People I Want to Punch in the Throat (5 page)

Our constant fighting was quickly getting out of control, and we were starting to throw around the phrase “marriage counseling.” I’ve always thought marriage counseling and renewing your vows are the kisses of death for a marriage. You rarely see a couple come through counseling unscathed. It can’t be good for your marriage to sit in a drab office in the middle of a lifeless strip mall telling a stranger that cleaning toilets is a blow to your masculinity. And don’t even get me started on the vow renewals! It started with celebrities. There would be an item in the tabloids hinting
about trouble in paradise, and suddenly they’re doing a ten-page photo spread in
People
magazine showcasing their romantic and inspiring vow renewals on some Hawaiian island. Six months later, they’re back on the magazine cover because—surprise!—they’re getting divorced. This phenomenon is now creeping down into the peasantry. I’ve seen several of my friends plan elaborate, bank-breaking vow renewals in the tropics. Then we find out a few months later that he’s been a serial cheater since they got married. He’d promised to change his ways, and renewing their vows was supposed to make him monogamous. Long story short, you will never hear about me and the Hubs renewing our vows. We’re both too cheap to spring for a shindig like that when the possibility of divorce attorneys is on the horizon. We’d rather save our money so there will be more to fight over.

Anyhoo, now you can imagine my fear when marriage counseling was suggested. I was terrified. We were only six months into our marriage and already we were looking at bringing in the equivalent of hospice for our marriage. Something had to change, but what? One particular messy, angry day it hit me like a ton of bricks. We didn’t need a chore chart or marriage counseling. What we needed was a cleaning lady!

When the Hubs agreed to move to Kansas from New York City, one of the conditions he negotiated was a lawn service. Spending his Saturday afternoons mowing the lawn and trimming bushes sounded like a nightmare to him. Plus, he really sucked at that sort of thing. If we let him take charge, our lawn would be all crabgrass and patches of dirt. With the Hubs on mower patrol, we’d never get a note from the homeowners’ association telling us our grass was too long, but we might get some notes asking us to re-sod the whole yard, because it was such a damn pit. Having the lawn guy freed up the Hubs’ schedule
for some much needed nap time and kept our lawn lush and beautiful.

A cleaning lady could go into the same category as the lawn guy. Between the two of them, we could save our marriage!

I was worried, though. Cleaning ladies aren’t cheap, and the Hubs hates to part with his money. I would have to tread lightly if I wanted to do this right.

That night when the Hubs got home from work I said to myself,
Be smooth, Jen
. Then I blurted out, “We’re on the brink of ruin! Our marriage is in trouble and unless you want to get divorced before our one-year anniversary we need to hire a cleaning lady. Soon. Like this week!”

The Hubs thought about it for half a second before he said, “You know what? You’re right. Okay. Let’s do it.” We take our marriage vows very seriously, and we’ll do what it takes to keep the spark alive, even if it means hiring people to do the labor we have no desire (or skill set) to do. “It makes sense, Jen. We don’t try to fix our furnace when it goes out—we call a pro. We don’t change the brakes on the car—we call a pro. When we need our house cleaned, it just makes sense to hire a pro.”

And just like that, the decision was made. Now I had to find someone. I wasn’t sure how to go about the process. I looked at Craigslist, but those people could be serial killers for all I knew. I couldn’t trust an online ad. I needed a referral from someone.

The first place I asked was at the neighborhood pool. I thought it would be a good place to start. I knew that lots of the neighbors had cleaning ladies. I had seen them show up during the week hauling their mops and brooms out of hatchbacks. I approached a group of women sunning themselves by the baby pool, and I asked, “Hi there! I was wondering, do any of you have a cleaning lady you could recommend?”

Brandy sat up on her lounge chair and said, “We’ve had our maid for twelve years and she’s fabulous. She’s like part of the family.”
Ugh
. Of course she calls her cleaning lady a maid.

“I’m not really interested in a
maid
. I just want a lady who will come a couple of times a month to clean,” I said.

“I understand, Jen. My maid only comes a couple of times a month.”

“Oh, I just thought since you called her a ‘maid’ that she lived with you, like Alice on
The Brady Bunch
or something.”

“God, no. I would never want Martina to live with me.”

