Earning Her Keep

  EARNING HER KEEP

  DANI WYATT

  Copyright © 2022

  by Dani Wyatt

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,

  events and incidents are either the products

  of the author’s imagination

  or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  www.daniwyatt.com

  Editing Nicci Haydon

  A NOTE TO MY READERS:

  I appreciate every one of you.

  DEDICATED TO:

  SS. Your dirty dream inspired it.

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  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Dani’s Other Books

  Let’s Stay Connected!

  About Dani

  CHAPTER 1

  Primrose

  I stare out into the icy drizzle through the cracked glass in the back door, a death grip on the black garbage bag in my hand, willing my feet to move.

  If I stay, I’m trapped. Because today I turn eighteen. And today my foster mother plans to hand me off to Tony, who runs all the girls.

  But if I go?

  If I turn the doorknob and step out into the storm? Then what?

  I have no idea. But It’s a risk I know I have to take.

  I tug at the zipper on the closest thing I have to a winter coat, then stuff my mittens and my tattered old rainbow beanie into my equally tattered messenger bag. I take one last breath through my dry lips, slowly unfasten the two deadbolts, and step outside.

  Tiny spears of icy slush prickle my cheeks. The Chicago cold is arctic, but I barely feel it. My heart is pounding, my thoughts are swirling. Everything feels dream-like, surreal. And yet my senses are heightened and crystal-clear.

  The thick scent of another Virginia Slims Menthol lit from the one before drifts into the outside air as I listen for any sound of my foster mother behind me. The jingle of her rows of cheap bangles. The click-click-click of her horrible kitten heels. But I hear nothing except the yammer of reality shows coming from her brand new 60” flatscreen in the front living room.

  So far, so good.

  I take six steps toward the trash bins on the icy, broken concrete. It’s as far as I’ve been allowed to go by myself ever before. Even this feels impossible. Overwhelming. The sound of traffic down the alley is almost too much; the spray of tires through puddles, the sharp smell of exhaust. It is the sound of the world out there, where things are possible. Where I could be free. Where I could find a life, and myself, and maybe even love.

  And if not that, then the rest of my dream. A house. A farm. Chickens. A goat. Something simple. A place where I am safe and happy. Maybe a low bar to a normal person, but to me, it would be riches beyond compare.

  Stop it. I make myself focus on the here and now. This time, it’s real. This time, it isn’t just a dream.

  I take three more steps and pass the trash bins, then four more toward the street.

  The trash bag contains all I have in the world. There’s a Polaroid of my biological mom, as well as her copy of Sense and Sensibility. A wad of wrinkled bills I’ve saved – stolen is more accurate, because I do not get paid for the work I’ve done for almost my entire life. I counted them again this morning in the bathroom behind the locked door. Two hundred and seventeen dollars. There’s also a teddy bear that was given to me when I first entered the foster system. It was my first and only gift, courtesy not of my foster mother, but from the State of Illinois, eighteen years ago.

  I take another step. One more. Each one feeling like I’ve traveled miles. I listen for the squeak of the door behind me or Judith’s raspy, scalding voice.

  Get back here, you sneaky little bitch.

  I know it so well that even imagined, it makes me shiver. Nails on a chalkboard times ten.

  I glance back over my shoulder. The door is closed. Judith isn’t there. Just rain and distance.

  This is it. The time is now.

  So I take a deep breath.

  And run.

  * * *

  When I burst through the door of the coffee shop next to the Greyhound station, my winter jacket is soaked through. But I am here. The old map I tore out of the ancient white pages that I found in the basement was accurate, thank goodness.

  I see an empty booth near the back, but I don’t go sit down. Not yet. A sign on a pole just inside the door menaces me, teases me. It’s one of those black felty things, with the lines and the letters that you can stick in yourself. But they aren’t evenly spaced; they’re all bunched together in places and crooked in others. The letters swim around in front of my eyes, like lazy fish in a pond. I squint at the sign, trying to make sense of it. I focus on the first word, ignoring the rest.

  P L E A S E.

  No help at all. Could be Please be seated or Please wait to be seated. Everything after Please is indecipherable right now. In my confusion and embarrassment, I hear Judith’s voice in my head. God, you are stupid. You can’t even read.

  Which is untrue. Deeply untrue. I can read, a bit, if the font is right and the setting is calm, and if I can use a lot of inference. “I’m dyslexic, not illiterate,” I used to say softly to Judith, only knowing the truth of that statement from a once older sister who explained my disorder because she had it as well.

  Judith’s reply was always the same, “Tomayto, tomahto. Now, get to work.”

  God, she was so awful.

  Was.

  Am I really far enough away from her right now to be thinking of her in the past tense? I resist the urge to glance back at the door and make sure I wasn’t followed.

