Chapter 4
?
I am…….no longer fit for marriage.
Mirabelle
“You’re taking the job!” Fawn shrieks in my earbuds while I drive from my last house of the day back to Mr. Anders’s. “And I can actually move with you?”
“Well, yes? That’s what he said. He’ll be adding it to the contract, too.”
“Wow.”
I know. Those are my feelings exactly.
“And you used up your cleaning time discussing the terms, so you’ll be home late tonight?”
“Yep.” My car coughs, just a little, and I swear there’s a creak when I press the clutch at a red light, but this old car has lasted me my entire driving life thus far, and she shall proceed to. Taking the stoplight opportunity, I pet her deep charcoal dash to soothe her.
“This is crazy,” Fawn says.
“Tell me about it.” I blow out a breath and turn onto the street of homes that rich people who don’t live in the area rent.
Passing one grand place after the next, I come up to where the homes thin into choppy woods that then lead to the jewel of the street—Mr. Anders’s place.
“There’s a sign-on bonus,” I say. “And a 401(k) plan.”
“I don’t even know what a 401(k) is.”
“I think it’s…for retirement?”
“Oh, so you don’t know, either.”
Yes, well. I mean. Basically, no. But I’m apparently going to have one.
“This is crazy,” Fawn repeats, and I find myself smiling.
“It’s insane.”
“Bonkers, really.”
“Totally and utterly.” Probably delirious, I say, “I don’t even really like Mr. Anders.”
Fawn’s voice deadpans. “What?”
“I mean, he’s fine. Cordial. Respectful enough, if you get past the fact he’s tattooed like a yakuza member and looks like he could murder you at any moment with a butter knife, or a rubber band, or a piece of lint.
He’s just so…rough. I’ve never seen him smile.
I have no idea what he’s thinking. I’m honestly shocked he offered me the job, because I’ve spent the past four years thinking that he’s hated having me clean for him because something about me must bother him.
” That’s it. That’s the thing that makes me so uncomfortable around him.
“He has a demeanor that implies he’s always, always, always bothered.
He doesn’t look at anything; he glares. And his voice is never light or friendly.
He’s all business, all the time. It makes me anxious. ”
“Yikes. Are you going to be okay working for him?”
“I hope that maybe if I get to know him a little better, we’ll get into a rhythm, but also the contract is only for six months starting out, a trial period, so I think I can manage for at least that long.”
“And if you can’t manage for longer, then what? You’ll be out of a job, and we’ll have to move. Again. Within six months.”
“Mr. Lundberg said I’d always have a position with Maid for You, if I ever need it.
I didn’t tell him I was being poached by one of his clients, though.
So maybe when he learns that, he’ll change his mind, but at the moment, I do have this job to fall back on.
And you know I have book club with our current landlord.
Lynn’ll help get us placed in the event of a fall out. I’m sure of it.”
Fawn chuckles. “Naturally you’ve thought things through.”
Well. Obviously. It’s a big decision to make. I need to know all the angles and risks.
If nothing else, it keeps me from going insane.
“I’m coming up on his house now, so I’ll have to let you go, but I should be home in four hours, at the latest.”
“’Kay. I’ll have some kind of dinner waiting for you.”
I brighten. “By any chance, will it be Taco Bell?”
“Well, you know I can’t cook. Your choices are Taco Bell, Maruchan ramen, or Bojangles.” She gasps. “Or, since you’re getting us a lovely new home without rent, I could be convinced to go all the way to Bear’s for squash casserole and steak.”
I do love Bear’s. But the owner’s wife is in my book club, and if she sees Fawn there, they’ll get chatting, and Fawn is not the best at tactfully withholding information of this kind.
Becoming the local chatter for a hot minute is likely inevitable, but I’d prefer a hot minute before I have to deal with it. “Taco Bell, please.”
“You got it.”
We hang up as I reach the end of Mr. Anders’s long drive, park, and gather myself to head in.
Prompt as ever, he opens the door after I knock, gives me a gruff Peters, and returns to his office, so I head to the cleaning closet and get to work.
?
You’re actually not serious.
Swallowing hard, I press my clutch, and turn my key, and…sit in the silence.
Complete silence.
Utter silence.
A dead battery would cough a little, I’m pretty sure, which means it can’t be a—
“Peters?” Muted, Mr. Anders’s voice slips from beyond my window, so I twist toward him and scream. His brows shoot up.
I remember myself, smooth my hair scarf—dappled in little purple butterflies today, to match my apron—and get a breath as I pop the door. “Yes, sir?” My words wobble.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
Dread rises, builds, chokes. “Um.” I force a smile. “Yes, and no. Actually, probably more no than yes?”
