Next to You

by Julia Gabriel

  While he drank his coffee, he booted up his laptop, and scanned the morning’s business news. Then he surfed over to the town’s real estate records and searched by address for his employer’s property. It wasn’t unusual that Jared didn’t know the name of the owners whose property he was caring for. Nor did he generally care. Many of his gigs were arranged through real estate agencies, property managers and—as with his current employer—a trusted assistant.

  He scrolled through the listings until he found the right one. He clicked on it. A Phlox Miller was listed as the owner of the estate. Weird name. Plenty of parents named their kids Rose or Lily or Jasmine. He’d even gone to middle school in Berkeley with a Lavender. But Phlox? Go figure.

  Well, that should make her easy to Google, he thought, as he opened a new browser window. Whoa. She had a ton of results. He scrolled quickly down the page. Seriously a ton of results. He clicked several—Vogue, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Forbes. She was the president of a company named Phlox Beauty, apparently. He scrolled back up to the top of the page. Phlox Beauty's web site had been the first listing.

  He explored the company's web site for a few minutes, clicking rapidly from page to page. His employer owned an eponymous skin care and cosmetics company, one that seemed to be doing fairly well. He moved to the "about" page. Her partner’s bio was listed first—Zee Malisewski. He skimmed that—business degree yada yada yada—then scrolled to the bio for Phlox Miller.

  Hmm. The picture of Phlox Miller on the web site was clearly too young to have a grown daughter. So that ruled that out. Maybe Skinned Knees was a sister or a cousin? The two of them shared the same blond hair, but their faces were different. Phlox Miller wasn’t unattractive, exactly, but no one you’d look at twice on the street. The woman whose knees he’d bandaged up yesterday was fucking stunning.

  Oh well. Her identity and her relationship to his employer was none of his business. She had a key to the place so clearly she was an approved visitor. If she began throwing wild parties, which he doubted she would, he would call Miss Brisk Efficient. Until then, he would mind his own business and do his job. That was the best way to not call attention to himself.

  He shut down his laptop and went out to the garden. Time was a-wasting. As he shoveled fresh mulch onto the planting beds, his thoughts strayed back to the mysterious, beautiful visitor in the main house. And the more he thought about it, the more familiar his employer's company was beginning to sound. When the last bed was covered, he returned to the cottage and called his brother.

  “Have we invested in Phlox Beauty?” he asked when Jake picked up the phone.

  “Good morning to you, too. Yeah, I believe we did. Let me check,” his brother replied.

  Jared listened to the clicking of a keyboard on the other end for several seconds, then his brother’s voice returned.

  “Yeah, we gave them a young entrepreneur’s grant four years ago. Two point six.”

  "Has it been a good investment?"

  "Well, you know, Jared, we don't require repayment on the grants ..."

  "You know what I mean. Was it a good use of my money?

  "Fuck yeah. Company's been majorly successful. One of the owners is the daughter of some actress so they've had an in to that whole Hollywood celebrity scene."

  His employer was the daughter of an actress? That meant the woman staying here might be too. Or might even be an actress herself. Of course, he could kiss away any thought of getting to know her if that turned out to be the case. Wait—where did that thought come from? He wasn't going to be getting to know her. Or any woman, for that matter. What was wrong with him today?

  His brother was still speaking. "The other founder's a nerdy, scientist type. Had a real bad accident about a year or so ago, I think. Saw it in the Journal and the Times. She was working on a new product and the mixture apparently splattered all over her. She had real bad ..."

  His brother's voice dropped away. Jared knew where this sad tale was going. She had real bad burns. "Yeah, I get the picture."

  "Sorry man. Their business is solid. Women, you know? Mina practically needs a bathroom of her own just to hold all the creams and makeup she owns. And I can never even tell when she's wearing it. Why do you ask? Need a new lipgloss?"

  His brother’s chuckle rumbled out of the phone.

  "You're a jackass. Remind me again why I let you manage my money?”