  Fortunately, a kind waitress with happy eyes and a magnificent sort of Golden Age of Hollywood hair-do, saves me from my anxiety and my memories. Unlike the sign, her name tag is easy for me to read. Nice clear letters, evenly spaced. Susan. “Seat yourself, hun. Here’s a menu.”

  “Thank you so much, Susan,” I say, feeling happier than I have in ages.

  I take the menu, even though it’s useless to me, and sit down in the far booth, facing away from the window. The waitress places a chipped brown diner mug in front of me and fills it with steaming coffee. I wrap my hands around the mug, soaking in the warmth. I’ve never had coffee before. Judith always said it was for adults only. What she meant, was for her only but the steamy smell is comforting somehow.

  “What’ll you have?” she asks after a long moment, with her pen perched on her little notepad, the sizzle and smell of greasy food from the grill somewhere behind the counter makes my mouth water.

  Her earrings are as big as glittery stars. Bright red lipstick perfectly applied. Hair up in a swooping bun. So glamorous, even here under the flickering fluorescent lights of the diner.

  “Umm,” I swallow hard and glance at the menu. A little cartoon of an egg in a top hat catches my eye. So does a smiling piece of bacon. “Two eggs and bacon, please.”

/>   “Fried? Scrambled? Soft-boiled?”

  The question catches me off guard, and I feel a shiver of real joy for the first time in so, so long. Of all the things Judith was particular about, she was most particular of all about her freaking soft-boiled eggs. She had exacting specifications that I’d learned with military precision. Water just brought to a boil; two minutes and twenty-four seconds. Jammy in the middle, whites just cooked through. Six pieces of toast cut in rectangles exactly one inch by four.

  I am so freaking sick of soft-boiled eggs and rectangular toast, I could just about scream.

  “Scrambled, please. No toast.”

  “How about a blueberry muffin? On the house?”

  “Oh yes, please.”

  “You got it,” she says with a wink and I peel my wet jacket off and hang it on the little hook on the edge of the booth watching the water puddle on the floor where it immediately starts dripping.

  But as she walks away, I finally wonder the thing I hadn’t dared let myself think about until this moment.

  Now what?

  I reach down into the black garbage bag, the wetness of the outside making a pool on the seat next to me and pull out my mom’s copy of Sense and Sensibility. I let my eyes glide over the mostly meaningless letters. I do this all the time, pretend to read, not only because it makes me look busy and occupied, but also because it’s like peering into some unknown, magical world. A world that I can’t enter. A world where the characters in the book live.

  The girl in the booth behind me is on her phone. I can hear her chewing gum. She smells nice, like some sort of rosy lotion.

  She’s so close that I can’t help but hear her conversation. Now she’s saying, “Yeah, I missed my bus. There’s another one in twenty minutes. But honestly, this whole stupid thing sounds seriously sketchy. Why the hell do I need a fake name? And what kind of job makes me quote-unquote earn my keep?”

  I blink at my blueberry muffin and listen, wondering what it would be like to have a job—even one where you need a fake name.

  She impatiently snaps one bubble with her gum, then another, as she waits for the person on the other end of the call to say whatever they’re saying.

  “Are you even hearing me? I’ve got to clean and cook and take care of some demanding P-I-T-A asshole?”

  I have no idea what pitas have to do with anything. But demanding? Oh, please. Unless the guy uses a ruler to measure his toast, he can’t be that bad.

  “And I can’t even use my cell for six months? No Tik-Tok? No Eye-Gee?”

  I have no idea what a tick-tock is. Something for telling the time, I guess? Nor that other thing. But as for cell phones, all I know is I don’t have one. So that would be no problem at all.

  “No way,” the girl says with a sassy snap of her lips. “I’m not even calling them. Yeah, I’ve got the number here, but I’m not doing this. They can keep their mysterious housekeeper job. I’m gonna go apply at Starbucks. At least they’ll give me free Frappuccinos and let me use my real freaking name. Pretending to be some chick named Emily for the next six months is just not for me.”

  She stands up in a huff. I hear a jacket zipper, the clatter of a purse. From the corner of my eye, I watch her pay her bill and storm out, away from the bus station, shoving her headphones into her ears as she stomps into the icy rain.

  I glance over my shoulder.

  A piece of notebook paper with a phone number on it is halfway sits half-crumpled on the tabletop. I push up onto my knees, lean over the back of the seat, grab it off the table and smooth it flat. It’s a 309 area code. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but the girl was planning to take a bus somewhere. And Judith’s area code was 708. So all that tells me that wherever it is, it’s away from here.

  And that’s good enough for me.

  The only other thing on the paper is three words.

  Earn your keep.

  I swallow and think that’s what I’ve been doing my entire life. Shouldn’t be a problem.

  From my garbage bag, I take out a dollar and ask the waitress for change. Then I take the paper to the sticky old payphone in the back by the bathrooms, press in the numbers and listen to the ringtone whir in my ear.

  The line clicks over on the second ring. “Philipe Residence,” answers a stern female voice.

