Chapter 9
Chapter 9
P aley was happy. Perhaps happy was the wrong word; she was content . She had settled into a routine at her job, one that gave her plenty of free time and creative leeway. She cooked and baked interesting things for which her boss was always appreciative. She cleaned and did laundry, but doing so for one man was hardly a fulltime venture, especially when many of his things needed to be dry cleaned. In her many hours of free time she worked in the garden, which was taking shape and becoming something else entirely, something special with the potential to be spectacular in a couple of years when everything grew in. In her remaining free time she read and worked out, so often she had quickly shed ten pounds. To be so happy in the midst of personal turmoil was a pleasant and welcome surprise. By all rights she should be miserable. Her husband had cheated on her and kicked her to the curb, quite literally. A couple of months ago she had been heartbroken, destitute, and homeless. Now she had a home, a job, money in the bank. As for Aaron, that still hurt, and probably would for a long time. He’d left scars on her heart, not only with his infidelity but with the painful relationship they’d shared while married. Her trust in her own judgment was shaky. How could she have been so wrong about him? Or had she been right in the beginning but he somehow changed? She didn’t know. It was one of the things she pondered while she worked out, running at a moderate pace on the fancy treadmill.
Piedmont’s home gym was nicer than any professional gym she’d ever been to. He had a treadmill, elliptical, rowing machine, spin bike, climbing wall, and weights. Paley didn’t know quite what to do with the climbing wall or weights, but she made good use of everything else. The rowing machine took her by surprise, mostly by how much she loved it. Unlike running or using the elliptical, it didn’t require her to keep the focus on her body. She could sit and row while her mind wandered. It was ridiculously soothing, and she had worked herself up to a half hour of rowing a day.
She was almost finished with her run and about to switch to the rower when Piedmont suddenly appeared at the base of the stairs, blinking at her in surprise. Paley tripped, catching herself on the treadmill’s bars as she pushed the emergency stop and came to an ungraceful end. “Sorry,” she blurted.
“For what?” he asked, still blinking at her in astonishment.
She remembered, all of a sudden, that she was wearing a sports bra and spandex shorts, not the sort of attire she would ever wear in front of her boss, or anyone really. But she usually had the house to herself when she worked out.
“I don’t know. It felt like I should be sorry about something.”
“Don’t be,” he said. She could tell he was having trouble keeping his eyes on her face. They wanted to stray south to her extremely exposed midriff, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who ogled women. The struggle was real. Paley put him out of his misery by reaching for her t-shirt and slipping it on.
“Sorry,” she said again.
“Now what?”
“Being half naked in your basement,” she said.
“Don’t be,” he said, giving her an exaggerated wink that made her laugh.
“Creeper alert,” she said. “What are you doing home? I mean, not that you can’t be home, it’s your house. What I meant to say was how can I help you, sir?” She curtsied, and it was his turn to laugh.
“I took the afternoon off,” he said.
“You…you what?” He hadn’t had a day off in weeks, since she’d first arrived, minus the occasional Sunday.
“It happens occasionally,” he said. “I heard the sound down here and thought I’d investigate. A good choice, I must say. Don’t let me interrupt your workout.” He leaned in the doorway, staring at her.
“Not weird or uncomfortable at all,” she said.
“I actually have a purpose in remaining here, beyond creepiness.”
Paley moved to the rowing machine, turned it on, and started to row. It would be weirder if she didn’t work out, and certainly more obvious that he was making her uncomfortable. Which was worse, the fact that he was her boss or the fact that he was a man? They were equally bad, in her mind. “Yes?” she prompted when he remained mute.
“I thought about having a dinner party here next Friday,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
He blinked at her. “That’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“I expected to have to talk you into it,” he said.
“Why? This is why you pay me the big bucks, too many of them, if I’ve never mentioned.”
“It’s going to be a lot of work,” he said.
“Undoubtedly,” she agreed.
“There will be eight people, besides me.”
“You have enough silverware and plates for twelve,” she commented.
“Can you cook for that many people?” he asked.
She paused. “You want me to cook?”
“What else did you have in mind?” he asked.
