by Helena Maeve
There was a reason I’d taken poli-sci as my major and not English lit, and it had everything to do with my tolerance for broody types. It was just my luck that one of those was waiting for me as I emerged from the shower. I shivered a little in my misappropriated terrycloth robe, padding barefoot to join him on the bed.
“It’s freezing in here,” I complained. “Can you turn the AC down a little? Like, by a hundred degrees?” I could pretend that the cold was to blame for my trepidation.
Elliot was quick to oblige. He wasn’t wearing any pants, still, but that didn’t stop him ambling about like he was in his element. In a way, he was. We were in his room and I knew for a fact that he was old hat at one-night stands. The whirring of unseen fans died down at the touch of a button, leaving us in near-complete silence. The warbling TV in the living room was faintly audible. On this side of the wall, Elliot had tuned the flat screen to some twenty-four hour news channel, the daily tragedies playing out muted and unnoticed.
“If you want to order room service or something, feel free,” he said. The awkwardness of the moment was palpable. “Minibar’s over there. Many tiny liquor bottles abound. Also some chocolate and the like…” He scratched a hand through his hair. “Right. I’m babbling. I’m going to grab that shower now.” At no point did he bother trying to conceal his own nudity. I honestly don’t know why I had bothered.
I contemplated taking him up on his offer and raiding the minibar—not for the booze, it was barely ten in the morning and soon I would need to pick up the kids from school—but in the end, I could manage my thirst without trespassing on Elliot’s generosity again. He had already paid for my coffee before he drove us to the hotel. As someone who didn’t have a lot of disposable income, I was scrupulous about incurring debts or setting myself up as some sort of moocher. This thing we were attempting, however satisfying in every other way, would never work unless I felt comfortable with Elliot. Abusing his kindness wasn’t the way to do it.
I found my panties on the floor, next to his shirt, and put them on, despite the crotch still being a little damp. It wasn’t the most pleasant sensation, but I would cope. I doffed the bathrobe to slide my bra on and shook off my dress. The wrinkles would fade. They weren’t that obvious anyway. I was prying one of my sandals from under the bed when Elliot returned, his skin glossy with condensation.
“Jesus,” I gasped. “You look like something off the Internet.”
His smile didn’t reach his pretty blue eyes. “You’re leaving?”
“Not right away.” I struggled to my feet, having found my missing shoe, and strove for nonchalance. “I wasn’t going to run out on you or anything.”
“Not like the last time, you mean?” Elliot’s eyebrows rose to meet his hairline.
“I don’t—” What? I hadn’t run out on him. We had parted ways on the understanding that he would call me and he hadn’t. The blame didn’t lie with me. Not even a little bit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Something in my tone must have tipped him off that he shouldn’t push his luck because he put up his hands in surrender and shook his head. “Sorry. Let’s not go there.”
“Let’s not,” I agreed, folding my arms across my chest. I was already there. I had lived there for weeks after his stunt.
“I said I’d drive you back…”
“I can take the bus.” Was that my wounded pride talking or my rational, reasoning, adult brain? I honestly couldn’t tell. All I knew was that happy, post-coital me had left the building.
Elliot pursed his lips. “I don’t know what I said to offend you— If you want to leave, leave, but… Please, let’s not ruin this. I had a good time and I think you did, too, so—” He covered the distance between us slowly, cautiously, as though I was some wild creature that would bite if he made any sudden moves. I shivered when his hands settled lightly on my shoulders. “Let me get dressed and drive you back, at least. I swear I’ll be as quiet as you like.”
I hated when men did this meek and conciliatory bullshit. I preferred screaming my lungs out until everything was in the open and we could both decide whether to take it or leave it, but I reminded myself that the most I could hope for with Elliot was two weeks. Did I want to waste that time on petty arguments born of the simple fact that I still hadn’t moved past my adolescent crush?
No, I didn’t. And it had nothing to do with stubbornly telling myself that my heart was bulletproof.
“You should put some pants on,” I said, sighing. “California’s liberal, but not that liberal.”
