The Housekeeper

by Natalie Barelli

  “I can see you’ve done this before,” she says, and I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic or not, but I wish she’d stop looking at me.

  “Lovely room,” I say.

  “Thank you. I insisted we redecorate it.”

  “What did it look like before?”

  “Oh, let me see. Some dark-blue-and-gold damask wallpaper over on that wall, an enormous photograph of a naked woman lying down, from the back, across from a four-poster bed with a plum-colored velvet canopy and a huge glass chandelier.”

  “So why did you change it?” I ask, and she cracks up.

  “Can I leave you for a minute? I have a call to make,” she says.

  “Sure.”

  It’s just Mia and me now. We stare into each other’s eyes, hers way more trusting than mine. I’m struck by how long her eyelashes are, how thin the skin on her eyelids is, almost translucent, and how utterly perfect she is. Her skin is like porcelain, but warmer. It occurs to me that babies are like a blank slate—they haven’t been disappointed yet; they think the world is a happy place, that promises are meant to be kept and recycling really is a thing. What will be her first letdown, I wonder? Her mother, obviously.

  She smiles at me, a wide grin, genuine and radiant with happiness, as if she were saying, Oh, it’s you, that’s really great, and it’s like a current passes through—from her to me—and it makes my eyes swim. When Hannah returns and takes her from me, I find myself hanging on just that little bit harder and Hannah has to give an extra tug.

  Finally, Hannah introduces me to Mr. Carter. We are in his office, a large room with a big mahogany desk in the center, a bookshelf that takes up all of one wall and framed pages from medieval illuminated manuscripts hanging opposite. The effect is so impressive I almost curtsy.

  Harvey Carter is shorter than I expected. He shakes my hand and welcomes me to their home. He tells me that he works in a law firm and he’s very busy. “You’ll hardly ever see me,” he says. His offices are somewhere downtown and he often works late. Occasionally he’ll be needed in the London office for a few days. Hannah adds proudly that he’s one of the founding partners, and he coyly brushes her off.

  He seems like a nice person with a big, open, friendly face, and when he looks at Hannah, that whole face lights up. I imagine that face when he realizes that he’s been had—when she announces over caviar hors d’oeuvres that it’s not working and she’s leaving him; when he receives the demand for millions of dollars from her very expensive, very adversarial divorce lawyer; when he happens upon the cover of a tabloid and sees his ex-wife sunning herself on a yacht, her toes being sucked by some tanned, ripped stud, and he realizes he’s paying for it all, stud included.

  I feel a wave of outrage on his behalf, and I mentally telegraph to him that it’s going to be okay, that it won’t come to that. That I’ve got this. That I’ll get to her before she has time to do any damage to him. Because while we’ll make home videos, Harvey and I, I’ll never use them. I only need them for leverage, that’s all. I’m not an evil person, and I’d never hurt an innocent party. I mentally telegraph that too as I stand there, demure and sweet and blushing with shyness. I suspect that’s his type.

  Chapter Twelve

  It’s my first morning and my alarm goes off at six thirty. I turn it off and go back to sleep because she said they’ll get their own breakfast this morning, and what difference does it make if I get up at seven or eight or nine? But then she knocks on my door. “Everything all right, Louise?” and I have to say my alarm hadn’t worked.

  “Won’t happen again,” I say, still groggy from sleep.

  * * *

  They have phones in almost every room in this house. The system doubles as an intercom, which is how she can call me if she needs me. That first morning, the phone rings and I pick it up, thinking that’s what I’m supposed to do, and I’m about to blurt Carter Residence! when I hear her voice on the line. “Hi, Dad.”

  My heart does a somersault. Her father. That abominable man whose ugly red face has haunted my nightmares ever since I first laid eyes on him. It should have been him who died, instead of my father. I think about that often, and then sometimes I think about killing him too.

  “He said no,” Hannah says. “Sorry.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I can hear him breathing through his nose, long, loud breaths, like he’s gearing up for a fight.

  “I’m sorry,” she says again.

