Kit nodded and thought and asked, “Am I allowed to eat?”
Alice looked at her sharply to see if she was being a smart alec and smiled, “Come on Kit, would I starve you?”
Kit smiled hesitantly back, she had had a lot of time to think on the way home, Alice’s silence and what she said in the hall had penetrated her thick fog and she knew what she needed to do. Alice was always fair; she wouldn’t do something like that. “No you wouldn’t,” she smiled at her own foolish question. “What about bathroom breaks?”
“Give me a break Kit, we both know you are hedging, no fooling around, I want you to succeed, your Mom would have too, let’s not disappoint her memory or each other okay?”
Kit liked that about Alice, she always spoke to her one on one, never down to her as some adults did. She felt guilty all of a sudden about her Mom; it would have hurt her to know how Kit had behaved. She nodded and began to get out of the Porsche.
“I’m not staying right now, can I trust you to go up to your room right away and get cracking at the books?”
Kit nodded again and watched as Alice expertly drove the Porsche out of the garage and the door quietly closed before she headed for the stairs. She didn’t see Alice on the phone to Nan.
“Hello?”
“Nan, this is Alice, I have just dropped off Kit, she is not to use the phone or watch television, she is to be studying constantly until I say different. She goes to bed and takes her showers at the usual time, she is to eat with us at meal times, but otherwise she is to study and only study. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Nan nodded with the phone as she said, “Yes ma’am,” wondering what Kit had done to get in this much trouble.
“Good, I will be home later; I’m going out to take care of some business.”
Nan was surprised, Alice hadn’t gone anywhere in months but who was she to question her employer. “Will you be late?”
“I don’t know, I will call if I will miss dinner,” with that Alice hung up, no goodbye and no further information offered to her employee.
Nan looked down at her phone, the old Alice was back and she wasn’t sure whether she was happy about that as she looked up at the two younger children playing and called to them so they could watch cartoons before dinner and she could check on Kit. There would be hell to pay if Alice wasn’t obeyed of that she was certain and this was a good job, her employer didn’t usually interfere with their plans or schedules and it paid very well, she would do as her employer asked at all costs.
Alice drove into the city and into a middle class neighborhood. She slowed her Porsche before parking it inside a detached garage of one of the more non-descript houses. She closed the garage with a flick on a key fob she kept in the tray in the glove compartment. Kathy had asked why she had extra keys and things and she had always replied non-commitally that they were for properties she owned and let it be at that, not explaining, not showing her them. This particular property she knew, very well. She walked out the garage door and looked around. It was very well maintained, the grass mowed weekly and watered every other night or so. The bushes and shrubs were at a minimum but lush in the Southern California sun. A Hispanic man came running over when he saw her inspecting the property.
“Ms. Alice, this is a surprise, it has been a long time since we see you here!” he said with a delighted smile.
“Raoul,” she nodded acknowledging him, “It has been a while, I thought I’d come by today.”
“I’ve kept everything the way you wanted it,” he said still smiling delightedly.
“I am sure you have, everything okay here?” she asked knowing he needed reassurance.
“Fine, fine, occasionally we hear from someone wondering about the house but your travels keep you away and I keep everything clean and tidy. Your mail in on the table in the kitchen.”
“Thank you Raoul, I’m sure everything is fine as always.”
“My missus cleaned upstairs just yesterday,” he told her pleased.
Alice hesitated only fractionally, he didn’t mention downstairs but then why would he, the door was locked, or was it still? It had been months since she had been to this particular property. “Thank you, I appreciate how well you two take care of the place for me.”
“Well, we thank you for taking care of our retirement Ms. Alice, things have been slow lately? The papers say our money isn’t making as much these days.” He said by way of inquiry but putting it as a statement so as not to anger her.
Alice stopped at the door and produced a key to unlock the front door as she turned to look at the man. “Yes, things have been kind of slow, perhaps they will pick up soon.”
“My missus saw the obituary about your wife, we are sorry for your loss Ms. Alice,” he said in a sad voice.
Alice closed her eyes for a moment at the pain that statement unintentionally caused and then opened them immediately to look at the man who almost took an unconscious step back at the yellow gold of her eyes and the intensity in them. She nodded and said, “Thank you,” before unlocking the door and going inside saying not another word to him.
Raoul wiped his forehead. He and his wife maintained this house for Ms. Alice and she maintained their retirement portfolio for them. It was a good arrangement and all it required was that they cut the lawn, pick up the mail, clean every now and then but Ms. Alice wasn’t here very often, it used to be once or twice a week but it had been a long time now, months actually. She was a nice lady, rich by the look of her clothes and her car. She didn’t stay here but he didn’t question that. His wife was curious about the locked doors in the house but Raoul was scrupulous about not touching those as Alice had specifically requested him not to. He had no reason to go snooping and hadn’t in all the years she had employed him to care for the house. Some of the other neighbors were curious about the house but as it was maintained, taxes paid for, and occasionally occupied there was no one to complain. He had a few times seen someone more than curious and emailed Alice and once even actually called as someone sat outside the house in a Volvo but that all seemed to stop a long time ago.