“But it sounds like you like her. Can I get her number?”

“Oh, sorry. Martina only works for me and my stepmother. We all prefer it that way.”

“Oh. So you don’t have a recommendation for me. Your … maid … has enough clients.”

“Yes, that’s true. I was just letting you know how invaluable a maid is. I hope you find a good one.”

“Thanks.”

Teri chimed in from the seat next to her, “Well, I can tell you who
not
to hire! I’ve been through ten housekeepers in six years. I am
so
picky when it comes to housekeepers. None of them clean my house as well I clean it myself. It’s infuriating to look behind my washer and dryer and see dust bunnies. How hard is it to pull them out once a week and vacuum back there?”

“You’re supposed to vacuum behind your washer and dryer?” I asked. Shit. Those tasks weren’t even on my chore chart!

“Jen, when you get lint and dust collecting back there, it’s a major fire hazard! You probably don’t pull out your fridge, either, do you?”

She took one look at the utter confusion on my face and waved me away impatiently. “Actually, you’d probably be just
fine with any of the ten I’ve fired. It doesn’t sound as if you care that much about your house. If you want their numbers, call me tonight and I’ll give them to you.”

Lynn, who was floating on a raft in the baby pool, said, “You don’t even have kids. Why do you need a cleaning lady? Kids are the ones who make a mess. It seems strange that you need a cleaning lady.”

“Well, we both work,” I said, trying to make that my excuse.

“Don’t you work from home?” she asked.

“Yes …”

“You just need a system. Every day take a one-hour break from your work to do something around the house. Have your husband do it, too. Between the two of you working two hours a day, your house should sparkle!”

“Yeah, it’s just that I sort of hate systems, and we’d prefer to pay someone who is good at cleaning and stuff.”

“Well, I can’t imagine having a stranger clean your house,” said Cindy, joining the conversation. “It’s like having a stranger raise your children. That’s your house. It’s your mess. How embarrassing for some woman to come into your private, personal space and have to clean up your filth.”

“Okay, then. Thanks, ladies, I’m going to check Craigslist and take my chances with the serial-killer cleaning ladies.”

After a little more asking around, I found Rosa. In order to afford her, the Hubs and I vowed to forgo travel and entertainment and only eat out at restaurants with buy-one-get-one-free coupons and dollar menus. It was a small price to pay to quit yelling at the Hubs and see my bedroom floor again.

Rosa was wonderful. Not only did this woman clean my toilets and mop my sticky kitchen floor, she wasn’t afraid of any dirty job. One day I was sobbing over brand-new baby Gomer. I
was trying to breast-feed him and I couldn’t get him to latch on. He and I were both crying hysterically. Rosa came to see what all the noise was about. “I think I have to call my La Leche League mentor,” I sobbed. “I need some tips to get him to latch on.”

“It’s okay,” Rosa soothed me and Gomer. “I don’t know what La Leche League is, but I’m here. I can help you. You need to take off your top. It’s better to just be …” She struggled to find the right word. “No shirt to do this.”

“Topless?” I asked.

“Yes. No top. It just gets in the way and makes the baby hot. Take it off.”

I agreed reluctantly. Before I could protest too much, she whisked off my shirt, and then Rosa—the mother of eight—dropped her mop, rolled up her sleeves, grabbed my boob, shoved it in Gomer’s mouth, and helped me feed him. She sat there for half an hour supervising and giving both of us encouragement. My beds didn’t get changed that day, but she earned her money.

A few years ago Rosa gave us the scare of our lives. She called and told me she was taking an extended trip to visit family in Mexico. This wasn’t unusual. She does this a couple of times a year. She goes by herself to visit her mother and leaves her husband in charge of the kids. She gave me a date five weeks in the future when she would be able to come to my house. I marked my calendar and then watched the dust bunnies pile up in the corners of the living room.