  "Because I'm better at it than you are, Jackass Sr. And you still didn't answer my question."

  "I met someone connected to the company recently, and the name sounded familiar. That's all."

  "Wow, you were out and about enough to actually meet live human beings? I'm impressed."

  "Fuck off." Jared hung up on his brother.

  No, I was not out and about. Unfortunately, a live human being had shown up here. He ran his hand roughly through his sandy blonde hair and sighed. It was getting long again. Soon enough he'd be barely presentable and he was only barely presentable to begin with. But he hated going to the barbershop, sitting in the chair while everyone else waiting their turn stared in horror at his mangled face.

  Fuck it. I'll let it grow down to my knees. Jake was forever badgering him to go out in public more. But Jared saw the revulsion in people's eyes. He didn't have to deal with that anymore, so why subject himself to it voluntarily? Money bought privacy and, if need be, eccentricity. A lot of eccentricity, enough to wallow in for years.

  Taking care of other people's houses allowed him to be outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air instead of holing up in one of his homes or a shared office with his brother. He couldn’t stand the feeling of being cooped up, and no one would look for him in a caretaker’s cottage. If he picked his clients well—meaning people wealthy enough to have multiple homes like he did—he didn't have to see them much. They generally liked to pretend that the household staff was invisible. Jared was cool with that. The whole point of his taking these caretaking and house-sitting jobs was to hide in plain sight.

  “Excuse me, sir, is that a billionaire pruning your flowers?” No one was going to ask that question. He had tried hiding at his own properties after he sold his company to Google, but people sought him out. Conference organizers who wanted him to speak at their events, kids who wanted to drop out of school and start the next hot tech company, self-styled inventors who wanted him to invest in their harebrained schemes, even gold-diggers ... until they got a look at his face.

  In the rolling hills of Connecticut or the mountains of Wyoming, he could go days without seeing someone else—and no one else expected "Jared Connor, technology billionaire" to be there.

  * * *

  Operation Demon Vanquish: Day Two had to go better than Day One, Phlox reasoned as she ground coffee beans and dumped them into the coffee maker. She set her phone to speaker and hit Cherise’s name in her contact list. She poured water into the coffee maker while she waited for Cherise to pick up. Yes, she was using her one allowed phone call to the company right at nine am.

  She glanced around the kitchen as she listened to the phone ring on the other end. It was just a kitchen, right? Her kitchen, her beloved kitchen, the one she had redesigned herself, no detail overlooked. Nothing to be afraid of. Still, her heart raced when she looked at the range, the site of the accident. It wasn't a rational fear. She knew that. It was there nonetheless.

  “Good morning!” Cherise’s voice sounded clear and cheery across the miles.

  “Hey, Cherise. How is everything going?”

  “Well, I know you want me to say that the company is completely collapsing a mere twenty-four hours after your departure … but things are just fine.”

  Phlox laughed. “I’m sure Zee can keep things going a few more days.”

  “And I’m sure you didn’t just waste your only phone call for the day to call and say hi.”

  “No. I didn’t. I wanted to get the name of the caretaker from you.”

  “Is everything okay? Has he not been taking care of the property?
” Cherise’s voice was laced with sudden alarm, an affront to her professional efficiency.

  “The property looks great. I just wanted to know his name. I feel rude not knowing who’s been taking care of the house for me.”

  She listened to Cherise click away at her keyboard. “Here it is. Jared Connor. He had impeccable references. His last position was out in Jackson Hole. Sure everything’s fine? Beause I can call him.”

  “No, no. Everything’s cool. It’s just if I’m going to be here for two weeks, I feel like I should know his name.”

  As soon as Phlox ended the call, a text pinged through from Zee. “That was your one call for the day, missy. Hope it was important!”

  Phlox rolled her eyes. Was Zee really going to enforce this rule for two entire weeks? She shook her head. Doubtful. Sooner or later something would come up that required her attention. And in any case, Zee had not extended Phlox’s work prohibition broadly enough. She wasn’t allowed to call Phlox Beauty, but Zee had said nothing about other companies.

