Chapter 6
My days always begin the same way. I glance at the clock on my bedside and find that it’s around six in the morning.
Roy is still asleep, and I carefully extricate myself from his embrace, gently move his arm that will be slumped across my chest, then pull the bedclothes off, swing my legs out slowly so as not to wake my husband, and push my feet into my slippers.
This morning, I go into our en suite bathroom to get ready for the day.
I shower, dry myself, style my hair, and carefully apply my makeup.
This is the part that takes the longest because I have to look perfect for Roy when he wakes up.
I cannot give him any excuse to tire of me.
Not until I have found what I’m looking for.
After I’ve cleansed and toned my face, I apply moisturizer, then sunscreen because the Beverly Hills sunshine can be very harsh.
Then I put on primer, followed by a dab of color corrector.
Then foundation, setting powder, bronzer and blush, highlighter, eye shadow primer, eye shadow, false eyelashes, lipstick, and a cloud of setting spray.
Later, I will make a delicious and nutritious breakfast for Roy, and he will say, “You are so pretty. You look like a porcelain doll.” And I will click my eyes closed and open them again wide, and he’ll laugh, and then he’ll kiss me.
Roy showers and gets dressed while I cook oatmeal pancakes. Oatmeal pancakes are his favorite and I feel I have ground to make up after our argument last night.
Marie walks in and stops, frowning at everything I have laid out on the breakfast bench: a stack of fluffy pancakes, Greek yogurt, sliced banana, almond butter, chia seeds, and maple syrup.
Marie is not that much older than me. She can’t be more than thirty, maybe early thirties.
She has long, dark hair that she gathers up into a bun and wears a black blouse with a white edge around the collar and a white apron with a lace edge, so that she looks exactly like a housekeeper.
Put it this way. If you rang our front door and Marie opened it, you would not mistake her for the lady of the house.
I pour myself a cup of coffee. “Can I ask you…”
She raises one dark eyebrow at me. “Yes?”
But before I have a chance to ask, Roy calls out from his office. “Marie?”
“Yes, coming, Dr. Davies,” she replies. She leaves the room, returns a few minutes later, picks up a cup and saucer from the shelf, and makes a coffee from the machine.
I sit up. “Is that for Roy?” She doesn’t hear me over the noise of the machine, or she pretends not to. When it’s done, she takes the cup and walks away.
I get to the door just before she does.
“I’ll take it to him,” I say, grabbing the saucer out of her hands.
“Mrs. Davies!” she shrieks. “What are you doing?”
That’s an excellent question, because suddenly her front is covered with hot coffee. She screams and Roy rushes in, takes in the scene. Marie is shaking, staring at the cup in pieces at her feet, her arms dangling helplessly.
“What happened?”
“Oh God.” I rush to grab a kitchen towel and start blotting the front of her apron. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She looks up at Roy, her mouth trembling. “Mrs. Davies threw your cup of coffee at me.”
“What? No! It was an accident!”
“Marie,” Roy says in his deep, caring voice. “Are you hurt?”
Marie is shaking, staring at the floor. “I’m all right,” she says finally, like she almost died but she’s too stoic to say so.
“The apron…” She pulls the apron away from her body, shaking it loose.
Coffee drips on my light-brown satin Manolo Blahnik sandals.
“I’m all right,” she repeats. “I didn’t get burnt… too badly.”
“Thank God,” Roy mutters. He turns to me, eyes blazing. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“It was an accident. I wanted to take the coffee to you myself.”
“But I asked Marie to bring me a coffee,” he says.
“I know. I just wanted to—”
“It didn’t look like an accident,” Marie says softly.
I look up sharply. “You know it was.”
“I’m so sorry about all this, Dr. Davies,” she says.
“It’s hardly your fault, Marie.”
“Well, if she’d let go…” I mumble.
“The most important thing is that you are all right,” he says.
“Thank you, Dr. Davies.” She blinks, swallows. “I’ll be all right.”
I turn to look at Roy, who is staring at me with a look of suspicion mixed with mild disgust. I imagine the scene through his eyes. Here I am, almost on my knees, patting the housemaid dry. In this moment, it’s hard to tell who is in the service of whom.
“Come out here, Jodie.”
I stand up, put the towel in the sink, and follow him.
“I just wanted to bring you coffee myself,” I mumble. He opens the cupboard where we keep coats and umbrellas.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with you, I really don’t. First Deborah, and now Marie?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose. She wouldn’t let go.”
“Your jealousy, Jodie… Deborah, I can understand, up to a point, but Marie?”
“It was an accident. Why are you leaving already?”
He pulls the collar of his jacket up. “I have a busy day.”
“But it’s Sunday! And I’ve made your favorite breakfast! It’s all there ready for you!”
“I’m not hungry.”
And then he’s gone.
Marie smirks at me from the kitchen doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m going to get changed,” she says, and sashays past me, almost bumping against me.
Her dirty apron is on the floor. I pick it up, drop it in the sink with the towel, and mop everything up.
I put the breakfast things away, then load up the dishwasher even though Marie doesn’t like me doing it. She always complains that I don’t let her do her work, but the truth is—and I would never say that to her face—she doesn’t stack it properly.
There’s a tall, thin cupboard where I keep all my spices, and as I put away chia seeds and shredded coconut, I glance at the snacks Marie keeps there: pretzels, packets of Oreos, trail mix…
I always make extra food for Marie since she lives here, upstairs in what Roy calls the maid’s quarters, which consists of two connecting rooms with a bathroom down the hall.
She can help herself to whatever she likes, so I have no idea why she’s so fixated on those snacks.
The other day, I put four of my homemade chocolate chip cookies in there as a kind of olive branch, you might say.
