Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  I’m still watching her when her gaze snaps to the back yard. Her eyes widen in fear as she lets out a shriek. Her hands go up in defense. She takes a hesitant step back, then another, until her back hits the door.

  Shit. Must be coyotes.

  I move quickly, yanking the back door open and shouting for Edith to get the shotgun. There are coyotes and mountain lions in this part of the state, and while it’s uncommon for them to stalk too deep onto the property, it’s not unheard of.

  “Don’t run!” I shout to Meredith as I step out into the back yard.

  Edith isn’t far behind me with the shotgun. She hands it off and I scan the area, trying to spy any animals that don’t belong. When the coast looks clear, I check the tree line, narrowing my eyes and listening for the sound of snapping twigs or shuffling paws.

  “Where are they?” I snap.

  “Right there!”

  I turn to where she’s pointing and spot my golden retriever standing a few yards away from her.

  “You mean Alfred?”

  He trots closer to her and she unleashes a barrage of Hollywood-style karate kicks and chops at the air between them. “No, no—don’t come any closer!”

  Alfred doesn’t listen.

  “No!” she demands. “I said NO! Sit!”

  Alfred sits.

  Edith laughs, yanks the shotgun out of my hold, and tromps back inside, mumbling something under her breath.

  “It’s just a dog,” I point out.

  “Feral? Untamed?!”

  Alfred hops back up and starts to stroll toward her again, tail wagging. He gets right to her and starts lapping at her legs in between flails.

  “Nope—golden, as in retriever.”

  She squats and her hands cover her face. “Please don’t eat me!”

  I try to make myself feel bad for how amusing I find this situation. I really ought to do something, but Alfred is the most harmless animal in the world. He’s beloved by everyone…except, I guess, Meredith.

  “Are you afraid of dogs?”

  “No!” she declares emphatically while trying to wiggle away from Alfred’s licks.

  “You sure seem like you are.”

  “I’m afraid of strange shapeless forms charging toward me in the dark!” she explains before turning and pointing her finger at Alfred. “And you—can’t you take a hint?! I do not consent to this!”

  I emit a short, high whistle and Alfred jerks to attention then trots toward me. Meredith coolly drops her hands and presses her hair back into its high ponytail. She’s trying to play it off like she didn’t just beg for her life, but when our gazes lock, I can tell she’s pissed.

  “Did you order that attack? Is this more of your hazing?”

  I try not to find her amusing. “I think you’ve spent too much time in that shack. Alfred was just happy to see you.”

  “Well, he just—I just—wasn’t quite ready for that level of intimacy, but I forgive you, Alfred.”

  I glance down to where Alfred is sitting politely at my feet. He is the picture of docile innocence, unlike the brunette Barbie standing a few yards away from me.

  “My life just flashed before my eyes.”

  “I bet that was a riveting little highlight reel.”

  At that, her eyes narrow into two slits. It seems I’ve really pissed her off this time. Her arms cross over her chest. Her chin juts out. Her brows knit together. I should be shaking in my boots, but it feels like I’m staring at an angry kitten.

  She takes a few steps closer to me to me and props her hands on her hips. That’s when I finally notice what she’s wearing: the same tight jeans as yesterday, but she’s traded in the white blouse for a t-shirt. It’s tied off in a knot at her midriff and the sleeves are rolled up as best as possible. It’s way too big for her, and well, it should be considering it’s mine.

  “Where the hell did you get that shirt?”

  Her eyes go wide and her cheeks flush, but she tries to cover the embarrassed reaction as best as possible.

  “Edith gave it to me,” she says confidently.

  “She had no right to do that.”

  “It was in a bag of clothes meant for charity.”

  Well that explains why all my t-shirts were missing this morning.

  “Don’t you have enough fancy designer clothes to wear?”

  “Not while I clean your toilet.”

  It makes no sense. Her tone isn’t any softer than it was yesterday. I wonder if this is how she always acts—proud and pissy, even when she clearly has no right or reason to back it up. She’s the one who slept in a spider-infested shack, and yet she’s still walking around like she’s the Queen of England.

  “I want my clothes back.”

  She grits her teeth and reaches for the t-shirt as if to pull it over her head right here and now.

  “You really want me to take the shirt off my back?”

  I’m quiet. Her hands drop and there’s a tiny smirk at the corner of her lips. She’s pleased with herself for winning this round. Little does she know that if we were alone, I would have let her strip down as far as she wanted to go, but my ranch hands are starting to arrive for work and a few of them are watching our exchange from over by the barn. I’d have to replace the whole staff, because they’d never let me hear the end of it. If I’m just patient, she’ll break, and the problem will solve itself. She won’t be here for much longer.

  Although, I’m less sure of that today than I was yesterday. Helen convinced me to hire Meredith with the assumption that she wouldn’t last very long, but here we are, day two, and I’m not getting the impression that Meredith is all that eager to head back to California.

  In fact, she’s up early and dressed (in my clothes), seemingly ready to get to work. I decide to test the boundaries of her resolve.

  “Follow me.”