Alice went through the mail first, it was almost all junk but six months accumulation was a lot. The electric and the water bill were paid automatically through an account. The taxes were paid up promptly each year. There was no extra gas or sewer bill in this section of Los Angeles so she had no unpaid bills. She saw the normal ‘occupant’ or ‘neighbor’ junk mail and pushed almost all of it into a trash bin. One note though caught her attention and then she was quickly opening it, it was in Kathy’s handwriting.
Dear Alice,
I followed you to this address. I don’t know what you do here but I am deeply hurt
that you would not tell me about this. I don’t know what to think about this. I know
you don’t tell me all about your business deals and properties and I haven’t cared in
the past but this hurts. This really hurts. Now you know that I know and maybe you
could find it in your heart to tell me what this house is to you and why you come here.
Kathy
Alice was shocked. The letter was dated the week before Kathy had died. She remembered back that Raoul had called and said a Volvo was seen in the area and the occupant had eyed the house repeatedly. It had all stopped before Alice could look into it thoroughly but now she realized why. Kathy had died. Why had she followed her here though? What had made her suspicious about this house? Normally she would have talked to her about it but then things hadn’t been perfect around the time Kathy had died. They hadn’t been as close; they hadn’t been as loving, part of it Alice now realized was why she had been feeling so guilty about her behavior towards her loving wife. But it had been Kathy too who had become distant and quiet. She wondered how long she had followed her to this house, to this particular house. She folded the note lovingly and put it in her pocket.
She went to one of the doors and produced another key and unlocked it, opening it slowly s
he checked that the door hadn’t been tampered with, her string was still in place and she looked up at a small unobtrusive strip on the door frame, the door hadn’t been opened since she had last been here. Flipping a light switch it revealed a set of steps leading downstairs. A rarity in Los Angeles it had taken her a long time to find this particular house, one with a basement. She went down the steps confidently and looked around carefully. Nothing was out of place. She began to strip out of her power suit and picked up some shorts, a sports bra, and put them on. They fit perfectly.
In the basement were mats, bags, and a long section that had nothing in its way but the far end of the basement contained a thick section of cork. Outlines of people were drawn on the cork. Sticking out of the cork were four to six inch throwing knives. It was obvious that the knives had been thrown hard and accurately the last time Alice had used the basement. No windows lit up this hideaway of Alice’s. Nothing to indicate that the basement even existed other than the normal couple of feet of concrete block that most people’s houses in Southern California had a foundation on. Alice’s extended to this entire basement under the whole house and provided her with a work out gym of her own. She stretched for a while since it had been a long time since she had had a workout other than hiking or using their gym at home. She started with leg kicks against mats and a stuffed dummy that allowed high kicks and provided her with a good workout. She used this place to coordinate her body in ways that Kathy wouldn’t have understood. She fashioned scenarios in her head to keep herself sharp and aware of what went on around her. She dimmed the lights to provide her with a sense of shadow and design, she used it to time her kicks, her punches, and then to practice her knife throws. Even in dim light she was deadly accurate after a period of practice, her skills came back to her effortlessly as she played and sweated. In fact the sweat was really rolling down her petite body when she called a halt to her work out and headed to the shower in the corner. She rinsed out the tub that hadn’t been cleaned in over six months and washed it down before stepping in and rinsing her sweaty body and the clothes she had worked out in. She threw them in the washer/dryer combo set next to the shower and dried off with a towel. Her longer hair didn’t dry as fast as it had in the past but she put it up in a bun and got into her ‘power’ clothes. Looking around she straightened up a few things, putting everything back into its proper place so she would know immediately next time if anything had been moved or altered.
Going back up the stairs she rubbed the strip at the top until it looked ‘metallic’ again. It would maintain that color as long as it was in contact with the other part of the door that had another metallic strip identical to it, if the door had been opened as it had been while she was there it took on a green hugh that told Alice that someone had opened this door. She also pulled a string across at knee level as she closed the door, this too would be down if the door was opened, they were minor things but it paid to be cautious and she knew Raoul could be trusted, she wondered about his wife occasionally but in all the years she had dealt with them there had been really no mishaps. She went down the hall to the other locked door in the house. The house had 3 bedrooms, two of them had beds and other bedroom furniture, but the third one was locked and she alone had a key for it. She checked again that the door hadn’t been tampered with and found nothing of concern. The windows in this room were taped over to make it appear that the drapes were always drawn. In this room were boxes and she saw nothing to cause her concern. She relocked the room and headed out of the house through another door that would keep her hidden from anyone watching and into the enclosed garage.
