by Daisy Jane
I am silent, mouth agape, staring blankly through the windshield at precisely nothing, my mind a marathon, zig-zagging everywhere. Brooks had paid a woman to sleep with him for months? He seemed so interested in getting to know me, he seemed to genuinely care—I really had begun thinking he liked me, and that maybe we’d work out.
Now, knowing he views women as items to be rented for his leisure, a ball of acid claws its way up my throat. I roll down my window, gasping desperately at the fresh air, trying to will away the sudden feeling of sickness.
“Now why a man like that needs to pay to get laid, I don’t know but it doesn’t sit well with me,” she trails off as she navigates a heavy patch of traffic. We come to a stop and we’re not far from our first house. She looks across the car at me, my face drained of color, my eyes fighting tears.
“Oh Britta,” her tone is meant to soothe but it aggravates me, slapping me with condescension in my already tender state. “You didn’t fall for him, did you? Don’t let him coming to the apartment fool you, girl. He just wants to have sex with you. Guys like that, they don’t really care about women. Not women like us, at least.”
Rage grabs hold and I find myself defending Brooks and what we’ve built in just a handful of days, rather than siding with my cousin, my only friend, a person who I know well and love so much.
“Do you want people to make their mind up about you based on your relationship with Donny?” it comes out of me cruel, sharp edged and cold. “You should think about that when you disparage Mr. Bennett like that. We don’t know what his relationship with her was like.”
She snaps back immediately, on her toes, like she’s thought about this exact scenario.
“What else do I need to know other that he paid to fuck her? He paid to have her pretend to care about him, for months. He paid her to do what he says, for months. Think about a person that does something like that.”
I don’t want to think about it. All I can think about is the fact that he didn’t tell me. He had a handful of great opportunities yet he didn’t tell me. Hell, I am a maid after all. He doesn’t take me serious or us seriously because I am no one and there is no us.
“He’s the reason we still have jobs, you know. Nolan could’ve fired us.”
It’s all I can think to say to defend him. I lean my head against the window, away from her, my stomach sick and my heart torn straight down the middle. She inhales and steadies her voice, as if she’s about to tell me something that enrages her to explain. It annoys me and I remain silent.
“That’s the thing right there, Britta. It’s not a big deal for him to make a simple phone call and save the two poor maids from being fired. Guys like him have clout and pull everywhere because they have money. It means a lot to us and so the gesture feels so big to you. But for him, it’s nothing. It’s merely pushing a game piece forward on a game board. Gets him closer to you but means nothing to him.”
I don’t want to think about what she was saying. I don’t want to think about it because I know she could be right. If she’s right, I am so humiliated. I told Brooks things about my mom, school, my deepest feelings of grief and guilt—my eyes close and warm tears stream down my cheeks as Melody puts the car in park.
We don’t speak again for the rest of the day.
All I can think about is the phone call I’m going to make to Brooks when I get home.
16
Britta
I’d let him sit and wonder but if I know Brooks, he’d show up my apartment. And as soon as I laid eyes on his end-of-day scruff and his lean and tight body, the silver contrasting starkly against his thick caramel hair, I’d melt into a puddle. I’d let him use and abuse me, I know it, because I want him so bad.
That’s why it hurts so much to know he’s not told me about his previous relationship. He shared the story of his wife—was that even real or just a device to get me to swoon? I was so confused.
Flopping down on the torn leather couch, I pulled the old afghan down over myself and a rush of familiar scent hit my nose. It smelled like my mom.
Not the booze, not vomit, but how my mom smelled when I was a kid. The cold cream she used before bed, the rose hips of her shampoo, clean laundry and mouthwash. It wasn’t often I allowed myself to really remember the times before the alcohol because it felt like a cruel reminder of what wasn’t. But tonight, with my heart feeling fractured, my mind a jumble, a fight with Melody under my belt… I let myself go there. And I cried. I cried long, broken sobs, over and over, until I was too exhausted to keep crying, and I drifted off. When I woke up, it was nearing eight o’clock and I knew if I didn’t call Brooks very soon that he’d be on my doorstep. I couldn’t see him.
