9. Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Kate
“Can I have Gidget and Mr. Fluffy with me?” Cece asks when she returns from the bathroom.
I consider the request for a minute. “Mr. Fluffy can come in if he wants to, but I think Gidget needs to take a nap in her kennel. After you get up, we’ll take her for another walk and begin work on some training. I heard something about her eating a phone book?”
Cece looks ashamed. “It was Daddy’s big city phone book. He had some special stuff in it. I hid it in my desk because I didn’t want him to be mad at Gidget. When did he find out about it?”
“Probably this morning,” I say. “He seemed rather upset when he came to wake me.”
Cece looks worried. “Was he mad?”
“Not at you. I think he was unhappy that Mr. Fluffy went potty on the slacks he planned to wear. And he is worried about how we are going to manage without Manuela and Sherry.”
Cece looks upset. “Is Sherry sick? ”
“I don’t think so. Her mommy is worried about her and doesn’t want her to go outside their house.”
“Oh.” Cece looks down at her hands for a minute. “I like Sherry. Can we talk to her, too?”
“We’ll see,” I say. “I’ll ask your daddy. He will have to ask Sherry and her mommy if it is all right.”
Cece thinks about that, then starts to ask, “If I’m really, really good. . . .”
“We shall have to wait and see,” I say. “Now, if you are to have a story, you must lie down on your bed. Otherwise, story time will be all used up in answering questions.”
Cece sticks out her lip but climbs up into the bed. “I want the Gingerbread Man,” she says. “And you tell it instead of reading it, cause you do it better than the book.”
As I settle down beside her, Mr. Fluffy hops up on the bed and curls up in Cece’s arms.
“Once upon a time,” I begin, “There was a little old woman and a little old man . . .”
Cece cuddles her cat, her eyes fixed on me as she listens. I carefully draw out the description of the gingerbread man, and by the time the doomed sweet is running out the door and heading down the road, Cece’s eyelids are drooping.
I make a soft lullaby of the refrain. Miracle of miracles, by the time the story reaches the cow and the calf, her breathing is even and deep. Mr. Fluffy purrs to her for a short while before engaging in little kitty snores.
I tiptoe out, get my laptop, and settle down on the floor just outside her room.
Charles Emory had forgotten to give me the household login for the Internet, but the guest access worked well enough. I log into the student portal, message all my instructors, and settle down to work on the paper for kiddie psych.
My phone vibrates softly. Text message.
Grace: How are you doing ?
Me: You should see this place! Carpet so deep and soft, you could sleep on it. But the best part is the view!
Grace: I bet it’s spectacular. I’m dying of envy.
Me: Don’t. The housekeeper and the maid both called in. I’m It.
Grace: Gosh. You’ve turned into Gabrielle.
Me: Yeah. Not quite what I had in mind.
Grace: Is he cute?
Me: Huh?
Grace: Is Mr. Emory cute?
Me: I guess. If you like ’em tall, clean-cut, and built. He’s a former Navy SEAL, you know.
Grace: Nope. Didn’t know. Bet that means his muscles have muscles.
Me: Maybe. But he can’t make coffee – or even find it in his own kitchen.
Grace: hehe!
Me: gotta go. I got a date with Piaget.
I am in the depths of explaining the importance of Piaget’s work, when a door across the hall opens, and Mr. Emory sticks his head out.
He raises his eyebrows when he sees me sitting in the hall. “Asleep?” he mouths soundlessly.
I nod.
He beckons me in.
My heart beats a little faster as I approach the door. After all, there are only three of us in the apartment. It is not lost on me that Charles Emory is a good-looking man, athletic, well-muscled, with well-formed masculine features, and that he might have improved since his college days. I’m not going to mention any of that to Grace. I’ll never hear the end of it.
This morning’s response to my poorly thought-out hug and kiss proved that he was not indifferent to me. I feel my cheeks grow warm at the memory .
He is now wearing jeans, instead of the pajama bottoms he’d had on earlier, but is still professionally dressed above the waist.
I follow him through the door and look around. The spacious room has resilient tile flooring, easy on the feet and legs, as well as easy to clean. Two large, professional desks sit back to back so the people seated at them can look across at each other.
A child-sized desk with a spacious work surface is positioned just inside the door and along the wall. Its cubby holes are furnished with coloring books, colored paper, and what looked like a drawing book. Crayons, chubby pencils, and safety scissors complete the set up.
On the opposite side of the door is a large monitor. In it, I can see a comfortably well-padded Hispanic lady wearing a floral print dress and a Mother Hubbard apron.
Emory motions for me to come on in, then closes the door behind us. “Miss Bailey, I’d like you to meet Manuela. Manuela, this is the ‘Miss Kate’ Cece keeps telling us about.”
“I am so pleased to see you,” Manuela says. “Cece is always talking about all the fun things she does at her school. How fortunate that you can be there for her.” She speaks with a broad midwest accent flavored with the slightest hint of her Mexican heritage.
“It is wonderful to meet you, too,” I say. “I can see from your kitchen that you have taken very good care of Mr. Emory and Cece. Cece is napping now. Perhaps she could call you later? She will be very sorry to have missed you.”