  Phlox’s grin was ear to ear as she texted the account director at the public relations firm. “Any rumors yet on the Glossy Award nominees?” She and Zee had their fingers crossed for the new A2Z Cream. Their retinol serum had been a runner-up two years ago, but Phlox wanted that top honor this year, wanted it so bad she could practically taste it.

  Her father had been disappointed when she told him she was leaving her job at a well-known pharmaceutical company just a year after graduation to start a beauty products company with Zee. “Makeup,” he’d scoffed. “Snake oil, you’ll be selling.” It wasn’t serious enough for him, but to Phlox the manufacture of high-powered prescription painkillers was too serious. Too many people were addicted to them, too many lives getting ruined in the process. An addiction to mascara or face masks was relatively harmless.

  And then she'd gone and hired her brother Rye to be the chief financial officer, sucking even more of the family into the cosmetics industry. Would an award or two sway her father's opinion? She didn't know, but it probably wouldn't hurt.

  Rye wasn't bothered one way or the other. "As long as we're not living in their basement playing video games all day long, they can't complain." That was easy for Rye to say. He didn't grow up in a tug-of-war between their parents. Their mother had wanted Phlox to be a pretty debutante type, going to college for the sole purpose of getting her MRS. degree. Their father, being perhaps more realistic about Phlox's odds as a social butterfly, had pushed her toward science and math. She'd spent her childhood and adolescence trying to strike an acceptable compromise between the two. It wasn't lost on her, either, that Phlox Beauty was in some ways another one of those compromises.

  She poured a cup of coffee and drummed her fingers impatiently against the counter until a reply came back from the pr agency. “No news yet. Keeping both ears to the ground.”

  Phlox smiled at the thought of someone actually, physically trying to keep both ears to the ground at once. Another text came through, this time from Zee. “I know what you just did. If we need you, we’ll let you know. Now go eat something fattening.”

  As if on cue, her stomach rumbled and she got up to top off her coffee. She strolled over to the screen door at the back of the kitchen and looked out toward the garden, wondering idly what the caretaker’s schedule was. What did he even do all day? Not that she minded paying him, but she had certainly never spent eight hours five days a week taking care of this place. Granted, the place might look slightly better now under the care of a professional.

  She pushed the screen door open and carried her mug of coffee out to the porch. She hadn’t had time to look at it before her untimely freak out the day before. It had been a long, snowy winter in the northeast but her peonies should be blooming with petals and ants by now. She returned to the kitchen and retrieved her kitchen shears, then sedately walked down the porch steps. If the lilacs were blooming, she’d snip a few heads and put them in a vase inside. They would keep her spirits up and remind her of how much she loved her house and gardens and pool, of how much she had always cherished the peace and quiet up here, the space to think and clear her mind.

  The garden had easily accounted for eighty percent of why she’d bought this particular property two years ago. The real estate agent had showed her dozens of properties for sale but this was the only one where she had felt immediately at home. The garden’s design was somewhere between formal and haphazard English garden. It was large enough to have walking paths that meandered between trees and bisected flower beds, half a dozen granite benches for enjoying a breeze or pondering the meaning of life, and a startling assortment of bird baths that seemed to have been divvied up among the birds according to species.

  Cherise had begun looking for a caretaker while Phlox was still in the hospital. Phlox’s heart would have broken if all this had been allowed to go to seed. Cherise was worth her weight in gold. If she ever left the company, Phlox wasn’t sure she’d know what to do.

  She cut a bouquet from one of her lilac bushes, then sat on a granite bench and watched the ants crawl over her peonies, collecting the nectar off the buds. Peonies had always been Phlox’s favorite flower, even as a child. Naturally, people expected her favorite flower to be phlox but it was a more interesting name than a flower.

