Page 55 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
She nodded, a quick motion of her neat head, and Karen said, “Are you a super good cook? I’ll bet yes, huh?”
Inez’s Mayan-sculpture face, all dark skin and wide-set brown eyes, softened a trifle, “I am a good cook, yes.”
“Do you cook Mexican things?” Karen asked.
That was the end of the softening. “I am Guatemalan.”
“Oops,” Karen said. “Cultural insensitivity much? Sorry. But hey—I’m on vacation from school, you know? Do you think I could help you? Like—chop, maybe, and see how you do it? I don’t know how to cook, and Hope isn’t actually that great either.” Which I would have protested against, but it was true, and anyway, Karen was rattling on. “I was super sick for a long time, and I never felt like eating, plus we had a really lousy kitchen in our apartment. Now that I’m well again, I’m hungry all thetime,and it would be awesome to learn how to do it right and fix good things. Like—healthy things, not just grilled cheese sandwiches and salad and microwaving and stuff. Could you show me what you do?”
The frost seemed to melt a bit, and Inez said, “I can teach you, yes, if you are willing to listen and to learn. But first comes shopping. You cannot make good food without good ingredients, and you may not want to do that. It is work. You may not want to do work.”
“Nope,” Karen said happily, “I totally want to do that. Like, markets, you mean? Oh, wow. It’d be like cooking camp. That’d be great.”
“It is not camp,” Inez said. “It is serious.”
“If you don’t want her,” Hemi said, “if she’s in your way, tell her to shove off. Can’t interfere with my dinner, eh.”
Inez turned to face him, her Mayan a clear match for his Maori. “Excuse me. I can decide for myself. If everything is clean and neat in your life and your shirts are in your closet and your food is good, is this for you to say?”
“Ah, nah,” he said, a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. “Reckon not.”
“Good,” she said. “And for now, I have work to do. It is not clean here, and you like neatness always.”
He smiled for real, seeming not one bit put out. Inez, it seemed, had special dispensation. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I hope we don’t turn out to be too much extra trouble.” When she only nodded, because I wasn’t on the good list yet, I gave Karen a kiss and followed Hemi out the door.
When we were in the elevator, I told him, “Have I mentioned that your retainers intimidate me? How long has Inez worked for you?”
“Six years. And she’s not my retainer. She’s my housekeeper. Try calling her my retainer. She’d probably poison your tamales, eh.”
“But she’s not looking forward to having another woman in the apartment, saying how things should be done,” I guessed. “Or to having her special relationship with you change, maybe.”
“Gave her a raise, didn’t I. She’s happy about that, no worries. And as for anything else, she’ll cope. She’s coped with heaps more than that in her time.”
He fell silent, and the elevator reached the lobby. He’d been quiet all morning, since that brief moment of banter over my aching muscles. His mind was on work, I was sure.It’s not all about you,I told myself for the hundredth time.And of course he inspires loyalty. Because he’s wonderful. Give the man a break. You thinkyourlife’s been turned upside down? You’re the one who just scored a full-time housekeeper, however strange that’s going to be.I alsowasn’tthe one who’d come out of his bedroom this morning to find Karen’s books, sweater, socks, half-empty hot chocolate mug, and plate scattered over his living room, like a teenage tornado had struck the Neatest Apartment in Manhattan.
Well, Iwasthe one, but let’s say I wasn’t the one who was surprised by it. Hemi hadn’t said anything, just paused a second and kept going into the kitchen, doing his best walking totem pole impression, but I’d said, “Karen, come on. Mess. Keep your stuff in your room, OK?”
She’d said, “What? I can’t eat in here? I can’t take my socks off? Geez. Life, you know?”
Charles was downstairs already when Hemi and I got there, sitting in the car in a loading zone as if he’d never heard of parking tickets. He was reading a fly fishing magazine, I noticed when he closed it hastily, tossed it aside, and hopped out to open the car door.
“Morning, Charles,” I said.You are confident,I told myself.You are poised. You are pretending to be a rich person.“I didn’t realize you were a fly fisherman.”
“I’m not,” he said, and I slid into the car and thought,You are shot down.
Hemi opened his laptop beside me during the fifteen-minute rush-hour drive to his building and was instantly engrossed. Another new normal.I would have guessed he was unaware of me or our location, except that when we were a block from the office, he snapped his laptop shut and said, “Charles will be waiting at five to take you home. I probably won’t be back until eight or so. You and Karen should go on and eat without me. Your swim lessons start tomorrow at five-thirty.”
Once again, here I went. “How do I know I’ll be done at five?”
“Because you will be,” he said calmly.
“Uh…Hemi. I’m going to be a marketing assistant, remember? Unless marketing runs a whole lot different from publicity, I probably won’t be done at five. And I guess I should talk to Josh about the lessons? Maybe six-thirty would be better. I’ll get home fine. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying,” he said. “I’m telling you.”
“So am I. I’m fine, and I’m going to stay fine.” I wasn’t actually fine—I still felt like somebody’d beaten me with a hammer—but close enough. “You aren’t a Saudi Arabian sheikh, I’m not a princess, and I’m not going to be kidnapped.”
