The Housekeeper

by Natalie Barelli

  Bingo! I feel like I’d scratched off a lottery ticket and won fifty bucks. “That’s just … terrible. And what did you do for this Mrs. Carter?”

  She knocks back her glass, and when she puts it down again, it’s empty. I do the same and quickly signal the waiter for another round, already wincing at the damage this evening is going to do to my Visa card.

  “I am—was—the housekeeper in the Carter household.”

  I nod. The waiter puts down our drinks in front of us. My heart is racing as I hand him my credit card. “Keep it, for the tab,” I say, then wait until he’s gone and whisper, “You were the housekeeper?”

  Diane nods and this time only takes a sip, thank God, leaving the rim with a pale, sticky imprint of her lips.

  “I was. All the way back to the first Mrs. Carter.”

  “There was a first Mrs. Carter?”

  “Yes, but they got divorced. Mr. Carter kept me on, which was nice.”

  “What’s the second Mrs. Carter like? Other than a complete and utter bitch, obviously,” I laugh. But she flinches and I quickly add, “For firing you, that’s what I meant.”

  She nods. “She’s different. Very different from the first. I mean, the first Mrs. Carter, she had style. She was a real lady. And she was really busy, all the time, because she worked so hard. The second Mrs. Carter? She doesn’t work, at all, so I don’t know why she’s tired all the time.”

  “Right, right, good question. Why is she tired all the time?”

  She makes a face, like she’s reluctantly admitting to something. “She’s got the baby.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ve never looked after children, let alone babies. I don’t know what to do! I said to her once, you should hire a full-time nanny, since you’re so tired all the time. She looked at me like I’d suggested she send Mia to the moon.”

  I nod. “Like Laika the dog.”

  “Like who?”

  “Never mind. Keep going.”

  She shrugs. “That’s it.”

  “Really? Okay, well, what about Mr. Carter? What’s he like?”

  “Very nice. He’s an old-fashioned gentleman. Mr. Carter is always calm, always kind, very patient with little Mia, too. Although he works hard, so he’s not at home much. He’s a partner in a law firm. His first wife was a lawyer too.”

  I think back to the photos of their wedding. A nice, rich guy like that? He would have been the ideal mark for Hannah. He never stood a chance.

  “What’s the house like? Must be something, huh?”

  “Beautiful.” She dabs at her eyes again. “You should see Mr. Carter’s art collection. It’s like a museum, only more beautiful. I took very good care of his art pieces. I was very particular with them. I know he appreciated it.”

  “Art collection?”

  “Big colorful paintings, sculptures, and the antiques. Furniture like you’ve never seen. It’s a beautiful place, the Carters’. But she’s not from this world. You can see that a mile off. And I’m not used to babies, but I did my best, and I enjoyed it. I like little Mia. She’s sweet as pie. But I have work to do, you know?”

  “Of course you do. If I may, why did she fire you?”

  She twirls her glass, which is empty again, and I take the hint. I’m biting my bottom lip as I signal the waiter for yet another round. At this point I don’t even know if my card will cover the bill.

  Small red circles grow on her cheeks. She wipes her nose with her sleeve. I put my hand on her arm. “I was only trying to help her,” she says. “To explain how to behave in such company, how to run a house like that, that sort of thing. Like I said, she’s not the first Mrs. Carter, and that’s the truth. She just doesn’t have that kind of class, you know?”

  I do know, I assure her. Still, I shudder at the idea of being lectured by the staff.

  “But why did she fire you?”

  “I may have overdone it, I suppose.” By now she’s talking like someone who is not used to drinking, not so much because she’s slurring her words, although there’s that, but because she’s talking in circles. Like what a nice man Mr. Carter is, and how tired Mrs. Carter is. How the second Mrs. Carter is not like the first Mrs. Carter. At one stage she goes to the bathroom, and I slip her phone discreetly onto my lap. It’s a Nokia, one of those old-style ones that only makes phone calls and sends texts and not a lot more. There’s no passcode required, so I scroll through her minimal contact list to the Carters, then take a photo of the number with my own cell.

