BONITA KALE

ANNIE'S SHELTER

The Church basement was warm and garlicky. Long tables stretched the length of
the room; kids ran up and down the rows, yelling; an old lady who reminded him
of his grandma sat at a card table and took people's money.

Ziv Matusec tilted a chair against a table to save the place, and got in line.
Up ahead, past the murmurs of a pair of old ladies and the whines of a bunch of
kids, a woman's voice called, "Hi, Chef Gio!" Ziv saw a bright-eyed man look up
from ladling spaghetti sauce and grin at someone in a pink sweater. "Hi, Annie!
Good to see my best customer!"

"Yeah! I love spaghetti, Chef Gio!"

"I know you do, Annie." The chef smiled at her like you'd smile at a cute kid.

When he got through the line, Ziv saw that his place was taken. Once, he told
himself, he would've argued, or leastways given the guy a dirty look. Now he
took the first empty seat he saw, setting his tray on the scarred Masonite table
and dumping his backpack on the floor. When he dropped into the folding chair,
he found a steel column against his elbow.

Someone across from him giggled. It was the girl in the pink sweater. "That's
not a good seat," she said smugly. "No one takes those seats against the poles.
This is a good seat, see? I always get a good seat."

She sounded like a kid, but she wasn't one. In her early twenties, maybe.
Straight brown hair, pale skin -- kind of ordinary, except for something odd
about her expression.

"I come here every Friday," she said, cutting her spaghetti into inch-long
pieces.

It was exciting to talk to a stranger! Annie could hardly believe her luck. "I
come here every Friday," she said. She looked down to make sure all her
spaghetti was cut, and raised a forkful cautiously to her mouth.

The man across from her mumbled something and twirled his spaghetti on his fork.
He didn't get sauce on his shirt. Maybe if she practiced, she could learn to eat
spaghetti that way, too. At the workshop, they said if you practiced, you could
learn almost anything.

"You know what I do?" she said.

He sighed. "No, what do you do?"

"I work!"

"Really?"

"I really do. I'm a Plant Lady."

"A wha?" he said into his coffee.

"A Plant Lady. I go to all the plants in a big building and water them and wash
them and pick off their dead leaves." She found her card and showed it to him.
"See?"

"'Plant People,'" he read aloud. "'Specializing in the Office Environment.'"
Then he read the written-in part: "'Anne Bowles.' That's you, right?"

"That's me." She put the card away in her red purse. "I go on the bus in the
morning and then they take us to the buildings. I go on Monday, Tuesday,
Thursday, Friday." She raised a finger for each day. "Not the other days. I go
to the bus stop at seven o'clock."

"Pretty early."

"I have a watch, see?" She held up her wrist; the watch was blue plastic, and
digital. "When it says seven oh oh, then I go."

"When it says seven oh one, then you run," he told her.

She stared for a minute, then laughed suddenly. "When it says seven oh two, then
. . ."

"Then you're through."

"Oh, you're good," she said. "Only Jimmie -- he was at the workshop --only
Jimmie's that good at rhymes." She checked to see if there was any milk left in
her carton, but the straw made a slooping noise, so she drank her coffee
instead.

The man had finished his. "They give seconds on coffee?" he asked.

Annie jumped up. "I'll show you." She led him to the big urn and showed him how
the little handle worked.

On the way back, they passed a baby in a high chair. He had brown skin and fuzzy
dark hair and little white tennis shoes. Annie smiled at him. He smiled back,
and spaghetti fell out of his mouth. Annie felt a feeling as if her arms were
reaching out.

"I used to work at a workshop," she said, when they were sitting again. "But I
like being a Plant Lady better." She sipped her coffee. "What do you do?" she
asked. It came out sounding just right. "What do you do?" she asked again, just
to hear herself.

He took a bite of his cake. "I study," he said with his mouth full.

"Oh." She tilted her head and looked at him. "What do you study?"

He bent across the table towards her and ruffled up his hair with his fingers.
"I'm an alien -- from outer space! I study Earth people."

She jumped. "You scared me. That's not nice."

"Sorry." He slumped back in his chair.

She looked at him again, but he looked just like a regular person in jeans and a
blue shirt. "What's your name?"

"Ziv. Ever hear it before? It's an alien name!"

