His Father
Besides, I worked for less in Cambodia and Thailand, I guess I was just hoping to have a bit more to put away. Never mind. I’m moaning because I’m tired.
I knock on the door and push it open then immediately go to my room before anybody can see the state of me. My hair is a frizzy mess, falling out of the bun that was neatly made this morning. My eye makeup is smudged, my face pale from exhaustion, and nausea from eating an extremely greasy burger. I haven’t had something so greasy and heavy in so long, it’s not sitting right. There was little else on the menu though but tomorrow I’ll try harder to find something. Perhaps a baked potato.
When I enter my bedroom, I smile when I see a top and matching bottom on the bed, made from soft black material, with another note like the one this morning.
It reads:
Congratulations on finishing your first day. M.
I didn’t have anything to swim in and I expressed my need to go shopping as soon as I got my first round of cash. Cash which I can now tuck away in my underwear drawer because Maddox has treated me. It makes me feel bad for not getting him anything on his first day of work which, from what I’ve heard, he excelled at. I knew he would. He’s been groomed his entire life to help his dad. I wish I had a dad who cared enough about my future to help me learn anything.
There’s a knock on the door.
Sargent
Maddox stands when he hears the front door open and close, signifying the end of the girl’s first day of work, leaving me to my thoughts and paperwork. Clearly, he’s had enough of invoices and wage slips. Even though I have a team of financial gurus, I still want him to know how to do things. Should anything happen to me I need to know he’s capable of handling all aspects of our company.
I stack the paperwork in order and then stretch and close my eyes, if only to listen to the blissful silence I haven’t had yet today. It’s like meditation but without the humming and the crossing of legs.
I roll my eyes when I hear the girl’s sharp scream. It pierces my peace and I want to cane her myself for it.
It has been four days and that visual is still in my head.
“Must you?” I snarl aggressively when Maddox comes running through the room moments later in swimming trunks.
The female in question is on his back, her bare legs wrapped around his waist, her slender arms around his neck.
He runs past me at the dining table and straight through the open sliding doors.
She screams again when he launches them into the pool sideways and they hit the water with a loud splash that leaves them both spluttering and laughing.
I slam the door closed and stalk to my room. Noise, so much noise.
When I return an hour later for food, Maddox is standing in the kitchen with a towel around his waist, carefully placing food onto three plates from a glass dish.
“What have you made?” I ask, remembering how happy I am to see him home. Though I wonder, with the salary he’ll soon be making, how long will he stay before he gets his own place with little Miss Charity Case?
“Baked salmon and sweet potato fries with vegetables, nothing fancy.”
“Sounds great.”
He smiles at me over his shoulder, looking like his mother. It has me turning away. He’s the only good thing that woman ever did but it still disturbs me when he looks like her.
“Can you get Pest for me?” He takes a pan off the stove top and dips a large spoon into it. “She’s outside still.”
Of course he’d ask me.
As I turn away he adds, “Be nice, Dad, she’s had a long day at work.”
“If she can’t handle one day of work without complaining…”
“Dad!”
I raise a hand and pad barefoot to the doors, slipping on my flip-flops that sit by them.
When I exit, stepping over the puddles on the white tiles that lead from the pool, I find her standing at the stone wall, looking vacantly over the view. Peaking land, covered in green and brown can be seen to the left, straight ahead is the small town at the base of our hill, the few stores that Eastern Malibu has.
You can hear the ocean from here, smell it on the air.
The sun is setting, casting a warm glow of oranges, reds, grays, and blues in the sky. It’s as though the atmosphere is on fire. It makes her bare flesh look like shimmering gold.
“Dinner is served,” I say, following the soft curve of her back to her round, toned rear that would spill out of my large hands if grabbed.