“It’s not that I wouldn’t like a better job, it’s just…”
Nina poured for her first. “Just? I should think, having been invited to a strange woman’s house in the middle of nowhere for no earthly reason, there should be quite a lot of reservations on your end.”
Sarah smiled, almost more to herself than for Nina. It was like Nina kept throwing down the gauntlet, seeing if Sarah would respond in sarcastic kind.
She picked up her glass. “And a woman of your wallet never has to bother with reservations.”
“I wouldn’t, no, but then, the local Olive Garden doesn’t have much of a waiting list.”
“Don’t knock it. I’d love to work there. Hear you get free breadsticks.” Sarah sipped. The bubbles rushed in faster than she was ready for, tickling the roof of her mouth; the taste hit her tongue comparatively gently.
“Not bad?” Nina asked.
“I could get used to it.”
“A lot of people like it.” Nina played with her own glass a moment, tilting it this way and that to watch it catch the light, then set it down and poured for herself. Her eyes stayed locked on the flowing water, all business. “It so happens that my estate’s gardener retired last spring, and I’m ashamed to say that the vines and such have gotten a little out of hand. I could really use someone with a strong back to come by twice a week and help out. And I’ve heard your family has a green thumb. I paid the old gardener forty dollars an hour, and I see no reason to pay you any less.”
“My mom runs the flower shop, not me.”
“Then you wouldn’t know how to care for the tree in front of the house?”
“Rhododendrons aren’t trees; they’re shrubs,” Sarah said automatically. When Nina stared at her with approval, she felt an overwhelming urge to bite her hair like a little kid. “A very old, very big shrub… And it would need to be lightly watered, fertilized infrequently, a top dressing in early spring; and in the winter, you’d want to knock the snow off the branches with a broom handle so they don’t get overburdened and snap off.”
“That hardly sounds arduous. I’m not expecting you to work yourself to death, just to get a little sweaty.” Nina looked in Sarah’s eyes at the last word.
Although Sarah wanted to look away, she didn’t.
“You or whoever your business sends, that is.”
Sarah laughed disbelievingly.
Nina set the bottle down and swiped up her glass. “Did I tell a good joke? I do hope you let me know what it is.”
Sarah spoke apologetically. “Not that I get into a lot of car accidents, but I have the feeling not a bunch of them end with job interviews.”
Nina pursed her lips musingly. “I recognized something in you.”
Sarah poked at the cliché as if it was a cut on her lip. “Yourself, when I was your age?”
“Would you like that?”
“Of course. You’re accomplished, successful. Why wouldn’t I?”
“At the moment, I can’t think of a reason.”
Sarah cleared her throat. Something about the way Nina had said that. More than sincere, it’d been…aching. “Your offer’s very intriguing…”
“Oh, I haven’t begun to be intriguing.”
Sarah grinned. “I would have to check with my mom. She’s very— She wouldn’t like me making a decision like this without her.”
“Take out your phone,” Nina said simply.
Sarah did. No bars.
“Shame. I guess we’ll have to leave things in suspense. Do feel free to look around, get a feel for the place, then go back to your mother and discuss it. If you’re here tomorrow, I’ll assume you’ve taken the job. Until then…Sarah.”
>~~~<
Sarah’s stomach was a balloon animal as she walked away from the house, feeling those hazel eyes on her again. When she looked back, Nina gave her a wave through one of the upstairs windows. She waved back, feeling lightheaded, dizzy enough to tuck her head down and focus on one foot, then the other.
She heard the trill of the motorboat running as she came down to the pier, then saw it as Mr. Shannon idled the engine and used an outstretched arm to hold close to the dock. There was another man in the boat—tall, handsome in a way, gym shirt, gym pants. He pulled himself up onto the pier, eying Sarah as she came down.
“Hey,” she said cautiously. “I’m Sarah.”
Still he eyed her. “How many passengers does this ride seat, anyway?” he asked, inclining his head slightly to Mr. Shannon, but directing the comment nowhere in particular. Then, hoisting a duffel bag, he walked past her.
