The Housekeeper

by Natalie Barelli

  The door has closed again, and I don’t want to go inside in case she spots me. Would she recognize me? I doubt it. Most days I don’t recognize myself. I am nothing like the slim, confident girl from all those years ago. Back then I had porcelain skin and long, wavy blond hair that cascaded down my back. Now it’s dull and limp. If my mother could see me now, after all the money she spent on my education and appearance, I swear she would die. But then she’s already dead, so…

  It should have been me, in there, getting my hair styled by Alex Moreno, stylist to the stars, and she should’ve been at home, wherever that was, her head hanging over a small, chipped bathroom sink, her hair sticky with Clairol Nice ’N Easy in Medium Caramel Brown, with cold rivulets of water running down her neck and wetting the back of her T-shirt.

  I get close to the glass, but the frosted pattern makes it almost impossible to see inside. I move to a spot with more glass, less frost, both hands cupped around my face.

  There she is. I stare at her in the large wall mirror, what is left of my heart breaking into a thousand shards. She’s flicking through a magazine, eyes cast down. She’s prettier than I remembered, more … woman, self-assured. Something in the way she runs one long finger over her eyebrow. Behind her a guy with a short stubble is waving a hairdryer around her head, and there’s a moment when her hair flies out in all directions and she looks like Medusa.

  And then she looks up. At me. Her eyes meet mine, and I stand back and hold my breath. But I’m wearing a pair of knockoff Burberry sunglasses, the large wide-framed type, and as I said, I don’t look anything like the happy, naive thirteen-year-old I was then. Proving my point, she goes right back to staring at herself while her hair gets pulled and styled and straightened. She has no idea who I am.

  There’s an Italian bakery on the corner with a single wrought-iron chair and a small round table outside. I sprint over to it, feeling the sweat trickle under my armpits, and I don’t think it’s just because of the temperature. I settle myself on the chair and drop my bag on the table, scouring the contents for a crumpled Kleenex, then pat the beads of sweat off my neck. Then I put the phone back to my ear and pretend to listen, but my eyes are trained on the front door of the salon.

  What is she doing in New York? She lives somewhere out in the sticks, doesn’t she? Somewhere cold and wild where they cut a circle in the ice, drop a fishing line and call it lunch? She must be rolling in money if she can afford to get her hair styled at Alex Moreno’s. Isn’t she scared someone might recognize her? I am biting the skin around my thumbnail so hard I draw blood. Small specks of it, pearling on the edges. I’m still holding my cell against my ear when a heavyset woman with tight black curls and a white apron comes out of the bakery with both hands on her waist and her head tilted at an angry angle. “Can I help you?” she snaps.

  No, you can’t. Get lost.

  I’m not looking at the hair salon anymore. I point at the phone as if that explains everything, because I’m not going to waste five bucks on an overrated espresso. Not even if it’s made with Icelandic glacial water and then filtered again for extra purity. I’m about to tell the woman that my fiancé has been in a car accident and I’m trying to find out which hospital they took him to, when she walks right past me.

  She doesn’t notice me, doesn’t even throw a sideways glance in my direction. She readjusts the strap of her Chanel monogrammed bag on her shoulder, and I catch the diamond-and-platinum wedding band on her finger.

  “No, thank you,” I say.

  I throw my phone back into my bag and follow her.

  * * *

  I don’t know where we’re going or how long it’s going to take, but I am right behind her anyway. I keep back a few paces, enough to keep track of her but not so much that I’d fall over her if she stopped abruptly. She looks so pretty, so confident, with her summer skirt flowing left and right in time with her brisk step. She’s wearing a light denim jacket that on her manages to look elegant and cool, with her wavy brown hair down to her shoulders and parted in the center. Like her skirt, her hair bounces prettily with every step while I am biting down on my own teeth and digging nails into my palms.