Actually, it had been his uncle's name. Ziv didn't know why he'd told this
retard he was an alien. He just didn't want to say he was flipping burgers part
time, again. Not long ago, he'd had a regular job, and a car, and an apartment.
Lose the job, lose 'em all.

Now she was looking at him. God, she was trying to figure out whether to believe
him!

"Are you fooling me?" she asked.

"Would I do that?"

"I don't know. Sometimes people try to fool me."

A small poke of guilt annoyed Ziv and he set his jaw. "I'm from outer space."

"Really and truly, cross your heart and hope to die?"

"Yeah, yeah. Look, they're shoving us out. Where's the john around here?"

"It's next to the door. Do you have to go? I don't, 'cause I went before, and I
can go again at home."

"Oh -- yeah." He stood up and shrugged himself into his jacket, and she stood
too, putting on her plaid raincoat, sliding her red purse onto her shoulder.

"Look, you wait for me here. And I'll walk you home, okay?"

"Sure, Ziv!"

He hurried in the men's room, unsure whether Annie might wander off without him.
Too many people here, anyway; he couldn't strip to the waist and wash, the way
he wanted to.

She looked clean and neat. Did she live with her family? If she did, why did she
go to church dinners by herself?

If she lived alone, he could maybe get a night under a roof. He was smiling when
he stepped out to join her. As they walked along St. Clair Avenue, he pumped her
about her life. She lived in an apartment. She said "an apartment!" as if it was
something important. But then she wriggled back to the topic of aliens, and Ziv
realized with a start that she was trying to pump him. "How did you get here,
Ziv?"

"By space ship, of course. Look, this apartment, what kind of place is it?"

"It's nice. What's the space ship look like? Is it long and skinny, or is it one
of the round ones?"

"Round. Kind of like a saucer. Who owns the building?"

"What building?"

"The one you live in!"

"Don't yell. At the workshop, they said nice people don't yell unless they're
playing a game."

When they got to the building, it looked okay -- yellow brick, small and square,
not too old. Ziv stepped behind Annie into the little lobby and waited while she
found her key, then followed her through the door and upstairs into a hall that
smelled of pot roast and Lysol. But after turning the key in the lock of
apartment 2B, she said, "Thank you for walking me home, Ziv."

Ziv stalled. "What're you going to do now?"

"I watch TV, and then I take a shower, and then I brush my teeth, and then I go
to bed," she said. "Don't you know that?"

"I'm an alien, remember?" He felt weak with the allure of her homey agenda. A
little TV, hot water, awarm bed . . . "I'm an alien, how would I know what you
do?"

"Are you really an alien?" she asked.

If he told her it was all a gag, she'd throw him out. No way could he stand to
give up this warm, indoors feeling. "Look," he said. It was hard to talk; his
throat was tight. "Look, how about I stay here, uh, and study Earth people?"

"At night?"

"Sure, I have to know what Earth people do at night, too."

"I don't know what you do. Not even in the daytime!"

"Look, let me come in, okay? And I'll tell you."

With a click, the door of the apartment across the hall opened, and a man looked
out. Abruptly, Annie pushed her door open. Ziv followed her inside, she shut the
door hard behind them. Ziv had caught only a glimpse of gray eyebrows that met
in the middle, and a bald brown head.

ANNIE THOUGHT Mr. Demahl was scary. He was big and brown and he never smiled. On
Sundays, he left the comics from his paper at Annie's door. But when she met him
at the incinerator, shuffling along in his slippers, she always looked down so
he wouldn't see her.

She locked the door carefully, and put the key away in her purse. Then she hung
her coat on its hanger in the closet, and her purse with it.

Then she stepped into the living room and just looked. She always did that. This
was her own apartment, not a group home. The vacuumed blue carpet, the white
kitchen counter, the closets with her clothes lined up neatly in them -- all
hers. It was a good feeling.

Ziv sat down on the flowered sofa without looking at the apartment. Annie felt a
little disappointed. Then Ziv said, "This is nice. This is real nice, Annie,"
and she felt better.

"Do you have apartments like this where you come from?" she asked.

"Uh, no," said Ziv. "Our places are different." He put his hands behind his head
and leaned back. "They're sort of like . . . caves. They have thick walls, and
they curve around you, and they're warm and safe. And no one can come in unless
you say so. And no one can take them away from you. No one."

He sounded sad. Annie sat on the floor and leaned against the sofa. "Are you
going back there soon, Ziv?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I don't know when I'll get back."

