“Oh, expense account.” Tessa sucked her teeth. “We’ll have to get you into the office to set that up. Is there a time you can come in?”
“I already have one.”
Tessa frowned. “What?”
“Michael gave me a credit card when I got here and told me it was my expense account. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
Connie picked up a baby carrot. “Bear set up your expense account already?”
“I can’t believe Helen didn’t tell me.” Tessa pouted. “I’m going to have a chat with Mrs. Wheals tomorrow. She should have mentioned it.”
“She probably meant to and forgot. She hasn’t been feeling too well.”
“What’s wrong?” Maureen asked. Twelve years of observing social structure in the microcosm of her classroom paid off. In this group’s pecking order, Connie and Tessa ranked high and winning them to her side would ease her acceptance. If they were gossiping about the others in front of her and giving her privileged information, they’d accepted her. Marc should rank higher, but Connie and Tessa might be able to cancel him out. She’d still need to sway a couple of other people to her side though to cancel out Michael’s brother. Two down, four to go.
* * * *
Maureen sat down in front of the TV. At noon she was meeting Brian’s wife Bonnie for lunch and shopping, but that left her two hours to burn before she had to leave.
The outing yesterday with Kim had been successful. Kim liked her immediately and the farmer’s market had been fun. Kim and Cal’s two kids were older than Brian and Bonnie’s, but they were home schooled so they had been along on the trip. Kim appreciated that Maureen could do on-the-spot math lessons in the middle of the market. Sadly, Kim was pretty low in influence.
Bonnie, however, had a lot of clout through Brian and wielded it like a club. Tessa and Connie had not had many nice things to say about her, which made Maureen wonder if she was something of a rival power. The few moments she’d had to talk to the other woman at the cookout hadn’t yielded much information. Bonnie was brassy and loud and complimented her on getting Bear to propose so fast. She’d announced that she’d spent a year working on Brian and then had to get pregnant to seal the deal. Her phrasing had made Maureen’s eyes itch. Reflecting on the conversation now, maybe this lunch wasn’t a good idea. Michael wasn’t happy about it.
The phone rang. She stared at it through another ring, debating answering. Then she grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Hi, Maureen? It’s Bonnie. Hey listen, I have a problem.”
Maybe she was canceling. What a shame.
“My sitter got the day wrong and I have a doctor’s appointment this morning. I have been trying to get in with this guy for six months. I need you to watch the kids for an hour or so while I go. Can you?”
Maureen bit her lip. This could be a good way to get a solid in with Bonnie and Brian while getting in some practice being a mother. Michael had put Brian’s address into the GPS navigation thingy this morning so she’d be able to go over there for lunch. “Sure.”
“Great. I’ll see you in a bit.” Bonnie hung up.
Maureen grabbed her purse in the way out the door. This could be a perfect situation. With Connie and Tessa on her side, that gave her two votes to Marc’s one. Adding Bonnie to the mix would give her Brian as well. Gaining full acceptance and cementing her reputation as wife type two would only cost an hour or so of babysitting.
Bonnie met her at the door. “I’m running late. Tess and Bub are in the living room playing. The sitter is going to try to come this afternoon and even if she doesn’t, the housekeeper will be here. Thanks again.” Bonnie slid past her and dove into her white Mercedes.
Maureen put her purse on the counter in the six square inches that weren’t cluttered with dirty plates, junk mail and empty food cartons. When she walked into the living room, Tess stood up from a tea party set on the glass coffee table and the baby started to cry. The living room was a sea of toys with two leather couches, one white and one black, floating amid them. How long had it been since the housekeeper had been here last? Christmas?
“Who are you?”
“I’m—” Everybody here called Michael Bear, but what did the kids call him? And how was she supposed to define her relationship to him? Did it matter? The kids looked about four and two. “I’m your Uncle Bear’s girlfriend.”
“Bubbie’s crying.” Tess put her little hands on her hips.
“I noticed. Any clue why?”