Sitting up, wrapping the afghan around me, I quickly nuzzle into the blanket but I can’t find my mom’s reassuring scent anymore, and I’m filled with another gust of sadness as I pull my phone off the table, along with Brooks’ card.
It rings just once before he’s there, greeting me, the baritone of his voice soothing my jumpy nerves, though I know it shouldn’t. I want to get shivers of anger from his voice, but my body betrays me by relaxing as he greets me, tells me he’s not thought of anything but me since I left.
“That’s nice.”
I hate to be this person. The one that gives short, clearly disgruntled responses without saying anything. But I’m so tired. I don’t know if I have the energy to say all the things I need to say.
“Britta, what’s the matter?” he asks, and I can hear him sit down, I think on the couch, but I’m not sure. I do my best to try and not picture him, his commanding frame and chiseled jaw. Gooseflesh spreads down my arms.
“Did you really have a wife named Lucy?” it surprises me that I’ve opened with that, and I realize as my belly contorts itself into a pretzel that I can’t just let this go. I care about him, as naïve as it may be.
“What?” the shock in his tone is real. Or the man deserves an Oscar.
“Did you make that up just to make me fall for you? The poor rich guy with the broken heart who doesn’t come alive until he meets me. It’s pretty poetic. I know you’re poetic.”
It’s snarky, cool, accusatory and awful and I hate myself for saying those words to him. They feel like slime crawling off my tongue and I rise from the couch, my body full of nervous energy.
He is silent for a moment and then he exhales, his hand swiping over his face, I can hear it. The crunching of his beard under the weight of his hand.
“Lucy is a very real person and we were very much married. I did not so much as exaggerate a word of that, Britta.” He holds there, saying nothing else.
“Okay, Mr. Bennett,” I say, cold, aloof.
“Don’t call me that,” he snaps back, fast, as if I’ve found his trigger. “Call me Brooks. I am not Mr. Bennett to you.”
“Sure, you are, you’re my boss, aren’t you?” I pause as if I don’t know the answer.
“The agency employs you, and I use the agency.” He is careful with his words. “Britta, tell me what’s wrong. I called the agency as soon as I dropped you off this morning. They’re not firing you or Melody for what happened with Nolan. They’ve already got his house off your route.”
“You called them? You did that for me?”
“I said I would. Britta, that was nothing. Of course, I did.”
The line is silent. He could be waiting for his thank you’s and I-can’t-believe-you’d-do-that-for-me’s but all I can think of is Melody and what she said to me in the car; it means a lot to us and so the gesture feels so big to you. But for him, it’s nothing. It’s not even that I didn’t want her to be right, it’s more that I didn’t want to be wrong about Brooks.
“Look, thanks for the last few days but I think it’s best if I get someone else on your route. And maybe we chalk up the last few days to… just some fun.” Hot tears stream down my cheeks as I say the words, letting Brooks go.
“What’s gotten into you, Britta?” he keeps saying my name and it’s m
aking me itch, my neck, my arms, my face.
“Stop, just stop with the Britta stuff, stop with all of it,” I cry out, rolling the back of my hand under my nose. “Is using me cheaper for you? More exciting to be fucking the poor maid? Is that what it is?” I shout through snorts and sobs and I thank goodness this conversation is taking place over the phone and not in real life.
“Brit—”
I don’t let him speak.
“You know, I need this stupid, degrading, awful job so I can move on in a few years. It’s my fault for thinking a person like you would really be interested in me. That’s my fault. I take responsibility for that,” the tendons and veins in my neck are straining and my head throbs as I unload on him. “But what you’re doing? Acting like you give a shit—that’s just wrong, Brooks. Mr. Bennett. It’s wrong. Especially when you know how I feel ab—you know what, never mind.”