Elliot smiled, obviously relieved, and kissed me on the nose. I tried very hard not to feel like I was cowardly for backing down from a fight.
* * * *
It must have been around ten that night as I was doing the dishes that my phone vibrated on the counter. I snagged it with dull hope, thinking Elliot had finally made use of the phone number I’d scribbled with my own hand onto hotel stationery. Again.
I never learned. It was never Elliot.
Mr. Hamilton usually called if he needed me to pick something up from the store or if he wanted his dry cleaning taken care of. He never texted me.
Tonight, though, he was keeping it short and sweet—the news wouldn’t be improved by a lengthy chat, anyway. I scrolled through my contacts once I had read his text and shot Paolo a message of my own. This afternoon, I had filled him in on the Hamiltons’ impromptu vacation and told him he could come in a little later than usual if it was just the two of us and the kids, but that happy scenario had just been altered. The thought left me slightly deflated and I went to bed feeling both guilty and frustrated.
I heard the Audi creep into the driveway sometime around four in the morning. The street outside was quiet and the Hamiltons banged the doors of the Audi shut without mercy. My room faced the front of the house, which meant I could enjoy traffic noise from six a.m. on while the lady of the house slept undisturbed in her rear-facing boudoir, but on this particular occasion, I had a front seat for whatever fresh new drama was about to descend on us all. I padded gingerly to the window in case it wasn’t the Hamiltons fetching up with such fanfare but the world’s most unsubtle burglars. No such luck. Mrs. Hamilton stalked up the front steps in a navy and white getup, her Pilates-strengthened shoulders draped in a fringed white pashmina. She didn’t look up. Even if she had, I was wreathed in shadow and, I hoped, hidden from view.
Poor Mr. Hamilton followed more sedately behind, hefting their luggage. Moments later, the front door opened and closed. Footsteps echoed on the landing. I cracked my bedroom door open against my better judgment and peeked outside. I told myself I was worried that all the commotion would scare the children. It had been a struggle getting little Zara to sleep and I didn’t want all my good work undone.
I could only see a sliver of the first floor landing from my room, but it was enough to spy Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton arguing. They were trying to keep their voices down, but their body language left little doubt as to what was being said. Mr. Hamilton reached for his wife’s arm only to have her jerk violently out of his grasp. She jabbed an accusing finger into his chest, hissing something that I couldn’t hear and wasn’t sure I wanted to. He backed down, visibly deflating, and Mrs. Hamilton stalked off to her own room.
That separate sleeping arrangement they had suddenly made much more sense to me. I wouldn’t have wanted to sleep with a partner like Mrs. Hamilton beside me, either.
Mr. Hamilton hovered for a long moment on the landing then, to my surprise, I saw him hoist his gaze up. To me.
His eyes found mine all too easily. I was too shocked to hide. Had he known I was there all along? Was I getting fired? Fear froze me in place. Mr. Hamilton smiled a little crookedly, hitching up his shoulders as if to say Well, what can you do? I couldn’t offer much by way of commiseration. I was too busy feeling like my heart might burst through my ribcage.
Eventually, Mr. Hamilton made his way to the master bedroom and disappeared from view. The door clicked shut a
moment later. Marital disputes must have taken it out of him, to say nothing of the five hour drive from Santa Barbara. I was about to follow his example and go to bed myself when Riley’s door crept open. Shit.
I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire of whatever was happening between the Hamiltons, but I had a duty to the kids that took precedence over my fear of dismissal.
I padded quickly down the stairs and pressed a finger to my lips when Riley opened her mouth to ask what was going on.
“Your mom and dad just got back,” I told her once we were back inside her room, the door closed to shield us from prying ears.
Riley frowned. “Already?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what she’d heard and what I had missed. “I guess Santa Barbara isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Come on. Get back to bed. It’s still early o’clock.”
I got Riley back under the Hello Kitty covers she maintained were immature but wouldn’t let me give to charity whenever I offered, and made to go back to my room.
