The Housekeeper

by Natalie Barelli

  She walks into the kitchen as I’m unloading the dishwasher. I can’t bear to look at her, and when she says, “I’ll give you a hand,” I tell her I’m almost finished. I’m afraid I’ll hit her if she gets too close.

  She’s going to a fundraiser this evening, a gala for research in something or other.

  “Do you know it’s my first proper outing with my husband since moving to New York? Harvey says he can’t wait to show off his new bride to his acquaintances, although part of me thinks he’s just making that up.”

  I can’t tell even tell if she’s telling the truth anymore. I think from now on, I should just assume she’s lying. Nothing she can say to me now will make me change my mind. Clearly, the only way to deal with this new reality is to go along with it.

  “Don’t be silly,” I say, still not looking at her. “He’s so proud of you. Anyone can see that.”

  “No pressure, then,” she says. “I’ll have my hair done all the same.”

  “You sure you’re excited? You don’t seem excited,” I say.

  “I’m just, you know—”

  I do know. I know before she says it. I’m tired.

  Is she lying about that too? I mean, she doesn’t work—she does nothing, pretty much, except spend time with Mia. She wakes up late, and when she’s up she drags herself from room to room like a post-op patient. Harvey even asked me about it the other day. How did I find her? She’s a little pale, I’m worried about her, he said. He asked me to make an appointment for her with their family doctor. “She won’t do it otherwise. I keep asking her.”

  “Leave it to me,” I said. Then I made soft eyes at him, but he was already gone. I didn’t make the appointment. I don’t give a shit.

  Then Harvey calls to say he can’t go to the gala. Some drama at the office. I’m putting the last of the glasses away, pretending that I’m not eavesdropping.

  “But the tickets are a thousand dollars each. Can we even give them away this late?” she whines, although I suspect that mentally, she’s dancing a little jig. Then she says something about Eryn.

  “Everything okay?” I ask when she hangs up.

  “He can’t make it. Some emergency meeting, contracts that have to be redrawn, and unfortunately there’s nothing he can do about it. But he’s asked Eryn to go with me instead.”

  “Eryn?”

  “Harvey knows how much I wanted to go, and he didn’t want me to be disappointed,” she says. Clearly, he doesn’t read his wife very well. “I wish he’d asked me first. I know he means well, but the whole point of me looking forward to it was to go out with him. Anyway…”

  “Can you cancel?” I ask.

  “Not really. She’s coming to pick me up at six p.m. Oh well, I’m sure it will be fun,” she says in the tone of someone who is sure of the exact opposite. She checks her watch. “I should go. I have a hair appointment and a manicure. I’ll be back around four.”

  * * *

  I have hours to myself. Mia is asleep, and I actually consider kicking my shoes off, grabbing a chilled bottle of Cristal champagne from the wine refrigerator and drinking straight from the bottle. I could even take a bath in her beautiful bathroom. She has a jar of Laura Mercier Crème Brûlée Honey Bath that comes with a special wooden honey spoon, and some eye-wateringly expensive face mask made out of caviar or something. She probably wouldn’t even notice if I used her things. And even if she did, I could always blame Diane.

  But I don’t do any of that. I check her notebook, but there’s nothing new, so I go downstairs and take a nap.

  * * *

  I’d forgotten about the dress until Hannah called me into her room. She’d just returned from her shower and was wearing her silk robe. She held up the dress, still on its hanger, and the sight of it made my stomach lurch. I expected her to say something like, what on earth did you do, Louise? And I was all set to blame Diane, but instead she handed it to me and asked me to give her a hand with it. It gave me a little thrill all the way up my spine, because that dress, it’s not going to fit, and how nice is it that I’ll be here to witness that?

  She pulls her robe down so that it sits halfway down her back, and I’m a little taken aback but she’s wearing some very nice underwear, so all is good. She admires herself in the full-length mirror, says that she’s lost some weight, she’s been working out. I wonder if she expects me to agree. To tell her how fabulous she looks. I wonder if she expects me to care.

  “Will you help me put it on, please?”

