"Boss, we need to talk."
"We talk all the time. What's it about? And don't call me boss. I don't like it. I'm an investor, and a sick old man. I'm not the foreman on a construction site."
He didn't look particularly sick right then. He was in his favorite chair watching me run around doing things.
"We need a cook," I said.
"Why do we need a cook? What's wrong with your cooking?"
"Lots. You are just too polite to notice. All I can do is survival cooking. And I don't have time. I'm the housekeeper and this place needs a housekeeper. There's a whole wing that I've never been into."
"I have. You don't want to go into it. It's probably haunted. I hope it's haunted. That might keep people out of it. Or maybe not. Maybe we need an assistant housekeeper instead of a cook. Somebody you can supervise to do the catch-up stuff. Did you ever paint anything?"
"You mean like a wall? Or a picture? Doesn't matter. I've never had the time or the inclination to do either."
Mai sat down in the chair next to Deke. She looked straight at him. She had learned to do that when engaging a client. Look them straight in the eye, it makes them feel important, like they were the most important thing in your life. Helps with the fantasy that we are having fun here and not just fucking. It's called a party, not a quickie or a fuck. We're having fun here, not just getting off with someone you don't know but who does know how to get you off. But that was in the past. Old habits die hard. Mai remembered that she wasn't selling anything or anybody, especially herself. It was hard to remember that, sometimes. She looked to one side and continued.
"The house is filthy. Deep down filthy. The carpets haven't been cleaned in a long time. The house was full of garbage when I arrived. I don't know anything about cleaning, but I am young and strong and I learn fast. And I don't have any side interests. I'm not just getting by, working for the paycheck, doing as little as possible.
"There's rotting food behind the couch and a polished end table next to your chair. The hired help only cleans the surfaces. The house smells. It smells of unwashed human and rotting food. There are sewer smells from the bathroom and your bedroom upstairs. It looks hopeless. It isn't. Not to a 20-year old who finally has a place to be responsible for.
At last she got the idea that she really was a decision maker, that Deke couldn't help, or even supervise. It must have been pretty horrible for him, living like this, trying to buy his way out of it and never being able to do it. When you are too sick to supervise and nobody else gives a shit about it then things get bad, bone bad."
Then there was the yard. Of course, with a place like this it was far more than a yard. It was an estate. It had a lot of land in front and behind the main house. It had some sort of barn, shed, or outbuilding of some sort a hundred yards behind the mansion. Mai had never been inside it. Deke didn't remember the last time he saw the inside but it had been years and maybe decades. There was a garage with a car in it. Deke remembered that there had been a car in it at one time. The car hadn't been out of the garage for years. Deke couldn't drive it any more, and probably never would again. But the car was needed.
Groceries which came from companies who delivered were expensive. That didn't matter, but they were limited to what they carry and what was known by the buyer. An "assortment" Deke could remember to say. It was a box of frozen meals that came once a week. It wasn't that they were particularly bad. They were, but they were also pretty boring especially as the months went by and they never changed.
Deke couldn't cook. He couldn't stand up long enough to cook. Attempts to hire a cook didn't work well. The house was far from a town, and couldn't manage a cook sent to prepare a meal that distance away. There just wasn't anybody who cared to do it right.
The people who did show up didn't work directly for Deke, they worked for an agency. The agency cared more about getting paid than they did about the level of service. If whoever they sent on a given day got there and the customer didn't complain and did pay, that was enough for the agency. What exactly happened between the employee and Deke wasn't known and wasn't important, so long as he paid for it. This got even worse when Deke got sick this last time.
But now that Mai lived in the house, it was possible to have real groceries from a supermarket with choices and meal planning. That required the car. A tow truck was calledi. The driver knew what to do to get the car started. It moved out of the garage for the first time in years if not decades. Mai was to drive it to town to buy supplies.
Mai had no driving license. She had no identification at all. That had been part of the arrangement with the brothel. She didn't even have a last name, and Mai was just the one chosen for her by the madame. She seemed to remember that she had been called Mai in her original language. But Mai what? She didn't know. She was too young when she was brought to the USA. She explained that to Deke when he asked her if she could drive and would she like to buy some groceries. This happened the second or third day of her life at the mansion.
"Yeah, I can drive. I've driven cars as nice as yours and a lot newer, but I never had a license. I can't get a license. If I even ask for one I get locked up and probably deported, to God alone knows where." I'm illegal.
"No human being is illegal," Deke stormed. Then he put his face between his two hands and thought. Or perhaps just cried. Then he handed Mai his phone and asked her to find the number for his attorney on it and call him. She did.
A professional voice answered. It sounded very cool and frankly off-putting. Mai took a deep breath and said, "I'm calling for Deke Waturbury, or Decimus Waterbury I should say. He would like to speak with his attorney, Mr. Esterhouse."
That got quick action, more than Mai had expected. With a change of voice, she heard, "Just a moment, please." After what could have been a minute the now very polite voice came back on the line. "Mr Esterhouse is in conference. Can he call back? It won't be long, I'm sure."
Mai looked at Deke.
"Can he call back?"
"Yes."
"Yes, that would be fine."
"Who is Mr. Esterhouse," Mai asked. "What does he have to do with a driver's license? I can drive without one, as long as I don't get stopped for anything."