  She returns from the bathroom and drops her face in her hands. “What am I going to do?” she wails.

  I’m not buying the story about why she was fired. It’s too vague, for one thing. But I don’t think I’m going to get any more out of her.

  “I’m so sorry. Look, I don’t know this Mrs. Carter from Adam, but I can see what a…” I search for the right words. “Reliable woman you are. You present extremely well, you’re obviously someone who works hard and is prepared to go the extra mile. You’re clearly not someone who should be fired.”

  I pull out a bar of chocolate from my bag, break it into pieces while it’s still in the wrapper and open it with my teeth. She takes the piece I offer her.

  “Maybe we should go now,” I say. I don’t dare ask where she’ll go. I’m already constructing excuses as to why she can’t come with me when she says, “I better call my sister. I’ll go stay with her, in Queens. She’s recovering from pneumonia, so she’ll be glad for the company—and the help, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, good. Good.”

  “I think I should go and apologize to Mrs. Carter, what do you think? Maybe if I explained to her that I didn’t mean anything by it. And that I can help more with little Mia, too.” She nods repeatedly, her eyebrows raised like she’s prompting me to agree.

  “Look, Diane, I’m very sorry this has happened. I think you should go to your sister’s and have a few days off. Put your feet up. Watch Netflix. Sometimes, the Lord sends these challenges to us for a reason. Maybe there’s a better position right around the corner. In fact, I’m sure there is. Give it a chance. Give your future a chance, Diane.”

  She looks startled, and I don’t know what I’ve said wrong. Then she reaches for her coat on the seat next to her.

  “Thank you… Claire, you’ve been very kind.”

  She’s getting up already, and I ask her to wait while I signal for the bill, which my card manages to cover, incredibly. It’s raining, and I pull the hood of my raincoat up over my head. “Shall we walk to the subway together?”

  She shakes her head. I get the feeling she wants me gone, but I follow her anyway because I can tell she’s going back there. I just know it and it’s making me angry. She’s going to ask for her job back. She’s going to say she is so very sorry, Mrs. Carter, and worm her way back in, but I can’t let that happen. There’s a vacancy in the Carters’ residence now, and I want to keep it that way.

  She stands outside their building on the other side of the street. Upstairs, the drapes move and Hannah’s face is at the window.

  I step back behind Diane and whisper in her ear. “Oh, that’s her, is it? I know her. Her name is Hannah. She hates you, she told me. She can’t stand you and she’s been looking for a way to get rid of you.”

  I leave her there, looking like that wet rat a few feet away bobbing in the storm sewer, except that one is dead, so not the same exactly. That one looks like it’s been run over by a bus before getting stuck against the stormwater drain.

  Chapter Six

  It’s the next day, not a cloud in the sky, and the air feels fresh after all the rain last night. I’ve only just taken my seat at the bar when Hannah’s door opens and she appears with her baby in her arms. With her is an older woman with short white hair and masses of jewelry that I recognize from the wedding photos as Harvey’s mother, Patsy. She’s wearing a light beige raincoat, Burberry probably, and dark brown pants. She kisses Hannah on the cheek before adjusting her sunglasses, then walks away b
riskly.

  Hannah stands there, bouncing Mia on the spot for a moment, then takes a backward step before reappearing with something in her right hand.

  And then I see the baby’s hands in the air. She’s leaning forward in Hannah’s arms, toward the mailbox that hangs to the side of the door. Her little chubby fingers open and close, trying to grasp the edge of a white envelope. I am frozen, my coffee cup halfway to my mouth, waiting for what is coming next. My heart starts to beat really fast as I watch Hannah put the key in and slide her hand under the flap. Part of me doesn’t want to look; the other part would give anything to see the expression on her face, but she’s a little bit too far away for that.

  There’s a split second where she doesn’t move, and then she does this kind of dance, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It’s like she’s tap-dancing, bouncing around the dead, still-wet, still-sticky-with-blood, flat-as-a-pancake rat that I squeezed into the box last night. She’s shaking her hand like crazy, making little jumps on the spot. Jesus. Give her a cane and a top hat and put her on the stage, that woman is comedy gold. I lean forward to see what Harvey’s mother is doing, but she’s almost at the end of the street by now. She doesn’t turn around, not even when Mia starts to wail.

