My Big Fat American Summer

Soon they're touring a small, two-story house where contractors are installing new carpet. There's a deck with a view of Sinepuxent Bay, an enclosed porch, a back yard, laundry machines, a full kitchen, decent furniture and, best of all, separate sleeping quarters for the men and women. Four Russian women have already rented the top floor. The landlord wants to cram seven people downstairs. Nadia and Radi know of three more Bulgarians who will arrive next week. It'll be tight for sure, but at $71.50 per person per week, they haven't seen anything better.

Nadia asks, When can we move in?

"I have paycheck, and I want to get the money," Radi says to the bank teller. The sugar-voiced woman flips over Radi's check and slides it back across the counter. "Honey, you have to sign the back." Radi does and walks out with $549 in cash. It's the third week of June, and she's been paid for the first time.

"Now I'm rich," she says. She only had $50 left and had to borrow last week's rent from one of her roommates. She says she's going to open a bank account, but for now she's keeping her cash -- every cent to her name -- in a pouch in her backpack.

Nadia is waiting in the parking lot, smoking a cigarette. She looks miffed for a couple of reasons. One: Radi, who gets paid to chill by the pool, has turned the color of a McDonald's hash brown, while Nadia, who cleans toilets all day, still has her creamy Euro-pallor. Two: Radi makes $8 per hour, and Nadia makes $7. But today is Nadia's once-per-week day off, and she's looking forward to basking with Radi by the pool for a few hours.

Radi unlocks the gate, unfurls the flags -- those of the United States, Maryland and Ocean City, in that order -- and posts them around the pool. She doesn't mind working seven days a week. Her biggest on-the-job challenge is getting the little American kids to understand her. "Wah-wuk," she says, and they keep running. "Everybody says that my job is easy," says Radi, who sometimes reads a paperback copy of Bridget Jones's Diary in Bulgarian when there's no one swimming. "But it's so hot out."

"Come to my job, and we'll talk," says Nadia. "I spend eight hours on my feet." Even if she can't sit by a pool all day, she still wishes that she were a hotel receptionist, not a maid.

Jerry Morris, Radi's boss, comes out to say hello. In part, he's responsible for Radi's impression that Americans are generous people. A retired businessman from Annapolis, he manages and lives in this condominium complex, lavishing Radi with drinks, snacks and Internet access. He takes pictures of her in her bikini and suggests that she e-mail copies to her family. Radi says, "He is a great man."

Radi has made lots of American friends while sitting by the pool. Many of them bring her drinks and offer her sandwiches for lunch. Morris announces that he's going to pay for Radi's daily bus fare, which is $2. "You're here to save money, and we're trying to help," he says.

"Oh, no, you can't do that," Radi blushes.

"You have no choice," Morris says. He's hired young Americans in the past to work at the pool, but he says that foreigners like Radi, who always shows up on time, seem to have a better work ethic. He doesn't want to lose Radi to another employer.

Morris starts talking about his cocker spaniel puppy, Cody. Nadia's eyes instantly brighten. At home she has a 10-year-old cocker spaniel named Sara, whom she misses as much as her boyfriend and Bulgarian cooking. In other words, terribly. Can she please meet Cody? Morris goes and gets the dog. Nadia crouches beside the dog and gets washed with puppy slobber. She giggles and scratches Cody behind the ears, not noticing the squirts of pee landing on her toes and running onto the pool terrace.

"Whoops," says Morris. "Cocker spaniels tend to do that." Radi runs off to fetch a watering can. It's her job to keep the pool area clean. She douses the piddle puddles. Another squirt from Cody hits Nadia before she realizes what's going on. "He pissed on me," she shrieks. "Oh, no -- now I'm his."

After leaving the pool, Nadia heads to Wal-Mart. The other Bulgarians have given her a shopping list, wanting everything from stereo speakers to hand cream.