  The ants were busy on her flowers, crawling up and down and around. Ants never questioned their mission, second-guessed their lives. Phlox was full of second guesses these days. The pre-accident Phlox had been bold and outspoken, inquisitive and driven, unafraid of anything. That Phlox got left behind the day of the accident, the day a stock pot of wax and oil exploded in her face. That wasn't the woman who was carried out of the house on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. The Phlox who woke up in the hospital was quieter, a little more hesitant to take risks, and a lot less sure of herself.

  No one seemed to know this new Phlox, and it made everyone uncomfortable. They missed her old self, she got that. She missed her old self, too. Who was she now? Would she ever breathe easy in her house again? Would she ever stop beating herself up over her stupid, stupid actions that day?

  Honestly, she had no idea.

  Hell, she didn’t even recognize her own face when she looked in the mirror. And she had spent untold hours staring at her new visage in the bathroom mirror in the apartment in New York, trying to find something of the old Phlox in it. Sometimes she greeted acquaintances on the street only to be met with the blank city stare reserved for crazy people. Then there would be the awkward exchange.

  "Phlox Miller? We met at ...?"

  "Oh right! Phlox ... how are you doing ... these days?"

  Phlox doubted that a two-week stay in the country would get her any closer to feeling comfortable in her own skin again. But maybe waking up here and finding herself safe and sound—like the old days—would vanquish the awful dreams that haunted her sleep. The ones where she woke in a cold sweat, moaning and keening, feeling the burning wax and oil hit her face like a scalding hot wall.

  Maybe she would find some tiny trace of her old self here, in her lilacs and peonies, in the quiet solitude of the countryside, and maybe it would be enough to build on.

  Or maybe it wouldn't. Phlox couldn't shake the nagging feeling that perhaps the old Phlox was gone forever.

  Chapter 5

  Muffins. She could bake muffins, she told herself with more confidence than she really felt. Muffins did not require the stovetop. Muffins did not require an open flame. If a tin of muffins exploded mid-bake, the inside of the oven would be a mess but nothing a little oven cleaner and some elbow grease couldn’t fix.

  Phlox practically chanted all the reasons why baking muffins was a kitchen activity she could handle. She tried to channel the old Phlox, who would be shouting, “Damn it! It’s Day 2. Get moving already.”

  Plus muffins were fattening. There would be no fat-free, whole grain, applesauce-for-sugar muffins in this house. Not today anyway. There would be muffins and they woul
d be gloriously jumbo, mouth wateringly sweet and at least eight hundred calories apiece.

  Luscious. That’s what they would be. Glorious, luscious, hip widening, boob enlarging muffins.

  She lined up her newly purchased baking ingredients—flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder—enough to make fattening muffins every day for a week. She grabbed an unopened bag of almonds and a bottle of almond extract. She had picked up a basket of peaches at a farmer’s stand on the drive up yesterday, intending to eat them for breakfast but they could be sacrificed in the name of muffins. She would make her should-practically-be-patented peach almond muffins.

  She grabbed a mixing bowl and measuring spoons, turned on the oven to preheat, logged into satellite radio on her laptop, and got to work. Every time her breathing began to race with anxiety, she made herself stop and calm down. She measured and sifted, peeled and sliced the juicy peaches, ground the almonds, spooned batter into a muffin pan.

  Two hours later, she had a sink full of dirty dishes and one dozen muffins glistening with chunks of peaches and a sprinkling of demerara sugar. She took a deep breath as she untied her apron. She did it. She’d just used the kitchen without freaking out like yesterday or causing herself grievous bodily harm. It was noon on Day 2 of Operation Demon Vanquish and not only was she still alive, but she had actually accomplished something.

  Phlox felt a smile creeping over her face. There hadn’t been many smiles in the past year, but this one felt good. Granted, it was silly that the mere baking of muffins could make her feel so suddenly competent. It wasn't like finishing a triathlon or launching a new product, but it was a start. A tiny, successful start.