“I thought you’d want it catered.”
“I do. By you,” he said.
She frowned.
“Unless that’s a problem?” he asked.
“It’s not a problem, not in the way you mean. I’m happy to cook for as many people as necessary. It’s just…I’m not sure my food is up to snuff for a dinner party.”
He folded into a pretzel on the floor beside her. “Paley, are you crazy? Your food is the best. Do you know a group of people now stroll by my office at lunchtime to see what treats come out of the bag?”
She laughed, sure he exaggerated.
“I want you to cook, really, and I’m sure it will be amazing. But I don’t want it to be too much for you. And of course I’ll pay you extra.”
She rolled her eyes. “You already pay me too much, for goodness sake. I would love to do the dinner party for you, if it’s really what you want. Although I suggest hiring someone else to wait the table. I’m going to be busy in the kitchen, and I’d feel better if I didn’t have to divert my attention in so many directions.” She bit her lip. “Is that okay?”
Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. “Of course that’s okay. Hire as many people as you want. I’m inviting the partners from my firm, so it’s sort of a big deal, and I want it to go perfectly.”
She groaned. “No, don’t tell me who it is or why they’re important. I thought maybe you were doing it to impress a girl, and that’s bad enough. But work, gah.” She pressed her hands to her ears and shook her head.
He peeled her hands away with a smile. “Fine, it’s not for work. It’s a group of people I’m dragging in off the street for charity. They’ve never tasted home-cooked food before, so anything you make will be fine.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re a high-maintenance housekeeper,” he said, a lie. She was exceedingly easygoing and mellow, not caring when he made sudden changes in plans that foiled whatever dinner she’d prepped for him.
“And you’re a terribly demanding boss,” she said, another lie. He seemed happy to let her do whatever she wanted, so long as her work got done, which it always did.
“I guess we deserve each other,” he said. He brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He should go. He had taken the day off because he felt burnout approaching. He tended toward workaholism, but he wasn’t so far gone he didn’t realize when he was headed for disaster. So far he had always been able to pull himself back from the brink, to intervene with some TLC before he became bitter and began loathing his job. It had been harder to keep his distance from work since he and Amelia broke up. This was the first time he’d taken off since everything happened. He planned to read, to catch a movie on TV, maybe even to take a nap. And now he sat on the floor of his basement, watching his housekeeper use his rowing machine, trying not to remember the way she’d looked in her sports bra and shorts. She always wore oversized clothing; he had no idea she had a nice body under all the layers.
“Is there anything special you’d like for supper?” she asked.
“Whatever you think is appropriate for a dinner party,” he said.
“I meant tonight,” she said. “The world is your oyster. You can eat warm food, fresh from the oven for once.”
“You know what I really want?”
“No, that’s why I asked,” she said.
“I really want pizza from my favorite place. I haven’t had it in forever. Since…” Since before he and Amelia broke up. When would he stop viewing his life as one big before and after?
“What do you like on your pizza?” she asked.
“Everything.”
“What time should I have it delivered?” she asked.
“They don’t deliver,” he said.
“What time should I pick it up?” she asked.
“It’s in New York,” he said, stretching out to lie on his back.
“I’m running out of options here, Mr. Bonvoy.”
“I know. I didn’t say it was possible; I said it was what I wanted.”
“What do you like about that particular pizza so much?” she asked.
“For one thing it’s New York style. The crust is big and floppy and chewy and, I don’t know, it’s sort of perfect.”
“Surely we can find a close second around here, if we put our minds to it. I’ll do some research, come up with the best option.”
“I like that can-do attitude, Paley,” Piedmont said, staring up at her from his vantage point on the ground.
“Some problems are easy to solve. The ones that aren’t, well, I tend to ignore them,” she said. Like her husband, for instance, and the text he’d sent her last night. We need to talk . She hadn’t texted a reply. Her life was on track, finally. It was like Aaron to sense that and want to torpedo it. If he got her alone, he would likely coerce her to sign things. He had a way of taking the fight out of her, of getting her to acquiesce with no argument, and she didn’t trust him. For all she knew, he might try to make her sign on for paying half of his massive student loans, or maybe all of them.