"Will they pick you up in a spaceship?" she asked. "Is it fun to fly in space?"

He smiled down at her. Ziv had a nice smile. "Yeah," he said. "They'll pick me
up, and we'll go zooming off in space, past all sorts of stars and planets and
stuff.

Annie thought about the space ship zooming through the night sky. "Past the
moon?"

"Yeah."

"Higher than a plane?"

"Sure. Spaceships go way higher than that."

It sounded nice, to fly in space. People on TV sometimes met aliens, but Annie
never had before. He looked like a regular person, but his name was Ziv. He was
studying Earth people. Maybe he would study her! Annie hoped so.

Ziv said he would sleep on the sofa. He said he would be quick in the shower,
but the TV showed four sets of commercials before he came out, with his hair
slicked down and a different shirt on. He was carrying something wet. "I hung
some stuff in the bathroom to dry, okay? You got a hanger for my shirt? I wrung
it out pretty good; it won't drip."

His underwear was hanging all along the shower rod. It made Annie's shower dark.
When she came out, his shirt was on a hanger hooked to the ceiling light in her
bedroom.

She slept with the damp shirt hanging over her bed. It looked like it was
flying. On her sofa was the alien, with her coat spread over him.

Ziv worked lunch shift Saturday, feeling clean all over. Clean body, clean hair
-- and he'd fed coins to a washer and dryer and washed not only his own stuff,
but Annie's small laundry bag of clothes. No one could say he wasn't a good
roommate.

Knowing there was a roof waiting for him at night gave him a full, contented
feeling as he plunged frozen fries into grease. Annie was no genius, but after
all, a genius wouldn't let a strange alien sleep on her sofa. And she looked
okay. If he was going to be staying with her awhile, well . . . Like his grandma
always said, waste is a sin.

By the next day, Ziv was settled in, with his own blanket, pillow, and key.

Annie liked having Ziv there. She did, really. But he mixed things up. Annie
always did her wash on Wednesdays. She always went to the place with the nice
man who helped her with the change machine. But Ziv took some of her clothes on
Saturday and went to some other place. And then she didn't know how many to
count when she was counting her underpants. And he left his blanket and pillow
on the sofa, and he used her special coffee mug. And he moved her pink mat, the
one she kept next to her bed, to the bathroom.

But Ziv told her stories about his home, where everyone lived in houses like
caves and took rockets instead of cars or buses. She liked his stories.

He didn't want her to tell anyone about him, and she didn't like that. She
couldn't think of anything else to talk about, and people said, "Annie, why are
you so quiet?"

Mr. Demahl was looking funny at her lots of times, too. He probably thought she
was letting a stranger in her apartment. "Ziv's not a stranger," she wanted to
tell him. "He's an alien!" But she was afraid. Mr. Demahl's deep voice sounded
so fierce.

Rachel Quillon was different. She was the manager of the apartment building, and
she lived down in apartment 1D. She had gray hair in a bun, and a nice smile,
and fuzzy slippers. Annie always said Hi when she met her in the hall, vacuuming
or dusting or washing the stairs.

Sometimes Rachel invited her into her kitchen for a cup of tea. Annie didn't
like tea much, but she liked talking to Rachel.

"I see you have a friend staying with you, Annie."

"Yes!" Annie hadn't thought of it before, but Ziv was a friend, wasn't he? "His
name is Ziv."

"Interesting name. Is he Slovak?"

Annie shook her head. "He's just Ziv." She put sugar in her tea and reached for
a saltine.

"Is Ziv from around here?"

"Uh, no."

"Where is he from, Annie?"

Annie looked down at the table. "He doesn't want me to tell."

"Oh." Rachel sipped her tea. "Annie --" She stopped, and didn't say anything for
a while. Then she put her hands flat on the table and leaned toward Annie.
"Annie, you don't have to do what Ziv tells you to. What matters is what you
want to do."

Annie thought about that. "I can do what I want."

Rachel sat back. "Exactly."

"Do you know about babies?" Annie asked.

Rachel stood up suddenly, turned to the counter and poured more hot water on her
teabag. "I know the basics," she said. "One end screams and both ends leak." She
leaned against the counter and looked at Annie. "What do you want to know about
babies?"

"At the workshop, they taught us a lot. They taught us what to do and what not
to do."