  “That must be a really funny scene you’re writing,” the waiter says from the next table, and I realize I’ve been laughing out loud the entire time.

  * * *

  Not wanting to brag, but the rat was a stroke of genius, hands down. Of course Hannah will think Diane, irate ex-employee, put it there. I can’t wait to think up more evil little deeds that, quote, Diane, end quote, might do to her. By the time I’m done, Diane will have a better chance at being selected for the International Space Station than getting her old job back.

  It’s almost seven p.m. and the lights have come on in the Carters’ household. All I see are shadows behind drapes passing from room to room. I know she’s not going out again, but I don’t want to go home yet because how often do you get a win like that? I can’t tell April about any of this (How was your day? Awesome. You’ll never guess what I did today!). But I want to be around people, I want noise. I’m excited and I’m happy and I want to get drunk. So I go directly to Paddy’s on Sullivan, which is a dingy, grungy old Irish pub where the lighting is dim and the drinks are cheap, and it’s also my local.

  I don’t remember much after that, just snatches: me laughing, falling over, a tattooed arm helping me up. And now I don’t know where I am. The sun is bright, streaming into the room between the brown drapes. My heart is beating too fast. My head hurts. I’m so thirsty it makes my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.

  I spot a glass of water next to the bed—at least I hope it’s water—with a barely-there layer of dust on top. I grab it and gulp it down. Then I hear noises, water running, things moving on surfaces. There’s someone here. I wipe a hand down my face. It reeks of sex and cigarettes. I close my eyes and try to remember what he looks like. A flash of black hair, a tattoo like ivy growing up and around his arm and along his shoulder blade. The same arm as last night in the bar. An image comes into focus. I can see myself tracing it with one finger while he takes a deep drag from a cigarette, dropping ash on his chest.

  “You smoke inside?” I remember asking, rubbing the ash into his chest.

  “You’re awake.” The sound of his voice makes me gasp.

  He’s leaning against the wall, his arms crossed on his chest. His hair is wet and he’s clean-shaven. No trace of the day-old beard that chafed my cheeks last night. Pity. I liked that. I pull the sheet up to cover my breasts and scratch my scalp with my other hand.

  “Hello,” I say. I wish he’d go now; I feel fat. Ugly. Exposed.

  “You’re okay?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Hangover?”

  I roll my eyes, which sends a pounding ache into my skull. There’s a couple of awkward seconds of silence, then he says, “There’s coffee in the kitchen. See you in there.”

  But I don’t go in for coffee. I get dressed and slip into the bathroom to pee. I glance in the mirror and roll my eyes at my own reflection. My mascara has smudged below my eyes. My face is blotchy from alcohol. I rummage through the cabinet and find some pills; I try to read the label but I can’t focus, so I just take them and shove them in my pocket.

  I don’t say goodbye, I just leave.

  * * *

  Back at the apartment, I rummage through my own bathroom cabinet for some painkillers, but I can’t find any. I figure that’s because I finished the last bottle and never got around to buying some more. I’m pretty sure I did that last time, too, so I guess if April has stocked up, she’s keeping them somewhere out of my reach.

  I lie down on my bed, but my head hurts too much to sleep. I gaze lazily around my small, pathetic room. Some days I don’t mind it; I think of it as a stopgap. But other days, it depresses the hell out of me. This is one of those days, so I get up again and go to work on my project.

  * * *

  One thing about Hannah, she almost never goes out. On the one hand, I can see why she doesn’t want to take Mia with her to her therapist. Dr. Malone would charge for the baby, I’m sure of it. Two hundred and seventy-five dollars, with ten percent off on her tenth visit. Would you like to purchase a lifetime pack for her now?