She sat in her Porsche a minute before pushing the button on the key fob to open the garage door. It was now dark, she had been there several hours but enough to ascertain that the house was okay and to get a workout she had needed to release some energy. She hadn’t realized how pent up her body had become with emotion and other poisons. The workout had taken care of most of those because she had the surprise of Kathy’s letter and Kit’s misbehavior as well as six months of grief and she had to admit, sexual frustration. As she drove home she thought about stopping at an old haunt and perhaps picking up a girl but the thought made her want to shudder. She wasn’t ready for that. Sure it would have been easy to pick up some woman and take her somewhere but she couldn’t take her home and she just didn’t feel like she was widowed yet, she felt like it would be a betrayal of Kathy in some way. Logically she knew that she had to move on and eventually she would, but not now, now she would take Kit in hand and continue her work outs, both in her home and in her house…
Alice checked on Kit a lot over the next four days, she was near to breaking under the pressure Alice could see. Kit was duly chastised by the silence, the younger kids were kept away with the admonishment that their sister was ‘working’ and she was allowed to come out only for meals. Alice was there almost constantly to check on her work, correct it, and offer suggestions. A term paper she had procrastinated on was finished as well as work in Algebra, Science, and several other subjects. Kit had never worked so hard in her life and she was actually proud of herself. Alice was a lot more fun to work with when she had problems and she was surprised how much she knew about a wide variety of subjects. Kit wasn’t allowed to use the computer; Alice put a lock on it so she could only use the word processing program on it. She had to look things up in an actual encyclopedia, no internet, no Wikipedia. Kit hadn’t even known that you could put a lock on a computer but Alice here too impressed her with her knowledge and expertise. By the end of the third day though she was bushed, all that work had made her eyes feel buggy and before she could start the fourth day of work Alice asked her to take a walk on the bluffs.
“Really? I thought I had to stay in my room?” Kit said incredulously at breakfast.
“Can we go, can we go?” the other two piped up.
Alice smiled and said, “No, this is just a Kit and I hike, you two and I will go other times okay?” she tried to give them that to look forward to but she could see their disappointment.
The younger two whined about not going but Alice ignored them as she and Kit set out. Alice unlocked the gate to the bluffs overlooking the ocean behind their house and relocked it behind them. She didn’t want the younger kids ‘accidentally’ getting out through it and she didn’t want the possibility that anyone could slip onto the property from this remote gate.
Alice and Kit walked along the narrow path that wound along the top of the bluff and overlooked the blue and green waters of the Pacific, it was a beautiful view, one that Alice had paid a lot of money for, one shared by their neighbors who hiked along these very paths. They sat down on a park bench someone had installed before you could walk down to the beach.
“So how’s it going, are you almost done?” Alice asked as she looked out over the water, her sunglasses hiding her cat like eyes.
“I’m getting tired of my books but I’ve made a lot of progress,” Kit said respectfully and then she grinned, “I’ve got a lot done!”
Alice could hear the pride in the teen’s voice and for that she was grateful. She had helped her a lot over the past three days and learned that going through Middle School again at her age was not something she wanted to repeat. She had had to speed read and figure things out; it had kept her agile mind on its toes. The things they taught kids these days, she mentally shook her head time and again. But she had enjoyed working with Kit and she could see the progress she had made. The isolation and the total commitment to ‘catching up’ had been its own reward. Kit was duly chastised but also proud of her work. Now they had to deal with her emotional level.
“Think you can finish it all by say noon?” Alice asked as she glanced over at the teen.
Kit looked up in surprise; she had been enjoying the outing with Alice. She had had a lot to think about over the past few days as she did her homework and more. The brilliance of the water, its incredible blue and green hues were a favorite and she had enjoyed walking here
in the past with her mom and Alice. She had missed a lot of things the last six months. “I think I can,” she answered wondering what Alice had in mind.
“Good, cause I’d like to take you all out this afternoon for a treat, it’s been a long time since we all went anywhere and I’d like to do that. I can’t take you though unless you are all caught up and have done the extra we talked about.”
“I’m sure I can!” Kit said suddenly excited, she loved the idea of them all going out, she saddened suddenly remembering the last time they all went out together was for her Mom’s funeral, and before that had been with her Mom.
Alice could see the play of emotions on the teen and she put her arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Kit burst into tears and Alice could feel herself blinking rapidly but no tears came to her eyes, her heart though was squeezing painfully.
Kit got everything done by 11:30 and called to Alice to check her work. A few minor corrections and Alice was actually impressed with the amount of work the kid had done. Not only that it was quality work and she had worked ahead in a couple of her subjects and was more than ready to turn it all in in the morning at school. She hoped this aspect of her daughter’s world had been straightened out.
That afternoon Alice took the three of them to a Disney movie because of younger two’s ages. Despite the fact that it was an animated movie even Kit had a good time. Popcorn, soda, and candy and they were all wired. Alice drove them then to Carl’s Jr. and they all enjoyed a fast food meal together. She had given both Mrs. Fernandez and Nan that Sunday afternoon, evening, and even Monday off. The extra time off had been a surprise and welcome to both of the women. Alice had let them keep their regular days off despite Kathy’s absence but had been hard pressed to keep up with the children otherwise, this extra time was a bonus for all of them.
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