Free Cha-Ching! by Ali Liebegott Page A

a big hug good-bye. The dog looked out the window at Sammy as they pulled away. As Theo drove up the FDR she watched the Brooklyn Bridge get smaller in her rearview mirror. She vowed to find a job in Brooklyn as soon as possible so she could leave that shit hole, Yonkers.

five
    Everything about life in Yonkers felt like a punishment now. She hated Doralina, who’d taken to knocking on her bedroom door late at night and sitting dramatically on the futon.
    â€œThis is really hard for me, because I have a lot of shame,” Doralina would start, “but can I borrow twenty dollars until my check comes?”
    Theo didn’t believe it was hard for Doralina to ask for money, since she seemed to do it several times a week. She hadn’t had any extra money since she’d moved to New York, and if she came into some she sure as shit wasn’t going to hand it over to Doralina to buy Tang and cigarettes from the Kwik Stop.
    When Theo wouldn’t loan her money Doralina retaliated by creating fake problems in the house. One day when she came home from work Doralina was waiting for her, sitting somberly in the living room with her hands folded in her lap.
    â€œHello,” Theo said, surprised to see her out of her ESPN cave.
    â€œI have a problem,” Doralina said gravely.
    â€œIs your son okay?” Theo asked, her heart softening.
    She worried for a second that he had been killed. Theo had never met him; he lived with Doralina’s mother, but each day as she walked in and out of the house she passed his picture. He looked about eight years old and smiled stiffly from behind the armor of his maroon-and-white school uniform. Doralina’s mother had agreed to take care of him while she went back to school. But in the three months Theo had lived in the house she’d never seen Doralina do any schoolwork. In fact, the only time she ever left the house was when Theo gave her a ride somewhere.
    Doralina looked confused for a second and said, “My son? He’s fine.”
    â€œSo what’s the matter, then?”
    She led Theo into the bathroom and pointed out some stray hairs trapped in a clump of suds in the bottom of the tub. Apparently, Doralina was pissed because Theo had been the last person to take a shower and four of her hairs were swimming in a small pool of water around the drain.
    â€œWe can’t do that,” Doralina said.
    â€œThis is the serious problem?” Theo asked.
    Doralina glared at her.
    â€œThe drain sucks,” Theo said. “I can’t wait forty-five minutes after I’m done taking a shower for the tub to drain so then I can rinse it out. Otherwise I’d be late for work .”
    Theo spit out, work —the thing Doralina didn’t do. She tried to convey her disgust for Doralina’s joblessness by looking straight into her eyes with a martyr’s gaze when she said the word work . Even the woman on Hooked who smoked twenty-five PCP cigarettes a day went to work—she in fact had two jobs, but Theo didn’t say that.
    Doralina returned Theo’s cold stare and then repeated, “We can’t do that,” before angrily walking back to the kitchen, jerking her curtain to the side and going back into her cave.
    Theo was desperate to find a job in Brooklyn, and at night after work she perused the get-rich-quick jobs on the back of the weekly newspaper. People were needed everywhere to donate their eggs, work on cruise ships and fishing boats, be in depression and alcohol studies. Most of all there were gentlemen looking for escorts. Theo picked up the phone and dialed Sammy.
    â€œTell me why I shouldn’t get a job on a fishing boat?” Theo asked.
    â€œGirl! It’s cold and back-breaking and you will never get the fish smell off you. Never again.”
    â€œI can’t live in this house another minute,” Theo whispered.
    â€œGood. Because I think I found us an