"Yes . . ."

"But we like to do some of the things they taught us not to do."

"I'm not surprised."

"They taught us how to make babies. But they said we shouldn't."

"I tend to agree. Tell me, did they give you any help in this entirely laudable
project?"

"What?"

"Did they show you how not to make babies? Did they give you pills or a
something to put inside you? Anything at all?"

Annie shook her head impatiently. She didn't remember anything like that. "Does
it work?" she asked.

"The pills?"

"No, I mean -- does it work, to make a baby? The way they said?"

Rachel sat down hard in her chair. "Yes," she said. "I believe it works."

"Thanks, Rachel!"

That night, Ziv moved the TV to the bedroom. Aliens liked to watch TV in bed, he
said. They sat on the bed and watched together.

Ziv put his arm around Annie's back. She liked that, and she leaned against him.
Then he put his hand on her boob. The ladies at the workshop called it a breast,
but everyone else called it a boob.

His hand felt nice. She snuggled into it. She was glad she was wearing her pink
nightie. It was pretty, and she liked the slippery way it felt when Ziv rubbed
it.

Jimmie at the workshop used to like to do that, too. Annie wondered if Ziv would
like other things Jimmie had liked. She reached her hand into his lap to try.

"Hey!"

Annie snatched her hand back. "I'm sorry."

"No, no," he said. "That's fine, baby. That's great. You surprised me, is all."

"You like that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I like it fine."

"Jimmie used to like it, too."

"I bet he did."

The alien was made like Jimmie, but he knew more things to do. Annie liked some
of them. She forgot about the TV. Later, Ziv fell asleep. He took up a lot of
room in the bed, so Annie moved to the sofa. She lay in the dark and thought
about warm, smiley babies.

The next afternoon, when Annie came home from work, she couldn't find her key.
She buzzed her apartment, but no one answered. She banged on the glass door, and
after a long time, she saw someone coming down the stairs. It was Mr. Demahl. He
looked cross.

"What's wrong, lose your key?"

Annie nodded.

"Where's the guy?"

"What guy?"

"The boyfriend, girl! The guy been living in your apartment!"

Mr. Demahl was so big and grumpy, Annie was scared. "You know about him?"

"Seen him coming in and out often enough. What else I got to do these days but
watch people?"

Annie peeked up at him. He didn't look as mean as he usually did. The wrinkles
around his mouth were kind of twisty, like almost a smile.

"Please don't tell anyone," Annie whispered.

Mr. Demahl shrugged. "Afraid he'll get tossed out?"

"He might get killed!" said Annie. "If Earth people find out he's here, they
might kill him!"

"Look, you come on downstairs. We'll get a key from Rachel."

Downstairs, Mr. Demahl knocked on Rachel's door. His big fist made a loud sound,
but he wasn't mad. "You got to really bang. She don't hear too good. This guy,
he's off a space ship?"

Annie felt a little less scared now. "Don't tell, okay?"

They could hear Rachel coming, slip, slip, slip.

"Who said he's from space?" Mr. Demahl asked. "You just figure it out?"

"He told me," Annie said. "Ziv did."

Christ, she couldn't even keep hold of her own stuff! Ziv picked Annie's
apartment key off the stairs. What kind of security could they have if she
dropped keys around like that?

"We'll have to get a new lock," he told her when he got home that night.

"Oh, no, Ziv. Rachel will get me a new key if I can't find mine."

"And have keys to this place floating all over the city? Nab, I'll get a new
lock."

"But Ziv --"

"Till then, if I'm not here, you just wait for me, okay?"

"But I want my key!"

"You can't have it," he explained patiently. "You lost it."

She cheered up after a while. He took her out for a taco to make her feel
better. The poor kid couldn't help it, after all.

Still, it was a nuisance sharing the apartment with a retard. She wanted
everything the same, week in, week out. Wednesdays washing clothes, Saturdays
shopping at the Goodwill store, Sunday looking at the comics from that old black
guy's paper. If anything interfered with her routine, she was unhappy. She
talked a lot, too, and she squealed at every baby she saw.

He checked the papers for cheap places to stay, for better jobs. The old ladies
who rented out rooms seemed to want non-smokers with references from six
priests. The jobs wanted references from God.

He'd just have to stay here and save his money.