“He doesn’t like to be in his pen all the time.”
“Out. Out. Out,” Bubbie chanted, bouncing up and down.
Maureen studied the smaller child. Child psychology was a long time ago. “Well, we probably shouldn’t let Bubbie out of his playpen with all these toys lying around.”
“He tries to eat them. ’Specially my bobby shoes.”
Bobby shoes? Oh, Barbie shoes. Maureen tipped over a wooden block and noticed something brown mashed around the red letter B. “We should pick up all the toys and put them away.”
Tess surveyed the floor and then ran behind the white couch and dragged a huge gray plastic tub out. She scooped up toys with abandon, dumping them in the tub. The tub was clearly labeled Barbie Dolls in black Magic Marker.
Behind the couch, a pile of four more tubs were also helpfully labeled, in black Magic Marker. She toed over another toy, this one white plastic with a dark red smear on the side. Tess already had the first bin overflowing and was working on a second. “You know what might be fun?” Maureen said. “If we washed everything.”
Tess cocked her head. “Can we wash Bobby’s clothes? Some of her clothes are very dirty.”
She didn’t want to think about that. “We can. But first we have to sort all of Barbie’s clothes out, because we have to wash them separately.”
“Okay.” Tess pushed over the full tub, giving Maureen a good idea how the living room had gotten to be such a mess in the first place. Bubbie started to cry again. Hooking his fingers through the mesh, he threw himself backward.
“Shut up!” Tess screamed at him.
“That’s not helping.” Maureen dragged out the other tubs and started sorting toys into the correct ones.
Tess ran to the playpen and screamed directly into her brother’s face. “Shut up!”
Maureen hurried over and pulled her back. Second graders didn’t do this. “Tess, stop. He doesn’t understand. The sooner we get cleaned up so he can come out, the sooner he’ll stop crying.”
Tess frowned. Then she turned to her brother. “We’ll let you out when we’re done. You just stay there.”
Bubbie kept bawling. His little face brilliant red and white marks on his fingers where he gripped the netting.
Was this what motherhood was really like? How had the species not died out? When her tub of wooden blocks looked about full enough, she carried it to the kitchen, dumped them into the dishwasher and turned it on.
In the living room, Tess had started singing really loud to drown out the sound of her brother crying. Tess did not have her father’s singing voice. Or so Maureen assumed. The off-key caterwaul wasn’t doing anything for the throbbing at the base of her skull. She needed to have to have another conversation with Michael about children.
Bubbie abruptly stopped screaming and Tess stopped singing in response. In the sudden silence, Maureen closed her eyes and thanked whatever gods had granted this moment.
Opening her eyes, she glanced at Bubbie. The kid was sitting in the middle of his playpen rocking back and forth with a smile on his face.
Tess frowned at Maureen. “Bubbie pooped his diaper.”
11
The back door opened. “What happened here?” a shrill, Latin accented voice demanded.
Maureen thought she should open her eyes and try to act like a grown up, but didn’t have the energy. Besides, based on Tess’ industrious braiding of her hair for the past half hour, she wasn’t sure she could manage anyway. The regular, gentle tugging ha
d been almost massage-like.
“Ahnyong, Sophie,” Tess said.
Great, she’d managed to get through washing toys, eating lunch and two diaper changes and now she’d gone crazy. There probably wasn’t even anyone here. Maureen opened her eyes. A thin oriental woman stood at the end of the end of the couch. Her flat moon face didn’t have any expression, but Maureen felt safe in assuming puzzlement. She was puzzled too, because it didn’t seem likely that this thin Oriental woman was speaking with a Spanish accent. It was possible, but she didn’t remember that word Tess had said from her high school Spanish classes.
The woman, Sophie apparently, picked up Bubbie from where he was sleeping under the coffee table. “I will take,” she said in a soft, not Spanish accented voice. She held out her hand for Tess. “Come. Naptime.”
Tess left off her hairdressing and went with Sophie, cheerfully speaking some language Maureen had never heard.