  My heart is pounding so hard that I feel like it’s going to spring out of my chest.

  I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and then say, in my most confident voice, “Hello. My name is Emily, I’m calling about the housekeeping job. Can I get your address one more time?”

  * * *

  Stark County is far enough away from the city that plants grow wild on the sides of the highway and I can see the stars. Finally. It takes me forever to get to the address I have in my hand, first on the bus, then in a taxi. But every mile I put between me and my old life gives me more courage to find something better, to make my way in the world.

  The taxi lets me out in the circular driveway, and I pay the driver with a big chunk of my crumpled savings. Even though the sky is still spitting slivers of ice, I turn my face up and marvel at the building. It’s just so beautiful. Such lines and proportion. This isn’t a house. It’s a palace.

  I make my way up the stone walkway, past a fountain drained for the winter. I’ve never been in a place like this. It’s huge, opulent, made of stone and brick. Every detail is careful and perfect. All I’ve known until now is windows that are painted shut and vinyl siding that grows mold every August.

  Moonlight dances off the huge, sparkling windows. Here and there, the warm light from indoors peeks through big thick curtains. And then…

  One floor up, I notice one of the curtains shift slightly, revealing a man standing with his arms crossed. His forearms are thick and muscular, his dress shirt rolled up and unbuttoned. His eyes are dark and broody.

  For a long instant, he looks down at me and I look up at him.

  With my heart pounding.

  Because he isn’t just handsome. He’s breathtaking.

  But just as quickly as he opened the curtain, he flicks it shut and vanishes.

  I blink myself back to reality and make my way to the front door, still clutching my trash bag.

  I grab hold of the big metal knocker shaped like a lion’s head, and wait. Before long, the click-click of sensible shoes comes closer. Not the man I saw upstairs, no. A woman, definitely. And a woman who means business for sure.

  The door swings open. A stern-faced elderly lady stands there with her hands on her hips, looking mildly irritated. She’s dressed simply, but elegantly, in a black dress with a gray apron. “Where did you call from? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here so late? I assumed—”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, wiping my half-frozen, dripping nose with my mitten and putting on my best, most apologetic smile. “I’m Emily. I got here as fast as I could.”

  She studies me for a moment.

  “My name is Ethel,” she snaps, not softening one bit. “We expected you hours ago. I thought when you called you must be almost here. This is not what I call starting off on the right foot, Emily.”

  She says my new name like it leaves a foul taste in her mouth.

  I make a move to reach out my snot-smudged mitten to shake her hand, but stop myself in the nick of time. Instead, I give her what I guess is kind of a curtsy. Maybe. Seems to fit the place, even if I do feel kind of silly.

  “Do you understand the terms of this position, Emily?” Ethel asks, standing firm, enunciating my name again as if it’s sour.

  The wind shifts and the storm moves with it. A wave of icy water starts sheeting down on top of me, trickling in between where my sweatshirt meets my sopping-wet parka. “Do you think I could come in?”

  “You cannot come in until you agree to the terms of this position.”

  She’s a ball buster, this Ethel. But, at least she’s not Judith. “Of course I agree.” I think about the piece of paper with the phone number and
add, “I’m here to earn my keep.”

  Ethel gives me a skeptical stare through narrow eyes, her crow’s feet deepening as she considers my answer. “Let’s just review the terms, shall we?”

  Icy water is now dribbling into my shoes. Squishing between my toes. Wonderful. “Yes. We shall.”

  Ethel gives a curt nod. “Stipulation One: You will not be paid until your contract has run its full term. Six months. Stipulation Two: On completion of six months of work here, you will receive $100,000 in whatever form you choose. Cash, check, or money order. Stipulation Three: No social media, no calls to the outside world, no visitors. Stipulation Four: You can form no attachments to anybody in this household. Stipulation Five: If you fail to follow the rules, you’re out. No pay, no notice, no reference, no ride. Do you have any questions?”

  It sounded amazing on the phone and it sounds just as amazing now. The word stipulation never sounded so sweet. And I’m about to say so, when from the shadows I see him again. Him. The gorgeous man from the window.

  But the house is so dimly lit, and so enormous, that I can only catch a glimpse of him descending the stairs. Rugged stubble, broad shoulders. Thick, dark hair. Once again, he looks right at me, making the tips of my frozen fingers tingle and my heart flippity-flop.

  “Is that…” I stammer. “Is that who owns this house?” I ask softly. I remember the way Ethel answered the phone earlier. Philipe Residence. “Is that… Mr. Philipe?”

  Ethel’s eyes dart to the side but she doesn’t turn her head. “That is none of your business, young lady. You are here to do a job. You are not here to make friends. That is all you need to know. You are the housekeeper, I am Mr. Philipe’s assistant and house manager. I tell you to do something, I expect my instructions to be followed to the letter. So I will clarify my question: Do you accept the terms of this position?”