One Saturday morning, Annie threw up. Ziv was mad. He told her to clean the
floor. Then he went to work. Annie took the garbage to the incinerator and saw
Rachel mopping the stairs to the third floor.

"I'm almost done; how about a cup of tea, Annie?"

"Will that make me throw up?"

"I don't believe so. Haven't you been feeling well?"

"I feel all right now."

"Have you been tired, Annie?"

"I was tired yesterday. I fell asleep. And other days, too."

Rachel dried the steps with a raggedy towel. Then she came down to Annie. "Do
you know when your last period was?"

Annie went inside to get her calendar. She showed it to Rachel. Rachel turned
the pages back to where the Xs were, and looked serious. She stood her mop and
bucket in a corner and led the way down to her apartment. Then she made Annie
sit on the sofa to drink her tea.

"Do your shoes feel tight, Annie? Are you sore here?" Rachel put her hands on
her own breasts.

Annie nodded. "Am I sick?"

"I think you're pregnant." Rachel looked as if that was bad. But the next thing
she said was good. "I mean, I think there's a baby growing inside you."

"Really?" Annie could feel her mouth stretching into a big smile. "Really? A
baby for me and Ziv?"

Rachel put her hand on Annie's shoulder. "Do you want a baby?"

"Everyone wants a baby!"

But Annie didn't tell Ziv. She wasn't sure why not.

Ziv told Annie he'd changed the lock. "Now, no one can get in our room but us.
Isn't that great?"

"Rachel can't get in?"

"Nope." He wished it was true, but locksmiths cost. "I've got the only key."

"Can I have one?"

"We'll see, okay? Maybe next week, if you're good."

Annie sat down on the sofa. "Do they have keys on your planet?"

"Don't need 'em."

"Tell me a story about your planet, Ziv."

"Now don't start --"

"Please?"

"Oh . . . all right, I guess." He sat down beside her, shoving aside the blanket
and pillow. Annie rested her head on his shoulder and he fiddled absently with
the front of her blouse.

"Well, we don't have any keys or any locks. Everyone has a warm place to stay,
and plenty of food. And if someone needs to stay with a friend for awhile,
that's okay. And everyone walks around in the sunshine and looks at the green
sky and the fluffy blue trees and smiles at everyone else."

"And the bell flowers."

"Yeah, flowers that ring like bells in the wind." He remembered his grandma's
wind chimes. "And we fly up to our moon any time we want to, and there's a big
park there, with rides."

"Roller coaster." Annie sounded sleepy.

"Yeah, roller coasters and Ferris wheels and water slides -- everything like
here, only bigger. All lit up with colored lights. All bright and all free for
everyone."

"And at night . . ."

"At night, we fly home and sleep. And everyone has a house alone. And no one can
throw you out."

Annie was asleep. He looked at her with growing dislike.

Then one night Annie got a bug for the movies. "The movies, for Christ's sake!
You know you'll just sleep through most of it."

"Please, Ziv?"

He was too soft-hearted, that was it. She did fall asleep, of course, right
during the car chase. He had to shake her awake for the longwalk home. And
tomorrow was Wednesday -- no work for her, but an early day for him.

On the way, Annie yawned and popped out with, "Rachel says I'm going to have a
baby."

"Shit!" He stopped under a street light to look at her face. "You're fooling,
right? This is a joke?"

"No, it's really real! Are you excited, Ziv?"

"You'll have to get rid of it, that's all."

"Get rid of it? No!"

"Look, I don't want a baby!"

But she turned stubborn. "I don't care! I want a baby!"

He stopped trying to be nice. "Dummy! Where would we keep a baby, anyhow?"

"Babies are little! There's room!"

"How can a retard like you take care of a baby?"

She was crying now. Big baby herself. "You can help, Ziv. You can tell the baby
all your stories. It'll be fun, Ziv!"

He closed his eyes. Afterward, he was proud that he hadn't hit her. "Go away,"
he said, not loud.

"Go away? Where, Ziv?"

"I don't care. Just away."

She didn't move. After a minute, Ziv stalked off, but she followed him. He was
forced, finally, to wrench himself away and dodge into an alley to lose her.

Do her good to be on the streets a night. Find out what it's like. After a
while, Annie gave up looking for him, and he went home. In bed, he stretched and
felt himself fill the apartment. His mind wandered to blue trees, and flowers
that rang like wind chimes, and he slept.