“Miriam, wait.” Riley stopped me, her hand catching my wrist. “Can you stay for a while?”
Paolo had told me that Mrs. Hamilton didn’t approve of the kids sleeping in the same bed together and I could only imagine what she’d have to say about my sharing a bed with one of them, but Mrs. Hamilton was also the reason why Riley didn’t feel comfortable sleeping alone. She would have to deal. “Scoot over,” I told Riley and lay down over the covers. My ratty old pajamas were enough to keep me warm. “You want a bedtime story? I know one about a rebel without a cause.”
Even in the dark, I could see Riley roll her eyes at me. It didn’t matter, as long as I managed to get a smile out of her. She was a good kid. She deserved better parents—or at least parents who were emotionally available.
Hell, even my mother with all her myriad flaws and her old-fashioned world views would’ve been a vast improvement on Mrs. Hamilton. I made a mental note to give her a call tomorrow. We hadn’t spoken much since I’d decided to blow off a degree in political science in favor of raising other people’s children, but I missed her and something told me that she missed me, too. Maybe I could tell her about the kids. That was neutral ground and I had every right to take pride in their improving school results.
If I had achieved nothing else in the two years since I’d finished college, at least I had made a small impact on Phoenix, Zara and Riley—who fell asleep knowing she had someone to watch over her.
I waited until I was absolutely sure Riley was out before I made my way back to my room. By then it was almost five o’clock and I didn’t see any point in trying to sleep. I powered up my laptop and dressed by the bluish light of the LCD screen. It was a weird feeling, as if the whole world was asleep and I was doing something slightly illicit by breaking with tradition.
Speaking of tradition… I braved my inbox. Penny’s last email was still starred, still unanswered. I hadn’t been a very good friend lately. Sure, I was hurt that she hadn’t told me about the wedding—much less invited me to attend—but I also knew that people made mistakes. I was still waiting for my mother to forgive mine.
I typed Penny a quick note, trying to straddle that perilous line between friendliness and gushing ass-kissing, and sent it without a second thought, resolved to think nothing more of it. I still had one of Elliot’s books to read, which occupied me plenty until six o’clock, when I felt I could be forgiven for heading downstairs and setting the espresso machine in motion.
Paolo showed up about an hour later.
“I don’t know what happened,” I told him in a whisper, “but they were at it like cats and dogs when they got home.”
Paolo pursed his lips. I didn’t press the point.
“Do you know when they’ll be up?” he asked as he started preparing breakfast.
“No clue. They came back around four, so…” They also weren’t mine to worry about. I had three kids to get up and ready for school and that was more than enough to occupy me.
“Miriam,” Paolo said, soft and stern, just as I was about to go attend to my duties. “I hope you won’t discuss what happened last night with the children. There’s no need to trouble them.” He didn’t look up from whisking eggs into a frenzy, but his tone left little doubt as to how serious he was. Protecting the family was Paolo’s prime directive. I’d understood that the moment I took the job. That didn’t mean I enjoyed him taking that tone with me.
I shot him an icy smile, even though it went unseen, and said in Spanish, “I won’t. I’m sure the children heard enough for themselves.”
Who did he think he was, telling me how to do my job? I stalked off, aggravated, only to find that Zara had wet herself again and the sheets needed changing. If this was the barometer for how the rest of my day was about to go, I felt sorely tempted to crawl back into bed and skip Tuesday altogether.
I couldn’t do that, of course, so I pressed on, speeding the kids through breakfast and tooth brushing. By the time I dropped them off, I was itching for a Valium. My phone rang before I could give medication any serious thought. It was Penny.
“You have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice,” I gushed, letting my head drop against the back of the seat. I had taken the BMW again, banking on Mr. Hamilton sleeping in this morning. I hoped I had done the right thing.
Penny tittered. “You too. It’s been so long. Do you have time to meet for a coffee?”
