EAGLE PEAK BOULEVARD
Short fiction
I am the cleaning lady. I hold a degree in economics in my country. My brother studied medicine. I came to this country when we were forced to leave our own. He was detained at the border and sent back. I got through, although it would take four more years to get here. He pleaded with me to keep going the whole time, that he would be right behind me. He said he’d never stop trying, but that was eight years ago. I thank God he’s alive. We talk on Skype, and he tells me he’s okay, but I see his fatigue. I suppose he sees mine, too.
I clean. With the money I saved, I bought an old station wagon, then I traded it for a van. It looks more professional to pull up to the home of a wealthy client in a van with the company logo on it, even if I painted it myself in the parking lot of the biggest hardware store I’d ever seen. I was always good at drawing. They don’t have to know that I live in that van. What else can I do? The rents are beyond my wildest fears, a catastrophe. I am lucky. My bank account grows because I’m not afraid to live rent-free in parking lots. With that money, I can buy my brother his freedom, but it will be more difficult now. He has a wife and a baby.
Time for my first account of the day. It’s up in the hills, where I park the van sometimes to sleep. It’s quiet and safe. All those multi-million dollar homes with their award-winning designs, and the winking lights of the city below make me feel at peace somehow.
I ring the doorbell and the owner answers. She looks at me with the tight smile of her impatience. Barely civil the way she greets me, like I am something to be held outside of her value system. There is nothing I can do or say to gain her full respect. I’m not saying she’s racist, per se. It’s just that the boundaries between tribes are very solid here. Luckily, I have met others who contradict this observation, but they are the exception that proves the rule.
We exchange the usual pleasantries, and I get to work. I have been there several times already, so I know where everything is. I will have to wait patiently for her to explain this week’s highlighted chores. She says, in her firm-leader voice, I am to attend to them before I launch into the usual cleaning routine.
The husband or boyfriend or whatever walks in. I am amused that they look my way and then switch to French. It’s so wickedly and outrageously condescending. They think I don’t understand what they’re saying to each other, because, for the most part, the people of this country don’t bother to learn languages, and I understand that. It spans two oceans, and they have all they need. The couple speaks French. Big whoop, I speak seven languages. French was my third.
They are not middle-aged yet, but they are living in tremendous affluence. Even her sports clothes I recognize as Lululemon and other luxury brands. The entrance of the house is dark and cavernous, molded concrete, textured and glossed with an umber patina. The split-level house has Nero Marquina marble flooring. Mops up splendidly. The short staircase is carpeted, as is the broad dining room space with floor-to-ceiling windows that will make my left shoulder ache tomorrow. Against the far wall, and visible from the entrance, is a freaking Franz Kline. I can’t think of anything more cliché than that in this Marcel-Brueurish space, but okay, I can see why they chose the painting. I like the way the pine trees just outside the window seem to continue the flow of the black brush strokes.
That they bother to switch languages has me intrigued. I start with the dust rag instead of the vacuum cleaner, the better to overhear what they’re saying.
«J’ai pas trop aimé ce truc que t’as dit hier soir devant mes amies.»
«Lequel?»
«Que moi, j’aurais mieux démissionné avant d’être virée. Que c’est en tous cas une profession en déclin.»
«Ben ça, c’est la vérité, tu vois.»
«C’est la vérité pour toi, pas pour moi, Jonathan. (Jonathan was said with an American accent) Et en plus, c’était d’un mauvais goût qui m’énerve encore.»
«Bon, désolé que tu le prennes comme ça. Mais pourquoi tu fais d’une mouche un éléphant?»
«Laisse tomber. C’est ridicule comme tu te défends quand c’est toi le fautif, merde!»
Bickering. She works in a shit sector, and she was just fired, and he made a cutting remark about it in front of her girlfriends. Sweet. Turns out, those in the premium seats don’t really live any less miserably than those of us in the nosebleed section. They have superb accents.
She storms off to another part of the house. If it’s the bathroom, she’s going to mess up my schedule, ditto for the bedroom. I need to be out of here by ten-fifteen to make that golden two hundred percent profit margin. I’m done with the palatial foyer, dining room and kitchen. I have to go upstairs, and quickly. I only have twenty minutes before my profit sinks to one hundred percent. We can’t have that.
They don’t even recycle—unless I’m there. For an extra fee, I haul their paper, plastic and glass for them. To be honest, there are no bins nearby. I drive down the mountain and into town to take them directly to the recycling center, which is what they would be doing if they had any environmental conscience.
I have to do the hallway, and hear them in the bedroom, where the bickering has changed themes. I am tempted to start vacuuming. The negativity is miasmic in there, and they are not as interesting as I had imagined they would be, but the tone is more intense than before, and the volume is operatic. I wheel my commercial cleaning caddy past the half-open door, and there is a moment of eye contact between myself and the man. He comes over and slams the door shut. It’s a little embarrassing to witness a couple fighting in their home. An invasion of privacy forced upon me, as in, the interloper is me, yet I am supposed to be there. The anti-loper. I laugh at my own stupid joke.
Ten minutes. I’m done with the bathroom and should do the bedroom now. They are still fighting in there. With my head against the heavy oak door, I raise my curled hand to knock, and it hovers inches from the wood.
“Your mother? Your mother hates me, and you know it!” She is screeching.
“She doesn’t hate you. You and she don’t understand one another.”
“Yeah, no doubt! According to her, if I’m going to get fired, I might as well punch out offspring! How was that supposed to make me feel? Big disconnect there.”
“She’s right. This is the third time.”
I decide there will never be a suitable moment to interrupt them. I knock softly while she’s thinking of what to come back with. That one really winded her.
The door flies open, and the man, red-faced, glares at me. She is crying.
“Sorry,” I say in a minty-fresh voice, “I only have this room left to do.”
He reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and takes out a wad of bills, peeling off four.
“Here you go, thanks. We won’t be needing you anymore.”
Except for the tears, my face mirrors the shocked expression on his wife’s face. How do you like that? He’s using me to punish her. Now I have to re-spiel them, but not here, and not now. This is the kind of thing I enjoy, though. I will get this account back if I have to seduce him. Not with lust, mind you, with a combination of anxiety and greed. Sex is a puny convincer these days. I smile radiantly. In fact, my smile is so out of joint with the moment, it feels surrealistic.
“Ok then. If you change your mind, you have my number.”
I feel an audacious wink will be just the right accent, and I am not wrong. I see the tension momentarily go out of his eyebrows. Then I put the money in my uniform pocket. It’s gotten wrinkled from bending over the low fixtures. I have just enough time between jobs to hot-wire a streetlight in the warehouse district I use just for the purpose of ironing. Presentation is everything.
As I iron the pocket, I think of my brother’s life. What if he changes his mind about coming here? This is is what has been troubling me lately.
❈
Selected for FicStack Curation No. 10
Good one! On the money!
'Sex is a puny convincer these days.' That's the slam-dunk sentence for me. Seals the deal on a stylish story that's packed with punch after punch and, from start to finish, keeps the reader's eye keening for what's up next. A virtuoso literary performance Camila. Thank you.