Nadia strolls through the wide aisles, drops merchandise into her cart, deflects a come-on from a blue-vested associate and stalls with both indecision and amazement before an entire row devoted to lotions: "Oh, it's so confusing in here." After checking out, she halts her cart at the automatic doors that are sliding open and shut for the relentless tide of shoppers. She hears the beckoning call of America's biggest private employer and heads to the hiring center in the back of the store.

Since arriving in Ocean City, both Nadia and Radi, like many foreign students here, have been looking for second jobs. They had a disastrous tryout at a pizza parlor in a strip mall. The restaurant was busy when they arrived, Nadia recalls. She says that no one gave them instructions -- at least not slowly and clearly. Nadia suggested to the manager that she and Radi come back another time to learn what to do. "If you can't handle it now," Nadia remembers being told, "then you can't handle it ever." The Bulgarian women walked out in disgust.

A few days ago, they finally found second jobs at Dumser's Dairyland outside of town. The boss offered just four night shifts per week, which Nadia and Radi could split. Nadia's already worked one shift. She liked it, except for the no-smoking rule. And the employee benefit -- one dish of ice cream -- strikes her as stingy, given the many gallons that she saw tossed into the trash at the end of the night. Radi seemed less thrilled: "There are so many kinds of ice cream," she complains.

Now Nadia stares at the computerized application machine at Wal-Mart. She spends 20 minutes entering data: address, date of birth, references and her Social Security number, which she finally got this morning. She comes to a series of statements that she must rate on a continuum, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. "A good employee always supports the organization when an outsider criticizes it." Slightly agree, Nadia enters. "A majority of individuals succeed in business merely because of chance." Slightly agree, Nadia enters. She keeps entering "slightly agree," at first because she doesn't really understand some of the statements and later because she doesn't bother to read them. She looks at the top of the screen, where it says that there are dozens of statements left. She's growing impatient. This is ridiculous, she says. She hits the quit button and walks out of Wal-Mart.

The next morning, Nadia is sipping coffee and folding rags. The windowless room in the Stowaway Grand Hotel is filled with female maids, young and old. On Nadia's left sit a pair of Mexicans, also folding rags. One of the women leans over and whispers in Spanish, Are you coming to the party tonight? Of course, Nadia responds in Spanish, a language she honed during a summer in Spain. Nadia is surprised that her Spanish is getting more use than her English. The larger culture that swirls around her still feels alien.

One afternoon on the boardwalk a woman approached her with a pamphlet and told her, she recalls, to "trust in God. He will listen to you." Nadia is, at least nominally, a member of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which doesn't engage in this sort of open-air proselytizing. "I'm scared of those kind of people," Nadia says. "They do this and that and will go kill themselves in the name of the Lord."

Another day she sits on the boardwalk, people-watching. A vacationing couple walk past, pushing a 3- or 4-year-old child in a stroller. Is it normal, Nadia asks, for American parents to push children who are clearly old enough to walk? She says that, in Bulgaria, as soon as a kid can walk, the stroller goes. This child, she predicts, will grow up to be lazy. And maybe fat, too.

Nadia really doesn't know what to make of American women. One day she sees a frumpy woman driving through Ocean City in a fancy BMW. The sight puzzles her. In Bulgaria, she says, only a beautiful woman with a rich boyfriend could drive such a car. Nadia is also mystified by the people whose toilets she scrubs. She has the impression that the typical American leads a carefree existence.

"They drive their cars to work, they rest. I don't think they think about things so much." And Nadia feels invisible to them. "I'm sure no one here asks himself: 'Who are these girls? How do they live?'"

Tap. Tap. Tap. "Housekeeping," Nadia speaks into a closed door. When there's no answer, she unlocks it and steps inside. The room is strewn with the signs of teenage American girls: shorts with print on the rear end, flip-flops, empty beer cans. It's Senior Week in Ocean City, and for the maids at the Stowaway Grand the carnival is, mercifully, almost over.

The teenagers have been slobs, Nadia says, but she's been most irked by the lack of tips. "They can afford $150-a-night room, but they don't leave a tip?" she says.