She sat up, and her head did not thank her for it. The six Tylenol she’d taken in the last two hours had not dented her headache. A small, dark woman charged out of the kitchen. “What in the name of heaven is going on? Who are you? Where is the miss?” She paused, drawing back. When she spoke again her voice had taken on an awed tone one might use at a funeral. “What happened to your hair?”
She touched her head. Bo Derek she wasn’t. “Tess was playing with it. All the toys are wet.”
“I noticed. Why?”
“I washed them. They were pretty dirty.” Maybe washing the toys hadn’t been such a great idea.
The housekeeper put her hands on her hips. “Well, half my job is finished. Except I’ll have to do a load of towels. Are those…”
Maureen followed the housekeeper’s gaze. Tess had set up the clothesline for Barbie’s clothes. Where the little girl had gotten the string and paperclips, she didn’t know, but they worked. “We washed all of Barbie’s clothes too. I’m afraid we used all the Woolite.”
“All?”
“It got knocked over and a lot went down the drain.” After it went all over the floor. On the upside, the bathroom floor was really clean. Her thighs tensed. Bathroom. “Can you excuse me for a minute?” She darted down the hall.
Since Bonnie left, she’d been afraid to leave the kids alone and hadn’t gone to the bathroom. The bathroom mirror confirmed that Tess had made modern sculpture out of her hair. Tess didn’t know how to braid, but she could twist and she had, in all directions. After she used the facilities and washed her hands, she tried to repair the worst of the damage. Walking back down the hall, she heard the housekeeper on the phone.
“She’s not here. She left another woman here with the kids. Sophie and I were on the same bus. Thank you, Mr. Brian.”
Maureen stepped through the kitchen door in time to see the housekeeper hang up the phone. “Mr. Brian and Mr. Bear are on their way. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Please.”
“My name is Lucia.” She hustled around the kitchen setting up the coffeemaker and clearing the counter. “Miss Bonnie just left you here alone?”
“She said she had an appointment she couldn’t miss,” she said and sank into a chair at the kitchen table.
Lucia made a noise and brought one of the toy tubs into the kitchen. She started filling it with wooden blocks, so Maureen helped her. “When did she leave?”
“About ten.”
Sophie walked into the kitchen with another toy tub and began throwing plastic blocks into it.
“So you are Mr. Bear’s girlfriend,” Lucia said, breaking off her sorting to get Maureen’s coffee.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Bear?” Sophie asked.
Lucia raised her voice as if Sophie were hard of hearing. “This is Mr. Bear’s new girlfriend. Maureen.”
“Ah.” Sophie nodded from the waist. “Nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too.”
“Here, sit down and drink your coffee.” Lucia shooed her into her chair. “You’ve had a bad day.”
She sipped her coffee gratefully. What six Tylenol hadn’t been able to do, the presence of Lucia and Sophie did. Leaning back in the chair, she closed her eyes.
Someone spoke, and she jerked awake.
“And she just left? What the hell is this?”
“Are those guitar strings?” Michael.
She stood up, stretching. How she’d fallen asleep sitting up in a kitchen chair, she wasn’t sure but she must have been that way for a while. Her coffee was cold and the newly clean kitchen smelled like roasting chicken. In the living room, Michael and Brian stood staring at Tess’s rigged up clothesline. Sophie hovered at the bottom of the stairs, still impassive, but communicating anxiety through her grip on the bannister.
Lucia stood beside a vacuum cleaner with her arms folded. “Like I told you, Mr. Brian. When Sophie and I walked in, the miss was alone with the children. She said Miss Bonnie left at ten.”
Michael looked up from the clothesline. “Hey, Maur.” He crossed the room in three strides and wrapped his arms around her. “Tough day?”
“A little more than I could chew all at once.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Maureen, I’m really sorry about this,” Brian said. “I don’t know what Bonnie was thinking.”
“You want a short list?” Michael asked.
Lucia harrumphed again.
