“I’ve…” he rumbled, coming up out of the squat to tower over her again. She waited for him to continue.
“You’ve…?” she finally asked after the silence had stretched too long. She wondered if she was as off-putting to him as he was to her.
“Ive. It’s my name. Short for Ivan.”
“Oh. I’m Uma.” She gave him her real name without thinking. “You mow the lawn here?”
“You could say that.” His eyes crinkled. What little she could see of his mouth turned up into a surprisingly warm smile. “Figure I might as well mow her lawn while I’m doin’ mine.”
She looked at the house behind him. “That’s your place?”
Her surprise must have been obvious, but he didn’t react, just gave a single, brief nod.
“Wow. Nice.” The house was nice. Really nice. Incongruously…civilized. He looked like the kind of guy you’d find chopping wood by his cabin in the boondocks, not maintaining the lawn of his lovely old farmhouse.
It was straight out of Southern Living, nicer than some of the places she’d photographed.
The caricature she’d formed in her head of this man melted partially away to reveal something a little softer, less defined. It didn’t jibe inside of her, but she’d been running on stereotypes and first impressions and messed-up wrong impressions for so long that her instincts clearly needed a reset. Another thing to add to the growing list of upgrades for Uma 2.0.
He nodded, face serious, but she thought she could detect pride beneath the gruff exterior.
She caught sight of a bright-red tricycle in the drive beside a clunky Ford pickup. Kids. Probably a wife. Her perception shifted yet again, and he didn’t seem half as scary as he had a moment before. Wow, she couldn’t straighten her life out at all, and this guy seemed to have his shit together. So much for first impressions.
Uma briefly wondered what he’d look like without all that fur on his face.
She took in the house, the trike, the coziness of this sweet mountain town. A town so small that elderly ladies hired you right over the phone without even asking for references.
That reminded her of why she was here: the ad. Maybe not such a sweet town after all.
“Well, I’d better get to it.” She kept her hands in her pockets, not wanting to risk another touch of his rough skin.
“Yeah. Don’t wanna piss her off.” Was that a joke?
She gave Squeak a quick pat on the head and turned away from man and dog. His voice stopped her after a couple of steps.
“Hey, Uma.” It came out rough, and he cleared his throat. “You ever need a break, come on over and see us. Have a beer.”
“Oh. Sure. Thanks.” Us, he’d said. Yep, married.
She shot a last look at the house over his shoulder, thinking she might even be willing to marry a guy like that for such a great house. Oh well. Maybe she and his wife would become friends.
A friend. That might be nice.
When she got back to the porch, something had changed. Was the gap in the curtains a little wider? Was it possible the woman had witnessed her panic attack? Strike one against Uma if she had.
The lawn mower started up again somewhere behind the house.
Uma took a deep breath in, blew it out hard, made a fist, and pounded.
2
“Who’s that?” Uma recognized the woman’s voice from their telephone interview, although then it had seemed warm, a lifeline. They’d spoken only for a few minutes, but the woman—Ms. Lloyd—had sounded relieved, even excited, that Uma could start that day. Nothing weird had happened during that call, making Uma wonder what the ad was all about. Now, the voice was shrill, unwelcoming, through the thick wood of the door.
“It’s Jane Smith, Ms. Lloyd,” she yelled.
“Let’s see your ID.”
Uma hesitated. “You said I wouldn’t need to fill out a W-4 or give you my social security card or anything.”
“I said we were doing this off the books, honey. I didn’t say I’d let some random stranger into my home without at least getting a look at who she is.”
Right. Okay. Right. The woman had a point. Uma fumbled out her wallet and managed to pull her Virginia driver’s license from the sleeve. “Where do you want—”
“Under the door.”
Before squatting, she did a quick, paranoid scan of the road behind her. A dead-end street…good and bad. Isolated—good. This little town where doctors apparently treated people for free wouldn’t even be on Joey’s radar. The lawn mower sputtered angrily over a rock in the distance, reminding her of who’d been driving it. Random strange men as neighbors—bad. Very bad.
