18. Piper
PIPER
The carpool line at Olive’s school was always a slow nightmare.
Today, it somehow seemed worse. All the car windows were rolled down, but the air inside the car was so humid that sweat trickled down my spine, and my work T-shirt was firmly glued to my back.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel.
I didn’t dare shut the car off; it had struggled to start again today.
A new battery was still not in the budget.
My phone buzzed with a text from Lisa.
Did the player eat your crumble ? Then she sent a text of emojis: a winky face and a peach…
Excitement brewed in my belly. I couldn’t wait to hear if Gideon liked my lasagna. It had taken over three hours to make it. We were still “just friends,” but part of me hoped the care package would soften the blow of the truth-bomb I was about to lob his way.
Haven’t heard from him , I typed back. The ice packs should keep the food I left on Gideon’s porch edible until dark.
I couldn’t imagine Ace keeping him out late while he was recovering from a body slam into the boards.
I inched forward as the sidewalks filled with excited school kids.
While I waited for Olive’s classmates to start trickling out the doors, I thought about the time I’d spent at the hospital.
I got to meet Ace and spend more time with Goldie.
After the game, I wasn’t sure if I should go, but Goldie persuaded me, and Judy backed her up.
Judy was turning out to be a bit of a wild card, but she meant well, even if her methods were a little unorthodox.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see Gideon, but Ace had given us updates as they came.
I startled as the car door creaked open. “Mom!” Olive jumped into the back seat. “Miss Wilson wants me to try out for the badminton team!” I had been so deep in my reflection of my time at the hospital that I hadn’t seen Olive approaching the car.
“That’s amazing, sweetheart.” I pulled myself together, put the car in gear, and shifted focus to my daughter.
“Tryouts are next week, on Friday. Do you think we could see if one of the Myers sisters has time for a lesson? I think they teach badminton too.”
Fridays, Mrs. Lockelhurst usually kept me late to help her get ready for the weekend. “I’ll check and see.” It wasn’t a lie; I would look into the lessons, but something told me they would be worth at least three Honda Civic batteries.
Olive filled me in on her day as we drove through the gates of Rosewood Estates. As we passed Gideon’s house, I strained to see if the blue cooler was still on the porch. Butterflies battered their wings in my stomach—the little Igloo cooler was gone.
We parked in front of the coach house. Olive knew the drill. “I’ll be done working in a few hours. You can read or paint until I’m home to make dinner.”
Olive nodded. She was a good kid. Was it poor parenting to leave her alone in the coach house while I toiled away in the main house?
Probably, but it was only on the days when she didn’t have after-school programs, and I kept a radio clipped on my belt.
The other radio sat on the island in the kitchen.
My call sign was Cinderella, and hers was Gus Gus. She chose the names, and I didn’t have the heart to ask her to pick a different one for me, one that wasn’t a maid…
Shortly after Olive disappeared into the house, the radio on my belt crackled: “Gus Gus to Cinderella: I’m here.”
“Roger that, Gus Gus. Cinderella, over and out.” I clipped the radio onto the loop of my bleach-stained cargo pants that served as my cleaning uniform.
Inside the Lockelhursts’ massive utility closet, I gathered my cleaning supplies and organized the little caddy I used to go from room to room.
The toilet brush tipped over the side of the carrier, but I managed to catch it with my bare hand before it fell to the pristine marble floor.
I grimaced, put it away, and turned on the sink with my elbow.
Who was I kidding? How was a double-layered lasagna going to fix the lies I’d told?
Ricotta cheese or not, I was still the woman with a kid who cleaned toilets for a living.
The big task for the month was reorganizing Mrs. Lockelhurst’s walk-in closet. After three weeks and barely making a dent in her massive wardrobe, I started to wonder if it was a two-month project. Her closet was bigger than my entire coach house.
It also took a long time because Mrs. Lockelhurst insisted on approving the keep and give-away piles—one item at a time. When I got upstairs, she was waiting for me, perched between the two piles. I jumped right in. “Where did we leave off?” I held up the fortieth silk kimono.
“Keep.” She pointed to the pile of robes.
As I placed the piece on top of Mount Silk, the doorbell rang. “That’s weird.” Mrs. Lockelhurst checked her cell phone. “I’m not expecting anyone, and Reggie usually calls me when he lets someone through the main gate.”
I had already grabbed the next piece, a classic Chanel jacket. “Keep,” Mrs. Lockelhurst said as she hurried to answer the door.
