Esther Mae Stevens started working at a young age, though she wasn’t even aware of the job. She was assistant manager of Kid Watch, a day care that her neighbor had started in her apartment after she was laid-off at the textile factory that would eventually close and put many people out of work. At first Esther was like every other kid that Ms. Alice watched, her parents worked days–her father was a construction worker and her mother was a nurse at the old folks home so when she was out of school by 3:30pm, her parents were usually looking to pick up extra shifts because money was always tight. Ms. Alice appreciated Esther. She was very good at making up games that kept the other children occupied and eventually Ms. Alice noticed that her job required little effort when Esther was around. At first she stopped accepting money from Esther’s mother and eventually Ms. Alice started to give Esther’s mother money when she came to pick the little girl up.
“I won’t act like I don’t want and appreciate it,” Esther’s mother said to Ms. Alice one night Esther was fast asleep on the couch and the only kid still waiting for her parents, “but it’s strange to get paid to have somebody watch your daughter. I feel like a pimp or somethin.” Ms. Alice laughed and helped Esther’s mother see that she had an amazing daughter. She wanted Esther to work for her for a long time.
And she did, albeit unknowingly; to Esther it was just after-school time with playmates and neighbors and even a few family members. Esther’s mother never told her father about the money she received, her mother knew that her father would want to use it to help out when things got overwhelming, like when the rent and electricity, and gas, and car payment, and cable bill, and phone bill were all due at the same time and they would have to decide what was nonessential because some things (the groceries and the toiletries) could not be given up. But Esther’s mother knew that Esther would use that money wisely if she got the chance to. So Esther’s mother hid the money away and tried her best to forget about it when the cable had to be off for a week because she got a speeding ticket for $400 that threw a wrench into the fine-tuned financial balancing act she and her husband dreaded but had almost mastered.
When Esther was eleven Ms. Alice started to call her the assistant manager and Esther was completely unfazed. She handled her promotion with the grace and dignity becoming of a future partner.
Esther’s mother watched the money grow. She lost the temptation to use it, she had witnessed the little girl telling a story to a group of her friends at the daycare and all the kids looked at her as though she were a television screen.
Esther was officially hired on her sixteenth birthday and she opened a bank account with her first paycheck. When she checked it a week late, the account was thousands of dollars richer with the money her mother had saved for her.
Esther’s family lived in a project of Ladoga in an area known as the Bottoms that most everyone else living in the city considered to be a ghetto. There were often news stories about drug busts and when she walked to the bus stop in the morning, she generously smiled and waved at every early bird drug pusher she passed sitting on the low stairs in front of the building she lived in. She knew that they were doing something bad, no one had to tell her that, she knew because of the way they always looked around, like they were waiting for something bad to happen to them. She hoped that by giving a smile they could relax for at least a little while.
When her mother asked Esther what she wanted to do with all the money she saved, Esther said that she wanted a family and she would use the money to buy the perfect home. She continued to work and her money continued to grow, but when she was attacked by a dog on an afternoon she was walking from her school campus to a nearby store, her entire life savings was just barely enough to cover her medical expenses.
With no insurance, Esther paid the going rate for doctors to sew up the open wounds that covered most of her left side from the neck down. She had managed to protect her face, but as her father cried next to her hospital bed in the weeks preceding her recovery, he thought that the dog, however mean and merciless, shouldn’t have been able to bare its teeth to tatter the face of an angel. The man blamed himself and Esther tried her best to show him the lunacy in that.
“Even Superman can’t be in two places at once.”
The dog was put down on the scene. One of her drug dealer neighbors who happened to be idling at the corner stepped forward almost gallantly to dispatch of the crazy thing. There were fears that the dog was rabid, but tests confirmed that Esther did not have rabies. While she recovered from her injuries, Esther mostly stayed inside watching TV and her cousin, Damon, who was around her age and would keep her company because he lived a couple houses down and didn’t have a job but depended on his parents for everything, would come over in the afternoons to teach her to play poker. She had no particular interest in learning poker at first, but she loved her cousin and enjoyed the company.