One of his brows hitches higher than the other. “Your car won’t start,” he states.
I grimace. “My car won’t start.”
Leaning in the doorway, he locates the tab for my hood, pulls it, and begins folding up his sleeves. Mortified, I watch him circle to the front of my car, stop, and prop my hood before he stands there, tattooed arms crossed, and glares down into the guts of my vehicle.
Stumbling out of the driver’s seat, I position myself beside him.
He reaches for my battery, fidgets with the connection, then grunts.
“I…don’t think it’s the battery,” I offer. “I’ve had a dead battery before. It complains a little more before going out.”
“Hm.” He cuts his fingers back through his hair. “Well,” he cusses, low and conversational.
I startle, whipping my attention to his face.
Grumbling, he says, “My car knowledge begins and ends at jumper cables.”
“O-oh.”
He drops the hood back down and faces me. “I’ll call a tow truck for you.”
Throwing my hands up, I squeak. “No, no. That’s okay. It’s late.”
He stares at me. “Yes, and?”
“The towing companies in the area charge extra at night.”
He looks at his huge house, then at my car, then back at me. “Yes…and?”
“I have a friend who can come get me tonight, and then in the morning I have another friend who can…” I stop, short.
“Oh. Oh, right. Yes. Sorry. I’m not thinking straight.
Of course you don’t want to have my car in your driveway all night.
” I don’t even pull all the way up the long drive, so it’s kinda just out here, all willy-nilly in front of his house.
“I don’t really care about that.” He cracks his neck. “You’re not blocking me in or anything. Won’t you need a car tomorrow, to get to your jobs?”
“W-well… I have some friends I can impose on.”
“Friends,” he murmurs. “You have a lot of those?”
“Um…” I think, count, consider. “Yes? Maybe? How many is a lot? I go to a small book club, and half the ladies are retired or have husbands who work, so I’m pretty sure at least one of them would be willing to let me borrow their car tomorrow. There’s also Jeffry.”
Mr. Anders’s jaw hardens. “Jeffry?”
“We went to school together. He works at Tony’s Garage. His dad’s Tony, so he can handle fixing my car, and I’m sure there’s a car at the shop for me to borrow, too.” I give Mr. Anders a thumbs up. “I have options.”
He stares grouchily at my thumb. “Mm.”
I…do not know what to make of that sound.
But I lower my hand and try my best to interpret his glare.
Have I done something wrong? Probably. I’m inconveniencing him.
But it’s not like I really did anything wrong.
Cars break down. That happens. I keep my car in the best condition I possibly can, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a nineties kid.
In the car community, my dear sweet vehicle is known as a Classic.
In normal terms, that means it’s over twenty-five and we must be patient with her arthritis flares.
Inevitably, regardless of my innocence, I find myself apologizing. “I’m sorry for upsetting your evening.”
“You’re not upsetting my evening,” he says, in a tone that seems to scream you are upsetting my evening. He rubs his thumb and forefinger together, glowering at a grease smudge I think he got from my battery. “The…friend you’d call to get you tonight. Is that…Jeffry?”
“Oh, no. That would be my roommate, Fawn.”
“Ah.” Turning away from my vehicle, Mr. Anders murmurs, “Well, you can wait for her in the house. I’ll whip up something quick for dinner.”
“Oh, you don’t have to. I can wait out here. And Fawn will probably be bringing me Taco Bell. And…”
The look he gives me suggests I should bite my tongue.
“I mean…” I’d prefer not to wait in your house. I like my car better. My car is familiar. And I’d rather have Taco Bell than anything you might be able to make before Fawn gets here. And I’d rather not keep her waiting if eating whatever you make takes too long. And… “Okay…” I say, defeated.
As he all but corrals me up to his front door, I wonder if this is how it feels to make a business deal with the big, bad, scary billionaire. His associates merely crumble beneath the weight of his glare until he gets whatever he wants.
Like a loser, I step up his front porch toward the door he pushes open in front of us, motioning for me to enter first.
Hanging my head, I oblige—until a flash of light startles me.
Mr. Anders swears.
“What was—” I begin.
His hand lands on my rump. More light flashes as he pushes me inside. Lips near my ear, he gruffs, “Weird streetlight. Don’t worry about it.”
The heavy door shuts behind us.
And I now know something I could have gone my entire life without.
I now know the way Mr. Anders’s fingers feel…against my backside.
As you can imagine, I am not happy about this, but there’s no way in the world I’m going to show it. So once his hand leaves my body, I stand, stiff, and force a smile.
I keep smiling, frozen there by the door, while he mentions needing to make a quick call.
And I’m still smiling once I move to the parlor couch to wait for Fawn.
But, on the inside, I might be screaming.