  But what about baby yoga? The petting zoo? Mommy and Baby Gym? I wonder whether Harvey keeps her locked up. Maybe he’s one of those controlling husbands who likes to keep his wife on a tight leash. Maybe that’s why she never buys expensive clothes; maybe he only gives her a microscopic allowance. They’re not hurting, though, that’s for sure. I found him in an article about “America’s Most Prestigious Law Firms”. The story is a couple years old, but still. His firm has offices in London and Singapore, and close to a billion in annual revenue.

  Hannah does take the baby out for a stroll occasionally, and once she went to the florist up on Park Avenue, Poppies & Blooms. I got very excited to see her chatting up some guy, or maybe it was the other way around. It looked innocent enough on the outside, and not at all like a lovers’ assignation, but then again, who knows what evil lies in her dark heart?

  I do.

  Anyway, days go by. Days! I do not leave my post in case something happens, like Diane showing up with her broken and contrite heart. Just to be sure she wouldn’t be welcome, I made a few late-night anonymous (but lispy) calls. Fuck you, Mrs. Carter. So much fun! But I need to remain vigilant, so I call work again and say that I am sick. Again? What’s the matter with you? I can hear the disappointment in Dr. Lowe’s voice. Sometimes I have to remind myself what a creep he is.

  Then, miracle of all miracles, a woman in her early fifties carrying a large buff envelope and wearing a wool coat, of all things, rings the doorbell just as I’m thinking of leaving. You can always tell people going to a job interview because (a) they wear clothes that don’t fit very well and are completely inappropriate for the weather; (b) they carry a folder, or a clipboard, or some kind of leather compendium if they really want to impress, where they file their pathetic little CV, half of which is made up anyway; and (c) they look up, for house numbers, which is what this woman has just done. I’ve had a job interview myself recently, and all three checked out

  When she comes out again, I am already in position—with my own large folder, which is part of my props at the bar, so that’s good luck there. I bump into her, silly me, because I’m not looking where I’m going, am I? I am too busy looking up at house numbers.

  “I am so sorry! Honestly, this is not my day. I have a job interview in two minutes, and I must have written down the wrong address because the people at number thirty-six over there definitely do not need a math tutor! Shit… oh, I love that coat, by the way.”

  She frowns and puckers her lips, but not in a good way. “A math tutor? I’ve just been to see about the housekeeper’s position”—she points behind her to the Carters’ house—“but the child is only a baby. I don’
t think she needs a math tutor!”

  I pretend to look over my notes. “Hum, no, definitely no housekeeping involved. Which agency sent you?”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “HSG. And you?”

  “Nope, not HSG. That’s too bad, I better go. Thanks for your help, and good luck!”

  Chapter Seven

  I just need a reference and then I’m going to contact these HSG people. I’m going to tell them that I am looking for a housekeeper position, live-in, please, preferably with babies because I love them so much. And I’m very, very good, just ask my reference.

  I have a cousin—a second cousin, to be precise—up in Connecticut. Her name is Emily. She’s older than I am, and I haven’t seen her in years, but we used to visit them when I was a kid. Then after my parents died, she took us in, and my brother John and I lived with them from then on. I didn’t really bond, mostly because I was too fucked up, too sad, too lost. It’s hard to cut through that, for anyone. John fared a lot better, I suppose because he’s so much younger than I am. I know he keeps in touch with them, and last I heard he was in college somewhere. I don’t know where, and I don’t care.

  One thing about Emily is that she never came to court to support us back then, but later, when I moved into her house, she asked me once, almost in a whisper, “Did he really do those things? Your father?” I could never look at her the same after that.

  We exchange cards at Christmas—and by that, I mean she sends me a card, and I vaguely tell myself I might send her one next year, or not, then put hers in the trash. I call her now and then to say hello. Usually when I’m drunk.

  If she’s surprised to hear from me, she doesn’t let on. We chat awkwardly about her kids, she asks if I’ve been in touch with John, I say no, she suggests I come and visit around Thanksgiving. I note she doesn’t say “for Thanksgiving.” She says it must be shockingly hot in the city even though it’s not even summer yet, and at least they get the sea breeze. I agree with everything she says.