Page 36 of Liar Byrd
I watch her examine each surface, run her finger over the bed frame, and stick her nose in the adjoining bathroom. With the windows open and everything dusted to within an inch of its life, it feels like a used room now instead of a neglected one.
She nods once, and I take it to mean that I did a good job. “There’s a linen closet on each floor. I’ll show you where the linen is kept.”
I follow her down the stairs with my basket of cleaning supplies while she carries the dirty sheets.
She shows me the linen closet, and we continue downstairs so she can show me the laundry room in case I ever need to wash something. Along the way, she points out where I can find more cleaning supplies if there’s anything missing from the basket or if I run out.
When I feel the warmth of a penetrating stare heat my back, I twist around.
No one is there.
I recall the man from before. I hadn’t seen his face, and I don’t even know who he is or where he went. To the roof, where I am forbidden, or somewhere else?
After I stuff the sheets in one of the three washing machines in the basement laundry room, Nance shows me how to start it and then says, “We’ll have breakfast now, and you can meet everyone. I’ll show you around a little more, and then you go back to the third floor and clean as much as you can until lunch.”
“I think I can do five more rooms today,” I tell her. “But if you want me to?—”
“No,” she interrupts, giving me a long look and a reluctant smile. “I got you wrong, didn’t I?”
I shake my head, confused.
“I thought you were another in a long line of lazy maids, but you’ve done more in an hour than some did in a week.”
“Oh.” I try to think of a response that won’t offend the lazy maids, though they’re not around to hear me. “Thanks.”
She snorts a laugh and leads me back up the basement steps and to the kitchen, saying, “You can take your break when you want. For lunch, I prepare something around midday—usually a soup and sandwich. Dinner is around seven. You work until six, take a break, wash up, and come down to the kitchen to eat. It’s whatever I feel like throwing together. Something fillingand home-cooked is what everyone prefers. Do you have any allergies?”
My wariness from town, courtesy of the grocery store owner, fades. “No allergies.”
The kitchen isn't empty when I follow Nance into the spacious room with the large dark wood dining table in the center.
A petite woman with dark hair in a braid over her shoulder, a pale face, and a small ring with an emerald stone sits at the table, flipping through a magazine. She wears the same uniform as mine. She glances at me and then refocuses on the magazine filled with wedding dresses and floral arrangements.
“This is Lydia,” Nance introduces. “She’ll be leaving at the end of the month, and from the lack of sheets being changed in the guest bedrooms, she’s already started slacking. Lydia, this is Jessica, your better replacement."
Ouch.
Lydia rolls her eyes at Nance, unoffended, and smiles faintly at me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I echo.
The man in his late twenties, wearing dark green overalls, with messy dark-brown hair and blue eyes, flashes a mouth full of straight white teeth at me. “Kit.”
“Jessica.”
“Kit is the gardener,” Nance explains.
“And the handyman and whatever else needs doing around here.” Kit crosses his arms and leans back in his chair as he runs his eyes over me.
I don’t like how it makes me feel.
As if he’s trying to see beneath my clothes or imagine what I look like naked.
“How are you liking this pile of rocks?” he asks me.
Pile of rocks?
Have I been in the compound for so long that I missed out on new slang?
