Day 6

Two more days until International Woman’s Day. I’m sure you’re as anxious as I am. It’ll be so much fun, won’t it? Answering all the queries from petulant men who want to know why there is no Men’s Day? Remember to tell them they only have eight and a half months to wait until November 19, International Men’s Day. Meanwhile, while you’re waiting for the horde of men to descend on your Twitter feed and demand you do their googling for them, you can read this. It’s incomplete…this story needs more development, and will come to you in, hopefully, two parts. If things go the way I plan, that is. Otherwise, it may turn out to be three parts. Sometimes, characters just refuse to cooperate. So, we’re going to have a little go at…no, I don’t want to give you a spoiler. I’ll let that unfold. Oh, and, please be kind. These are going up the day I write them, with only the most minimal of editing. They may not be as polished as my final work.

THE NEW WOMAN

 Amber shifted from foot to foot, waiting for the door. She pressed the bell again, knowing it had a habit of failing to work at the most important times. She resisted the urge to peek in the window and see if anyone was home. He should be home…they had an appointment. Was he just playing cat-and-mouse with her?  She checked her watch against her phone; both showed the same time, and it was three minutes after time. She’d been standing here for five minutes. It was time to go.

She picked her way down the icy porch steps…he didn’t even have the good sense to put deicer on them, even when expecting someone. He was going to get himself in trouble one of these days. He needed looking after. Well, that was why she was here, right? No, not really. She was interviewing to look after the children, not him.

She reached the bottom step, the ice making four steps take as long as twelve, when the car roared into the driveway, going much too fast for the condition of the streets. He went into a skid, the car circled twice, and came to a stop mere inches from the house next door. He was still doing that thing…she thought he’d get over it once they grew up. Well, he never grew up, did he?

Brad unfolded his length from the sports car, and watched her pick her way across the yard. No offer to help, no effort made to even give her an arm. He had that smile on his face…the small one, the one that tried to say “Bond. James Bond.” but really came off looking like a slightly balding man trying to say “Bond. James Bond.” The idea made her smile, but it was a smile that did not reach her face. She was giving him nothing.

“Hello.” He finally spoke. He had adopted that faux bass he always used when meeting someone new and wanting to impress them with his manliness.

“Hello.” She didn’t say anything else. She was leaving.

“I’m sorry I’m late for our appointment. I was…detained.” He put that stupid pause, like he always did, the way he imagined a spy would do. He wasn’t a spy, he was an accountant, and he needed to get over himself.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to be the job for me.” Amber didn’t look at him as she spoke. She couldn’t maintain her equilibrium if she did.

“Oh, I hope you’re not going to let this destroy your impression of the place.” He held out his hand, not to assist, but to shake. She ignored it.

“I am a person who is used to people being on time. I don’t have a lot of patience for wasting time.”

“Ah. Just like my ex-wife.” Brad frowned. He clearly didn’t enjoy the image.

“Yes? Well, maybe we’re not a good fit. Have a nice day.” Amber tried to move past him to get to the curb where she had left her loaner car. He stepped in her path and she couldn’t move further without physical contact. The idea didn’t please her.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t gotten off on the right foot. Look, why don’t you…come on in, have a cup of tea, and we’ll talk about the job? I think, if we can get past this first moment, you’ll find this is just where you want to be.”

Brad was really turning on the charm. Was he really having that much trouble finding some woman to come work for him and raise his kids? Our kids, Amber thought, our kids. The thought of her children turned her around. She accepted his offer and they entered the house together.

It was the first time she’d been in the house since the day he pitched her stuff on the lawn. The place was a disaster. Plainly he had no idea of how to keep it clean, or maybe just no desire to do the work. Figures, Amber thought. He did little enough of that when we were married. She thought raising two children without any help might have helped him grow up, but that was plainly not the case.

He brushed the magazines off a corner of the sofa, and she settled on the edge. She had no intention of getting comfortable. This was a job interview, not a relaxing night with the family. He settled across from her in the easy chair, putting his feet on the coffee table and looking her over. She sat still, waiting for him to finish his examination. She thought about the image she saw in the mirror that morning, the image that looked so little like her that her own children would likely not know it was her. Satisfied, he nodded.

