face, pulls the door open and clicks the switch. “Ya, Abue.”

Marlie sets the rice jar on the counter and hands the stuffed rabbit back to Samantha, who grabs it and bounces over to the couch. 

Marlie opens the fridge and takes out the lentils for Samantha and yogurt for herself for a late lunch. Afterwards they’ll go to the Happy Hog to get groceries, she thinks, then she’ll start the rice dish while Samantha waters the plants.

The phone rings.

Marlie springs across the room and snatches up the receiver. “¿Qué?” she barks, before remembering not to direct her anger at Blake towards whoever may be on the phone.

“Hola, Mami!” says a bright voice. “No need to bite me!”

“¡Hola, mi amor!” Marlie cries, delighted to hear grown-up Vivi on the line. She glances over at the clock. Samantha’s mother calls every Sunday, 11 am Pacific time, ‘first thing in the morning’ for Vivi’s actor-musician crowd. “Eres la persona perfecta para animarme, mi vida!” One of the many reasons Marlie loves the Spanish language is its capacity to express flowery sentiments without sounding silly.

“Are you okay, Mami?”

Hearing Ana Violeta’s voice, Marlie pictures sunlight sparkling on the Pacific Ocean, beside which the young woman has spent much of her life since Blake took her away. In Marlie’s mind, both daughter and ocean are light and silvery on the surface; deep and rather dangerous underneath.

“Of course, mi amor,” Marlie assures her, “totally fabulosa!”

“Then why did you say you need cheering up?”

Marlie’s brow furrows. In the agonizing years after Blake got custody of Ana Violeta and spirited her to California, Marlie devoured self-help books on marital strife and child-rearing. To this day she keeps a copy of Don’t Tell the Kids You Want to Kill Him! on her bedside table. During the never frequent enough long-distance calls when Ana Violeta was growing up, Marlie had made herself tolerate the child’s prattling about Cabbage Patch dolls, tumbling lessons, and trips to Disneyland, even the innocent queries about her nerves–she could just imagine Blake oozing crocodile sympathy as he reminded the child not to upset her “oversensitive” mother.

Then, at seventeen, Ana Violeta—who had begun calling herself Vivi—skipped out of her dad’s comfy California home the day after her high school graduation party. She turned her back on the early admission spot awaiting her at Stanford to join the radical street theater group Whose Streets? Our Streets! 

Marlie had felt vindicated at Blake’s comeuppance for wrenching their daughter away from her and her whole working class Mexican side of the family. Still, Vivi had remained in California, out of reach, and Marlie couldn’t help worrying about her daughter’s itinerant, bohemian life.  

And then, just months later, Ana Violeta hit Marlie with an even bigger shock–a baby! She remembers the sound of Ana Violeta’s languidly joyful voice over the phone announcing Samantha’s birth. Having had no clue that her daughter was even pregnant, Marlie had flown west in a panic. She found her 18-year-old Vivi and tiny Samantha nestled among sleeping bags and extra blankets in the back of the rattletrap bus that was home to Whose Streets? Our Streets! Marlie had nearly fainted on learning that her daughter’s scruffy fellow actors had midwifed and doula-ed the birth themselves.

But a month’s stay in the bus with the gentle, fierce young people surrounding Vivi and infant Samantha convinced Marlie that her daughter was as comfortable in her chosen life as a dolphin gliding through waves. The nine years since then had only strengthened this conviction. 

She takes a deep breath. No reason to keep quiet about Blake’s machinations anymore—or Marlie’s opinion of them.

“Blake is threatening to take Rainwood House, hija,” Marlie says into the phone. “He claims I neglect it.”

Vivi is silent. Then she says, “I hear he’s setting up a new law office.”

“With the Service Workers Union?”

“No, mami. He told me he isn’t with the union anymore. He’s starting his own firm as a labor lawyer.”

While Marlie absorbs this information, Vivi adds, “I guess he wants to sell Rainwood House because he needs cash.” She pauses. “He’s planning to relocate back East.”

“Qué cabrón,” Marlie spits out. “He’ll get this house over my dead body.”

 “What can you do about it, mami?” 

“No sé, hija. I’ll get a lawyer.” Remembering the hack who had so feebly represented her in the custody battle, she added, “A good one this time. From some nonprofit legal aid service. I’m not backing down!” As she says this, Marlie feels the House’s arms encircle her, though she can’t say exactly what that means. “Oh, and hija…”

“Sí, Mami?”