  I take the dress off the hanger, my heart beating faster because I sure hope I get away with this, and when I look up again my eyes are drawn to a spot just above her bra. There’s an odd mark there, like a scab. She catches my eye in the mirror and quickly shrugs her robe back on.

  “Close your eyes,” she says. I do as I’m told, but not before I see her cheeks go pink.

  What was that? I wonder. What else has she been up to? Then I hear her swearing under her breath.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, my eyes still closed, even though I know exactly what’s wrong.

  “This is stuck,” she says. “Would you give me a hand?”

  I open my eyes and I know I’ve overdone it. I’m looking at her from the back. The dress is bunched up over her thighs, and even unzipped it looks like it’s about to bust open. Still. It’s hard not to laugh.

  “I guess it’s too small.”

  She swears under her breath and starts to pull at the sleeves. I tell her to relax while I pull the dress up and over her head. It gets caught in her newly styled hair, so that was a complete waste of time.

  I tell her to calm down while I untangle her hair. Finally I manage to get it off. She quickly reaches for the silk robe and puts it over her shoulders.

  “Maybe I should tell Eryn that I’m sick. I’ve got fat person flu.”

  I don’t reply. I try to imagine what this scene will read like in her journal. Louise told me I was really fat and then she pulled my hair!

  But then something occurs to me. I could save her, again. Just like I did with Diane. I could make myself indispensable. Every time something went wrong, I could be there, ready to make things right, like Mary Poppins. I’ll get her to confide in me eventually. I’ll get her to trust me. I’ll find out what the fuck she’s up to.

  “I’ll tell you what, let me have a quick look and see what I can do, all right? I’ll be back in a sec.” I leave her there, shaking her head, on the verge of tears.

  It’s a heck of a lot easier to undo the stitches than it was to put them in. Even the little tears in the lace are not obvious because, well, lace.

  “Let’s try again,” I say now, brandishing the dress.

  “That was fast! What did you do?”

  “You’ll see.” I want to slip it over her head, but she does that whole “close your eyes” thing like we’re not both female, and I’m not twenty pounds heavier than she is. Whatever. I just humor her. Although I would have liked to take another peek at that mysterious mark.

  “Oh my God!?”

  I open my eyes. It’s perfect. I zip her up and admire my handiwork. As in, my undoing of my handiwork.

  She gushes for the next ten minutes. What did you do? You’re a genius! But how?

  I ask if she had it altered when she bought it.

  “Well, yes! Just a tuck here and there, nothing major.”

  I raise my arms. “There you go! Every time! From now on, always use Marco’s downtown. Less glamorous maybe, but impeccable work.”

  There’s no Marcos downtown, obviously.

  She hugs me, which is awkward, and kind of revolting. I stand with my arms dangling by my sides until it’s over, and she says, “Wait, I forgot, here.” She opens a drawer and pulls out an envelope. “Your pay. In cash, like you asked. I put a bit extra.”

  She presses it into my palm, and I weigh up whether to count it right here and now, but then the doorbell rings.

  * * *

  I guess my mind is elsewhere with all tha
t business with the dress so when Eryn comes in, I don’t look at her closely. I look at her, because how could you not? She with the long, tanned legs of a supermodel and the face to match. Just not closely.

  I serve them champagne on the terrace, and even then I don’t pick up on the way she’s looking at me. I figure she’s just curious because Diane is gone and I am her replacement. I listen inside the French doors as Hannah describes some of the things Diane had done, like the rat and the calls, and how Harvey hasn’t been very supportive. Then Eryn asks about me, and Hannah gushes about how wonderful I am, and how I can sew, and I’m the best cook, and Mia loves me, and so on and so on. Eryn cracks a joke about stealing me, and Hannah says no way, you can have my husband if you like, but hands off my housekeeper, and I don’t know why but it makes me angry. I want to tell them that they’re a couple of hypocrites, that I bet they think they’re so progressive and I bet they vote liberal and they sign all the petitions about health care and work conditions, but back inside their ivory towers they make jokes about whether they can steal their friend’s maid and shriek in mock outrage. Not my maid! Have my husband instead! But then I remember that I’m not the maid, I’m not the housekeeper either, I’m just pretending. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.

