by Wendy Wax
Amanda shook her head. “I don’t think I’d actually mind the cleaning part. I don’t understand why, but it seems to relax me. It’s not the work, per se.” She looked at Candace and Brooke, willing them to understand. “It’s the humiliation. I’m not sure I could handle that. And I know Meghan couldn’t. She can’t bear the idea of being different or sticking out in any noticeable way. She would absolutely die of shame.”
Brooke considered them from beneath carefully shaped eyebrows. The curve of her cheek was lightly blushed, her skin taut and dewy. “I can completely understand that.” She hesitated for a long moment, looked as if she’d thought better of speaking, and then blurted out, “My mother is a maid.”
Brooke closed her eyes and tilted her head back as if seeing something she didn’t want to. “And I’m not talking the waltz-in-and-out, part-of-a-service kind of cleaning woman. I’m talking the backbreaking, down-on-your-hands-and-knees-scrubbing-the-floor, belonging-to-the-customer-like-a-slave kind of maid.”
Brooke shuddered. “She looked eighty at forty. And her hands are all crippled up,” she whispered. “I still can’t bear to look at them.”
Amanda stared at this woman she’d thought she was getting to know. The one she’d originally written off as an empty-headed trophy. “Where does she live?”
“Oh, she’s still back in Betwixt, Georgia, which is the booming metropolis where I was born. And she doesn’t make anywhere near the kind of money Candace is talking about.” She looked away. “I used to be so ashamed.” Brooke still spoke in a whisper. “I got myself as far away from that as I could. All the way through college and into an MBA program. Anytime things seemed too hard or unobtainable, I’d think about my mother.”
Amanda studied the beautiful young woman in the designer clothes and tried to picture it. “I never would have known.”
“No,” Brooke said. “I spend a lot of time and energy making sure no one ever does.”
“Not even Hap?”
“Especially not Hap.” Her look to Amanda and Candace was pointed. “He’s never met my mother. I’ve let him think that we’re estranged. You two are the only people on earth I’ve told.”
“Well your secret’s safe with me,” Candace said.
“Me too,” Amanda said. “Though I have to say my hat’s off to your mother. She must have been pretty highly motivated.”
“I guess so,” Brooke said quietly. “I never really stopped and thought about who she was doing it for. All I ever saw was that it was the best she could do.”
There was a silence as the three of them stared at each other, their coffee and desserts long forgotten. Amanda watched Brooke carefully but the younger woman didn’t seem inclined to pursue the subject. Her shame seemed fresh and real—not a part of the past, but painfully current. Was this how Meghan would feel if she knew her mother was cleaning homes for a living?
“So where do we stand?” Candace finally asked. “I don’t feel like we’ve found a solution. Do you want to table the subject and let us all give it some more thought?”
Amanda shook her head. “No. I don’t have time to keep thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. And I can’t afford to be picky. I need a regular income and I need it as soon as possible.”
She knew then what she had to do. She really only had one viable choice that she could see. There was no point quibbling further about the pros and cons or the potential for embarrassment. “If you can get me clients, Candace, I’m ready to start cleaning houses.”
“Are you sure, Amanda? I don’t know if…”
“I’m sure,” she said pulling up a picture of Meghan in the silver dress, rejecting the one of her on her knees in front of her ex-friends’ toilets. “Just don’t tell them that the maid you’re booking is me. And if you can schedule me while they’re out, that would be even better.
“In the meantime, I’m going to come up with some sort of disguise so that I can try to do this without being recognized.”
“A disguise?” Candace asked, incredulous. “I don’t think any of the women I know are going to welcome a maid in a stocking mask or fright wig into their home.”
“Oh, I think I can do better than that,” Amanda said, the wheels of her imagination already spinning. “I was a drama major after all, and I used to do local theatre before the kids’ schedules got so hectic. I have boxes full of costumes and stage makeup from the shows I’ve done. You book the work, Candace, and I’ll come up with the disguise.”
As soon as Candace and Brooke had gone, Amanda hunted down her cache of wigs and costumes. At the bottom of the last carton lay her tackle box of makeup and specialty items.