While I waited, I slipped my arms into the quilted jacket.
From the waist up, I looked like I could join Judy’s Azalea Bay Ladies Who Lunch Club.
From the waist down the scuffed Converse and cargo pants told another tale.
Shrugging out of the jacket, I heard the doorbell ring one more time, and then the heavy iron lock clanged as Judy opened the door.
Security at Rosewood Estates was top-notch, but still, I listened in to make sure that Mrs. Lockelhurst was alright. Keith was golfing, and it was just the two of us in the house. Although Judy had proved that she didn’t mind standing up to tough men.
Someone with a very deep voice spoke from outside. It was muffled, but I’d recognize that honey baritone a mile away.
Gideon.
Shit, shit, shit.
I crept to the top of the stairs like a stalker. This was not how I’d planned to tell him. I’d rehearsed a mature, honest speech about how I should have been up-front from the beginning.
Gideon’s words hadn’t been audible, but Judy’s response sent a chill down my spine. “Oh, you’re looking for Piper?”
Double shit. What was I going to do?
“I’ll get her. Come inside, young man.”
From my vantage point, all I could see were his feet, in those slides he kept in the front hallway of his house.
“Who are you?” This time, I could hear his words clearly.
“My name is Judy. I’m, um, the maid. Let me get Miss Piper.
I’m helping her clean out her closet, and that woman has enough designer handbags to start her own store.
On second thought.” Judy paused, her hand visible on the post at the bottom of the stairs.
“She probably doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Shall I take a message and have her call you back? ”
Gideon shifted his weight from one foot to the other and picked up the backpack he’d set on the floor. “I just wanted to bring her some mail. She left it in my car the other day.” I couldn’t see it but could hear the zipper of the backpack opening.
“Oh.” Mrs. Lockelhurst’s voice quivered. “I’ll give it to her.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “Wait.” Gideon’s voice was low. “This can’t be right. This mail is for a Keith Lockelhurst.”
“That’s the… mechanic.” Judy spoke a little too quickly.
I groaned.
“The mechanic gets his mail delivered here?” Gideon sounded confused.
I couldn’t take it. Judy had switched from a British to a Southern accent and back to British during their short conversation. She was in head-to-toe designer clothes and wearing kitten heels. That woman wasn’t fooling anyone.
Squeezing the railing on the banister, I took a deep breath. This was really happening, and even though she meant well, Mrs. Lockelhurst was making things ten million times worse, if that was even possible.
“Ma’am.” Gideon’s voice was polite. “I think there’s been some confusion.”
“Confusion? What confusion? I’m definitely the maid.” She was back to the Southern drawl.
My legs were as strong as Jell-O as I made my way downstairs, each step bringing me closer to the moment I’d been dreading.
Gideon looked like he’d stepped off the pages of a magazine, even in jeans and a T-shirt. Judy stood next to him, wearing about fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry, trying to pass herself off as “the help.”
“Gideon,” I managed to croak. The muscles in my neck had decided to choke out my voice box.
He turned, and I watched his face change as he took me in. The cargo pants with the spots of bleach, a faded T-shirt, hair in a messy ponytail.
His eyes moved from me to the stack of mail in his hands. Mail addressed to Judith and Keith Lockelhurst. Then back to me.
I could see the exact moment he figured it out.
“You work here.” Not a question .
“Piper is like family,” Mrs. Lockelhurst jumped in. “She doesn’t work here.”
“Mrs. Lockelhurst, please.” I wasn’t ready for more outlandish lies. It seemed like she was fully committed to the maid ruse. “I can handle this.”
Gideon’s jaw muscle twitched. “So when you said you lived next door…”
“I live in the coach house. Above the garage.” My voice was steadier than I felt. “I should have told you that first night.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Why?”
Because the look in your eyes when you thought I was your neighbor and someone from your world felt good.
“I don’t know,” I said instead.
“You don’t know,” he repeated with zero emotion. “You let me think you were someone else entirely, and you don’t know why.”
“It’s complicated—”
“Complicated how? You either live somewhere or you don’t. You’re either a… whatever this is or not.” He gestured to me and Mrs. Lockelhurst.
Gideon’s words hit me like a slap. “It’s not that simple.”
A normal person would’ve excused herself, but Mrs. Lockelhurst stood there, watching the exchange go back and forth like she was a spectator at Wimbledon.