  She crosses to the other side of Madison Avenue and stops abruptly outside Ralph Lauren, and I feel exposed. If she turned around right now, she’d see me sticking out like a living statue on the street corner. I fish around my bag for my cell, pull it out and pretend to check the screen, but all the time I have my eye on her. She pushes her sunglasses—real brand ones, I bet, not some knockoff pair she found on the bus—to the top of her head.

  As it happened, there is a text. From April. Everything ok? it reads. But she’s on the move again. She flicks her wrist, and I figure she must be running late because she takes off faster. I sure hope she doesn’t hail a cab, but if she does, I am ready, with my cell in hand, to snap the license plate so that later I could call in and spin a story that would hand over the destination.

  There’s a French pâtisserie on the next corner. I know it well, and normally I’d stop and get myself a macaron because eating is what I do, but not this time. My stomach is clenched shut.

  Now we are walking along Central Park, and I am sweating profusely. I knew I should have worn a skirt in this weather, but I’m not a skirt person, not with this body, and now the fabric is chafing my skin on the inside of my thighs.

  She turns onto East Sixty-Third and I cross to the other side before doing the same, as if going places of my own. She stops outside one of the nicest townhouses on this block, a brick brownstone, more red ocher than its neighbors, with a large terrace on the top floor. Then, abruptly, the front door opens and swallows her inside.

  I used to live two blocks from here. Everything around here is familiar to me because it is part of my childhood, which is why I never, ever come here if I can help it. I have not been above Thirty-Fourth Street for years.

  I wait a few minutes in case she comes out again, and then I cross the street and scan the front door. There’s no plaque, nothing to indicate who she’s seeing inside. I press my palm against the stone, its granite texture digging into the soft pads of my hand. I keep pushing until it hurts.

  “Are you all right?” a voice asks behind me. I turn around.

  “Yes, thank you,” I say to the elderly woman in my sweetest voice. She nods briskly and walks on.

  I had a life once, a life nicer than most. The kind of life you have when you live in a brownstone just like this one.

  Then Hannah Wilson showed up and took it away from me.

  * * *

  I think of Hannah Wilson just about every day. Some days I try really hard not to think about her, which just makes it worse. Hannah Wilson is like a scab on my heart. I pick at the events of ten years ago, usually without thinking. It’s just how things are. Sometimes I imagine a different outcome, one where we find out what she’s really like before it’s too late. In that fantasy, the whole world finds out how evil she is, how wronged our family was. The world feels sorry for us, and she goes to jail. But it just makes me more angry, and within minutes into the fantasy, my chest is throbbing with indignation anyway.

  * * *

  April is already there when I get home that night. She’s never home before seven. “Is it that late already?” I ask, fake-surprised like a spouse who promised to be home in time for dinner but instead has spent the last hour at the bar having just one more for the road.

  “You got the job,” she says, ignoring my question. She’s standing at the sink, her back to me, turning faucets on and off again and dropping this morning’s breakfast dishes in the rack.

  “How do you know?”

  “They couldn’t reach you, so they called me. Where were you all day?”

  “Huh, I got the job. Wow.” I pull out a chair and sit down heavily. I’m surprised. And flattered, too. I think that if I hadn’t seen Hannah, I might have taken it. Strange to think about that, considering all the time I’ve spent actively avoiding getting a real job.
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br />   She turns around. “Are you pleased?”

  “I’m not going to take it, April.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Because there’s no way I can go to work, move on with my life. Not now that she’s back.

  “It’s not for me. Sorry.” I try to smile, but she shakes her head and turns back to the sink. I fill the void by telling her how sorry I am and that I appreciate what she’s trying to do.

  “You’re a good person, April. And a good friend.”

  “Next time, wash your own dishes. I’m not your maid.” We don’t speak after that. She does what she always does—changes into her tracksuit pants and T-shirt, slips on her bed socks and drops herself on the couch to watch TV. At some point she’ll get up and heat up a bowl of noodles or one of those low-fat meals she keeps in the freezer. I retreat to my room, where my stash of chips and candy bars awaits, then stay up half the night looking for Hannah on social media.