  “Don’t you want to help your old dad, then?”

  “It’s not like that, it’s not my money. I can’t make him.”

  He snorts. “You rich people are all the same, aren’t you? The more you have, the less you want to part with it. I didn’t think you’d end up like that, not the way we raised you, your mother and me.”

  “Dad, come on. Enough. I would if I could, you know that. It’s not my money.”

  “How come it’s not your money, when you’re his wife? I don’t know how they do it over there, but where I’m from, married couples share everything. They look after each other. Any money I have is your mother’s. She’d know, she spends enough of it.” He coughs; it goes on for a while.

  “Sharing, Hannah,” he continues finally. “Sharing your good fortune, and being honest with each other. That’s how marriage works.”

  “What do you really want fifty thousand for, Dad? You’re not gambling again, are you? You haven’t been at the track again? Because I’m not sure you’re being honest about what you want the money for.”

  He pauses, and it goes on for so long that I think maybe he’s hung up, but then he speaks again. “Speaking of being honest…”

  “What?”

  “Harvey said something interesting at the wedding. I can’t get it out of my mind; maybe you can help me out. He said, ‘I can’t wait to take Hannah around New York. I can’t believe she’s never been there before.’ And I thought to myself, well, what a funny thing to say.”

  “You didn’t tell him, did you?” she blurts.

  “That this isn’t your first rodeo? Nah. I figured you must have your reasons to lie to your husband,” he sneers.

  “I have to go, Dad. Mia’s crying.”

  “You do that, sweetheart. And don’t call us back again, unless you’ve got some good news for us, all right? Not that you’ll want to anyway. Now that you’ve got all that money, you should find plenty to keep you occupied. Just don’t call here again, all right, sweetheart? You ungrateful witch, I can’t believe you’d break your mother’s heart. Again. You fucking—”

  She hangs up on him, and I do the same, but way more gently. I can’t believe Hannah has never told her husband about her past. Or maybe I can. Because one thing’s for sure, nothing has changed in that family. They’re still the same pack of hustlers.

  * * *

  Usually, Harvey leaves for work about eight in the morning, and before he goes, he’ll spend maybe twenty minutes in his home office. On my second day, I get in there early and pretend to clean with the feather duster. I don’t get the point of those things since they essentially move dust around from one location to another, inches away, but it’s a nice prop. On one shelf are a number of boxes of various shapes and sizes. Some are made of wood, some are covered in cloth, some are made of porcelain. I open one at random, and it looks like an old set of painting brushes and some strange tarnished metal cigarette holders.

  “Ah, I see you’ve found my calligraphy collection.”

  “Oh, Mr. Carter. My apologies, I thought you’d already left.” I’m blushing furiously as he comes to stand next to me. He takes out one of the smaller silver tubes, opens one end of it, pulling out the stopper, and drops the contents into his hand. “These are antique nibs. Arabic. See how sharp the edge is? That’s how they get the type of stroke.” He turns around and points with his chin at one of the artworks on the wall covered with strange lettering, then carefully puts the nibs away. “Calligraphy is a bit of a hobby of mine,” he says, “although I d
on’t use these, of course.” He opens a long wooden box in which are various inks and nibs and fountain pens, all snugly set inside a dark red cushiony lining.

  “They’re beautiful,” I say. He nods. “Did you do any of these?” I point to the various framed calligraphy works.

  He chuckles. “No, I’m still working up to that. Maybe one day.”

  He puts the boxes back and picks up a stack of papers from the desk. I’m still feeling embarrassed at having been caught out but relieved he doesn’t seem to mind. Then I figure I may as well make the most of the situation.

  “I’ll get out of the way, Mr. Carter. I can finish later.” He returns to his papers, and I turn around and quickly undo the second button of my blouse so it gapes in the right place. Then I blow off a little speck of dust from the top of a bronze angel’s head, to show I take pride in my work. I walk past him and quote, accidentally, end quote, brush my tits against his arm. He looks at me and frowns. I apologize but my eyes don’t leave his.