Carrying them upstairs she sorted through the possibilities and finally took the most promising with her into the bathroom and began to experiment.
Slipping into a generic white uniform she’d once found at Goodwill, she tugged a dark curly wig onto her head, carefully tucked her own hair up beneath it, and teased the synthetic hair into multiple directions, liking the way the Brillo-like strands brushed the shoulders of the white polyester top.
Pulling out a pat of pancake makeup, Amanda dampened a latex sponge then rubbed it through the cake of color and spread it over her face to darken her skin. With an eyebrow pencil she sketched a heavier brow line then affixed a pair of false eyelashes, black and spidery, on top of her own. Nonprescription contact lenses transformed her brown eyes to a compelling blue.
Just as she’d hoped, the overall effect was more vivid, bolder than her normal self. Liking the new look, Amanda dug through her makeup case until she found a bright red lipstick, which she applied to her lips. A fake beauty spot at the left corner of her mouth became an accent mark.
Tilting her chin and making a moue with her mouth, she altered the timbre of her voice and tried out a succession of nationalities and accents.
At two AM she confronted her new persona. “Mais, oui,” she purred with a pronounced French accent. “Eet ees not too much trouble to add zee wax.” She fluttered the spiky eyelashes; they looked a little like butterflies searching for a place to land. “I would be more than happy to fluff zee pillows for you, Monsieur.”
She smiled at her new French self and saw the resulting twinkle in the blue eyes. The flutter of her butterfly lashes made her think of Jean-Claude’s nickname for her. Papillon. This was a bolder, more confident person than Amanda Sheridan had ever been. A husband would not walk out on this woman. And no other woman would pity her.
This woman would not take crap from anyone. Even as a maid, she would be bold and assertive. “Solange,” she said experimentally. “I am Solange.” The last name popped into her head formed and ready to go. It was absolutely perfect; an omen, she was sure, of the future.
“Amanda Sheridan,” she said to the image in the mirror,
“please allow me to introduce you to the vibrant and wonderful, Solange de Papillon.”
chapter 11
A week later, the day of her first cleaning job, Amanda dropped the kids at the bus stop and drove to Candace’s house where she stashed her van in the three-car garage and went into a guest bathroom to change.
It took her twenty minutes to complete her transformation. When she emerged Candace was waiting for her in the kitchen. “Hallo, Candee ass,” Amanda said with her new French accent. “I am Solange. And I understand you are to give me zee ride to Mrs. Beetsy Menkowski’s house.”
Candace’s mouth dropped open. “You’re going to be a French maid?”
“Oui,” Amanda/Solange said.
“But the only place I’ve ever seen an actual French maid is in France. Or Playboy magazine.”
“Oh?” Amanda fluttered her papillon eyelashes at Candace and reminded herself that Solange’s hand gestures would be more vivid and pronounced.
“In case you haven’t noticed, all the maids in Atlanta and most of the Southeast are Hispanic,” Candace pointed out. “I mean you could choose pretty much any Spanish-speaking country and get away with it.
Why France?”
In the garage they picked up Amanda’s vacuum cleaner and cleaning supplies and stowed them in the trunk of Candace’s Mercedes.
“I don’t know, Candee ass, it just feels right.” Amanda tried out the new hand gestures and threw in a Gallic shrug. “I’m tired of being such a wuss. I don’t want to walk into these houses feeling subservient and desperate. Even if I’m acting, I need to be brave and bold. Solange de Papillon is both of those things. Besides, I don’t know any Spanish or Portuguese, but I do speak French fairly well. I think I can pull this off.”
“All right,” Candace said as they climbed into the front seat of the car. They’d agreed that Candace would schedule and drive her to help safeguard Amanda’s identity. “This is your gig. I’m just the facilitator. But there is one thing.”
“And what ees that my blonde-haired friend?”
“I don’t let people call me Candy. Believe me when I tell you that Candee ass is not going to cut it.”