“You ain’t really better than me,” Damon told her after they had been playing for months, “I been letting you win.”
“Yeah, right, sucka, that’s what you saying now cause I’m better than you.” Esther was a natural born shit talker and even when she smiled with her whole face and a joyful brightness illuminated her face, she couldn’t stop herself.
“I’m just glad you smiling again,” Damon said.
They were sitting out on the covered front porch, laughing and talking loudly enough to be heard a street over. Enjoy was mostly free of the bandages on her face by that point, but her leg was still in a cast and she propped it up on a pillow when she remembered to. It was late in the afternoon and people passed by on the sidewalk. Some stopped and shared a few words, one person sat for a game of tunk despite Esther asking them to stay longer; the Stevens cousins were intense when they played.
“Aye, Damon!” they both heard a voice boom from the sidewalk.
“Fuck!” Damon said in an angry whisper and then he shouted, “What’s up Calvin? Where you been, man? I been looking for you.”
“Who that?” Esther asked, looking from her cousin and the worry on his face, to the young man approaching the porch.
“Don’t act like you don’t know me,” Calvin said gruffly. “We went to school together, I live right down the street.”
Esther sized him up as Calvin looked at the scars on her face and the exposed skin of her limbs. He smiled at her.
“That don’t mean nothing,” Esther said defiantly, “we ain’t been in school for a little while now.”
“You don’t remember Calvin Barnes?” Damon asked his cousin. “Tough, but he a good man. What’s up with you? Wanna play a hand with us?”
“I want my money,” Cavin said. “I need it to pay somebody that know what they doing to look at my Lucky.”
“What money, Damon?” Esther asked.
“He made a bet and lost,” Calvin answered. “He owe me three hundred dollars.”
Esther slapped the back of Damon’s head. “You ain’t never had three three hundred dollars a day in yo life.”
“Cuz,” Damon groaned with embarrassment. He shot a look at Calvin, then said to Esther, “You ain’t helping me right now.”
“She the only reason I ain’t turned you upside down and shook the coins out yo pockets,” Calvin said and whenever she laughed, he leaned on the railing of the porch next to her. “You really don’t remember me? I remember you, I remember my dog used to run after you when he saw you walking to the community college, I had to grab him to keep from messing with you.”
“Was it yo dog that did this to me?” Esther asked as her face hardened.
Calvin was speechless. It never occurred to him that one of his dogs would escape him and hurt someone. When his dog that seemed obsessed with Esther disappeared, he figured it had run away, maybe hit by a car.
“I don’t know if it was,” he said eventually, “but I’m so fucking sorry. You deserve better than that. I’ll do anything to make it right.”
“Leave my cousin alone,” she said. “Don’t make no more bets with him, he ain’t got no money.”
“Cuz!” Damon said angrily, but he quieted when Esther and Calvin looked at him angrily.
“Fine,” Calvin said, “but I want you to spend some time with me.” He smiled at her dreamily.
Esther smiled. She liked that even though her scars made her self conscious, Calvin still found her beautiful.
“What game was y’all playing that you let Damon bet three hundred dollars? Was it poker? Tunk?”
Calvin looked to Damon whose eyes were wide as he shook his head slightly, indicating that he shouldn’t tell her the truth.
“Why you ask?”
“‘Cause I wanna play,” Esther smiled sheepishly. “I’m much better than my cousin.”
Calvin smiled at Esther and the two arranged their first date at the home of a neighbor in the Bottoms. Calvin paid for Esther to enter the game and she was the big winner at the end of the night. Esther kissed Calvin after claiming victory and the two were inseparable from then on.
It should be mentioned that Esther’s cousin Damon didn’t lose three hundred dollars to Calvin betting on a card game. He’d lost the money betting against Calvin’s dog in a dog fight.
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