  7

  Meredith

  You know those California tourism commercials? The ones where they show celebrities sunbathing or doing yoga or teeing off or parasailing or shopping on Rodeo Drive? That was my life—well, minus the parasailing. I don’t have many rules in life, but a nonnegotiable one is to never entrust my safety to a high schooler tying knots in a rope for minimum wage. I know, it’s a very specific rule.

  Everything else in the commercial, though, was eerily similar. I had a maid, a gardener, and a house manager. I drove a pearl white Range Rover and carried the last name of a man who mattered. I was invited to glamorous parties and exclusive red carpet events. I schmoozed with movie stars (I would never name names, but let’s just say Jennifer Janiston actually does have incredible skin in person) and they hung on my every word, assuming if they cozied up to me, Andrew would want to work with them on his next project.

  To the world, I had it all.

  That’s how it works when you build a life from the outside in—it ends up hollow.

  Strangely enough, Andrew and I were happy once, riiiiight in the very beginning. We were so happy, in fact, I was blind to the subtle changes taking place between us. When we first met, Andrew was a fledgling associate producer at a production company. He made okay money, worked semi-normal hours, and acted the part of the doting husband. We were that couple with a standing date night every Wednesday. Mexican food this week, babe? How about Italian, babe? He brought me flowers once a week. Yellow roses, my favorite! He was older, handsome, successful. Enough people, including my parents and Helen, told me he was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I believed them.

  The problems began once Andrew started the corporate climb. The more impressive his job title became, the more stress he carried on his shoulders. The execs were tough on him. All day he’d absorb their poison like a sponge, and at night, he’d wring it all out on me.

  I still remember the first time he snapped. I’d just returned from a yoga class and was in the kitchen making us dinner when he walked in the door. My sweaty appearance set off something in him.

  “You sit around all day and you can�
��t even look presentable when I come home?”

  I stood frozen in place, absolutely shocked that he’d have the audacity to say something so hurtful. It wasn’t like him to act that way and he apologized right after, said he was out of line, it was the stress talking, but a few weeks later, it happened again. This time it was because I didn’t feel up to going out to a Hollywood party with him.

  “Thousands of women would give anything to be invited, to be with me. You don’t know what you have anymore.”

  When I called him out for being unreasonable, he went for blood.

  “You might be a pretty face, but in this town, there are a million women who look just like you. You’re nothing without me—remember that.”

  After he spewed that venom, he still went to the party. I stayed home and replayed his words until I started believing them. Obviously now, I can see those are the words of a deeply insecure and troubled human being, but over time, I feared he was right. I know that’s sick, but Andrew was my husband, my supposed soul mate, the best thing that had ever happened to me. We’d been together for a while, and I trusted him implicitly. If he was upset with me, my first instinct was to figure out what I’d done wrong.

  So, I tried to be better. From then on, I always made sure I was dressed and made up when he got home from work. I never turned down an invitation to attend a party with him and while we were together, I made sure to be a sweet, doting wife. In return, our marriage stayed the course. Andrew continued to bring home flowers (Yellow roses, my favorite!) even though I suspected he’d delegated the task of retrieving them to his secretary. We continued going on a date every Wednesday night, but more often than not I shared the time with his phone, which was never on silent.

  Andrew kept climbing higher at his company, closer and closer to the American dream. His stress filled the empty space beneath our thinly constructed veneer, until there were too many cracks to control. It became impossible for me to differentiate between normal marital blowups and insidious emotional abuse.

  “Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you!?” he yelled at me one night after he’d lost his erection in the middle of sex. It was an impossible situation to navigate. If I consoled and reassured him, he would lash out defensively. So, I said nothing at all, and he seized the silence like a weapon. “I can get it up just fine—guess you just don’t turn me on anymore.”

  In case you’re wondering, I’m a fucking excellent lover, I’d just reached the point where I couldn’t stand his touch, and he must’ve felt it. Of course, now I can look back and spot the abuse and manipulation like a vandalized copy of an I Spy book. Oh yup, there it is—circled right in front of you. But, when I was in it, I didn’t realize I was in it, living it—a complacent participant. The incidents were so spaced out that during the peaceful periods in between, I’d convince myself he’d changed, that he’d learned to cope better with his stress and wouldn’t say another hurtful thing to me. Even worse than that, I started to expect the abuse. I’d grown calluses. When he said I was pathetic, dumb, and worthless, I believed him because he coupled each insult with a dose of gaslighting. “Who else would want to be with you? If you left me, no one else would have you. You’re a boring wife and a boring fuck. Be glad I’m with you.”

  Be glad I’m with you.

  Be glad I’m with you.

  He was holding my head under water, and I didn’t drown, didn’t break. I grew gills.

  Four years into our marriage, it looked like Andrew was perfect. Everyone agreed, and I was glad.

  I hadn’t spoken a word about his behavior to anyone around me, and that was an intentional choice on both of our parts. After the first few arguments, he’d hold me in bed and rub my back and tell me our personal life was ours. “We’re stars, babe, and stars burn hot. People won’t understand.” Of course, I wholeheartedly agreed. In the beginning, I still believed the best of him. I didn’t want to betray his trust and spew our dirty laundry to the world, especially since I was so sure each bad time was the last. Somewhere in the middle though, denial that it would continue dissolved into shame and embarrassment that it had and would.

