My Hollywood by Mona Simpson

first . He remembered when money became light and the lower denominations would not anymore buy. And still at that time, there was wealth.
    In the wagon Williamo eats long orange candy worms.
    “See, in the bank it is nothing, but out here it is still money. Not for the Philippines, but we can buy. Every day a little. It is our trust fund. I trust you and you trust me. You have your candy. Now, we will use pennies to buy Lola coffee.”
    That is what my kids, they will remember. That Lola loved her coffee.
    When we return home, the hallway rounds to a cave and I hear chopping.
    “I will be the one,” I say. My employer, she did not grow up with a helper. She cannot easily ask. So I take the tomatoes. All the while with a smile. It is not hard. Not when you have a purpose. And I have five purposes, the youngest twenty-three studying medicine.
    Always the parents first, Ruth said. A kid cannot fire you. Even here.
    Anyway, my employer is a very good cook. I am happy to chop chop.
    Williamo sits under the table, folding a newspaper to a hat the way I showed him. “Who taught you , Lola? Your nanny?”
    “We did not call the ladies nannies.”
    “What did you call them?”
    “I really do not know. She was just the One in the House.” I shrug to Claire. “In our place, you know, everyone has somebody to help.”
    Tonight her eye where Williamo hit shines black and blue, yellow also. Over it, she has painted makeup. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
    “It is the age too.” But my children, they were not like this, not even Dante. Here in America, they are different. Also taller.
    “Maybe I should find a psychologist for him,” my employer whispers. “Do you think this is all still normal?”
    Really, I do not know. “You are talking to the wrong person,” I say. “Because-ah I like naughty boys.”
    She sighs, better now. We will not tell her the lady at the bank.
    She gives me my plate, covered with a napkin, to carry back to my place.
    “You won’t eat with us, Lole?”
    Ruth advised me, Americans do not know what they want. They invite you, and then after, they will pine for their privacy. Americans need privacy. Because it is a big big land . Also, if I am eating with them, when Williamo needs more milk, I will be the one to jump up. I like to watch the TV. Tonight I have a project. It is important to have hours you are comfortable.
    Later on, he can come to my place. We will study the map. The lavender Philippines, orange California. We are saving for the globe. Each day, we will give the man two rolls. It can help teach counting.
    They leave the dishes for the morning. They are a little spoiled, like my own kids, but I do not mind. They work hard. My money is earned. I can sit. That is my day.
    Some people across the Pacific, they had better be studying.
    I take my project with me in a bag and walk past the house they are building on Twelfth, where they say the wife is Filipina. Esperanza heard housekeeper. Lita today said baby nurse. Whatever she was first, they are now building towers.
    It is different for the babysitters not yet married. They come here every day. For them it is a shrine: boards and empty rectangles of air. Each wants a husband to carry her over the threshold of a Castle. Their dreams take place here.
    Me, I have my house already.
    I always keep in the corner of my room a box for my next shipment home. For a large box, only sixty-five dollars. I make a map for my daughters where to put my treasures. My employer became upset when she saw I had her present wrapped in T-shirts to send. “I want your life here to be a little nicer.” But I have a china cabinet in the dining room at home. I think of that room empty in the afternoon, a clean lung. I am not here to settle. America may be the future of the world but it is not the future of Lola.
    Smells from gardens wind in the air, lights come on inside houses. Automatic sprinklers siss on.
    Every home has a place that makes the