ANNIE LOOKED at her watch under every street light. It said nine-two-oh, and
later it said nine-three-oh. It said nine-something for a long time. Then it
said ten-some-thing for a long time.

She found a hamburger place and went in to go to the bathroom. "Does Ziv work
here?" she asked, but they didn't know Ziv.

She stayed there until they looked at her funny. Then she went outside and
started hunting again. "If I have a baby, then I'm a mother," she said over and
over. "Mothers aren't scared."

Her watch said two-five-two when she curled in a deep church doorway and fell
asleep. It said six-three-four when a police officer found her and brought her
home, and Rachel tucked her into a yellow bed.

When she woke, it was daytime. She heard Rachel's voice.

"It's her life," Rachel was saying. "But it's so hard."

Annie heard a deep bumble. She got out of bed and went into the living room to
see who it was.

Mr. Demahl was sitting on Rachel's sofa.

"Feeling better?" Rachel asked. "I'll get you a cup of tea." She got up and went
to the kitchen. Annie was left alone with Mr. Demahl. She wanted to say, "Come
back, Rachel, I don't want any tea," but she didn't.

Mr. Demahl shifted himself on the sofa. "Sit down, Annie."

Annie sat on a low chair with blue and white stripes.

"I hear your man from outer space left you out all night," said Mr. Demahl.
"That wasn't very nice of him, now was it?"

Annie thought. No, she decided, it wasn't. She was surprised at the thought,
because Ziv was a good person. But he had done a bad thing.

"You think he should have done that, girl?"

She shook her head. "I didn't like it."

Rachel came in with a tray. It had mugs of tea on it, and a plate of saltines,
and sugar and milk and part of a lemon. Mr. Demahl put milk in his tea; Rachel
squeezed the lemon over her tea. Carefully, Annie spooned sugar into her tea and
took a saltine.

"So, how about throwing Ziv out?" Rachel said.

Annie breathed in hard and coughed. Rachel had to pat her back. Annie was
embarrassed in front of Mr. Demahl.

"We didn't get that far," Mr. Demahl said. "You got to have a little patience,
Rachel."

"I don't," she said. "I never did." She put her empty cup on the tray on the
coffee table and turned to Annie. "Look, Annie, you have this Ziv in your
apartment and a baby on the way. Start with the baby. Do you know it's going to
take a long time, and then it hurts a lot? Maybe you shouldn't have the baby,
Annie."

"I want the baby." Annie was sure of that.

"You might not be able to be a Plant Lady, Annie. You might have to stay home
and take care of the baby."

"I like being a Plant Lady," Annie said slowly. "But I want the baby."

"You want the baby more than you want to be a Plant Lady?"

This was hard. A baby was a thing you could hold. Being a Plant Lady was
different; you couldn't hold it and look at it to see whether it was better than
a baby. Then she remembered: she'd be a mother! A mother was better than a Plant
Lady! "I want to be a mother," she said firmly. "I wasn't scared in the night."

"No, but --"

"Mothers aren't scared. I'm going to be a mother."

Suddenly, Mr. Demahl let out a booming laugh that made Annie jump. "Round one to
Annie," he said. "Baby stays."

Rachel made her lips into a straight line. "Shares on the sitting, then." She
turned back to Annie. "Now, about Ziv."

Mr. Demahl interrupted. "Look, Annie, you don't have to do nothing you don't
want."

"But you don't want Ziv staying with you, do you Annie?" Rachel said. "He hasn't
behaved well, has he? And it's your apartment after all. Your check pays for it,
remember."

Annie thought about that. "It's my apartment."

"Right."

"So I should have the key?"

Rachel blinked. "Right."

"Not Ziv."

"Definitely not Ziv." Rachel leaned forward and touched Annie's knee. "Are you
going to throw him out?"

The stripes on her chair were like little roads. Annie followed one with her
finger. "If I throw him out, will I still have the baby inside me?"

"Yes." Rachel waited until Annie looked up at her. "Ziv's leaving won't change
that."

"Then . . . can you throw him out for me, Rachel?"

"No!" Mr. Demahl said, before Rachel could answer. "You got to do this yourself,
girl! It's your apartment -- you're the boss there. It's what you say, counts.
You want him to go, he goes. You want him to stay, he stays. You decide, and you
tell him!"

