2 Maid in the Shade (12 page)

He
grinned and patted me awkwardly on the arm and we parted at the door.

Facebook post:
New neighbor: “If you feel that strongly about not being buried in a cemetery I could always drop you from my airplane over the ocean. Obviously AFTER you’re dead of course.” Me: “Wait, almost dead would be better. Unplug me from whatever and spirit me away. I can be like a small time Hoffa, “Where the hell did she go?”

Chapter 6

I
just made it to the cleaners and they agreed to put a rush on the drapery panel. They handle everything on site, which is pretty much unheard of nowadays. They are Korean and speak very little English; nevertheless I always expressed my deep appreciation, whereupon they expressed theirs, I expressed mine again and getting out of there took awhile.

W
hen I got home it was almost dark. I immediately grabbed Mosey’s leash, not noticing at first that the door wasn’t locked. Bridle Springs is so safe no one thinks to lock up all the time, and between my large schnauzer and modest cabin, there are better targets for theft.

S
uddenly, I became aware of the fact the light in the kitchen was on. I grabbed the antique Celtic Shillelagh from a hook on the hearth and I walked quietly on the hardwood floor, moving closer to the room as I heard a murmur of voices.

L
ucy and Jared were seated at my kitchen table. As soon as they saw me they jumped up, relief etched in their faces.

“I’m so sorry, Gretchen,” Lucy said in a fast almost indecipherable ramble. “After the second time you called to ask me to look after Mosey you sounded strained. I didn’t call Jared
; he phoned to tell me they didn’t find a bacteria or virus that caused Mae’s death and he wanted me to let you know. And I just blurted out that you should have been back by now. It’s just with your past--I started getting worried that the stress had been too much for you. I know how you are about keeping people in the dark when something happens. But then there was the news that there might be a police cover up of some assaults on females downtown and we were sitting here trying to decide how freaked out we should be.”

“YOU TOLD JARED about my past
?”

S
he held up a hand in a conciliatory gesture, “I only told him a little, very little,” she smiled weakly, “barely anything. So glad you’re safe, leaving now!”

I
wanted to throw something at her but before I could think of anything I wouldn’t miss, the door from the kitchen to the deck had slammed shut. Lucy was definitely bringing out a violent streak in me; or perhaps it had come about when I had to defend myself so tenaciously
a few months back?

I
wondered how long this volatility would be a part of me. Lately it seemed I was always ready to defend myself against the mildest emotional and physical assaults. Maybe I did have “issues.”

“This house has too many damn doors,” I said watching her streak away toward her golf cart
. Then I turned to face Jared.

He
crossed the room in two strides and locked me in an embrace, or was this a hug? I pushed away from him trying to decide how I felt about that so soon after spending time with Ben.

“I’m so relieved you’re okay,
” he said. “Wait a minute, what did she mean she only told me part?”

“
Lucy told you enough and more of my business than she should have,” I said icily. “I really appreciate the concern but I’m beat.”

“That’s all, you’re beat,” he said, his mood suddenly changing and sarcasm dripping from his voice. “I’ve been worried sick, sitting at this table for hours
. I finally called a buddy at the Charlotte station. Then he said a Gretchen was meeting with the chief of police, how many Gretchens are there? I thought if you were raped after what happened to you as a kid...”

“Look,
” I said bitingly, “I didn’t involve you in this, I was not in danger. Lucy just went overboard, perhaps because I was almost murdered a couple of months ago? From now on I’ll hire a dog walker or find some kid in the neighborhood. Lucy has a big mouth.”

M
y voice trailed off; somehow he was holding me again. I was mumbling into his shoulder and he was absently stroking my hair, until it fell out easily from my hasty job of pinning it up in the restroom before visiting Dallas.

“You still haven’t told me where the hell have you been? Surely not visiting the
chief of police this long? And what’s this? And this?” He asked pulling a piece of pine straw and afterwards a fragment of moss from my hair.

I
shoved my hands in my pockets, half defensively, half to keep from smacking him. “I took a few hours off after my job uptown; I went out in the woods. I had fun.”

“By yourself
?”

“Look buddy, we’ve never even dated, this is so not any of your business.” I took my hands out of my pockets and turning my back on him headed toward the main bathroom and turned on the faucets and closed the door.

I was taking off my shirt, certain he had given up, when the bathroom door flung open causing me to shriek.

“Jared, get out!”

His face was set in a grim line as he held up that portion of the torn lace thong I had hastily stuffed in my pocket when Ben and I parted. It must have fallen out when I took my hands out of my pockets and headed off to take a shower. And he had to notice the hotel room key card that I had just emptied out of my breeches. Crap, maybe they could wait for it until I brought the drapery panel back.

“Was this part of today’s entertainment
?” He picked up the card holding it beside the bit of lace, “and this? A man and a hotel liaison, evidently. Why the hotel? Is he married? Or is it just convenient because he works downtown? A little nooner?” His tone was scathing.

M
y jaw dropped, for a moment I could think of nothing at all to say. I don’t know how long I stood there, mouth open, “catching flies,” my aunt used to call it, while I was rendered speechless. Then I turned off the shower quickly as I felt a surge of that anger again and my words were as quick as an automatic weapon.

“I don’t know what you think I owe you, from everything I can recall, you did your job and I must have done okay too because I got a lot of attention for my part in it. If I ever made your career, your life, whatever you’ve got going on more difficult I’m sorry. But I have no idea how many partners you’ve had, what shape
your
underwear is in, or why... Wait, maybe your act of giving me a phone makes you think you have some right to know where I am every waking moment. Just because it rings that doesn’t mean it is one.”

F
orgetting I was clad only in the incriminating matching bra with the riding pants I strode into the kitchen, grabbed my bag and found the phone he had given me after my old one’s untimely and inconvenient demise.