“What makes you think I don’t give a shit?” his voice isn’t holding steady anymore; its raw and low. He sounds hurt.
“I know about your last girlfriend. I know you paid her to sleep with you for months. Where is she now? How did that work out for her? You know what? Don’t tell me! I don’t care! I may be a maid and have no money and nothing to show for myself but I won’t be some young excitement for an old, bored, lost man. Goodfuckingbye!” I hang up and take my anger out on my phone, slamming it down against the side table.
The anger of everything hits me.
My mom gets to ruin her life and most of mine by drinking herself into an early grave and I’m stuck paying for it, picking up the pieces. I can’t even declare bankruptcy or else I’ll never get the loans I need for school. Then I land this job making a ton of money and I can’t even enjoy a single freaking cent of it, living in this complete shit hole, because I need it all just to get back to square one.
And square one will take me years to get to. Angrily, I slam my body down into the sofa and press the afghan to my face, screaming with frustration. And while I try not to think about it, I am aware that he doesn’t call me back.
Because Melody was right. He doesn’t really care.
I just wish I hadn’t fallen in love with him.
17
Britta
“Listen, we already made an accommodation for you,” the woman snaps back into the phone.
“I am so grateful for that,” I reply, through clenched teeth. Ted Nolan sexually harasses me and to be taken off his house is “an accommodation” for me. I want to tell her how wrong it all is, but I need the job because I need the money. Unless I want to be a stripper or sell a kidney, I need this diamond-in-the-rough job. Desperately.
“Show your gratitude by doing your job,” she snarls, “because there are plenty of other girls who’d scrub toilets for the rich.” And with that, she hangs up.
I guess I won’t be taken off of Brooks’ house… not unless he asks. Then it occurs to me that he may ask, and while I was trying to do that very thing, it will destroy me if he asks for them to replace me. It will mean Melody was right. And though I’d accused him of it, inside I didn’t want to believe it.
“Listen, he was never around anyway,” Melody says to me as she throws her arm over my seat, backing out of the parking spot behind the Chinese food restaurant.
“I know,” I say.
It’s been a week since that phone call with Brooks, and today is the day we clean the house on the hill. I don’t know if I want him to be there or not, but the fact is, I have to go. I have to clean his house like I’ve not made love in it, make his bed as if I hadn’t experienced some of the most passionate moments of my existence in it and wipe down the counter I’ve orgasmed on, like it never even happened.
The only plus to the current situation is that I made up with Melody. After that phone call with Brooks, I made my way upstairs, came clean and apologized.
“What did he say when you told him you knew about his hooker?” she’d asked, taking a drag from Donny’s cigarette as he played video games, his headset keeping him blissfully unaware of our problems. Or any problems.
“I hung up before he could talk,” I said, tucking my legs underneath me, taking a pull off the tequila bottle we’d been sharing. It wasn’t our first choice, but then again, is tequila anyone’s first choice? And maybe I should’ve let him talk. But the tequila was taking my maybe’s and carrying them far, far away from me.
“Your mom never drank tequila, did she?” she asked, grimacing as the amber liquid resurfaced in a burp.
“Nope,” I sneered just watching her take her drink, knowing how gross it was. “At the end she would’ve drank anything.” But it wasn’t as cheap as vodka, or mouth wash, so fortunately, as nasty as the tequila was, it had no dark memories tied to it. Yet.
“Oh, it’s so bad,” she squeaked, covering her mouth with her hand.
“It hurts so good,” I said, taking another swig.
I got so drunk that night that I slept on the bathroom floor and woke up with the laminate flooring imprinted into my skin for the entire day. But it was necessary. I needed to make my brain forget it all, even if just for a few hours.
We are both completely silent as Melody’s car drags us up the hill to his house. We park and unload things from the trunk and the entire time I wonder if he’s home, and I force myself to not look in the garage to see if his car is there.