A few minutes later they were heading for Bitsy Menkowski’s subdivision. Amanda had known Bitsy for years. She and Rob had gone out with Bitsy and Herbert once or twice, but had thought the Menkowskis a little too straitlaced. “What did you tell her about her new cleaning woman?” Amanda asked.
“Not much because she didn’t ask. She’s been without help since Imelda quit four weeks ago. She doesn’t care who comes.”
“Good. That gives Solange more room to maneuver.” Amanda’s pulse quickened as it always had before a performance.
“It probably won’t matter much today anyway,” Candace said. “Bitsy’s not planning to be back until three. I’ll be here to pick you up at two thirty.” Candace drove east toward the River Run subdivision where the Menkowskis lived. Amanda watched the familiar landmarks fly by, trying to see them through Solange’s eyes. Her grocery store, the dry cleaner, Hong Wo’s vegetable stand. It was all the same, yet imperceptibly different. Just as she was. A prickle of anticipation shot up her spine.
In the Menkowskis’ driveway, Candace put the car in park and handed Amanda the list of instructions Bitsy had faxed over.
“She wanted you to do laundry, but I told her you’d only have time for sheets and towels. The key’s supposed to be under the front mat.”
“Good old Bitsy, not an original bone in her body.” Amanda got out of the car and retrieved her supplies and equipment. They dangled against her legs as she strode up the front walk, located the key, and let herself into the house.
Amanda had been at the Menkowskis’ for meetings and the occasional dinner party. Still, it felt incredibly strange to enter her house when Bitsy wasn’t there; odder still to think she was about to clean it under false pretenses.
Like many of the homes in the Atlanta suburbs, the foyer opened onto formal living and dining rooms. A front stair led to the upstairs bedrooms and baths, a door beyond the stairs led down to a finished basement. Straight ahead was the eat-in kitchen and vaulted great room lined with windows that overlooked the wooded backyard.
Setting her supplies and vacuum on the kitchen floor, Amanda took stock of the situation. A stack of dirty dishes teetered in the sink and mounds of mail and the miscellaneous trappings of daily life covered the granite countertops. The kids’ abandoned possessions littered the tabletops and lined the back stairs as if trying to make it to the next floor on their own. A fine coat of dust and neglect attested to Imelda’s absence. It was clear Bitsy had never sought solace in scrubbing.
Upstairs, Amanda wandered through the bedrooms. The kids’ rooms were pretty much what she’d expected, pink florals for Lori, a sports motif for Bitsy’s eleven-year-old son. But the master had been done in what could only be called “early Bordello.” Red damask, gold fringe, and mirrors abounded. The furniture was dark and heavy and faintly Mediterranean. It was also covered in dust.
Amanda felt an urge to pull down the heavy curtains and throw open the windows to let light into the room. But the clock was ticking. And she had been hired to clean not redecorate.
“OK.” She caught a glimpse of herself in the ornately carved dresser mirror, took in the big hair, the bright red lipstick, and the blue eyes, so wide and assessing. “You are not Amanda Sheridan about to touch Bitsy Menkowski’s dirty sheets and towels,” she said to her reflection. “You are…Solange de Papillon…the much sought-after housekeeper. They are lucky to have you!”
Pumped, Amanda moved from bedroom to bedroom scooping up dirty clothes from the floor and stuffing them in the hamper she found in the laundry room. Then she began to strip beds and clear off surfaces. With no idea where things actually went, and with little time to figure it out, she opted for pile management, creating neat little mounds of similar stuff so that although the clutter remained it looked more intentional and less chaotic.
An hour later she’d washed and dried a load of sheets, remade one bed, and created a satisfying number of piles. But this was a five-thousand-square-foot home with a first floor and a finished basement. A glance at her watch told her she was going to have to work faster.
Three hours later she was forced to admit that cleaning her own house bore no resemblance to putting someone else’s home in order. At home she could stop and start, do one task now and another later. But here the work seemed unending. Her carefully made-up face had begun to shine an hour ago and her back ached. Her feet, despite her most comfortable pair of Nikes, hurt. Throwing the last of the sheets into the dryer, she trooped downstairs to attack the kitchen and mop the wood floors.