  I turned inward, pushing my family and everyone else away even more, and Andrew capitalized on that. He kept in touch with our friends when I didn’t. He put on a warm, friendly facade when we were out at parties. He was such a clever puppeteer, especially when you consider the fact that you can’t file a police report for words like you can for punches, and Andrew knew that. He never once hit me.

  I did finally work up the courage to talk about it with Rebecca. She was the closest thing I had to a friend back in Los Angeles. We’d get lunch a few times a month and meet up for yoga here and there.

  I broached the subject in a whisper, after a scripted answer about being annoyed with his adorable quirks.

  “Actually, I don’t think I’m happy…with Andrew.”

  She looked up from her salad, confused. “What do you mean? Is he working a lot?”

  “Yes, but it’s not about that,” I said, talking in a stream-of-consciousness confession I was piecing together in real time. “I feel like I’ve told myself I’m happy so many times I’ve totally forgotten what the word means.”

  She waved her hand as if to say, Nonsense. “That’s just life. God, Jeff has been in the office more than ever. I swear he’s screwing his receptionist.”

  She laughed and continued eating her salad like, chomp, chomp, chomp, my husband is cheating on me, can you pass the salt?

  I focused on my untouched pasta. “I’m thinking about leaving Andrew. I’m really considering it, actually.”

  “Because he’s working a lot?”

  “No.” I was annoyed we weren’t on the same page. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, trying to objectively say whether or not I’m happy.” I shook my head, trying to make my point clear. “I don’t think it’s something you can measure. It’s just—when I wake up in the morning, my first thought is to run, to get away.” I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “He’s not who everyone thinks he is.”

  She rolled her eyes, sat back in her chair, and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Listen, Andrew might not be the best husband in the world, but your marriage seems pretty perfect to me. Didn’t he just buy you that bracelet last week? The last thing Jeff bought me was an air freshener for my car.”

  I looked down at the diamonds shimmering on my wrist. It was true, he’d bought the bracelet for me out of the blue, but we both knew it was an apology for the hurtful things he’d said. The night before that lunch, I hadn’t been wearing it, and he’d told me I was ungrateful. I’d learned my lesson: it would never leave my wrist so long as he was around.

  Rebecca took my silence as an admission of guilt. “Listen, if you’re trying to get some kind of settlement from him after the divorce, you’d better be careful. I have a friend who went down that path, and she ended up with nothing. Now her husband is married to some woman half her age and she’s waiting tables in Santa Monica.”

  It was pointless. I was getting nowhere. She didn’t want to hear the truth any more than I wanted to speak it. I knew then that if I was ever going to leave, I’d have to do it on my own, so I did. That diamond bracelet is sitting in some pawn shop in Beverly Hills and here I am, the new housekeeper for Blue Stone Ranch.

  It feels pretty good, though technically, I haven’t started yet. I’m still working out where to begin. Jack spent all of two minutes pointing me in the direction of the cleaning closet, all the while reminding me of my duties.

  “Clean the house, do the laundry, make sure the fridge and pantry are stocked. Cook lunch for Edith and me, sweep, vacuum, that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds good.”

  My go-getter attitude seemed to poke at him. “Right, and of course, I’ll need you to feed and bathe your new furry friend, too.”

  I swear his eyes held an evil gleam.

  I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said my life flashed before my eyes as Alfred ran for me. Dogs jus
t aren’t my thing, not since one latched onto my butt when I was a kid. I still have a tiny scar on my right cheek.

  Of all my duties, I’m most excited about cooking, but Jack mentioned he and Edith were planning on eating leftovers from last night for lunch. So, that leaves cleaning and dog duties. Cleaning it is! No problem. Awesome. I root through the closet then make my way through the house, collecting any supplies I think I’ll need to complete my tasks. I’m going to start with the bathrooms, mostly so I can prove Jack wrong.

  I saw how gleeful he looked at the concept of me on all fours, scrubbing toilets. He thinks I’m going to cave and leave, or beg for another job, something a little more glamorous. Little does he know, I’m done with glamour. It’s not what it’s cracked up to be.

  Once I’m properly outfitted, I get to work in his bathroom. It’s not as dirty as I anticipated, probably because his housekeeper didn’t quit all that long ago. I’m disappointed he isn’t a total slob, but then, maybe it’s a good thing considering I’m the one who now has to clean up after him.

  I can only imagine what my “friends” from my old life would say if they saw me now, scrubbing a toilet seat with enthusiasm. It’s really not so bad. I hum an upbeat tune, spritz a little more cleaner, flush. A droplet from the spray gets in my eye and I don’t even break character. I am Meredith Avery, maid extraordinaire.

  I’m still bent over his toilet when Jack walks in. I didn’t expect to see him again so soon, especially considering how eager he was to be rid of me earlier.

  I pause my scrubbing and sit back on my heels. From my angle on the floor, he seems even more large than usual, looming there like a demon and blocking the light from the bathroom window.

  He takes in the sight of me with my rubber gloves up to my elbows and a mask stretched across the lower half of my face. His mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile.

  “A little overkill, don’t you think?”