  Hannah goes to fix up her makeup, and Eryn waits for her downstairs. When I walk past with the tray of glasses and the empty champagne bottle, I say something like, have a good evening. She squints at me, like she’s near-sighted and has forgotten her glasses. It makes my hairline tingle.

  She narrows her eyes at me and tilts her head. “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t think so, ma’am,” I say, but something about her eyes. It tugs at something on the edge of my brain. Eryn… And then it comes to me. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her sooner. Eryn. The Johnson girls. Eryn and her sister Bella. Eryn and I were in the same year at school before we moved away.

  “Where did you work before? Maybe that’s where I know you from.”

  I almost blurt it out. I worked for the Van Kemps. For years. But I catch myself just in time because what if she knows the Van Kemps? Spent the last ten Christmases at their house? Had met the real Louise Martin? All she’d have to do is make a call on the way out, Darling, remind me, that housekeeper of yours, you had her for years. Yes, Louise, that’s it. Did she have big boobs?

  “Dr. and Mrs. Lowe,” I reply, my chin lifted in defiance. “A very nice family.”

  She nods slowly, her eyes still narrowed, and I can smell a whiff of stale alcohol emanating from her. But it’s in her eyes. She’s going to figure it out. I can see her little brain working. Tick, tick, tick… I’m getting nervous. She’s just staring at me, and my mouth is set so tight it’s making my lips tremble. She’s going to say it.

  Oh, I know! Claire Petersen! That’s it! Groton. Freshman. Remember me? Eryn Johnson?

  If I weren’t carrying the tray, I’d grab her right now. I would put my hand behind her long neck and shove her into the open elevator. I would press the button for the basement before she’d have the time to fight me off. I can see myself doing it. I’m considering it. There’s a boiler room downstairs, next to the laundry. It has a lock and I know where the key is. I could keep her in there. I could tie her up, leave her down there until I have what I came for and all this is over.

  She’s still thinking about it, tilting her head this way and that, when Hannah arrives and pulls her by the sleeve. “Come on! We’ll be late!” And that’s enough to make Eryn’s mind move on to the next thing, like a goldfish. Before they walk out, Hannah whispers in my ear. “I probably don’t need to say this, but please don’t let anyone in.”

  “Of course.”

  I can hear them all the way down the street as I stand at the door—which I do not close until they’re out of earshot, in case Eryn says something about me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Philippa Davenport and I had been best friends since third grade. We’d sit on her pink satin bedspread and do each other’s nails and listen to Mariah Carey on repeat. She had a cook called Anna who would bring us crepes with Nutella and ice cream and slices of strawberry cheesecake. We were in love with Justin Timberlake and Harry Potter, and we spent countless hours planning our weddings in minute details, from tiaras to profiterole cakes (we were obsessed with profiterole cakes).

  Philippa’s fourteenth birthday party was to be held at the Pierre Hotel, in a sumptuous, grand circular ballroom. The theme for the party was the Debutante Ball, which to us was the most exciting thing in the world. The real Debutante Ball is an invitation-only formal affair, where young ladies of distinction from upper-class families are presented to high society. We were all such young ladies of distinction, and the real ball was still at least three years away for us, but this was the next best thing.

  Philippa and I prepared for it for months. We talked nonstop about what we would wear, even though it was a given that every girl would wear more or less the same thing: a white satin gown and matching gloves that went all the way past our elbows.

  Hannah had been and gone from our lives by then. There had been some confusion as to why, having made such a fuss of coming to New York, she’d only stayed for a week before begging to be sent home, but I wasn’t interested. She was a blip on our landscape, a kink in our road. As far as I was concerned, she may as well not have existed at all.

