The cleaning people will be coming this afternoon, and I want to have them change what they’re doing. I know what they’re not doing, and that would be cleaning. Probably because there’s never anyone in the house to supervise, and I’ve assumed that along with ‘organizing’ the gardener and pool maintenance, in-house work done by outside people is going to come under my jurisdiction, too.
The first thing I want them to do is come every day. At least for a week or so. And I want them to start taking the house on a room or project at a time. The grit and grime I found in the kitchen and master bath was accumulated, not something that sprang up over night. And I know they CAN clean, because they had the pool house in immaculate condition. They’ve been coming in, giving this tomb a lick and a promise and leaving, though. Just because the guy who signs the check doesn’t care doesn’t mean THEY shouldn’t. If they can’t accommodate the house, I’ll have to find another service that can, and something tells me that won’t be too hard.
There are five bathrooms in this house. Five full bathrooms and a half bath lurking off the laundry room. That’s going to be the first line of attack. I want each of them scrubbed to death and loaded for bear. They can do the laundry room, too, as soon as I get an okay from sleeping beauty upstairs to throw out some obvious junk.
The phone rings. It’s the first time it’s happened since I’ve been there, the house has otherwise been deadly quiet. Without hesitation, I pick it up.
“McLean residence, may I help you?” There’s silence on the other end of the phone. I note the caller ID and it’s a local call because the prefix is the same as this one, but that means nothing to me. “Hello?”
“Is A.J. there?”
“Mr. McLean is unavailable at the moment, may I take a message?”
“Have him call Rene. Is this Juliette?”
“No sir, this is the housekeeper. I’ll see that he gets the message.”
“Could you tell him that I have to cancel this morning, but I’ll meet him this afternoon at, at the meeting? He’ll know.”
“Certainly. Should I have him return your call anyway.”
“No, that’s fine.” There’s a pause. “Thank you.”
No good-bye, just a hang up. Just like when I worked front desks. I scribble the reminder on my pad.
“Who was that?” Sleepy voice, shuffling feet, and hair standing on end, my boss wanders into the kitchen, a real picture with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a five o’clock shadow from last week. His pants are hanging off his behind and he’s stepping on the bottoms of them as he wanders to the kitchen table.
“It was ‘Rene’ and he has to cancel this morning,” I parrot. “He said he would meet you at the meeting in the afternoon.”
“Swell,” he rasps. If I hadn’t heard his natural voice I would think that the man slumped at the table was suffering from a sore throat. And the tone of his voice is setting the tone for his day, but I don’t think he knows that. It’s written all over his miserable face, the way he’s sitting in his chair.
“Would you like some breakfast?” I ask as I’m pouring him some coffee. Yesterday I found a sugar bowl and creamer stuffed in a cupboard with some other miscellaneous crockery. The sugar bowl is on the table, and I put the creamer and steaming cup in front of him. The necessary ashtray is already in use. And I found placemats, that might actually cut down on how many times the glass topped table needs to be wiped off. They’re even attractive, which makes me think that someone else must have picked them out and bought them.
“Yeah, sure,” he says with no enthusiasm.
I’m tempted to throw a bowl of cereal at him, but instead I turn on the flame beneath the waiting frying pan and pull out the fixings for French toast. It only takes a few minutes to whisk some eggs and soak bread in it. While it’s browning, I slice up a ripe mango and fan it on the corner of the plate, add a tiny cluster of green grapes, then flip the browned bread, dust it with a little cinnamon and in a few short minutes, voila, breakfast is served.
I put the plate down in front of him, and he looks at it as if it’s alien stuff.
“Would you like a little powdered sugar on that? Syrup?” I paid no attention to him yesterday and bought the syrup anyway. Tish likes it and they had a nice deal at Costco: two for one.
“Uh, yeah, syrup, cool,” he mumbles. But he sits up straighter and tamps out his cigarette.
“Maple, or blueberry?” I offer. Now he’s looking at ME like I’M alien stuff.
“Blueberry?”
“There’s strawberry jam?”
“Blueberry,” he says, and turns back to the plate.
When I put the bottle down in front of him, I note that he has placed a napkin in his lap and seems to know how to uses a knife and fork. European style. His fork never leaves his left hand. Civilized.
I’m stunned.