  Now, I don’t expect Harvey Carter to fall in love with me, obviously. But I am hinting at a free offering. A little gift from me to the master of the house. And it’s not usually that hard. I remember back when I was in high school, public high school, and living with cousin Emily. Her awful kids always got great grades in everything in their private, independent school, where they studied things like flower arrangement and pottery. I still remember going to see my cousin Sasha perform some idiotic contemporary dance thing with flowers in her hair while her brother Todd played the violin very badly in the crappy student orchestra, and afterward all the adults agreed that they were geniuses. The night before the next concert I broke Todd’s violin strings using a pair of nail clippers. He didn’t realize until he pulled the instrument out before walking out on stage. They never figured out it was me; they accused some other kid who apparently was jealous of Todd’s talent. As if those kids really had any talent to begin with.

  Anyway, the point is, my own grades were not that good—orphan, public school, surprise surprise—and one day cousin Emily imposed a curfew on me until things improved.

  I was fifteen years old, and the only subject I liked and was good at was creative writing. It was run by our English teacher, Mr. Clegg, who found me after class one afternoon crying in the hallway and took me back to the empty classroom, closed the door and asked me what on earth was the matter. I told him through sobs how much I hated cousin Emily. I’d fallen in love with the books of Charlotte Brontë and told him that my life was like Jane Eyre’s, only much worse. He nodded a lot and kept licking his lips. He had very fat lips, thick and plum-colored. Then he asked me to unbutton my blouse so he could see my breasts. I was shocked, I said no. But then he said how beautiful I was and how he thought about me all the time, so I did as he asked. I was also a little in love with Mr. Clegg and by the time I went home I was determined to lose weight for the wedding and was picking names for our children. Mr. Clegg was already married and had children of his own, but I decided he was terribly unhappy, and that was Mrs. Clegg’s fault, and that I would never ever make Mr. Clegg unhappy. When I think of this now, I cringe. Surely these were the fantasies of a much younger girl. Anyway, I didn’t stay naive for long. I discovered that if you love someone, they might not love you back, but if you do what they say, they will like you for a while. And take care of your grades! Hooray!

  Anyway, back to Harvey Carter. He smiles at me quickly, in the way people do when they just want to get away but they don’t want to be rude, and he’s gathered his papers and he’s gone now. I don’t usually get this wrong, and I wonder if I’ve lost my touch. This is very annoying because I need Harvey Carter to play his part, and I bite my knuckle hard enough to leave the imprint of my teeth around it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It’s been three days, and it goes without saying that I hate this job already. Harvey is working long hours and I haven’t been able to get any time alone with him. Not even ten minutes.

  I never do any actual cleaning, obviously. I just shake my feather duster here and there and call it work. Same with the vacuuming. Just push it around a bit. Maybe dab some fake sweat on my brow whenever she walks past. But it’s still a strange feeling to catch sight of myself in the mirror, a lint-free cotton cloth in one hand and a jar of Danish wax furniture polish in the other. It makes me want to do something crazy, like eat the contents of the jar and then puke all over the Louis XV commode, see if that makes it shine. But then I remind myself why I am here, and then I feel better.

  I got to check out her bathroom today, all under the cover of cleaning it. I love her bathroom; it’s large and light with a Moroccan feel because of the blue-and-white tiles and the light fixtures. Visible through an arched doorway is the gorgeous freestanding bathtub sitting under the window. I imagined myself lying in that bathtub, bubbles up to my chin, turning the tap off with my pedicured toe. I found some Ambien and some Xanax in the bathroom cabinet and normally, I’d swipe them both, but not this time. I did help myself to a Xanax, though. God knows I need it.

  I have to come up with all sorts of ways to hide my duplicity. I know that Hannah doesn’t cook, and neither do I, obviously, but Louise Martin does. She wouldn’t have been hired otherwise. Fortunately, they do their own breakfast, and Harvey isn’t at home for lunch, so Hannah will usually fix herself a sandwich. For dinner I’ll buy things like fettuccine in a packet and a jar of gourmet pasta sauce from Fairway, or some frozen veal cordon bleu that comes in a box and goes in the microwave. In the kitchen I’ll line up ingredients more or less randomly on the countertop as if making something from scratch, just in case. I’ll even drop an olive on the floor and sprinkle herbs over the stove.

