by Janet Walker
* * *
The next morning, Grace, fully dressed for work, sat at the breakfast nook with a cup of hot herbal tea and finished the article in the sports section of the Journal. She grunted with displeasure. A girl from UCLA was threatening to overturn Amazing Grace Gresham speed records. Grace folded the paper and slapped it gently onto the table. Picked up her cup. Oh, well. The records had held for fourteen years, so sooner or later somebody was going to break them. But she had hoped she was dead when it happened. She sighed, took a sip of tea, glanced at her watch. Six fifty-five. She had told Darrel to tell Mrs. Gentry to be here at seven sharp, instead of eight o’clock. She told herself that the reason she had changed the time was to ensure that the maid would be out of the house before Grace returned from work. But the truth was—and she admitted this to herself with some shame now—she had changed the time only as a means to assert some control in a situation where she felt that Darrel and Mrs. Gentry had assumed all of it.
A buzzing sound stabbed the silence of the house. Grace rose and went to the metal faceplate on the kitchen wall. She pressed a black button marked Transmit and spoke.
“Yes?”
She released the button and through a receiver behind the faceplate heard the roar of air and the voice of a woman speaking louder than she needed to.
“This is Mrs. Gentry!”
The receiver popped into silence and Grace pressed the transmit button again.
“I’ll let you in.”
Grace pressed a different button, one labeled gate. She drained her teacup, placed it in the sink, and walked to the front of the house. Through the giant window in the piano parlor, she could see the huge gates of the estate swing open and then Mrs. Gentry’s green sedan advance slowly onto the driveway, creeping toward the house. Grace walked briskly back to the kitchen and pressed the gate button again, then walked back to the foyer, where she unlocked the front door. She stood in the foyer, hands in her pants pockets, waiting, perusing the parquet floor at her feet and the rooms surrounding her. Immaculate. She didn’t really need a maid.
The doorbell sounded, Grace stepped to the door, pulled it open. They met gazes, smiled nervously, politely.
“Good morning!”
“Morning. Thank you for coming so early.”
“Didn’t mind at all,” said Mrs. Gentry, stepping inside. “I’m a pre-dawner.” She held a mop in one hand. In the other, she carried a bucket filled with bottles of cleaning products.
The sight of the products insulted Grace. “I have cleaning supplies,” she said, turning away to walk toward the kitchen.
“Yes,” said the older woman, following Grace through the foyer. “I saw them when I was here yesterday. I’m sure they work wonderfully,” she said pleasantly, “but I know how these work.”
Grace glanced back at the woman, trying to decide if she should be offended or not. Mrs. Gentry wasn’t looking at her but was visually inspecting the front corridor as they passed through. For some reason, Grace found this disarming. She pushed through the swinging door of the kitchen and held it open as Mrs. Gentry entered the room. They moved to the middle of the kitchen, to the island counter, where Grace’s purse and attaché sat. She noticed quickly the older woman’s appearance. She had only seen her last evening but for some reason had forgotten what Mrs. Gentry looked like. Now the face had form again—a face similar to, Grace thought, an old stage and screen actress whose name Grace could not recall—and again Grace thought she saw vestiges of beauty in the tan complexion and almond eyes. The brown eye-liner and matte rose-red lipstick that the maid wore, along with the careful arrangement of auburn hair—which Grace now realized was a dye—and the silver earrings in the woman’s soft lobes struck Grace as incongruent with the woman’s occupation of housecleaner. But then she thought of herself, and how important it was to her to always look her best, regardless of task or setting, and decided that maybe the maid’s appearance wasn’t inappropriate, after all.
“Well,” she said, still not certain what to say in this new situation, “you have any questions about anything?”
“I don’t think so,” pondered the maid.
“You remember the code.”
“I do. Four-four-seven-one. I punch that in and hurry out the door.”
Grace nodded. At least the woman wasn’t an idiot.
“And you know Darrel’s in town, so he’ll be home some time this morning.” It was a warning, in case the woman had plans to carry out a burglary operation.
