Don't You Cry(47)

A typical example: the time Nancy on the second floor decided the tenants of our walk-up apartment building needed to be more committed to recycling. Nancy was tired of seeing old beer bottles and never-read newspapers tossed out with the trash, and Mrs. Budny—old Mrs. Budny with one foot in the ground already, who didn’t need to worry about preserving the world for her children or her children’s children (neither of which she had)—wasn’t going to do a thing about it.

But all Nancy did was post a flyer—delineating the recycling centers around town—in the hall, beside the mailboxes, which somehow or other every single tenant managed to ignore.

But Esther, on the other hand, took it a step further. She contacted recycling services to secure a deal. She purchased several containers for recycling—with her own money, I should add—and left them outside, by the rank Dumpster in the alley behind our home, and in the laundry room. She posted signs, listing what was recyclable and what was not, and what effect not recycling was having on our world: landfill overflow, and the need to create new landfills. She encouraged use of the three R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. She offered up an award for which resident was the best recycler (it wasn’t me).

And unlike Nancy’s master plan, which failed miserably, Esther’s plan didn’t fail. It was quite the success. Avid recyclers we turned out to be.

Esther was the one who encouraged me to eat more healthful foods; she persuaded me to pursue a career change. A simple remark—I hate my job—became Esther’s cue to solve the problem, to make this conundrum her own, though she did it in a way that was never autocratic or oppressive or annoying. It was simply sweet. What Esther decided I needed to be was a teacher, instead of a dopey PA. I almost laughed at that thought: me, a teacher. It seemed ludicrous, and yet it was Esther who convinced me to try and get certified in early childhood education, after I slowly became smitten with the tiny tykes at her bookstore’s story time. You’re good with kids, she told me, and besides, you don’t want to stay in that crappy job forever, do you? You’re better than that, Quinn.

I’m not smart enough to be a teacher, I told her at the time as we hovered in the bookstore after story time, me on the floor with some curly-haired kid I didn’t know, helping her find the perfect picture book on princesses. It wasn’t as if I worked at the bookshop or anything—I didn’t—but I’d become a frequent attendee of story time and had gotten to know some of the kids. I liked the stories, yes, more than I cared to admit, but even more I liked that sense of belonging in Esther’s world. I’ve never had a friend quite like Esther. She’s like a sister, one I like even more than my real sister.

You’re smarter than a four-year-old, aren’t you? Esther had asked, and I shrugged. God, how I hoped I was smarter than a four-year-old. You can do this, she said.

It wasn’t a week later before I sought out information online for teacher certification programs in Chicago, and Esther signed on to helping me prepare for the Basic Skills test, one which tests my knowledge—or lack thereof—in language arts, reading and writing and math. I can only take the test five times; I’ve already failed it once. Esther has been helping me study; she swears we’re going to pass it the next time around. We. Esther and me. She’s told me at least twelve times already that this isn’t something I have to do alone. We’re a team, Esther and me. That’s what she said to me.

Another example of Esther’s take-charge persona: the time I made mention of the fact that I’d like to exercise more, to get in shape. I’m not a small person, not short or skinny or just plain petite. Esther is petite, but I am not petite. I am in no way small. But I’m not fat, either. I secretly blame my mythological Amazon ancestors for my tall figure and big bones, for the fact that I am mighty. That’s the way I like to look at it: mighty. The way I figure it, too, when I do my shopping online, I got a heck of a lot more sweater or skirt for my money—a heck of a lot more fabric than their size-two-petite, say—for exactly the same price. Their loss, my gain.

But still, I’m not getting any younger, or smaller for that matter, and I made the mistake—or maybe it was a blessing—of telling Esther this, and at once, Esther concocted a fitness plan for her and me to follow. She isn’t a hard-core runner, but she does run on occasion. She isn’t about to sign up for the Chicago Marathon or anything like that, but she can last a good mile or two, and so that’s exactly what we did. Esther got in the habit of dragooning me from bed early in the morning—well before sunrise—and we’d follow the same route, down Clark to Foster where we crossed under Lake Shore Drive and onto the Lakefront Trail, a paved path that spans eighteen miles, running north to south along the shores of Lake Michigan. We didn’t make it all eighteen. Nowhere close. For all intents and purposes, I’m not even sure I ran. Running, by definition, requires two feet off the ground at a time, and I’m not entirely sure they were. If anything, we maybe trekked two miles along the path, which might have been a brisk walk, trying desperately to save face in the midst of all those marathoners or wannabe Olympians soaring past us on the Lakefront Trail.

My legs burned; I had a cramp. I had many cramps. I couldn’t breathe.

But Esther being Esther cheered me on. She was encouraging. You can do it, she said. She slowed down to keep pace with me so that I didn’t feel like a chump, though I was pretty sure I still looked like a chump what with my arms flapping like a dying bird falling from the sky.