All the windows look out onto the beach. I want to be out there, she points at the sunbathers, surfers and kite fliers. Instead, Nadia toils. She finds a sock on one bed and dramatically lifts it with a finger, holding her nose with the opposite hand, dropping the garment beside its twin in the corner. She and her partner, a fellow Bulgarian named Martine, take turns cleaning toilets, their least favorite job. Nadia teases a fellow maid from Mexico who shrugs her shoulders when one guest asks for directions: "Soreee, no eeenglish." Another Mexican maid tracks down Nadia and reminds her about tonight's party.

By the end of the day, having cleaned 25 rooms, Nadia pockets $5 in tips and heads out to wait for Radi. They've got a ride to the party, which is at a house in the Eastern Shore town of Delmar, about 45 minutes away. The occupants of the house are Mexican construction and hotel workers. With more people than bedrooms, there are mattresses on the dining room floor.

Pounds of sirloin are being marinated in a concoction of beer, lime juice and chopped garlic. Music blares from a small stereo, and the Mexican hosts -- Nadia's fellow housekeepers and their friends -- pass drinks to the two Europeans, whom they call las bulgaras. Radi knows hardly a lick of Spanish but jokes with a short Honduran man who tries to correctly pronounce her last name, Tsenova. Nearby a woman from Santa Cruz, Mexico, tells how she almost died of thirst three years ago while illegally crossing the Arizona desert en route to Ocean City. She says that she desperately wants to go home, but her 14-year-old daughter depends on the money she sends back to Mexico.

The green salsa, made of avocados and chilies, is lava in Radi's mouth. Nadia shies away from the salsa, too, but they devour the tangy grilled beef, wrapped in warm corn tortillas. After dinner the party reconvenes in a local barroom filled with Latin music and dancing couples. Las bulgaras take off their shoes and dance with the assorted men who invite them onto the parquet floor; afterward, laughing and punch drunk, they compare the soles of their feet, which are caked with dirt.

They sleep in the Mexicans' house and the next morning get a lift back to Ocean City. Nadia gets dropped off at the Stowaway Grand, and Radi has time to go home and take a shower. Just as she's about to leave for the pool, a look of horror crosses her face. She's riffling through her backpack. The pouch with more than $550 is gone.

Radi unlocks the pool gate at 10 a.m., right on time. But she doesn't hang the flags. She keeps looking through her backpack, a vain hope. Jerry Morris, her boss, strolls by, and she tells him about the missing money. "Ouch," he says, pursing his lips grimly.

Soon a call is made to the Mexicans' house, and the host listens, through a translator, to Radi's description of the small pouch of money. She had it with her when she went dancing. Maybe it fell out of her bag when she was getting ready for bed. She doesn't say it, but maybe the pouch was stolen. The Mexican host calls back and says that he searched the house but didn't find anything.

It is a terrible day at the pool, Radi later says. The sky is overcast, and almost no one shows up to swim. Radi is left alone to stew in her own otchaiana. She has to work at the ice cream stand tonight and won't have time to look around her house for the pouch. So Morris decides to send her home early.

When Radi walks through the door, she finds one of her roommates there. He starts looking around his bed -- aka the living room couch -- and there, among the rumpled sheets, is Radi's brown pouch. It must have fallen out when she flung down her bag, heading for the shower. Later she describes the relief she felt. "It was like a stone fell from my heart."

There is a lull between salad orders, and Ksusha Afonia stands in the kitchen over a tray of steaming silverware. The young Russian woman grins broadly when asked about her job at Ristorante Antipasti. "I like it very much. I like the staff." She also likes the pay, though she's making $3 an hour plus tips instead of the $8 an hour the owner first promised. Ksusha, though, is hardly complaining. With tips from the waiters, she says, she earns $60 to $70 a night. "It's very good for me."