Sarah took a last, lingering look as he walked off. The woozy feeling was gone; he’d jarred her out of it. After the quick warmth of Nina’s den, he’d felt cold and grating.
“Who was that?” she asked, accepting Mr. Shannon’s hand to come down into the boat.
“Marshall something,” he replied. “I think one of Ms. Rose’s business associates. He comes by about once a week.”
“He always that much of an asshole?”
“Can’t say I would put it in that language, but yeah.”
Sarah seated herself for the trip back. Nina was so kind and understanding and considerate. She didn’t deserve to have to deal with an oaf like that.
He was unworthy of her.
Chapter 3
“Absolutely not,” Eileen said, the moment she caught sight of the check. “I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?” Sarah asked, pursuing her mother through the kitchen as she fixed dinner. She could almost hear Nina in her head, saying “echo.” “What are you even talking about? It’s free money.”
“Nina Rose’s money.”
“So?”
“She feels bad about your father, she thinks this will make it right, and it’s not something we’re going to take advantage of.” After taking the towel off her risen dough, Eileen started slotting it into bread pans. “What do you need money for, anyway? You’re not in school. You live here rent-free.”
“I want to get my car fixed and then maybe pay off some of our debts.”
“We don’t have—”
“We do!” Sarah interrupted. “We’re behind on the mortgage. You think I don’t notice this stuff, but why do you think I stopped going to college?”
Eileen stared at her. “You’re rewriting history.”
“And you’re not? You make it sound like dad’s accident was her fault somehow.”
“I did not—!” Eileen began shrilly, then settled. “I never said that. But we don’t need her charity.”
“Don’t we?” Sarah took a deep breath.
Eileen turned away. She probably thought the argument was settled. Like after she said what she said, that was that.
Sarah tried a different tack. “It’s not charity if I earn the money. She wants us to do her gardening.”
“Now we’re gardeners?”
“We do it every Tuesday and Thursday for three blocks. You close down the flower shop. What do you call that?”
“They’re in the area,” Eileen argued. “We can’t drive all the way out to Nina Rose’s every week. You saw how far it is. It’d take up the whole day.”
“Not the whole—I’ll go. I can handle the place myself. She wants me to come twice a week. And she’s offering to pay forty bucks an hour.”
“And your other job?”
“I can work it in around my schedule at the store. They’re not giving me full-time anyway. And they only pay minimum wage. The only place I can go from here is up.”
Now Eileen seemed past the point of sighing, in some weirdly tranquil place. “Sarah, what do you remember about Nina Rose? Really?”
“She was one of dad’s students. He tutored her, she made a bundle—so she’s grateful, so what?”
“I don’t think you appreciate how complicated things are.”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Sarah said. “It’s a second job. You wanted me to get one. And I’m not asking for your permission, I’m asking fo
r your blessing.”
Eileen still didn’t look pleased, but she said, “I’m not giving you my blessing. I’m giving you my permission. I hope you appreciate the difference when the time comes.”
>~~~<
“Guys, you sound like my mom,” Sarah told her webcam.
The Skype screens registered identical expressions of exasperated disappointment.
“C’mon, Kay!” Jonesy demanded. “What’s her deal? Is she all Sling Blade?”
“She’s my boss,” Sarah stressed. “I’m not going to gossip about my new boss. It’s really cool of her to give me this opportunity—I’m making forty bucks an hour. I had to agree to start paying rent before Eileen would let me take the job, so half of it’s going to the mortgage, but still, that fucks the supermarket up the ass.”
“Can you just take a few pictures?” Beck asked. “I mean, she’s fine with Google Earth taking pictures—you’d just be closer.”
Tyrese barely looked up from the mail he was opening. “C’mon, lay off her. She’s got a good thing going here. Speaking as one of her other good things, I appreciate she doesn’t want to screw that up.”
“Thanks, babe.”
“You two are boring ever since you hooked up,” Beck said. “At least tell us if Nina’s a vampire?”