She shoved the ID under the door and waited, crouched down, eyes flicking from the road to the house and back. Looking for Joey. Always looking for Joey.
Abruptly, the door swung open, and Uma found herself on the floor, sprawled gracelessly at the slippered feet of her new employer.
“Jane Smith, hmm?”
“Actually, I go by Crane. It’s, uh, Uma Crane.”
“No kidding. Well, don’t just lie there. Come inside before you let all the heat out.” The heat? It must’ve been eighty degrees outside.
Uma took her first good look at her new employer. Even from her vantage point on the floor, it was obvious that the woman was short, almost perfectly round, as wide as she was tall, and Uma was willing to bet she couldn’t fit through a doorway straight on. Coke-bottle lenses gave her dark eyes an owlish quality, which, when fixed on Uma, was rather disconcerting. An extreme case of helmet hair—round, glossy, and black—and a dark wooden cane completed the look. Uma had the distinct impression that she’d fallen straight into a spider’s web.
Old hag in need of live-in helper to abuse. Nothing kinky.
I won’t let her hurt me, she decided in that moment. No way will she walk all over me.
“It looks like I’m your new live-in helper.” She forced a goofy smile. “I guess that makes you the old hag.”
The woman’s eyes opened even wider, then narrowed to slits. “If you want your purse, you’d best take it now, else it’ll stay outside.” Uma rose and barely managed to snag her bag before the woman slammed the door and locked it with a definitive series of thunk-clicks. Four times she locked it, followed by a belated fifth.
Uma was inside. It should have been comforting, the knowledge that she was locked away, safely hidden. So why did she feel as though she’d jumped from the fire right back into the frying pan?
* * *
Ms. Lloyd’s house was like the Land Where Time Had Stopped. It owed its decor almost entirely to Laura Ashley, circa 1986. It was okay, if a little…still. As though nothing could move within its confines. Stale, close air where not even the dust dared to fly.
Someone had clearly cared about decorating once upon a time but lacked either the desire or the resources to keep it up-to-date. The result was like one of those time capsules. The furniture looked cared for but worn and had no doubt been the height of middle-class fashion in its day. The tables were dark wood, and the carpeting must once have been white or cream. Today it was the color of a tan Band-Aid. The only new thing in the place was the television. A ridiculously wide flat-screen dominated the living room, managing, through its sleek simplicity, to look almost like a piece of modern art.
As she took it all in, breathing the musty smell of a house long kept closed, the woman’s big, black eyes followed her. “You look older than twenty-six.” Charming. Her voice was high, girlish. It didn’t match her dark looks. “And you’re late, Irma.”
“It’s Uma.”
“You’re late.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” Uma took a breath, determined not to let her new boss cow her. “You must not have heard me knock the first time. I went around to see if you were in back.”
“Is that what they call it nowadays?�
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“I’m sorry?”
“Flirtin’. I saw you over there with my neighbor,” she said, her gaze swiping up and down Uma’s body one time. “I know your type.”
Her type? On this unseasonably sticky October day, Uma must have been the only person for miles whose body was covered from head to toe. She wore jeans and a dark, long-sleeved, cotton shirt, a scarf tied around her neck. In fact, the only person she’d seen showing less skin was standing in front of her.
Their outfits were embarrassingly similar.
“What can I do to get started?” Uma asked, choosing to ignore the woman’s vitriol. I’m stronger than you, she thought, hoping it was true.
“You can start by making me dinner. I’ve been half-starved here waitin’ for you. As I told you on the phone: you cook, you clean, you shop, you run my errands. I pay you every week the first month, then every other week after that. If I decide to keep you on.” Ms. Lloyd pursed her lips and squinted at Uma as if she found the notion highly unlikely. “No phone calls, no men. No back talk.”
Silently, Uma followed the woman’s slow limp into the kitchen, where dishes overflowed the double sink and big, brown stains spread across the white linoleum floor.
