Paige found an excellent agency that sent in a half dozen potential housekeepers for Eliza to interview. Three of them seemed like they would be the type of people Eliza might be able to trust her child with and feel comfortable having in her home. But one of them stood out and Eliza, after checking her references, hired her.
The one hitch was that Carmen Garcia couldn’t start until the middle of September. She insisted that she had to give notice at her current job. The family she had been employed by for eight years was relocating to the West Coast and Carmen had promised she would help them get ready for their move.
“How do you think you’ll be able to deal with helping me get settled in my new home, coming right off of packing up another?” Eliza asked with some concern as she interviewed the Guatemalan woman in her office.
“It is fine, senora. I like to get things in order,” Carmen answered, clasping her hands across her ample lap. “The Howards are very good to me. They help me get my green card. But their children are big now. They have no toys to pick up, only laundry now. The family goes out to dinner all the time. I like to cook and I miss having una niña to take care of.”
This was too good to be true.
“Do you have your driver’s license, Mrs. Garcia? There will be lots of chauffeuring my daughter to do.”
“Yes. I know how to drive, but I do not have my own car.” Carmen looked worried.
“No, you don’t have to have your own car. I will have a car for you to use. But you must have your own way to get to work in the morning and someone to pick you up at the end of the day. I can drive you in a pinch but, as a general rule, I don’t want to have to build time into my schedule to do that.”
“Of course not, senora. I know you are very busy. I will have my daughter or a friend drive me.”
“You have to know that sometimes I get home late, Mrs. Garcia. If there is a breaking news story or if I have a professional obligation at night, I have to know that it will be no problem for you to stay.”
“It is no problem, senora. I live with my grown-up daughter and her family in Westwood, just ten minutes away from HoHoKus. My other children are back in Guatemala, so there is no need of me to take care of them. If you can’t come right home after work, that is okay, because no one is waiting for me.”
The woman had come dressed for her interview in a flowered shirtwaist dress and wore a double strand of costume pearls at her neck, and round pearl button earrings. Her low-heeled, black patent-leather pumps, while undoubtedly purchased at a discount store, looked like they were brand-new. Eliza sensed that Mrs. Garcia had made a special effort to make a good first impression.
“Do you mind my asking how old you are, Mrs. Garcia?” Eliza knew that at KEY she could be sued for asking a prospective employee that question.
“Fifty.”
“You look much younger.”
Carmen Garcia may have been a little older than Eliza would have preferred, but Eliza liked everything else about her. There was a certain loveliness and modesty and formality to her. She expected that Janie would like her too. A bonus would be the chance for Janie to pick up some Spanish.
As Mrs. Garcia left the office, Eliza heaved a deep sigh of relief. This was the job she had been dreading, finding someone she could trust enough, feel confident enough about, to leave her daughter in her care. Her instincts told her that this woman was the right one to watch out for her little girl.
Thank God, one huge thing off the list.
Now she had to get through saying good-bye to Mack