It was two o’clock when the sound of the buzzing dryer reached her. Climbing the stairs for what felt like the thousandth time, she pulled the king-sized sheets out. Grappling them in her arms, she carried them back to the master bedroom and began to smooth them onto the bed. As she leaned forward, her foot hit something solid. She felt it again when she was putting the comforter in place. Crouching, she reached under the bed and pulled out a large unmarked cardboard box.
“Solange,” she said. “You don’t really need to know what’s in there. You already know Bitsy Menkowski is a messy person with bad taste. Isn’t that enough?”
Evidently not. Because within moments she was holding a black leather whip and a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a black leather thong—please, God, let it be Bitsy’s and not Herbert’s—and a matching leather mask in the other.
Bitsy Menkowski and her husband were into whips and chains. Bitsy Menkowski, who had been Meghan’s Girl Scout leader, was a dominatrix.
It was like finding out Mickey and Minnie Mouse were swingers. And that they’d had a threesome with Donald Duck.
A door slammed and Amanda froze. Bitsy’s voice floated up the stairs. “Hello?” There was the sound of quick footsteps on the wood floor below. “I’m home!”
“Merde.” Amanda threw the sex toys back in the box and shoved it under the bed. Taking a deep breath, she put on a look of surprised incomprehension, which wasn’t difficult under the circumstances, then walked out of the bedroom, stopping at the top of the stairs.
“Yoo-hoo! Are you up there?” Bitsy stood at the bottom of the stairs craning her neck to see.
For a moment Amanda forgot who and what she was supposed to be. Her brain was still trying to wrap itself around the things she’d discovered under the bed.
“Madame!” Amanda said in French. “You have surprised me.” Damn right, she was surprised. “I am Solange. Solange de Papillon.”
She held her breath and waited for Bitsy to recognize her, but Bitsy’s gaze barely skimmed over her before turning away to survey her kitchen as Amanda descended the stairs.
“Everything looks pretty good.” Bitsy’s tone was grudging. “Who do I make the check out to?”
Check?
Amanda followed Bitsy into the kitchen. A check was completely out of the question. One made out to a fictional person would be uncashable. One made out to Amanda Sheridan would be unthinkable.
“Madame?” Amanda stayed on the other side of the coun
ter, not wanting to get too close, still afraid Bitsy might recognize her.
Bitsy was already pulling out her checkbook. A car horn sounded outside.
“No.” Amanda laid on her fake accent and shook her fake curls adamantly. In careful English she said, “I do not accept zee checks. I believe Candace told you that I only take cash.”
Annoyance flashed across Bitsy’s face. “But I’ll have to…”
The horn sounded again, more insistent this time. Thank God for Candace. Amanda waited, eyes locked on Bitsy, refusing to back down.
“Oh, all right,” Bitsy muttered. “I suppose I can run by the bank later.”
Still silent, Amanda looped her bucket of supplies over her arm and grasped the vacuum with her hand. She held the other hand out, palm up, for Bitsy Menkowski to count the money into.
“Merci, madame,” she said when the other woman had finished. “I appreciate your keeping the agreement.”
Pleased that she’d emerged from the standoff victorious, Amanda turned to leave. She’d almost reached the foyer, when Bitsy grasped her polyester sleeve. “Wait.”
Amanda didn’t want to. She just wanted to get out of there, unrecognized, with her earnings intact. Staying in character she turned to face Bitsy, her shoulders back and her chin up. She looked down her nose at her client.
“What about next week?”
Amanda felt one eyebrow tilt up. “What did you say?”
“Next week. You come. Here.” Bitsy pointed and mimed.
Amanda tilted her head to the other side, beginning to enjoy the show.
“Next week. The third week of April. You clean. Again.” Bitsy took out another twenty and handed it to Amanda.
“Yes, of course.” Amanda nodded and smiled, but not full out. Solange would stay a step removed. “You call Candace to schedule and I will come.”
Then she swept out of there with all the bravado her tired self could muster, undaunted by Bitsy and Herbert Menkowski’s sex life. Or the little algae problem they had developing in their master bathroom shower.