“I really appreciate you stepping up. Thanks a lot.” Brian didn’t acknowledge Michael or Lucia.
She couldn’t think of a proper response, so she nodded.
“Well, man, you do what you have to. I’m taking her home.” Michael towed her to the front door.
As they passed the clothesline, she remembered what it was made of. Oops. “I’m sorry if we ruined anything.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Brian fingered the clothesline. “Strings are cheap.”
Outside, Michael opened the car door for her. “I have to go back to rehearsals after I take you home.”
She swallowed trying to stop wishing he could stay home with her. Not for sex. No, for the first time with him, sex was completely out of the question. But to be held and catered to...
“Anyplace you want to stop? Pick up some food? I might be late.”
Marvelous. Not only could he not stay, he might be at rehearsals late. Might as well get used to it now. According to Kim, this was a regular feature of life. She leaned her head against the seat. “Home, Michael.”
“As you wish.”
* * * *
Bear ushered Maureen into the rehearsal space ahead of him, already sweating. Yesterday when Lucia called, he’d ridden over to Brian’s house and then driven his car back meaning both his cars ended up at the rehearsal space and she didn’t have one at home. He wasn’t excited about subjecting her to Marc again and didn’t like the odds on introducing her to Jason, but she insisted it would be rude for her to just take the car and go.
“Hey, Maureen, Bear told you, right?” Brian charged over with his bass still around his neck. “Bonnie said she thought you’d be okay with the kids because you’re a teacher. She said the doctor had an emergency and everything got pushed back and it took her forever to get out of the office.”
“She explained when she called me yesterday.” Maureen’s voice was mild. Nothing like the bitter sarcasm from last night when he finally stumbled in from rehearsal.
He grinned at the floor, recalling her brutal imitation of Bonnie.
“What was her excuse for not calling to let Maureen know again?” Jason asked.
“Her phone died.” Brian’s lip curled into a sneer at Jason. “It’s not an excuse.”
“Because no one else had a phone she could borrow.” Jason held out his hand. “Hi, Maureen. You haven’t met me, but I feel like I already know you because Bear never shuts up about you.”
“Jason, don’t be a dick,” Bear snapped. He put his arm around her shoulders. They weren’t late, but everyone was already here, waiting for a bloodbath. And
of course, Jason wanted to be front row center. Too bad Maureen wasn’t going to give it to them. She wasn’t like other women. She had class.
“Nice to meet you,” she said over him, putting her hand in Jason’s.
Jason closed his fingers around hers and pulled them to his lips.
Though she stiffened, she didn’t pull her hand away.
“Enough, Jason.” Bear growled.
Brian angled the neck of his bass between Jason and Maureen. “Come on, Jason. Cut it out.”
Jason shrugged and wandered to the other side of the room where he went into conference with Marc, which Bear liked less than him kissing Maureen’s hand.
“What are your plans for today?” Brian asked.
“I’m going shopping with Ty’s girlfriend.” She gestured in Ty’s direction.
Ty was playing solitaire at the coffee table and hadn’t bothered to come over to say hi. None of his friends had any manners at all.
“You’re probably busy tomorrow too, huh.” Brian fiddled with the stock of his bass, twisting the tuning keys.
“Yes.”
“And then you’re going back Sunday.” Brian twisted one of the keys harder.
“Yes.”
“Bonnie was kinda hoping you could do lunch another time, but it sounds like you’re pretty busy.” Brian kept winding that key. Bear pulled Maureen back a step, trying to judge exactly how far the string would fly when it snapped.
“I’m sorry.” She managed to look genuinely disappointed even though there was no way in hell she was going over to Brian and Bonnie’s house without a chaperon.
“Maybe next time.” Brian gave the key one last twist and the string snapped.
Maureen flinched at the loud twang. Bear stuck out his arm to protect her and the string sliced through his skin. “Oh my God, Michael!” She grabbed his arm, pressing a tissue over the cut.
“Shit, I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Brian asked.
Satellite of Love Page 15