“Of course not.”
“So you’ve seen her in direct sunlight?”
Sarah sighed. “Jonesy, what’s new with you?”
“Yeah, have you seen any vampires?” Tyrese asked, as Sarah got a chat from him: 4real, what was she like?
Sarah rolled her eyes and punched some keys. She could think of a lot of things to say about that woman.
The kind of person I wish I had met at college. Maybe one of the teachers. She could have gone all Dead Poets Society on me.
Sarah deleted that, instead writing: She’s intense, smart, friendly…lonely. Very lonely.
>~~~<
The next morning, Eileen gave Sarah pancakes for breakfast, and then she hitched a ride with Beck to the boathouse. Once more, she got to enjoy the house porn of Nina’s manor. The grounds were overgrown, but it wasn’t a jungle. All the weeds and wildflowers made it look like the Garden of Eden.
Sarah had always figured Eden wouldn’t be an orderly garden. It’d be wild and free.
On the long walk up the path, Sarah groomed herself a little, gathering up her hair into a ponytail, adjusting her stockings, and even putting on both straps of her backpack. All of a sudden, she wanted to look her best for Nina. Maybe it was just the house, so intimidating in its near perfection. Even it couldn’t live up to Nina’s impeccable fashion sense and general elegance, but it did throw her into stark relief. She was like the crown jewel of her own life.
Sarah wanted to be, like, one of the other jewels. Maybe that orb thing royals had, with the cross on top? She buzzed the intercom. No one answered. The pause was long, jarring—a wrench in the gears. Sarah stood there long enough not to feel awkward about hitting the intercom again. Still nothing. Panic fringed her thoughts; ridiculous as it was, she worried this was all some elaborate prank, that Nina was fucking with her, laughing at her…
The door flew open. Nina stood there in a sort of kimono, its glossy, green fabric leafed loosely over her body. She was dripping wet, bare-bodied except for the robe, hair falling in wet straits past her ears, tickling at the nape of her neck. Sarah could hear a shower still running in the background. And she could see Nina in quite a lot more detail than she’d expected: her womanly hips pushing out the confines of the kimono, the way it flowed over her hourglass figure, the generous breasts, pendulous but firm, well holding their own against gravity… Nina pulled the kimono tighter around herself, hiding most of her skin but for her wet feet, her sculpted calves.
“Sarah…you’re here early.”
“Yeah.” Sarah’s mind was still off on an odd tangent, picturing Nina as a lounge singer in some old TCM movie with Rita Hayworth. All she needed was a glimmering red dress and an old-fashioned microphone to croon into. The woman looked made for black-and-white—Sarah found herself mentally dressing Nina in a gray silk robe instead, befitting her fine skin, and… What the hell is wrong with you, Sarah Kay?
“Yeah,” Sarah said again. “I thought I’d get an early start. For my first day and all. I didn’t mean to disturb you—”
“No, no trouble at all. I was just wrapping up.” Nina smiled at her own pun as she adjusted her robe, slender fingers neatly working the dangling belt halves. They were little silk ribbons, whispering through the air as Nina deftly tied them. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah, I had pancakes.”
“Oh, poor dear,” Nina cooed with mock sympathy, and Sarah laughed. “Come in, but give me a moment to throw something on. Just because I work from home is no reason to dress like it.”
Sarah followed her, Keds squeaking on the wet footprints Nina left on the tile, trying not to notice the wiggle of Nina’s ass in the tightened kimono. That was just how she imagined Nina would sway her hips while she performed in some elegant nightclub—not vulgarly, but just enough so that every man in tuxedo and tails would be fantasizing about what else those hips could do.
Nina disappeared upstairs, coming back a few moments later in a baggy white T-shirt and boot-cut jeans with the right knee wearing thin. Dressing down did nothing to make her less attractive. The looseness of her shirt only made the ample swell of her breasts more prominent, pushing as they did against the folds of the fabric. And while her jeans weren’t tight, the way she moved was interesting enough with just a hint of her figure showing. She came down doing up her belt, and Sarah fought the urge to look away as she pulled the leather taut.