“Yes, of course,” Manuela says. “My grandchildren are here with me. My daughters work in the kitchen at the hospital, and they are deemed ‘essential services’ so the girls are staying in Isabella’s apartment and the children are with me. It seemed better to us.”
“Good thinking,” I agree, “The hospital kitchens should be far away from any source of contagion, but better safe than sorry.”
“Mr. Charles said that you were having some problems getting settled into the household routine?” Manuela tilted the words into a question.
“Yes,” I nod. “I don’t know where things are or what is supposed to happen when.”
Manuela gave me a rundown on how to use the dishwasher, the laundry facilities, and where all the cleaning supplies were kept. She also listed off the labor saving devices, such as the bread maker, Cuisinart salad maker, and some other kitchen appliances that were completely new to me.
“I keep all the manuals filed in a drawer beneath the serving island,” she says, “right along with my day book. But if you get stuck, feel free to call me at any time. My granddaughters and I aren’t going anywhere. Thanks to Mr. Charles, we have a state-of-the-art entertainment and phone system. We can even let the girls play together on the computer while we talk.”
“I’m sure Cece would like that,” I say. “She is bound to get lonely since we can’t go to the day care center.”
After a few more polite exchanges, we sign off, and Mr. Emory breaks the connection.
I frown at the screensaver landscape, biting at the cuticle of my thumb. It is a nervous habit that betrays my emotions when I’m puzzled or disturbed by something.
I’m startled out of my reverie when Mr. Emory asks, “Do you bite your thumb at me?”
I recognize the quote from Romeo and Juliet. I giggle, feeling my face grow warm, but return the quip in kind. “I do bite my thumb, but not at thee.” Then I add, “It’s a nervous habit, really. When I was a kid, my hands would chafe in the winter, and my cuticles would get rough. They caught on everything, so I would bite them off. I do it when I’m thinking hard.”
“Good to know I’m not being insulted. Why are you thinking so hard?” Mr. Emory fixes his full attention on me. I am uncomfortably aware of the intensity of those storm-cloud gray eyes, framed with those ridiculously long eye-lashes. His expression is grave and expectant.
“Um . . .” That was me. Always ready with a literary quote, but slow to come up with a diplomatic way to express my thoughts. I go with just blurting it out. “Why would Manuela say that it is due to you that she has a state of the art system?”
“Ah. Easy to explain. She does most of our household ordering since both Em and I are . . . that is, we’re busy with careers. There were times when we needed to send material back and forth for approval, signatures, and so on. Plus, her daughters were going to college then and needed good computers and network access. I added some bells and whistles for her pleasure and that of her family, and made the bill for it part of my communications package.”
“But that isn’t all of it, is it?” I ask, watching his face.
“No,” he admits. “She’s been with us since Cece was a baby. Neither Em or I knew much about kids. She was hired as the cook, but she didn’t mind helping out with Cece or pitching in with other parts of the house. It’s my thank you to her for the good care she takes of us.”
My opinion of Charles Emory ratchets up a couple of notches. “I’m glad I can call on her to ask questions. I could probably have figured some of that out by exploring — like the field manuals — but it’s good to know without having to rummage through things.”
“Would you like for Manuela to continue doing the ordering? She has a virtual file of all the companies and knows what we usually get. You might want to talk some things over with her, since she did a lot of cooking from scratch.”
A man who understood that shopping takes time and knowledge! Could anything be hotter? I smile at him with relief. “That would be great. She might have to dial back on anything fancy. I can boil beans and chop vegetables, but I’m not great at sauces or even at cooking pasta.”
He smiles at me, increasing his attractiveness tenfold, as the corners of his eyes crinkle up and the sad lines around his mouth smooth away. His strong features seem to soften without losing a shred of their masculinity. “Manuela could probably coach you through some of that. She was teaching Sherry to cook.” His tone lets me know that teaching the maid might have been an uphill battle.
“I’ll ask her,” I say.
Just then a corner of the monitor lights up, displaying Cece sitting up and stretching.
“Looks like it’s time for both of us to get back to work,” Mr. Emory says. He stands up and opens the office door. “We’re in here, Cece!” he calls.
There is a pattering of little feet, and Cece runs through the door and leaps at her father. “Daddy!” She crows.
Mr. Emory catches his daughter in mid-leap, before she can bump against the big desk. “Did you have a good nap?” he asks.
“I did!” she says. “Now I’m hungry!”
I stand up. “Then let’s go find something for you to eat,” I say.
“There’s a video telephone arrangement in the kitchen,” Mr. Emory says. “I’ll walk out there, and show you how it works. That way you can call Manuela to ask questions, and let Cece talk to her and her granddaughters without tying up the office phone.”
“Good idea,” I approve, noticing he did not demure at the idea of finding a snack for his daughter. Maybe I had been wrong about his child rearing practices? “Then we can take Gidget for walkies around the patio.”
“Ok,” Cece says, pulling her father by the hand toward the kitchen. He obediently goes with his daughter, leaving me to follow along behind.
I feel a worry in my middle unclench. It is going to work. I can do this; we will be alright.