A sort of let’s stop with all the sneering and get to know each other.
I left them in a small glass jar, but she hasn’t touched them.
She probably thinks I’ve laced them with arsenic.
I make myself a coffee and sit on a stool at the breakfast counter. I am still reeling from the way Roy looked at me just now. Not to mention he left without eating breakfast, which has never, ever happened before.
I close my eyes and picture my favorite recipe book (The Golden Spoon, Decadent Desserts for the Modern Hostess).
I mentally turn to the page for the Black Forest gateau (soaked in kirsch, layered with morello cherries) when Marie returns in a fresh, crisp apron exactly the same as the other one. White with a lace trim.
“I’m really sorry,” I say again, calmer now. “I really didn’t mean to pour coffee on you.”
She opens the cupboard where we keep shopping bags and studies its contents. “I’m going to the store,” she says crisply. Then with a sigh, she adds, “Is there anything you need?”
And I’m thinking, Is there anything you need, Mrs. Davies? But I don’t correct her.
“No, thank you, Marie.”
A beat. She leans forward a little, like I’m hard of hearing. “It’s Marie. Meeerrrie, not Mary.”
I blink at her. We have this conversation often. “That’s what I said,” I say.
“No. You said ‘Mary.’”
“I said ‘Marie.’”
She shakes her head. “If you say so…”
I swallow a sigh. In truth, I don’t know why Marie has to be here at all.
I cook and clean every inch of this place myself, using nontoxic, homemade, natural products.
First and foremost, it’s my excuse to search the house, but let’s be honest, I love cleaning.
It’s my happy place. So all Marie does, as far as I can tell, is come after me and dust the very places I’ve already dusted, and I hate that she uses and reuses a generic yellow duster.
I told her once it just moves dust around.
And it can scratch delicate surfaces. Also, it’s not hygienic to shove it under the sink and pull it out again the next day.
So, she complained to Roy that I was “interfering with her chores,” and Roy had a word with me about letting Marie do the work she is paid to do.
“Even if she does it very badly?” I asked.
“That’s harsh, Jodie. Marie is an excellent housekeeper.”
So I let her make the beds and do the laundry and the ironing, although I like to refold the clothes she’s just folded, and sometimes when she’s out grocery shopping, I’ll iron them again.
I take a sip of coffee and put down the mug. “Would you like a chocolate chip cookie?” I say.
She looks at me, one eyebrow raised, like What now? “Excuse me?”
I open the cupboard and point. “I know you like to stock up on snacks, but they’re not very healthy, Marie.
So I made some chocolate chip cookies and put them in there for you.
I made them with oat flour and coconut sugar because it’s much better for you.
I can make some more if you like. Or something else.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, you don’t need to stock up on all that junk food.
Just tell me what you like and I’ll make it for you. ”
She looks at me like I’ve just grown a cauliflower on my head. “I have no idea what you’re saying right now.”
“Your stash,” I say, tilting my head at the shelf.
“Those are not mine,” she says.
“Aren’t they?”
“No, they belong—belonged to Mrs. Deborah. She always had a shelf full of snacks.”
It’s like I’ve been hit in the solar plexus. “They belonged to Deb—Deborah?”
“Yes.”
The back of my eyes burn. I stare at the shelf and put my hand in there slowly. I touch the packet of Oreos and let out a chuckle. Marie looks up at me.
“Do you want me to throw them out?” she asks dully.
“No!” I say quickly. “No. That’s all right. Let’s leave them for now.”
I smile as I close the cupboard door, then sit back at the kitchen counter with my coffee. “Can I ask you…”
She looks at me, eyebrows raised. She really has beautiful eyebrows. Dark and well-defined.
“Yes?”
“Did Roy and Deborah ever argue?”
“Never. I never heard Mrs. Deborah raise her voice at Dr. Davies. She had no reason to. He adored her so much.”
I nod, like that makes total sense.
“Was there anything else?” she says.
I rest my chin in my hand. “Why is it you call Deborah ‘Mrs. Deborah,’ but you call me ‘Mrs. Davies’?”
“Mrs. Deborah insisted. ‘I’m just like you, Marie,’ she’d say. ‘I’m nothing special.’ She wanted me to call her simply ‘Deborah’ but I couldn’t. That felt too far.”
She folds her shopping bag and smooths its creases.
“She was so lovely and kind, Mrs. Deborah, never putting on airs, never looking down on anyone. Everybody loved her and especially Dr. Davies. I know you don’t want to hear this, Mrs. Davies, but he really did.
You could see it in his face whenever she walked into the room. Now if that’s all…”
“You could call me Jodie if you wanted.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“You don’t like me much, do you.” I said this to Roy once: “I don’t think Marie likes me much.”
“That’s because she adored Deborah,” he said. “She was devoted to her.”
Well, that part is clear. She always says things like, “Mrs. Deborah would never… Mrs. Deborah wore it so well… You should have seen the dinner parties Mrs. Deborah threw!” She reminds me of this movie I saw once, called Rebecca, with the crazy housekeeper who goes mad with grief when Rebecca dies and sets the house on fire.
Roy gave Deborah’s things away—except for her wedding dress, which is under a sheath of silk in his closet, not weird at all—because they were too painful for him to keep around, which is just as well because otherwise I would not be surprised to find various shrines to Deborah around the place.
“I don’t have to like you, Mrs. Davies. I’m not paid to like you.”
“You do if you live here and work for us,” I say.
“Us?” She curls up her top lip and looks down at me. “You won’t be here much longer, Mrs. Davies. I assure you. My not liking you won’t be a problem for long. Not for me, anyway.”