“Laundry day,” she said.
Nina wasn’t much of a tour guide. There were shelves and shelves of books, odd curios lining shelves and dressers, a big hand-painted Victorian globe in one corner—Nina didn’t stop for any of it. “Mr. Shannon informed you of the river situation, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Good man. So if I have business in town, I could very well be stuck there overnight.” Sarah was about to volunteer the guest room of her house when Nina said, “Obviously, I’m not above slumming it in a Four Seasons, but I’m a bit anal about my house. I’m one of those people who can’t relax if she thinks she’s left the oven on. So, while you’re in my home, just in case I’m called away suddenly and unable to return, don’t leave any electrical appliances on while you’re not using them. No doors left open. Windows closed if you’re not in the room. Exterior doors preferably locked.”
“Yeah. Of course. I mean, I probably won’t—won’t be around enough for it to be an issue, but—”
Nina continued leading Sarah about, hitting a bathroom, the kitchen, a guestroom. “I’m not a slave driver. The reason I pay you is so I don’t have to worry about the garden, thus it only makes sense that I don’t worry about you either. You strike me as a fairly hard worker, and I rarely miss my guess about people. As long as the work is done, I don’t mind you going at your own pace, or relaxing a little. If you’re tired, take a nap. If you’re dirty, use the shower. If you’re hungry, help yourself. You might want to bring a change of clothes: this can be a dirty job.”
“But someone’s got to do it,” Sarah leapt in.
Nina smiled at her. “Quite. I can’t imagine you being too curious about this place—it’s just a house, no different from any other—but feel free to explore. If you’re looking for something in particular, it will probably be around here somewhere. No need to worry that you’ll stumble across my seven previous wives or anything. One exception.”
Nina showed her to a door, trying the knob for Sarah. It was locked. “This door leads to the basement. A few years back, there was something of a flood, and the water damage was particularly bad down there. The insurance company gave me a huge hassle, and I decided to hell with it, it’s not like I need another room in this labyrinth. It’s quite unsafe down there, so leave it alone.”
“Absolutely,” Sarah said, trying her best to look as if she was paying attention and diligently filing away mental notes, rather than wondering how Nina’s hair could look so good fresh out of the shower.
Or why the shower was still running. She knew they weren’t in a drought or anything, but still. Bad for the environment. She was about to ask Nina if maybe she should run up and turn it off when she heard the spray decisively stop, reducing itself to a dribbling, plinking echo.
Oh…
Nina escorted Sarah to the garden shed. It was in good repair from the last gardener, and Sarah quickly proved to Nina that she knew her way around the various tools. She really was good with plants; she’d helped Eileen with her business on and off, back before she’d been old enough for a real job.
“I suggest you start with the weeding,” Nina said sweetly, handing Sarah an angled tool that would make it a breeze. Sarah had begged her mother for one of those, but no, doing it by hand built so much frickin’ character. “And if you need anything, just let me know.”
“Well, maybe…” A glass of ice water. A power bar. “I mean, if it’s not too much trouble…”
“Yes?” Nina asked, and there was a tiny universe in how her lips wetly parted, teeth gleaming, almost feral, and in the quirks at the corner of her mouth as she waited for Sarah’s reply. For what Sarah wanted.
>~~~<
Strong and insistent hands pulled Sarah in. Almost before she could feel their touch, warm lips were against her own and a tongue pushed into her mouth. It felt good but also weird. The hands slid down to crush themselves against Sarah’s ass, pulling her further into their owner’s reach. Her body was responding, but not in the right way. It felt as if she was short-circuiting. This was wrong somehow. She tried to push the thought away; this couldn’t be wrong. She touched back, her hands groping and massaging—not as forcefully as her lover, more experimentally. It all felt so…different.
But that was nonsense, right? What was she expecting? What else would Tyrese feel like?
The Woman at the Edge of Town Page 4