I told her I did without a second thought and made plans to meet her by the Embarcadero, where we used to hang out back in college. Penny maintained that it was the best place to pick up guys who weren’t American., but in all the years I’d known her, I had never seen her actually try to flirt with anyone. Romance happened to Penny and her relationships tended to be long-term, slow-burning flames. Whenever I went through a dry spell, I had to admit I envied her constancy. Then I remembered I’d never met a man I liked to be with for longer than a couple of days and the envy would dissipate for a while.
It always resurged, though, like a stubborn weed.
I sent Elliot a text to let him know I might not be able to make our ten o’clock date-type thing, without giving him a reason why. It was for the best, I reasoned. We had met three times in the past three days and I didn’t want that to become habit when in ten days from now he was going to be driving his bike back to Nantucket.
“Miri!” Penny’s voice dispelled all thoughts of Elliot. She tottered toward me on neon green platforms, somehow succeeding to avoid a broken neck as she wove between tourists out for their morning constitutional. We hugged like schoolgirls, like sisters. Like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. “Oh, you haven’t changed at all,” she beamed, holding me at arm’s length.
“Just expanded horizontally,” I said, but it was without heat. Penny was slim and narrow in the hips, the kind of waifish beauty that attracted men with a strong protective streak. Her iron-curled raven hair bounced when she laughed.
“You’re fine,” she said. “Come on, I want to know everything. What’s new? How’s work?” That was the other thing about my best friend—when she talked, she talked a mile an hour. I suppose that was why she made such a good auctioneer. Well, that and the fact that she had finished her MA as a curator cum laude, which employers in certain areas still found impressive.
We found a small café by the waterfront, and I told her what I could about my job. I left out the parts where my employers were not so covertly re-enacting the Cold War and the bits about Zara still not talking at the age of four. “How’s Dustin?” I asked, mindful that maybe I was monopolizing the conversation a little too much.
Penny waved a hand. “Oh, he’s fine. Working hard. They’re rehearsing Gershwin right now, so he’s over the moon.” Penny’s fiancé—now her husband—was a cellist with the San Francisco Symphony. She hadn’t quite married the doctor her parents had wanted her to, but she had married an American-born Korean, so I imagined that Mr. and Mrs. Kim were pretty pleased
with the arrangement.
“That’s great,” I said.
“You should come hear them play sometime,” Penny invited. “I hate going by myself. Dustin’s always busy on concert nights, of course, but he really likes it when I’m there to hear him play, so…” She pressed her hands together in mock prayer. “Pretty please?”
“Sure. I’ll ask for some time off.”
“Awesome! I’ll let you know when they start. He can get really good seats, too, and it costs practically nothing. Perks of having connections, right? And if you wanted to bring a date, that would be okay too, you know.”
That was the Penny I remembered—subtly asking if I was seeing anyone without setting either of us up for the awkwardness of a no.
“Actually,” I said, “you wouldn’t believe who walked into my house last Saturday.” It wasn’t my house, but I lived there, so it wasn’t like I was fibbing. “Do you remember Professor McFarland? He did that serious of lectures—”
“Never mind the lectures,” Penny scoffed, her eyes wide with interest. “He was the one you— Wasn’t he?”
The one I had sex with, yes. I nodded, concealing a grin behind my cup.
“And he found you again?”
“Not exactly.” I told Penny that I was pretty sure he hadn’t been scouring the kingdom for trace of me. Our reunion had been an accident, a twist of fate—possibly a hilarious one. “He knows the Hamiltons and we sort of just… Hit it off. Again.”
Penny arched an eyebrow. “When you say ‘hit it off’ you mean…” I nodded and her jaw dropped. “Oh, wow. Well… You go, girl! That’s— I don’t know what that is, but you don’t look like it’s making you unhappy. Has he aged well? I remember that he was something of a hunk back in the day.”
“He’s okay,” I demurred, like I hadn’t gone to bed last night reminiscing about our time together. “He’s some bigshot writer now, though.” Not that it changed our dynamic. I had been a gullible undergrad when we had first met—now I was a nanny with limited career prospects. “And,” I added, “he lives on the East Coast.”