“You’re frowning. Are you thinking about pizza?” Piedmont asked.
“No, I’m thinking about student debt,” she said.
“You have student debt?” he asked.
“No, I had scholarships and a job.”
“What’s your degree?”
“English literature.”
“Mine, too,” he said.
She paused. “I thought it was law.”
“My juris doctorate is law. The undergrad can be anything. I like to read.”
“What’s your favorite?” she asked. “And please know if you say Hemingway, I’m going to have to quit and change my phone number.”
“What’s wrong with Hemingway?” he asked.
“What isn’t? The six-toed cats were really all he had going for him,” Paley said.
“I don’t have strange, vitriolic dislike of a dead writer like some sad people, but he’s not my favorite. I’m more into poetry—Frost, Longfellow, Whitman. Is that okay? Can you remain at your job, working out on company time, you lazy bum?”
“I’ll consider it, but I’m going to need a raise,” she said.
He laughed. “You’re such a weirdo.”
“Think how much weirder I’m going to be once you actually get to know me,” she said. “Spoiler alert: I once dressed as a TARDIS for Halloween, and I wasn’t a child.”
He groaned. “A sci-fi geek. I should have guessed.”
“Not a sci-fi geek. I just look good in blue,” she said, and he laughed. “Why are you judging me when you know what a TARDIS is? Most men don’t.” Aaron hadn’t. She’d had to explain it to him, and he hadn’t found it amusing, even though the party she’d gone to had been sci-fi themed.
“I know everything,” he replied. “How long are you going to be doing that? You must have rowed across the English Channel by now.”
She stopped rowing. “Did you want to use it?”
“No, I just…I don’t know. Sorry if that sounded snappish. I felt like I needed a day off, and now all I can think of is everything I need to do at work.”
“Are you trying to tell me you need help figuring out what to do with downtime?” she asked.
“That seems over and above your job description,” he said.
“No, this is the part Acacia warned me about, this sensing your needs and filling them. If your work wife can do it there, your home wife needs to…no, I don’t mean home wife that sounds bad. Housekeeper wife…no, that sounds like we’re in a cult. Housewife? Oh, wait, that’s already a thing.”
“Why don’t you take wife out of the equation,” he said.
“You sounded so much like my husband just then,” she said. He laughed and froze, not sure if he was supposed to. “It’s okay. I’m moving out of the crippling grief phase and into the finding pathetic humor in it phase.”
“How did you get to that stage?” he asked, half seriously. He still felt as if he were stuck mourning Amelia.
“By reconnecting with my old high school best friend. We laugh at pain, our own and that of others.”
“Sounds healthy,” Piedmont noted.
“We’re fun at parties,” she agreed. “Of course we never get invited to any, but I’m sure the two things aren’t related.”
“Maybe you should stop dressing like a TARDIS for every party,” he suggested.
“They’ll take my TARDIS costume out of my cold, dead hands,” she said. She clapped her hands together. “I’m going to shower. I realize belatedly that by dramatically clapping my hands together before making that announcement, I made it sound as if you were somehow going to be involved. Let me revise; I’m going to shower, and you’re going to read. Do you have a book, or would you like me to find something for you?”
“Is that another service you provide?” he asked.
“It’s part of the housekeeper code, to edify body, mind and soul through the use of environmentally friendly cleaning products, food, and book recommendations. I had to take a class about it. I got a B because I got flustered on my final and handed a guy a bottle of vinegar and scrubbed the bathroom floor with East of Eden by mistake.”
He laughed and rested his forehead on his knees. “This is so bad, Paley. I’ve spent all my years in DC trying to hide my inner nerd, trying to pretend I’m suave and sophisticated, and you’re making me forget all that and remember how much fun it is to be odd and an outsider.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was cool in high school,” she said. “Now, please excuse me while I go put on my TARDIS and shower like other cool, normal people.” She left and returned a moment later, book in hand. “This is going to change your life, I guarantee it.”
“What if it doesn’t?” he asked.
“Then you can lower my salary,” she said.
He rolled his eyes and cracked the book.