Three Ayis

One. 


I met her on my first day at work while she was cleaning the bathroom. She was flushing the toilets with a violence normally reserved for confronting minute maids. I asked her if she was ok. She looked at me, then glanced left and right, all the while pursing her lips. With a conspirator's whisper, she told me that we should retreat to the stairways, where it would be safe to talk because there were no security cameras.

There I listened, fidgeting with my work badge, while she railed against management and her hourly rates. I asked her where the recycling bin was. She refused to tell me, instead offering to give me a 40% cut from her scrap paper + bottles sales if I would be her supplier.

Since then, I've often had to excuse myself and walk through five or six ayis unionizing in the stairway. She was always the one sitting on the highest stair, a queen bee who reigned their 15 minute breaks.

Two.


It's Wednesday, but the lady who usually tidied my papers and wiped down my office desk wasn't there. When she got back the next week, she seemed less excited about piecing the mustard yellow vacuum cleaner together. When she came around to my desk with the wet, purple rag, I told her I was sorry about her sister. She looked away, then shook her head slightly, pretended to be concerned about the ink spill on my desk. After soaking and wringing her rag a few times too many, she finally asked me what she should do with her 14 year old niece. She didn't have the resources to take her in and provide for her own son.

Three.


I stopped her in the hall and asked her about the ayi she replaced. Her eyes narrowed, calculating whether I was the one who told on the ayi and her unions. After deciding that a whistleblower wouldn't ask her to say hi to the other, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

She liked to keep me in on the loop regarding bathroom gossip. I now know which girl on the floor often didn't flush and which company, on the whole, was the dirtiest.

One day, as I was walking out of the bathroom, she called me over to the dark closet room with a loud whisper. She handed me her phone and asked me to help her get past her current level on her game. The rules were simple. Happy snails pushing crates onto apples get points in a garden maze. I fumbled pathetically. We didn't play games growing up.

I felt genuinely bad when she had to start all over because of my three failed attempts. She was on level 10. As I walked away, back to the office, I heard her mutter while picking up her mop, "Ayah. Made me start all over again. And I thought she was smart."