Katja Lopatina, meanwhile, is sprawled out on her front porch, a few blocks from the ocean. After two months on the Ocean City employment circuit, she's less chipper than her friend the salad girl. Katja got laid off from the hot dog stand after a few days, she says. The boss gave her $100 along with her walking papers. "That was very generous," she says. From there, jobs became revolving doors. She stormed out of her job at a Chinese restaurant after the owner yelled at her. She was a hostess at a restaurant, but that was too boring, she says, and she quit. She worked as a prep cook in another restaurant, but no one in the kitchen spoke English, which she wanted to practice speaking, so she quit there, too. At last, she says, she's found the perfect job, waiting tables at a Phillips seafood restaurant.

"I consider it to be quite an achievement," she says. "Phillips is one of the best places a girl can work in this town . . . Not only am I the first Russian, I am the first foreigner [to work there]. I broke the Iron Curtain."

Nadia's elbow started hurting one day at work in early July. It was nothing, she thought, and kept vacuuming. But soon her whole arm went numb, and she started crying. "I'm not going to be able to work," she remembers thinking.

Her supervisor immediately sent her to a doctor, who diagnosed tennis elbow. The hotel, which paid for the doctor's visit, put her on two weeks of light duty so she could rest her arm. This meant that she wasn't vacuuming or scrubbing toilets, just changing bedsheets and dusting. But it also meant that she had to quit the job at Dumser's Dairyland -- scooping ice cream, she figured, was not a wise idea. And, with no second job, Nadia knew that her goal of saving $3,000 for her cosmetics boutique was shot.

"I won't get that," she says. "I'll just have the money to give back to my parents and to buy some stuff." She's thinking about buying a digital camera and taking a trip to New York with Radi before heading home in early October. People keep telling her that the rest of America is a lot different from Ocean City.

Nadia was recently asked to work as a hotel receptionist, the job she'd once hoped for. There wouldn't be tips, but the hourly rate would be 50 cents higher. She would also get to practice her English more. But something had changed. Nadia no longer minded being a maid. She loved her co-workers, didn't like the thought of dealing with irate hotel guests and decided to remain in housekeeping.

She doesn't regret her summer here. She says that it has made her more resilient and self-reliant. And she acknowledges she's been having fun. She shows pictures from another party with the Mexicans, where she's dancing with a man almost half her height.

She and Radi have made friends with a few American men who live nearby. Mostly they party together. It's nothing more, says Nadia, who's committed to her boyfriend. But she says that one of her Bulgarian roommates, a 21-year-old woman, has been dating a 35-year-old American man who talks to her about getting married.

"That's not for me," Nadia says. "I don't want to live here."

Like Nadia, Radi no longer expects to leave Ocean City with a pile of cash. She also quit her job at the ice cream shop, which she simply didn't care for. She wouldn't mind picking up a new second job, but she's not too worried about it. She and a friend have been trying to earn cash by washing boats at a nearby marina. Radi has become buddies with more people at the pool, and her friends are planning to throw her a party before she leaves.

Radi and Nadia inhale the aroma of sizzling pork strips, prepared Bulgarian style: salt and lots of black pepper. One of their roommates mans the grill. He sips from a can of Milwaukee's Best, clicks his tongs and flips over the meat. He's a prep cook at an Ocean City bar and can't get over how bad American food is. Nadia and Radi, who are sitting on the patio of their house in West Ocean City, launch into their own denunciations of American cuisine. After two months in Ocean City, they want nothing more than a hunk of Bulgarian cheese.

The grill master soon sets down before the women a small plate of seasoned pork, which is tender, juicy and quickly devoured. Nadia is still hungry. She reaches for a loaf of Wonder Bread, a jar of mayonnaise and an open tin of Spam that was purchased by one of her roommates. In Bulgaria, people don't eat ham from a can, but Nadia is hardly repulsed. She digs her knife into the Spam, slathers the bread with mayo and sinks her teeth into the sandwich. It is, perhaps, the worst food America has to offer -- and Nadia says it's not that bad.

Tyler Currie is a Magazine contributing writer. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.