  The adults were also invited, but at the last minute, my father didn’t come. Something about him not feeling well, and I was vaguely aware of something going on at home—hushed voices behind closed doors, my mother looking teary, my father shaking his head a lot. My mother and I walked in the gorgeous room lit by enormous chandeliers, like a rain of crystal drops cascading from ornate glass frames and adorned by a series of painted angelic scenes in gilded frames, as exquisite as if Raphael had descended from the heavens to paint them all himself. The room was enchanting and the most glamorous room I’d ever stepped in.

  My mother joined the adults for cocktails while I went searching for Philippa. There was a photo to be taken of all of us girls, and I was instructed to join the others. I saw them giggling and jostling each other as the photographer and Philippa’s mother organized everyone. I had never felt so beautiful in my life, in my white dress like a soft cloud and my blond hair in soft curls held up with diamanté combs.

  When I think about that day, I try to stop there, before the titters of laughter that had begun farther down the line reached me. Before I leaned forward into the closed group of girls and asked, smiling, already laughing in anticipation, what the joke was all about. Before I caught sight of Philippa hurriedly scrunching a piece of paper and shoving it into her tiny white purse.

  Something about the way they were laughing, with their gloved fingers almost touching their lips, the glances they were throwing at each other but not at me, made me pause. “What is it?” I asked again, this time directly to her. She didn’t answer. Something wasn’t right. My heart beat too hard in my throat as I snatched Philippa’s bag from her and grabbed the crumpled paper from it.

  “Hey!” she shouted. I dropped her bag to the floor, and a Tampax rolled out onto the carpet and came to a stop against my toe. Just like that, everyone was quiet. They all watched me as I smoothed out the creases from the page. It was an article, torn out of some shitty tabloid.

  Wilson vs. Petersen. Did He? Or Didn’t He?

  It took me a moment to understand why I was looking at a photo of my father. It was a headshot, one I’d seen before in his firm, framed on the wall of the lobby.

  Did he, or didn’t he what? I turned around, away from their prying eyes and stifled giggles, and I read on about Hannah Wilson’s claim that my father had tried to rape her in our home, repeatedly, that he had touched her, and it got so bad that the family had to send her back. The Wilsons were suing for millions.

  The room was spinning. It was no longer glamorous and sumptuous, it was grotesque. Some cheap set in a suburban fair where the music
was too loud and the people waltzing looked like demented clowns. They were laughing again, now that someone had picked up Philippa’s fucking Tampax and no one needed to be embarrassed by that anymore.

  There was a tug at my elbow, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t read either because the article was shaking too violently in my hand.

  “Claire, honey.” I turned around slowly to look at my mother. She was white as a sheet, her mouth set into a tight line. “Come on, honey, let’s go home.”

  But I was trapped on the merry-go-round, with the room still spinning and the orchestra still playing and the clowns still dancing, and the noise of laughing growing louder and louder around me.

  I dropped the newspaper cutout and let myself be dragged away, hot tears stinging my eyes and shame burning my face.

  Funny, I’d forgotten Eryn Johnson was there that day, laughing at my humiliation right in my face.

  * * *

  I’m pacing around the kitchen, biting the skin around my nail, with Mia looking at me from her chair. I’ve screwed up. I’ve been complacent, enjoying seeing Hannah miserable. I’ve wasted so much time, and now I’m about to be caught. What if Eryn asks Hannah about me? What if Hannah tells her that I worked for the Van Kemps and Eryn knows them? What if it comes back to her, just like it did with me? Surely not. She couldn’t possibly associate me now—the Carters’ overweight, plain-looking, boring housekeeper—with someone she briefly went to school with ten years ago. I don’t even look like myself. And even if I did, it’s not enough to jump to conclusions, surely. But none of that makes me feel better. It’s clear to me that the only solution is to get Eryn away from Hannah.

  I grab my cell and call Dominic. He’s in a bar, he can’t hear me properly and he has to go outside. I wait, trying to come up with the right words. When he comes back on the line, I can hear traffic in the background.

  “Hey, stranger,” he says. Dominic has sent me two texts since we last saw each other. I didn’t respond to the first because I didn’t know what to say. Then I made vague promises to catch up soon in response to the second.