She was the boss. Not Ziv. Not even . . . She peeked at Rachel, wondering if
Rachel could tell what she was thinking. Not even Rachel. Annie was the boss in
apartment 2B. It was a staggering thought.

"I want to go home."

Upstairs, Annie put Rachel's key carefully in her pocket. Ziv was at work; Annie
was alone in the apartment. She picked up Ziv's socks and folded his blanket.
She vacuumed the floors. She scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and the
tub, and the mirror. She washed the toilet with its special brash. She took the
pink bucket and the blue-handled mop and mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors
with water and good-smelling green stuff.

Annie was suddenly very hungry. She opened a can of tuna and made two big tuna
salad sandwiches. Then she sat down at her table and ate her sandwiches, looking
around at her clean apartment. I'm the boss here, she thought.

Tomorrow she would go to the Plant People store. They would take her to a
building, and she would go to all the offices on her list. All day, she would
water the plants and take off their dead leaves and make them feel comfortable.
"The plants like you, Annie," a lady at one of the offices had said.

She was a good Plant Lady. She was a good apartment cleaner. She practiced
saying, "Ziv, I want to talk to you." When she heard his key in the lock, she
went to stand near the door.

When Ziv opened the door, Annie was right in front of him. Poor dumb kid, he
actually felt some relief to see her after her night out. But he had to move her
aside to get into the room.

"Ziv," she said. Her voice sounded peculiar. "Ziv, I want to talk to you."

"Okay, after I get this frying grease outa my hair."

He ran the shower and forgot her until he stepped out of the bathroom with a
towel around his hips. "Hey, Annie, how 'bout buying a blue towel or a white one
or something? These pink ones--"

He stopped. There were people in the room -- the lady from downstairs and the
black guy from across the hall, sitting together on the sofa. He stared at them
warily.

"Annie needs to talk to you, Ziv," said the woman.

Called him Ziv and he didn't even know her name. Or, wait -- some memory of
Annie's talking about her came back to him -- Rachel, that was it. And the guy
was the one Annie called Mr. Demahl.

"I'm kind of occupied right now," he said, half sarcastic and half worried. "Get
your pants on," said Demahl. "We can wait."

"I gotta work --"

"Only till two, Wednesdays."

"Look, you been spying on me?"

Demahl shrugged. "Sure."

Ziv's towel was slipping. He grabbed it and retreated to the bathroom, but he
didn't rush, dressing. Let them wait.

Eventually, he pasted a salesman smile on his face and stepped out to face them.
"Well," he said, "what can I do for you?"

Annie was standing at the window. She looked at Rachel, and Rachel nodded. "I
want to talk to you, Ziv," Annie said.

"Any time, Annie. How 'bout some coffee while we talk?"

Before the others could say anything, she had slipped into the kitchen. She'd be
in there awhile, now, counting cups of water, and scoops of coffee.

"Okay, what d'you want?" he said to the two left.

Rachel sat up straight and pressed her lips together. Demahl shifted in his
seat. "It's Annie needs to talk to you, not us. But." He paused and shook his
head. "Annie been all excited, having you here. Talks about you a lot."

"Yeah?"

"Says you're a spaceman."

"She got that wrong." Ziv kept his voice down.

Rachel's face reminded him of his boss's when she found a bag of moldy hamburger
buns -- kind of that same wide look around the nostrils. "You come, I
understand, from a place with houses like caves, and green sky, and plants that
ring in the wind. . ."

"Annie remembered all that?"

"What sort of games have you been playing with Annie, Ziv?"

"We know one of 'em," Demahl put in.

"Why did you tell Annie you were from outer space?"

Ziv's shoulders twisted. "Ah, I don't know. It started as a gag, kind of. But
she liked it, you know?"

"And now she's pregnant. With your child." Rachel sounded sick.

"Boy, you sure messed up." Demahl leaned back and the sofa creaked. "What'd you
want to go and do that to Annie for?"

"I didn't know she'd get knocked up, for Christ's sake! How was I supposed to
know?"

It was funny, for about two seconds, to see that big old guy and that little
lady, both wearing his grandma's you're-in-trouble-now look.

"I had no place to stay! I was on the streets! You know what that's like ?"

"Yeah," said Demahl. "I been there once or twice. And I didn't lie to no poor
dumb kid and then knock her up."