“I’m going to start a collective household.”

There is another pause, long enough for Marlie to wonder where Samantha has got to.

“What does that mean?”

Marlie is unprepared for Vivi’s sharpness. “I’ll invite other people to live here with us,” she clarifies, switching to English, that practical, money-oriented language. “Paying people.”

“Renters? But I send you money for Samantha. So does Ruben.” Ruben is Vivi’s ex, Samantha's dad, who left the troupe when Samantha was still a baby to take a government job in Arizona.

“I know, mi amor, but that’s for la niña. I’ve told you about my extra expenses lately for the computer, the car, all that.” She glances over at the bird-of-paradise plant but doesn’t mention it. She adds, “Plus, Rainwood House is rotting out from under us. She needs fixing—the sooner the better.”

Vivi clears her throat. “Mami, you sure you can handle all that?”

Marlie feels a spurt of anger. “Hija, I actually am a fully functional adult, whatever your father says. We’ll take in progressive people and build a community. First, we’ll rent one room, then fix up the others poco a poco.”

“Samantha would be living with strangers.”

Marlie takes a breath and musters her arguments. “When Samantha lived with you and the troupe, she was always with strangers–migrant laborers, dock workers, and such. And always moving around to strange places. Here at Rainwood House, the strangers will come to us and then they’ll stop being strangers.” Marlie cups both hands around the handset as if it’s a microphone. “Folks may seem strange, when you’re a stranger…” she sings darkly, glowering like Jim Morrison. “But with our collective here at Rainwood House, it’ll be like,” she assumes the fulsome tone of a crooner, “strangers in the night, building community…”

Vivi cuts her off. “Mami, tell me you won’t sing to these housemates!”

“Believe it or not, hija, singing is a well-regarded human cultural activity! Remember how we always used to sing cuando eras chica?”

There’s another silence. Marlie doesn’t know if mentioning Ana Violeta’s early days at Rainwood House upsets her daughter. Marlie is fragile on this subject, too. In the past decade, Marlie has achieved what for her is an even keel, quite tolerable since Samantha came to live with her. But it’s a delicate balance, and Blake’s threatening to take Rainwood House may well send it crashing. Marlie grips the phone tighter. “It’ll be fine, hija! Fun! Samantha will love it. She’ll think it’s like that boarding house story she loves so much.”

“Yes, but...”

“And, as I mentioned, the collective mates will pay rent!”

“Mami, it’s not easy getting folks to pay their share.” 

Vivi sounds like a kindergarten teacher, but Marlie knows her daughter speaks from experience. “You can give me lessons in being hard-nosed, hija.” 

“Like Pinocchio?”

Marlie looks around, then spots Samantha on the floor. The girl has quietly crab-walked into the kitchen, tummy up. Marlie puts Vivi on speaker.

“I hope you find housemates who are community-minded and solvent.” Vivi’s voice comes out crisp and clear. 

“Hola, Mami Vivi!” Samantha leaps to her feet and yells into the phone, then turns to her grandmother. “We’re having housemates, Abue?”

“Collective mates, chulita.” 

“Like the Whose Streets? Our Streets! collective? Yay!” The child does a foot-thumping dance, hair tails and balloon flapping around her head.

Marlie is glad to tap into Samantha’s fond memories of the troupe’s rough-and-tumble collective life. “Yes, except we’ll all live here at Rainwood House, which will stay still.”

Samantha makes a playful pout. “You mean Rainwood House won’t go traveling like the Magic School Bus? Aww!” She laughs and grabs the phone. “Mami Vivi! Did you hear? We’re having a collective boarding house!” To her grandmother she says, “When are the, um, collective mates coming?” 

At the same moment Vivi’s voice comes through. “Where will you find these people?” 

Marlie answers her daughter. “We’ll put up a notice this afternoon at the Happy Hog.”

“Abue, we can get ones who know how to cook!”

“Good idea, Sam,” Vivi chuckles. “Maybe they’ll add another dish or two to the Rainwood House cuisine.”

Marlie feels a pinch of hurt feelings, though she knows her girls are right. 

“Mami Vivi!” Samantha shouts into the phone, “Me and Detective Drunella will dust the floors in our socks, like Kit! And solve all the boarders’ mysteries!” 

She takes a running jump and slides across the worn linoleum. “Boarders always have mysteries!” She stops halfway across the kitchen and looks back at her grandmother. “I bet collective mates do, too!”