“You’re a nice looking woman.” Brad was already flirting with her. This wasn’t going to be easy. “And young. Why would you want a job like this, taking care of some man’s kids?”

“I…like kids.” Amber didn’t know what to say. There was no correct answer to that, not for Brad, since she had learned he had no respect for any motivations of women. He always assumed they had some ulterior motive in mind, but now he needed a woman because he had no basic life skills.

“That’s good. I want someone who likes kids. I’m not so hot with them, myself.” Ah, he decided to be honest. Not hot with them, though, was somewhat of an understatement. Until the day she filed for custody, he had never shown one ounce of interest in their children. Only the idea of taking them away from her had motivated him to care.

“The job would involve…cooking and cleaning, as well, I believe?” Amber clutched the job ad in her hand as though she hadn’t already memorized every word.

“Yes, some light housekeeping…just, you know, making the place look decent.”

She resisted pointing out that making the place look good from the state it was in now was not light housekeeping. She needed this job, not for the money, but for the ability to see her children, to touch them again, to hear their voices. It was the only way.

“I think you’ll do.” Brad rose abruptly and thrust his hand toward her. He didn’t even know how to conduct an interview for a housekeeper, just taking her on without any references, without any questions, without much knowledge of her at all...except that she was “nice-looking”. He hadn’t referred to her as nice-looking in years; of course, he had no way of knowing it was her. “I forgot…what did you say your name was?”

“I…don’t think I said. It’s…Pamela.” Amber had deliberately selected her least favorite name. He would never associate her with the name Pamela.

He nodded. “Can I call you Pam?”

She hid her wince. “Yes, of course. All my…friends…call me Pam.” She paused, worried that he would think she was coming on to him. “I mean, everyone, really. Not just my friends.”

“When can you start? I need someone as soon as possible.”

They made arrangements for her to begin the next day, and he saw her out. She maneuvered the icy steps once again, determined to bring some deicer with her in the morning and prevent tragic accidents. She slid from the curb in the loaner car he would not recognize, and moved away from the home she had not seen in over a year.

After stopping at a convenience store to become herself again, she stopped off at her office. Her boss, Randy, was in his office, so she would be able to discuss the need to change her work hours. She slipped into the chair in front of his desk and waited for him to finish his phone call.

He hung up and held out his arms. “Amber, baby, you’re here. I thought you weren’t coming in today.”

She dodged his embrace. “Not now, Randy, we need to talk.”

“Oh, shit, this isn’t…that…talk, is it?” Sometimes Randy could be quite annoying. “You’re not…” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “…pregnant?”

“No.” Amber glared at him. He shouldn’t be talking like this with the door open. Yes, most people knew they were dating, but still, he could be more discreet. “I just need to see about changing my shift. You know, working a split shift? We discussed it last week. You said you thought it could be arranged.”

Randy frowned. “We did?” He had a memory that failed regularly if he didn’t write things down. She reminded him to check his e-mail. He scrolled through the unread messages until he came to the ones they had exchanged at his request. “Oh, yeah. I remember now. Sure, we can work something out.”

“And if I could do part of my work from…home…” Amber gulped. Yeah, home. Once, but not now. That wasn’t her home anymore.

“Hmmm…so you want to…let’s see.” Randy scowled at the computer screen. He really should think about getting glasses. “Work two hours earlier in the morning, leave at seven…come back at four…weird shift, yeah. How much you want to do at home?”

Amber calculated. “Let’s see…I can probably…work from four to seven…so, three hours at home?” She knew she could do three hours of work in less than an hour if no one bothered her, so it wasn’t even a major sacrifice.

“I don’t really have a problem with it but…” Randy finally closed the door. “You know people might talk. Say I’m giving you special favors because…you know.”

“I know. But we talked about it. It’s really important. I hope it’s not for long.”