  * * *

  There are lots of Hannah Wilsons in the world, but the one I’m after doesn’t like social media, which is not surprising, considering. But a few years ago, I found out she part-owned a flower store in Canada called 99 Petals. It was a public page, and there was a photo of her and another woman standing outside the storefront. Her name was in the caption, but I would have recognized her immediately anyway. It made me bite the inside of my cheek so hard it hurt to eat after that. She looked happy, which was the worst part.

  At first I assumed she worked there, but after reading the post—something about celebrating one year of the store—I realized she part-owned it with the other woman in the photo. Just knowing that she’d moved on like that, that she had a good life, made me want to bite someone.

  I called the store and ordered thousands of dollars’ worth of flowers. I was very convincing; it was for a celebration at a megachurch nearby, I’d said. Our usual florist was unable to oblige. I gave the real name and address, and even paid a hundred-dollar deposit. Then I waited until the day itself, when I figured they would have prepared all the arrangements, and I reported my credit card stolen. I told my bank I hadn’t ordered flowers from Toronto, why would I? I don’t know anyone there. Then I added, “It’s funny, though, because a friend of mine got their card charged without their knowledge, for thousands of dollars’ worth of flowers. I’m pretty sure it was the same place. Maybe you should get your fraud department onto them. Sounds like a front for a shady business.”

  I don’t know if they lost thousands of dollars’ worth of flowers in the end, or if the bank investigated their business for fraud, but I like to think both are true.

  Anyway, I didn’t find her last night. Nothing on Facebook or Twitter. I pored over Instagram, but I found nothing recent. Just a couple of shots from long ago on that flower store account.

  After that, I tried to sleep but only managed snatches of moments with my eyes closed and the start of dreams of falling.

  Chapter Three

  This morning, April has left already without saying goodbye. I make myself some breakfast, then I call Alex Moreno’s and tell them I am calling on behalf of Hannah Wilson.

  “Who?” they say.

  “Hannah—” I stop myself. She’s not Wilson anymore. I saw the wedding ring, and the engagement ring with a stone the size of a small planet. “Hannah. She was there yesterday, late morning?”

  “Oh, you mean Mrs. Carter?”

  Mrs. Carter. Okay, there are lots of Carters out there, but that’s a start.

  “Sorry, we’re old friends,” I say, gagging inside. “I’ve known her for so long under her maiden name, Wilson, I always forget to call her by her married name!” I laugh, and she does too, because she has excellent customer service skills.

  “I’m calling on the off chance you found her glasses case? It’s pearl-colored, with a gold rim. She thought she might have left it there.”

  She’ll check immediately, she says, if I could hold? Of course. Thank you. There’s a bit of noise and talking, but muffled, as if she has her hand over the phone. Then she comes back and she is very sorry but no such case has been found. Does Mrs. Carter believe she left it at the salon?

  “She’s not sure, it was just a thought. Oh well, if you happen to find it, could you have it delivered back to Mrs. Carter?”

  There’s a tiny intake of breath, understandably. After all, what’s stopping Mrs. Carter from coming back to pick it up herself? And if it’s not there now, why would it turn up later? But again, top-notch customer service skills. I’m going to leave a review on Yelp as soon as I hang up.

  “Of course. We’d be happy to,” she says.

  “You have the address?”

  “One moment.” I hear fingers on keyboard and fear she’s going to ask me to spell it out. I’m thinking of ending the call—Oops, sorry, going through a tunnel, can’t hear you—when she reels off the exact address and asks, “Is that right?” But my heart drops and I hang up abruptly after all. It’s the same building I saw her walk into. That address, it has to be one of the most expensive properties in Manhattan. And she lives there? I bite on my index finger until I almost bleed, leaving small purple teeth marks in a crescent shape. Then I bang my fist on the kitchen table, almost knocking the mug over. I pick it up and throw it hard in the general direction of the sink, but it doesn’t even break.