“You talk, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you understand the rules, or do I need to write them down for you?” She enunciated carefully, as if speaking to a slow child.
“I understand.”
“I take my dinner at five, sharp. Early-bird hour.” More like geriatric hour, Uma thought, the little bit of meanness giving her a semblance of power. “I won’t stand for missing any of my stories, so you’d best hurry. Might want to clean first, though.” Ms. Lloyd sank into a chair at the kitchen table and turned the full intensity of her dark eyes onto Uma.
This is it, Uma thought, taking in the stinking mess. My life. This is my fucking life.
She picked up the sponge, dark and shriveled, hard as rock, and ran it under water that took ages to heat. Breath coming fast, her heart fluttered with panic. All she wanted was to run.
I can do this. This is nothing. She’s an old woman. She can’t hurt me. This was about her future, about getting back some kind of life—a prospect that had seemed utterly impossible until she’d heard the interview that brought her here: a doctor offering free tattoo removal.
If anything, she needed to look at this job as a mental exercise. Physical activity to take her mind off everything else. Besides, fighting makes you stronger, right?
“You’re getting your sleeves wet,” Ms. Lloyd’s voice cut in, pointing out the obvious—and the one thing Uma had hoped she wouldn’t notice.
“I’m fine like this,” Uma responded, sounding silly and small, despite all efforts at strength. “I don’t mind getting wet.”
Uma attacked the dishes with energy, if not gusto. Crusted bits came off slowly under liberal applications of soap and elbow grease, and all the while, she endured the woman’s stare. Eventually, the dishes in the rack outnumbered the ones in the sink, and finally, the sink was empty.
“The menu du jour is soup and grilled cheese. Easy peasy. If you cook as good as you clean, we just might get along.”
Easy peasy was right. It took only a few minutes before she plopped two plates and bowls down on the tiny kitchen table and moved to sit across from her new employer, stomach growling in anticipation.
From somewhere close by, a bell rang. It was an old-fashioned rotary-phone sound that the woman ignored.
“Need me to get that?” Uma asked.
“Nope. Got a bathroom upstairs needs cleaning.” The woman’s words stopped her before Uma could pick up her spoon.
“You want me to clean before I eat?” Uma asked, poised above the seat, the smell of food teasing her taste buds with a rush of saliva.
A raised eyebrow was the woman’s only response, and Uma shut her eyes against the hunger. Work first, eat later. She could do this.
“Fine,” she said, straightening. Strong. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Upstairs hall. Second door on the left. Supplies are down here. Your room’s the last one on the right. Don’t dawdle, and don’t open the other doors. It’s private.” As if Uma cared what the woman kept in her house.
She squatted in front of the cupboard and rummaged around, the smells of bleach and melted Velveeta mingling in her empty stomach to make her gag. If the state of the kitchen was any indication, conditions upstairs were likely dire.
She stood, arms filled with containers of products so viscous they’d need to be chipped out.
Ms. Lloyd sniffed, her voice following Uma out. “It’s not the worst grilled cheese I ever ate.”
Limbs heavy, Uma stomped slowly up the stairs, fairly certain that the comment was her new boss’s idea of a compliment.
* * *
An hour later, Uma stopped in the hallway on her way downstairs. There was nothing personal in this house, nothing human. The walls were decorated with crying-clown prints and bird lithographs. All signs pointed to Ms. Lloyd being a lonely, lonely woman.
She looked at each frame she passed until… Oh. Uma set down the bucket of cleaning supplies and leaned in to peer at the picture. A wedding photograph, man and woman both smiling happily. It looked informal, like a town hall affair, maybe taken sometime in the seventies. The woman was a thinner, happier, pretty Ms. Lloyd. There was something about the photo—the hope, the excitement, the infinite possibilities alive in their eyes. Uma swallowed the lump in her throat and picked up the bucket, walking away.
What kind of life was this? Meals, TV, bed…the same rituals day in and day out.