When the eve of Rosa’s return was finally upon us, I started the frantic rushing around that’s called “cleaning for the cleaning lady.” You’ve got to clear the mail off the kitchen counter, put away the piles of shoes that have multiplied by the doors, throw the dirty clothes in the hamper, and make sure every damn itty-bitty
Lego and Barbie shoe is off the floor, because the vacuum is merciless. That night I was freaking out, because Gomer’s room wasn’t ready, I had to write contracts for some of my real estate clients, and my Pinterest account was in terrible shape and was begging to be updated. Before I made myself crazy, I decided to call Rosa and just make sure she was really back in the country and planning to come the next day. Like I said, my Pinterest account needed some serious attention, and if I could focus on that and put off cleaning for the cleaning lady until tomorrow night …

I called her and got her voicemail. I left her a message: “Hey, Rosa, it’s me, Jen. I hope you had a great time in Mexico. I was just wondering if you’re still coming tomorrow. If you can’t, it’s no big deal, I just wanted to make sure …”
Because I’d rather read a book tonight than pick up tiny Legos off Gomer’s floor
. “So, y’know. Just call me and let me know what your plan is. Thanks.”

I decided to take a break at that point, because I’d picked up a bunch of shoes and made a phone call to Rosa. Surely those tasks had earned me a break. A few hours later I still hadn’t done much except organize my Pinterest boards and try on summer clothes (if I’m cleaning up, I might as well clean out my closet, right?) and I still hadn’t heard from Rosa. It was starting to get late, and if I was going to finish cleaning for the cleaning lady, I needed to do it in the next hour or so before I went to bed. I tried her again, and she answered. “Hello?”

“Oh! Rosa, you’re there. How was your trip?”

“Hi, Jen. It was good. I’m glad to be back.”

“I bet. So, are you coming over tomorrow, then? I’m trying to get ready, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it. It’s been such a busy night,” I lied.

“Oh. Yeah. No, I’m not coming tomorrow.”

I’m not going to lie. I was a bit relieved. I could finish organizing my closet now. “Okay. Maybe Saturday, then, or Sunday?”

“No, I don’t think that will work, either.”

I was perplexed. Saturday or Sunday always worked. “Okay. Well, what do you think? What have you got open?”

“Hmm … well … nothing. I moved.”

Shut the fuck up
. I had to sit down. I was feeling dizzy. “You what? You moved?”

“Well, my husband moved. So I moved, too. I came home from Mexico yesterday and he and the kids had moved to St. Louis. He put the kids in school and everything.”

Seriously. Shut the fuck up
. “St. Louis?”

“Yeah. He called me and said, ‘Come here and live here with us in St. Louis.’ So I did.”

“St. Louis?”

“Yes. Have you heard of it?”

“St. Louis?”

“Yes.”

Shut. The. Fuck. Up
. I felt nauseated. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I’m just shocked that you’re gone. I mean. Wow. Because I was planning on seeing you tomorrow.”

“I know. But I live in St. Louis now. Javier got a job in St. Louis and the kids are in school here, and I can’t stay in Kansas City alone.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course you need to be with your family.”

“I know. And my family is in—”

“St. Louis,” I finished.

“Yes. It is nice here.”

“Uh-huh. That’s good to hear. Well, I don’t know what to say except good luck, Rosa. Bye.”

“Bye, Jen.”

I hung up the phone with mixed emotions:

1. I got a reprieve. I could get back to my Pinterest boards and forget about Gomer’s room.

2. Crap, I needed to find another cleaning lady, stat. Maybe this time I’d find one who cleans behind the fridge, because ever since my conversation with Teri, the thought of what was back there had been weighing heavily on me. I mean, not heavily enough for me to pull out the fridge myself and clean behind it, but heavily nonetheless.

3. WTF, Rosa? You’ve cleaned our house for eight years—when were you going to tell me you moved to fucking St. Louis and couldn’t come
tomorrow
, when we were expecting you?

4. Shit, now my marriage would be in trouble. Rosa had single-handedly saved us from marriage counseling. There were kids in the mix now, and I couldn’t take any chances.

5. Was she lying to me, because my house was such a pain for her to clean and she was trying to let me down easy?

When I told the Hubs about Rosa, he immediately went to number five on my list. “Nice job, Jen. You ran her off,” he said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You never do a good enough job cleaning up for her, and it makes more work for her. And I heard you ask her last time she was here if she ever vacuums behind the dryer.”

“Well …”

“That was probably the straw that broke her back.”

“Shit. So you don’t think she’s in St. Louis?”

“No way. Call Marci and ask if she dumped them, too.”