  Yesterday I opened a jar of tomato paste and noticed it had a small grey round of mold on the top. Now, I’m the type of person who, at this point, would throw the whole jar away. This time I carefully scooped the mold with a wooden spoon and added it to the ready-made sauce that was gently warming on the stove. Sometimes she’ll come into the kitchen just to have a chat, so yesterday I said to her that I don’t like people hovering when I’m cooking. I said it in the nicest way. “It’s just a quirk I have. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Van Kemp didn’t mind one bit.”

  “Oh, no problem, I’ll keep out of your way, then.”

  If only. One thing about Hannah is that she has no friends, except for a woman called Eryn who knows Harvey from way back and is only a few years younger than Hannah, so “Harvey thought we’d make great friends, the way people do with children of the same height,” is how she described it to me. “And I’m not sure, but I think she wants my husband,” she added, whispering.

  “Really?”

  She shrugged. “Just a feeling. And the way she is around him. Like a butterfly. Although she is quite beautiful.” She sighed.

  “Does it bother you?” I asked. Please say yes.

  “That she likes Harvey? No. Why should it? Harvey could have had her. He chose me, so…” She smiled coyly from one side of her mouth.

  I don’t know why Hannah tells me these things. Maybe it’s because she’s so friendless and lonely. She follows me around the house like a puppy. I vacuumed the stairs this morning because I’m worried she’ll notice I’m not doing any work, and also to shut her up because when she’s not sleeping, which she seems to do an awful lot of, she talks, like, all the time. I don’t usually have people to talk to, except maybe April, and even then, it’s not like we chew each other’s ear off for hours on end, so being around Hannah is taking some getting used to.

  * * *

  It’s the middle of the afternoon, and I’m fake-sweeping the terrace. It’s pretty spectacular up here. The terrace runs the entire length of the building. It’s large with a stone floor, and in lieu of a railing is a low wall of brick pavers with green potted plants along it. If I lived in this house, I’d spent all my days here.

  Hannah appears in the French doors. “Ha, there you are. I’m making myself a coffee, would you lik
e one? Mia is asleep, thank God!”

  I follow her to the kitchen, thinking she wants me to make the coffee, but no. She tells me to sit down, puts a plate of chocolate chip cookies in front of me and pops a capsule in the coffee machine. When we both have our steaming cups in front of us, she sits down at the stool opposite me, puts her bare feet on the bar and starts nibbling on the edge of a cookie.

  “How did you meet Mr. Carter?” I ask, resisting the urge to shove the entire cookie in my mouth at once.

  She smiles. “I used to have a flower store in Toronto. That’s where I used to live. He was visiting on business, and he came by to buy some flowers.”

  “Is that it?” I ask after a moment. She laughs.

  “It was the end of the day and I was locking up, and suddenly he was there, knocking on the door, breathless. He gave me the same spiel I’d heard so many times over the years: ‘Please don’t lock up! I need to buy some flowers! It’s an emergency!’ Invariably, the emergency is that they’ve only just realized it’s their wedding anniversary and they need flowers. Right now.”

  “Makes sense,” I say, reaching for another cookie.

  “I said no, the flowers are already in the cooler. I told him to go to the supermarket, they have flowers there. He was very insistent. He wanted something special. He said that a colleague of his had just had a terrible day and needed cheering up. At least that was different, so I asked what had happened, and he said her cat had been run over. I had a cat. I loved my cat, so I gave in. I brought out an arrangement of birds of paradise and calla lilies. He said it was perfect, and he couldn’t thank me enough. Then he came in again the next day and bought a small plant for the apartment he was staying in. He explained he was only here for a short time, on business, and the apartment he rented needed cheering up.”