Randy nodded. He knew Amber could get her work done if he cut her hours down to a fraction; she was quick and efficient, and it was only his constant inefficiency that caused things to take so long. If he wasn’t around, the office would run smoothly. Of course, he didn’t want anyone else to know that…not his father, anyway. All his employees already knew that. “I…I’ll set up the paperwork.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“I’ll be sure to collect. Tonight?”

Amber nodded. She had hoped for a quiet night, a night to gather her strength for tomorrow, but…well, Randy was at least good company. And he’d take her to a good restaurant, so she wouldn’t have to cook.

The next morning, she presented at the front door of the house she once called home. This time when she pressed the bell, the door opened immediately. A small face peeked out at her, curious to see who this “new woman” was that her father had said was coming today. Amber remembered just in time that she wasn’t herself anymore, and managed her “Hello, sweetie” in the manner of someone who has just met a new small child.

“Daddy’s waiting for you.” Lucia opened the door and let Amber enter. “He’s in the breakfast room.”

Brad was just finishing up his breakfast. Mark was bouncing around the room trying to get ready for school. Amber’s heart rose in her throat at the familiar sight. Her children…her loving, beautiful children. They were eating breakfast on a table full of…garbage. There must be at least a week’s worth of dishes on the table, she thought. She started to clear the table before she thought. Brad nodded his approval. He apparently didn’t intend to waste a lot of time giving her instructions.

“The kitchen?” Amber needed to keep up appearances.

Brad pointed, still engrossed in the sports page, and Amber disappeared into the kitchen, once shiny and clean, now grimy with dirt that would take her all day to remove. Funny how she had always been able to manage a full time job, cook all the meals, and still keep the house clean, while Brad worked only part time and couldn’t manage the basics of hygiene.

Brad did give her instructions before he left. Where the kids went to school, when they needed to catch the bus, where to pick them up, what sort of shopping she needed to do, and what they liked to eat. She nodded. None of this was news to her. She knew it better than he did. He shoved another piece of toast down his throat and left. Apparently he actually had a job today.

Amber got the kids off to school, and settled in to make the house sparkling clean again. By the time Brad returned, it would look as though she had never left. She threw laundry in the washer, filled the dishwasher, and emptied the overflowing trash cans. She started to hum for the first time since she had lost her kids.

When the phone rang, she was in the other side of the house and almost didn’t hear it. She managed to catch it just before it went to voice mail; she couldn’t believe he still had the old land line. He had never used it when they were married, but for some reason, he apparently had kept it. She heard breathing on the other end, and hesitation before a female voice spoke.

“Is…Brad…there?”

“No. He’s gone to work. He said he’d be back around four…or five. He wasn’t sure.”

The voice waited, and sighed. “And you, dear? Do you now how long you’ll be there?”

“I’ll be leaving as soon as he returns. I’m here…to see to the children, and clean the house.”

“Oh, good, he finally found someone…I didn’t mean that, dear, of course, I’m sure it’s a great job and you’re perfect for it.” The voice sounded relieved. “I couldn’t take much more of that dump. It’s…nasty. Will you be…staying over…to watch the children at night?”

“No. I’m strictly a daytime employee.” Amber fumed. This woman sounded like she didn’t enjoy talking to the help.

“Too bad. I hoped…well, I’m sure the little…darlings…wouldn’t want…I mean…they’re…sweet…and…well, tell Brad I’ll be there by six, will you, darling?” A silence at the other end told her the other woman had hung up without waiting for her answer.

Amber stared at the phone in her hand. Was it going to be that easy? No, probably not. It would take a lot of work to find what she needed to find; Brad wasn’t going to hand it to her on a silver platter.

By the time Brad returned, the house was sparkling clean. Not a single dirty dish remained anywhere…Amber had scoured the house and collected the dishes from the study, the living room, the bathroom, and under the bed. A few other interesting things under the bed, as well, she though. She snapped pictures of every room before she started cleaning…and after she finished. Before and after…the refrain rang in her head all day. Before and after…I’m tired of before, she thought. I’m ready for after.

TO BE CONTINUED…..