  * * *

  An hour later I am walking slowly past the building, glancing at the heavy oak door before continuing to the end of the block. I scout out both sides of the street, then turn the corner and lean back against an iron fence. I don’t even have a plan, because I am stupid. I can’t keep walking up and down the street; I’d get arrested before I had the time to say Hannah Wilson, remember her? But there is no café, no park, nowhere for me to sit idly and wait.

  What there is, however, is a bar. Right across the road. It’s one of those exclusive establishments, furnished with leather and mahogany and where you might sip a single-malt in the afternoon. Not my usual haunt, but it will be open for lunch and it has a large window made up of little squares of glass bordered by a timber frame. I still have two hours to kill before it opens, so I walk over to Central Park—which is literally right there—and find an empty bench. If Hannah lives in that building, then I am in no rush.

  I pull out my cell phone and open Instagram. Then, my chest heavy with apprehension, I search for Mrs. Hannah Carter, and boom—her face jumps out at me, beautiful and happy, and it hurts so much that I have to put the phone facedown on my lap for a moment. But I have to know, so I look again, my stomach clenching a little more with every exquisite photo.

  Hannah Carter getting married at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, flowers everywhere. Mrs. Carter, a vision in white tulle and small pink buds. Mrs. Carter standing outside the church with confetti in her hair, laughing at something her husband had said. Mr. Carter with one arm encircling his wife’s waist and the other lifting a glass of champagne, on a terrace at dusk. Then Mrs. Carter on her honeymoon in a picturesque small town in Provence, taking a selfie with green vineyards behind. Another one with the two of them, on a terrace overlooking the Eiffel Tower. In every picture, he looks like he can’t believe his luck, and she beams at the camera. I bite my knuckle again so hard I know it will leave a bruise.

  Fuck you, Mrs. Carter. How did she do it? How did she ensnare him? She can afford a wedding in Manhattan and a honeymoon in France while I have to flash my boobs just to make the rent? I’ve been hustling a living since my folks died, stealing cash from relatives and wiping tables. No one was offering to marry me at two hundred bucks a head for a hundred-person guest list, linen and decorations not included.

  I lean forward, press the heel of my hand against my forehead and will myself to calm down. I tell myself that now that I’ve found her again, maybe I can do something about it. It would be like a project. It would distract me. Within minutes, my pulse has returned to a manageable rate and I am breathing normally again.

  I take another look at the s
creen. He’s not what I expected, Mr. Harvey Carter, which means he’s exactly what I expected. He’s not particularly good looking, certainly nothing like her. He must be in his late forties, early fifties. He wears thick-rimmed glasses, and his head is bald on top. He has a round face, and in every photo he is smiling. He reminds me of my father. My pulse again gets away from me, and I look up to take a breath—and there she is, walking right past me, only a few feet away. She must have just turned off her street.

  I shove my cell back in my bag and follow her down Fifth Avenue. She stops at a building two blocks away, and I wait until she’s gone inside to check the copper plaque beside the door. Dr. Malone. MD, Psychiatrist. That cheers me up. Could the marriage already be on the rocks? Has life turned out to be harder than she thought? I take a photo on my cell and upload it to my fake Instagram account.

  #somepeopleareevil #somepeoplearesick #somepeopleareboth

  I get a handful of comments immediately, mostly because it’s so cryptic and I never post stuff like that.

  #allwillberevealed.

  I grab a bagel with cream cheese from a deli across the street and eat it on the walk back, without waiting for her. I kill time, an hour or so, by going in and out of fashion stores and trying things on I have no hope of buying. Then I go to the bar, where I settle by the window and order a cup of coffee. Hannah returns and goes back inside, but not much happens after that, and by the third cup, the pretty waitress asks me if I’m waiting for someone. She feels sorry for me, I can tell. She thinks I’ve been stood up, but that I just can’t see it, like I can’t give up and I’m going to wait as long as it takes because I know, deep down, that he’s coming for me.

  “No, it’s just me,” I tell her, crushing her little fantasy into a pile of dust.