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I Felt Conflicted About Hiring a Cleaning Lady
As a Black woman, having a maid seemed like a betrayal of sorts
My question required sidling up to, the way a maid would ask for a day off. The conversation would be chancy with the White women milling around the yoga studio putting away their props. I could not risk the word “housekeeper”— colored girls in head rags crowded in on the word, mopping, scrubbing, and taking home leftovers. If I broached the subject head-on, these friends-for-now would know by the set of my mouth that I’d been on hands and knees on a White woman’s kitchen floor. Their expressions would say that was the proper order of things.
Pottery Barn catalog in hand, I sagged onto my couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. When I pushed aside a star-shaped basket, it left a five-pointed dust-free spot. I looked away, but a cobweb strand denounced me, dangling from the middle of the ceiling to a yoga mat unfurled on the floor. Crumbs reproached my bare feet, and the odor of last night’s fish-fry skillet indicted my nose.
Get off your lazy butt and clean this place.
I dropped the Pottery Barn catalog. Who was I to own monogrammed sheets? Linen napkins would refuse delivery to my address. Silk throw pillows would insist the UPS driver take them up the hill where rich White…