“Well, then,” the woman said brightly, “I’ll expect him!”
Mrs. Gentry’s manner was crisp, warm, and professional. Grace thought she detected in the woman’s demeanor an indication that while the other woman enjoyed conversing with Grace, she came to work. Grace appreciated the quality.
“And we’re not expecting any visitors, so if the guard calls from the main gate, you may answer but don’t give him permission to let anyone in.”
Mrs. Gentry nodded once, firmly, in compliance.
Grace reconsidered. “But then you won’t need to worry about that since you won’t be answering the phone, anyway.”
“All right,” said the old woman, snapping her head once in a nod, and then being struck with a thought. “But what if you call?”
Grace hesitated, startled. The thought hadn’t occurred to her.
“Well, I suppose…I don’t see why I would need to call you,” she stammered.
The older woman looked queerly at the younger—a hesitation of studied gazing—and then diplomatically inquired, “Well, what if I need to call you?”
“Oh.” Grace, embarrassed for having forgotten such an important detail, immediately fumbled with the attaché. Inside was a slot for business cards. She removed one and handed it to the old woman. “My number at work.”
Mrs. Gentry took the card and looked at it. “Director of Athletics,” she read, smiling proudly as if she were reading the accomplishments of a daughter.
For some reason the woman’s actions pushed a smile into Grace’s eyes, a reaction that startled her. What was wrong with her for blushing like a commended child? “Yes,” she confirmed before quickly reverting back to business. “And I…suppose you could answer the guard. If he calls.”
The maid nodded once in obedience.
“And you also have a way to reach Darrel?”
“Right here,” the maid said, reaching into a pocket on her smock. She retrieved a folded piece of paper and held it up for Grace to see. “In fact,” she said, moving toward the refrigerator, a great stainless-steel appliance, “maybe I can place it and your card…here—” She stopped abruptly when she saw there were no decorative accessories clinging to the surface of the fridge. “No magnets,” she commented, her tone suggesting that any real kitchen had refrigerator magnets.
Grace heard the tone and was offended by it. She did not like clutter and thought refrigerator magnets belonged in the kitchens of frazzled housewives.
“I have a bulletin board in the corner,” she pointed out. “You can place the numbers there.”
Mrs. Gentry walked to the corkboard plane on the wall and, using the push pins provided, stuck Grace’s business card and the paper with Darrel’s contact numbers into the softness of the brown surface.
Grace couldn’t think of anything else to say, and on top of that Mrs. Gentry’s pleasant professionalism made Grace’s own distrust of the woman seem out of place. So she said, “Well, make yourself—comfortable,” and turned away, heading for the laundry-room door.
“Thank you, Mrs. Nelson. You have a good day” came the pleasant voice from behind her. Grace thought of something and turned.
“Oh! And…you don’t have to clean our bedroom. The door is…locked, anyway.”
“All right.”
“And…you don’t have to cook today.”
“I don’t mind,” said the maid pleasantly. “In fact, I’ve got a few things I picked up from the store in the car.”
“You shouldn�
�t have done that,” Grace said, hovering between courtesy and annoyance. “Let me reimburse you.”
Mrs. Gentry threw a dismissing hand in Grace’s direction. “Please, no,” she objected in a laugh. “It’s the least I can do for my first day.” The mirth softened into earnestness. “I’m grateful. I needed this job. And I’d like to show my thanks.”
Grace hesitated, mouth open, wanting to insist, but something about Mrs. Gentry pushed Grace to smile and relent with a nod. She wondered briefly what motivated Mrs. Gentry to be so warm and personal in the light of the tragedies she had faced, what made her so confident and at ease in this situation, like someone accustomed to tackling a domicile and eager to take on a domestic stint when it seemed she was educated enough—articulate enough, anyway—to perform some other kind of work. Grace spun away. She would have to ask Darrel about it the next time she spoke to him. Who was this old woman who looked like an actress but lived by the broom?