"Mr. Esterhouse is a lawyer. I'm expecting some serious lawyering from him on your, or rather my, behalf. I just wish that everything didn't happen at one time. The food van is due here today. When it comes, I want you to go look in it and see if there isn't something else we can have besides the frozen meals. For example, does he have anything printed up, like a menu?"
"I'll do the best I can." She smiled, looking directly at him again.
"Don't seduce him! We are paying him money. A lot of money. We are buying things. It's a business deal."
"I'll try to be serious, and not work on him, but that's new to me and I get it wrong sometimes. I better go change my clothes. I think I can cover up, just." She smiled again. She couldn't help it.
Deke looked at her, frowning. "Yes, you better. First impressions are important."
When the groceries arrived Mai went with the driver back to the truck and sure enough, there were other things in there besides the "Frozen Assortment". Meals would at least be a little different for a day or so. You could even get regular groceries if you knew what to ask for, but Mai didn't. She settled for what she knew about, coffee, eggs, milk, butter, bread, apples, oranges.
"Shall I put this on Mr. Waturbury's account?"
"Yes, please." And then, inspired, she added "May I have a receipt, please? I want to show it to Mr. Waterbury." She remembered not to smile, and stood a good three feet away from the driver. And not look directly at him. He didn't seem to notice, but he did produce a receipt from his hand held computer. She carried the sacks of groceries into the kitchen as the van drove away, then handed the receipt to Deke.
Deke was talking to the lawyer. When he hung up, he turned to the other chair and asked Mai to sit down.
"I got us some new stuff. It sure costs a lot this way. It's all in the kitchen, but I don't know what I can make out of it except maybe breakfast. We're going to get awfully tired of breakfast until I get up to speed on this. Unless we can get a cook."
"I talked to the lawyer about that. Not about breakfast, and not about the cook. He will come tomorrow to discuss your driver's license and several other things relating to you. Do you have any papers at all?"
"You mean legal papers? Not that I know of. Legal stuff doesn't count for much in the whore house I worked in. That was part of the mystique, and the way to control us, to keep us there. We couldn't leave, we had no papers, no identity really, we had to stay there and keep working. If there ever were papers I never heard of them. I don't exist."
"Well, that's what I pay a lawyer for. To make you exist. Let's wait and see what he can do about all that. Now about that cook, how do we get one?"
"I'll make a trip to the city, if you agree. I think I know somebody who wouldn't mind life in the country."
"How do you know this someone, as if I couldn't guess?"
"From the streets, the same way you got me."
"I can see this place becoming a bordello. We need a license for that, you know."
"Not funny, Deke." There was anger in her voice. "She's like me in another way, too. She wants out of the life. I know that."
"I'm sorry, Mai. I wasn't thinking. He was learning how sensitive she was on the subject of her past life."
"It's OK, boss. We're still friends." She recognized the remark for what it was, a joke. She joked about it sometimes herself. Fair was fair.
"Can she cook?"
"Who knows? Probably not. Her background is approximately the same as mine, but longer.
"Well, can she read?"
"I don't know that either, but probably."
"Then hire her. She'll fit right in. She can't cook. You can't run a housekeeping operation, and I just about can't get out of a chair. We'll make a team. Do get us a cook book."
"Sure thing, boss."
"And don't call me boss."
The next day Deke ordered a taxi and Mai went to town. She returned later that afternoon with a middle-aged Mexican woman named Dolores. Mai introduced her first to Deke, then to the kitchen.
"Remember, "Deke told her as she was leaving the parlor, "if you don't like living here, we'll give you a free ride back to town whenever you want. You aren't trapped out here. I want you to know that."
It was a little to early for smiling. Doloris didn't smile.
The kitchen was big and had lots of equipment. Mai's efforts had made it clean and well lit. Lighting alone had taken an hour on a ladder replacing failed light bulbs with new ones. The walls weren't painted yet, but would be in time. The kitchen counters were full of equipment, some of which Mai recognized, and some of which didn't work. There was a lot of counter and work space with a large work table in the center, exactly as you would expect in a kitchen designed to serve a house the size of this one.
"Your domain," Mai told her, waving her arm. "The way I read the novels, the cook is important, and not one to piss off. I'm the housekeeper. You take orders from me and requests from Deke. You don't answer to anybody else, servant or guest. Any requests for anything at all come from me or occasionally Deke. Got it?"
Doloris nodded her head. "Are we expecting other people?"
"That's my guess. I'll keep you informed. You are responsible for groceries. I'll go with you for that, at least at first. You don't have a driver's license, I guess."
"Nope, never have had."
"I'll mention that to Deke. He has a lawyer who can do wonderful things with problems like that. And I'll get you a list of meals."
"I don't know how to cook! I've never done it for anyone but myself and whoever is sharing space with me. And your fancy Deke won't like what I know how to cook. And it's all Mexican. Beans and rice and tortillas and not much variety."
"It's a start. I'll get you a cook book. Deke isn't fussy. Not about meals, not about much at all come to think of it. You do your best and I'll just bet that will be good enough. He's been living on my cooking, so he won't mind a change. I can't cook either, really."
Doloris moved into the third bedroom upstairs, next on the left to hers.
The next day they went to town with a long list of necessities and Deke's credit card, still going in a taxi, but not the same one.