I broke it off. He was using me. He doesn’t care about me.
I repeat that to myself as I drag my rag down the fridge, wiping it free of the non-existent smudges. I clean the counter, refusing to let my mind wander to the bliss of talking about life with Brooks, eating an omelet in his t-shirt. Don’t think of that, I repeat to myself.
“He didn’t make an appearance when I wasn’t around, did he?” Melody asks as the gate at the bottom of the hill closes behind us.
I didn’t see Brooks at all in the four hours we were cleaning. I didn’t see him but I felt him everywhere. The amber scent drifting through the linens as I folded them nearly took my breath away, like a punch to the gut, and when I made it to the second floor and saw his bedroom door was closed, my heart sank. I’d called it off. Told him to leave me alone. What was I expecting? The door to be open, to have a romantic note left on his bed for me to find? That was insane.
And yet I couldn’t help but be disappointed that there wasn’t something. Some semblance of him missing me to be found. And the disappointment was so silly, that I got mad at myself and took it out on Melody.
“No, Melody, he wasn’t there,” I snapped back, immediately feeling guilty but still too angry to apologize.
“Hey listen, I need to talk to you,” she navigated the New York countryside seamlessly, like I’d watched her do so many times before. “Donny’s debt, I was done paying it off about six months ago.”
I can’t let my self-loathing ruin her big moment. I’m not that big of an asshole. I’m not Brooks.
“Wow, you have to be so relieved. I’m so, so happy for you both,” I smile and squeeze the back of her neck, lovingly. “That’s awesome.” My anger fades in the presence of her good news.
To this day, I don’t know what’s keeping Melody tied so close to Donny, paying his massive debts and living in a shit hole with him. But I love Melody and that’s enough for me to not question her.
“Yeah, it feels good,” she says, and I can hear the nervousness lingering in her tone. “But um, now that I paid it off and have a little nest egg, I’m going to start culinary school, back in Connecticut.”
“Manchester?” I asked, remembering the times we’d sent away for pamphlets and material from the school back when I was just a sophomore in high school, Melody already a senior.
Our dream in our early teens was culinary school, though I don’t think I ever really thought either of us would get the chance to go. Much like my mom, Melody’s parents also had substance abuse issues and though neither of us lived with Betty Crocker, with the help of the internet and lots of trial and error, we taught ourselv
es.
Though I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel for me, there was still so much for me to go through before I could see it.
“That’s so great you’re finally getting to do that. What’s the plan? Admissions open for next fall?” I try to imagine Donny in a dorm room with Melody and I can’t picture it, and I know they’ll surely rub some future baker the wrong way.
“Well, that’s the thing. When I met with the financial guy a couple years back, he set up this payment plan for me for everything and told me just when I needed to be doing certain things,” she digs around in her purse and produces a business card which is folded in half. She hands it to me. “This guy. He was really helpful. He told me when I needed to apply for culinary school too. And I was accepted. I actually start in six weeks.”
Six weeks. She’d be gone in six weeks. I can’t say I moved here for her because I moved for the job and the money, but nonetheless, I feel as if any wind remaining in my sails has been taken. Without Melody and hell, even without Donny, I officially have nothing. No people, no money, no prospects. Just debt, and a lot of it.
I clear my throat gently, as to not disturb the knot of emotion that rests there.
“Where will you guys be living?” I force a little smile. I’m happy for her but of course I can’t pretend I won’t miss her.
“We’ve got a condo there,” I can see excitement in her eyes and it kills me to think I’ve become the person that people can’t be genuinely happy around. I won’t let the bullshit with Brooks change me.
“That’s awesome, please tell me all about it. Tell me you finally have a bathtub and a real closet!”
Our current apartments have exactly one closet which serves for linens, kitchen items, clothes—everything. It works fine for me since I own less than an entire suitcase full of items but for Melody and Donny, it was a squeeze.