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She’s watching me eat, I can feel it. Of all the things I hate about being a public figure, having people watch me eat is number one on the list. I’m self-conscious. I didn’t know I was until they put me away in rehab and I figured out a whole bunch of stuff, but I am. Not the best thing for a performer, even though a lot of us are like that. Not on stage, though, just, you know, off stage. I look at her out of the corner of my eye and her back is turned to me. But I know that she WAS watching me. It makes me super careful about how much food I’m putting in my mouth, and shit like that. I remember all the manners that my grandmother drummed into me when I was a kid, like sitting up straight, bringing the food to my mouth, not putting my mouth into the plate, and not holding my fork like a shovel.
I miss her. She’s dead. She died almost two years ago and thinking about it upsets me, so I’m not going to think about it because I’m already upset today. I woke up upset; with a bad feeling. Don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s there. It could be worse, it HAS been worse; at least I’m not sitting here alone chain smoking like I do some mornings.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself today. I have no place to go. The cleaning people are going to come and I don’t like being around when they come. I guess I could sit outside, it’s looking to be a hot, sunny day. I could swim, or something. Or I could go for a drive. Call someone.
I don’t want to do any of those things.
I could try and work. Man, I’ve been avoiding that. I have a home studio. I have keyboards and pianos in the house, I have guitars; everything you could want for a great home set up and I don’t want to play with any of it.
“Would you like more?” she asks me.
I look at my plate, I’m almost done. Why not. Why not more.
“Sure, yeah, yes, thanks,” I say. She leans over and tops off my coffee. She smells good. I don’t. I smell funny. The meds again, they come out in my sweat and sometimes, mostly in the morning, I smell... funny. She doesn’t seem to notice, though, but I guess she wouldn’t say anything if she did. What the HELL is her name? “Hey?” I ask, turning around to watch her at the stove. She’s beating the hell out of some eggs.
“Yes?”
“Uh, aren’t you gonna have some, too?”
“No.” She smiles into the bowl she’s holding.
“Didja already eat?”
“I don’t care for breakfast. I just like coffee in the morning,” she tells me. She plops two more pieces of bread in the eggs. She looks like she knows what she’s doing, well, of course she does, the French toast tastes great. I take another bite of what’s on my plate, then turn around again.
“Yes?” she asks me, and she doesn’t even look up from what she’s doing.
“How so you spell your name?” I know it’s an odd name, and this way, I don’t have to come right out and ask her what it is.
“S-I-O-B-H-A-N.”
She spells it out and it’s not gonna help me a bit. Sigh-o-buh-han. That’s not right, I know it’s not. There’s a ‘sh’ sound in there somewhere. I go back to eating, actually eat some of the fruit, and think and think and think about how her name goes. I’m such an asshole. She brings the hot pan right to my plate and drops two more pieces of toast in front of me.
“You say it ‘Shuh-VAHN’, but most people just call me Shi. In fact, I prefer Shi,” she tells me, still smiling that little smile.
“Shi,” I repeat around a mouthful of food. “That’s nice.”
“Thank you.” Then she goes to the sink and makes herself busy cleaning the pan.
“I got a dishwasher,” I tell her.
“It won’t clean this,” she says.
She’s probably right. I wouldn’t know. I don’t even know why I said anything. I should just shut up and enjoy my breakfast, because it’s a damn good one. Best I’ve had in a long, long time. I had kinda given up on breakfast myself, unless it included doughnuts.
“Hey?” I start, but I stop because she, Shi, is sitting down at the table with me, with her little pad.
“Is for horses,” she says, but she says it with a smile. “What?”
“Do you think you could get me some Krispy Kremes? The glazed ones?”
“Sure.” She makes a note of it. I’m getting the feeling that she’s a real efficient person. “Anything else?”
“Nope.”
“I’m going to get another pad and put this one back on the fridge, and any time you think of anything you might need, you write it down and I’ll get it,” she tells me. She takes out her own pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asks.
“No.” I don’t. I smoke.
“Some people don’t like it around their food.” She lights up and takes a puff, takes a sip of coffee, and starts writing on her list. She needs a bigger pad, I think, because she can fill up a sheet of paper in no time. “Did you see my note last night?” she asks.
“Umm, yeah.”
“Do I call those in, or do you have prescriptions I need to take to the pharmacy?”
“You can call them in.”
“I’ll take care of that this morning and pick them up later. Is there anything else you need? Those vitamins up there have aged out.”
“Then I guess I need more of them.” I sigh. “I need cod liver oil.”
“Liquid, or capsules?”
“They come in pills?”
“Umhmm.”
“Pills, then.” Damn it! Why didn’t I know that?
“I’d like to go over a few things if you have a minute or two,” she says.
I have more than a minute or two, I have all damn day.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