"Well, I did. So sue me. You won't make Annie happy that way."

"What way, Ziv?" It was Annie, with the red plastic tray she'd bought on their
last trip to the Goodwill store. Now it held six mugs-- four full of coffee, one
of milk, and one of sugar. A saucer held cookies. Annie stooped and put it on
the end table.

"I didn't have any lemon, Rachel."

"That's fine, Annie. I don't take lemon in coffee."

"Now should I talk to Ziv?"

Rachel opened her mouth, but Demahl butted in. "Yeah. You talk to him. We'll go
away, okay?"

"Okay," said Annie, in a small voice. Then she took a breath, not like a regular
person, Ziv thought, but loud and deep. "Okay." She insisted that he and Rachel
take their cups with them. "Take cookies too!"

When they were gone, Ziv relaxed. "Hope they don't steal the cups."

"Rachel wouldn't steal. Mr. Demahl wouldn't steal. They're good."

"You think everyone's good." Ziv dropped into a chair and leaned back with a
grin. "You think everyone's wonderful!"

"I don't think you're wonderful, Ziv," said Annie.

Funny, it kind of hurt. With an effort, he smiled. "Not wonderful, maybe, but
pretty damn good."

"You're good. But you do bad things."

"Sure. You do too. Everyone does."

Annie looked straight at him. "You did bad things to me." She held up one finger
at a time. "You left me alone at night, outside. You ate all the raisin bread
before I got any. You sleep in my bed and take up all the room. You mess up the
bathroom all the time." She counted. "Four bad things."

She took a breath. "Go away, Ziv," she said. "Go back to your space ship."

His smile felt tight. "Suppose I don't want to?"

"I'll get Mr. Demahl," said Annie. "He told me to. He said, 'If he won't go, you
come and get me, you hear?' That's what he said."

Ziv stood up and came close to her. She smelled like coffee and the stuff she
cleaned with. He stroked her arm with one finger and watched the hair stand up.
"You don't want me to go, Annie," he said.

Now she was crying and she pushed him away. "Yes I do," she said. "I don't want
you to study me anymore. Go away, Ziv!"

For a crazy minute, Ziv thought of refusing -- just stay here, see what she'd do
about it. Then he thought of Demahl, and of social workers and county
authorities. And babies. God. How'd he gotten into this in the first place? "No
trouble. I don't hang around where I'm not wanted."

He packed carefully, folding shirts and rolling underwear. He still had most of
the money he'd made since coming here, he divided it among his pockets. He took
a plastic bag to carry his pillow, threw in soap, and his toothbrush, and a new
tube of toothpaste. From the kitchen, he took two loaves of bread and as many
cans as he thought he could carry.

Annie watched, not speaking. When he had his jacket on, he came close to her,
but she backed away.

Ziv glanced around to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. The living room
looked as warm and inviting as it had the first night; the sight pinched. For a
moment, he felt as if he could, somehow, have managed better.

He opened the apartment door.

The two of them were sitting on the steps to the third floor, Rachel leaning
against Demahl. She sat up when he came out.

"Look, you got a paper?" Ziv asked Demahl. "I maybe could find a room or
something."

Demahl looked gently amazed, but pulled himself up and went into his apartment.
He came out with a newspaper and handed it to Ziv. "Thanks. Hey, Rachel? Can I
use you for a reference?"

Rachel opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "Yes," she said in a
strangled voice.

ANNIE LEANED over the banister and watched Ziv go down the stairs. At the
bottom, he lifted his bag to his back and opened the inner door. She saw him
bend to look into the mailboxes. Then he let the door go. A minute later, she
heard the outer door open and close.

Annie cried, still leaning over the banister. Rachel patted her back. Then Annie
stood up. She robbed her face where the tears itched. "I still have a baby
inside," she said.

"Yes, Annie."

Annie sighed. "I remember all Ziv's stories."

"I know you do."

"I can tell them to the baby, when it comes out."

"Oh, my dear," said Rachel.

"Hush," said Mr. Demahl. "You tell that baby any stories you want, child."

Annie went into her apartment. She closed the drawers Ziv had left open. She
cleaned Ziv's hairs out of the tub drain. Then she moved the TV back to the
living room and laid her pink mat next to the bed.

The apartment looked nice. Annie patted the space baby in her tummy. Today was
Wednesday; Plant People was closed. It was her washing day.