I
considered clearing it of all of its contents but I was so angry my hands were shaking. So I just tossed it at him. He caught it easily.

“Gretchen don’t
start acting crazy, you have to have a phone. It was a gift,” he said calming down. “What if you are in danger, what if you get a job and they can’t reach you? Or you get in trouble and can’t reach me? You’re right; there could be a million explanations for the torn panties and all the rest.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened, I’m not explaining a thing. Think the worst and you are probably right. You know what? If I hosted an orgy today it would have nothing to do with you and it couldn’t possibly get me caught up to that
slate of yours you wanted cleared.

I
may quit this job. I think after everything that’s happened today, I just might leave town. You did NOTHING to save me last time. I saved myself, I always save myself! And when I can’t? I live with it! I owe you NOTHING! Except the damn phone and we both know it was prelude to a conquest. You probably all made a bet on it at the sheriff’s department. Why don’t I sign those panties for them and you can call this game over? That’s another reason I could never be with you, you probably have enough trophies from your own escapades to fill a storage unit. You are such a hypocrite.”

I
stalked back to my bathroom leaving Jared in the kitchen looking astonished. Surely he would give up and go away. If he knew what was good for him he would take the phone. It was lucky I had kept the land line. Jared had been around women enough to realize when to walk away.

I
was still trembling a little when I decided to bathe upstairs. It was definitely time to call it a day.

T
he bath was half full when I slipped into it. I wanted desperately to add bubble bath, or bath oil, but there was my hair to consider, so I washed and conditioned that first, then drained the tub a little and added gardenia bubbling bath oil.

T
his was a therapeutic bath; I shower and shave my legs downstairs every morning. I relaxed and tried not to worry about all the threats and pronouncements I had made to the only two men in my life I had ever been seriously attracted to.

J
ared; well that whole thing was probably over now before it began but that was for the best. Of course I had more than a passing interest in him with his looks and easy charm. But he couldn’t hold a candle to what I had with Ben.

B
en had made serious sacrifices to take care of me when I needed him, he changed jobs just to be near me, and I loved his mother. What more could you ask of a man? If I chose forever with anyone it would be with Ben. It would be so easy just to slip into that life.

B
ut how do you know if you’re running toward the right thing or if you are just on the run from a painful past and picking the clearest path? I loved Bridle Springs, but would it be long before I yearned for a job that used my brain or missed the city thrumming with energy?

I
had power in my intellect and I knew Dallas would help me back onto that ladder. And wasn’t that what I had been meant for? Wasn’t that why I had a brain that could glance at numbers and find the patterns, the flaws, which not everyone could see? Since college I had meant to be that woman in the suit: The woman at the head of the conference table.

I
raised one leg ruefully and massaged my calf with oils. There was certainly no suit here, I was naked and perhaps a little raw, but I had tapped into something more primal when I ran to ground in Bridle Springs. Perhaps it wasn’t the heedless impulsive escape I had always thought it was; or a speedy flight from trauma and loss.

I
n that skyscraper I had been admired, respected and a little feared by my peers until my disgraceful exodus. With the exception of one of the principles in the firm, Dallas, and for a time, Hugh, I had always been wary, with no cracks in the armor of my Armani.

I
n Bridle Springs I had grown stronger in a different way. I had come to the town as a victim and become a survivor. I had lost that constant companion anxiety in this small world which valued gumption over poise. I had fallen from a skyscraper and been cradled by the boughs of a river oak.

S
omewhere between Charlotte and this tiny township I had tapped into an identity that wasn’t based on what I banked or how smart anyone thought I was. And this job was just that, a job, with some difficult parts that were always moving and changing. Numbers followed patterns, didn’t ask you questions, sob on your shoulder or hide what they were. The people I had worked with uptown considered it a badge of honor not to share personal histories, and usually only wanted yours if there was an unmined resource in it.

T
his life demanded less of my brain and more of my soul and psyche. When I had been in the city I knew exactly what I was supposed to do to get to the top. Here I could wander off the cleared paths without being lost or worrying about the lack of a compass. I had abandoned my own itinerary for success and what it meant.

T
ears and emotion were flaws in city firms: Here, where there were no firms, they are the local currency of relationships. They are legal tender you must exchange eventually if you want to fit in. Those connections were more valuable to me now than powerful business allies; on the other hand, it was pretty hard to justify manual labor after racking up a quarter of a million dollars in tuition.

I
thought about the girl with her Yale degree working in some Podunk bank. But maybe a parent was deathly ill; maybe she had tossed it all aside for a hometown relationship. I gave an inward shudder. That girl was nothing like me. I wasn’t going to be anything like her.

E
xcept, from an outward glance, we both might appear to have issues.

I
finally forced myself out of the tub and went through the tiny lingerie drawer in the bathroom. It was pretty sparse, owing to the fact that I just stuffed everything into the bedroom dresser lately since my drop-in guests had increased and my privacy had diminished dramatically. I always heard Mona opening a drawer or cabinet before she emerged from the bathroom. She often made excuses to go upstairs. It didn’t bother me too much, Mona was lonely and her snooping and hypochondria were just her ways of connecting.

I
put on a pair of white Chantelle panties; expensive, tiny and worth every penny although they were entirely a waste to wear at the moment. The only robe left in the chest was the almost sheer periwinkle by Fleur of England, and I left my feet bare, my bra off, enjoying the feeling of my own clean oiled skin. See, I thought to myself, a woman with issues from a sexual assault definitely wouldn’t spend a fortune on lingerie. (Although a tiny voice inside argued that I was only overcompensating and continuing a ridiculous habit that had begun back when I was making serious bank. And all the lingerie in the world hadn’t resulted in an actual sex life. To that little voice I can only respond with one irrefutable argument: “Shut up. I’m working on it.”)