God, what if she became this woman further down the road? She might not even take that long to sink to such lonely ruination. Uma and Ms. Lloyd—bonded in loneliness. The thought repulsed her but also brought with it the strangest desire to better understand her boss.
Downstairs, the woman snored on her chintz sofa in front of Wheel of Fortune. Uma’s eyes skimmed over the ugliest doily arm protectors she’d ever seen to where gnarled hands lay clasped in her lap. Out of nowhere came the weirdest urge to take one of those hands in hers. Would her fingers be cold, dry talons, or would they be warm and soft from sleep?
No. Not Uma’s problem. Empathy was a luxury she could ill afford. Maybe someday, but her stock was currently depleted.
She tiptoed into the kitchen and wolfed down her meal. Cold.
Once she’d eaten and finished the dishes, she looked around. The rooster clock on the wall told her it was just after 7:00 p.m. The sun had set, and the air was finally cool. The prospect of the long, dark, lonely night stretching ahead had Uma searching the house for something else to occupy her time.
Her eyes fell on the cupboard beneath the sink. Yuck. Might as well start there.
Three hours later, she’d finished the kitchen, to the sounds of game shows, the news, and the strains of big voices singing pop songs she didn’t recognize. Funny that Ms. Lloyd was probably more up on whatever the kids were watching today than she was. Uma couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down and watched TV. Other than the first week in the shelter, she hadn’t had the luxury of a television in six months, and before that…before that, she’d been cajoled into watching shows. But that was different. Usually football or cop shows. Joey, “the expert,” always talked through everything, criticizing the inconsistencies.
Only ten o’clock. Uma took another look around. Was it worth continuing on to the next room? The clean gleam was so satisfying, she would almost have liked to go on all night. Little grunts emerged from the sleeping form on the sofa, making her decision for her. She put the cleaning things away and turned off the television, then took a deep breath and gently shook the woman.
“Ms. Lloyd?” she said quietly. “Ma’am?”
“Huh? Wha—?” Her boss looked almost
like a baby, blinking the sleep out of her huge eyes. A fat baby owl.
“It’s ten o’clock, and you fell asleep.” Uma’s hand remained on the woman’s arm, oddly protective.
“Of course I didn’t.” Ms. Lloyd pushed the hand away, an irritable, old-lady shove, and stood up on her own. “You been cleaning the bathroom this whole time?”
“No. I cleaned the kitchen too. Would you like some help getting upstairs?”
“Of cour… What’s that stench?”
“Stench?”
“It smells like… Did you use bleach?” She ended on a shrill note, nearly a screech.
“Just in there.”
“How in God’s name am I supposed to get to sleep with that smell? What were you thinking, girl?”
Uma refrained from mentioning that the stench hadn’t stopped her from snoring through hours of scintillating programming. “I could open some windows.”
Ms. Lloyd gasped as if Uma had suggested killing her firstborn. “Are you insane? Anyone could get in! You make sure you check the windows and doors every night before bed. Go on. Do it!” Ms. Lloyd shuffled to the back door, unlocked and relocked it, throwing the dead bolt four times, with a belated fifth. Her eyes followed Uma as she moved to the windows and tested locks. “You missed one. Look again.”
No. Uma hadn’t missed any windows, but she did as requested. “Do it twice if you have to.” Every window, every door was locked, relocked, bolted, and double-checked.
Again, Uma caught herself feeling sorry for Ms. Lloyd, finally understanding the extent to which she’d made herself a prisoner in her own home. She wondered what had happened to make the woman need this level of protection, this shell. At first, she’d doubted there was truly a need for live-in help, when a cook or a cleaner would do just as well. It had seemed like a bit of vanity: a minion to do the crappy jobs, someone to push around. But Uma saw how badly Ms. Lloyd needed someone. In exchange for food, a roof over her head, and a few hundred dollars a month, Uma very well might be providing Ms. Lloyd’s sole connection to the outside world.
In His Hands Page 34
