"Boss, we need to talk."
"We talk all the time. What’s it about this time? 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 running around doing things.
"We need a cook."
"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 for services. 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 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.
The house is filthy. Deep down filthy. The carpets hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. The house was full of garbage when she arrived. She didn’t know anything about cleaning, but she was young and strong and learned fast. And she didn’t have any side interests and wasn’t just getting by, working for the paycheck, as little as possible. Superficial only. Rotting food behind the couch and a polished end table next to Deke’s chair. The house smelled. It smelled of unwashed human, rotting food, sewer smells from the bathroom and bedroom. It looked hopeless. It wasn’t. Not to a 20-year old who finally had a place to be responsible for. Once she got the idea that she really was the 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 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. 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 did that were not only expensive, that didn’t matter, but were limited to what they carry and what was known about by the buyer. There was an “assortment” that Deke could remember to say. It was a box of frozen meals. 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. Once more, attempts at hiring someone to cook didn’t work well. He was far from a town, and couldn’t manage a worker sent to prepare a meal. There just wasn’t anybody who cared to do it right. They didn’t work directly for Deke, they worked for an agency. The agency cared more about getting paid than they did about 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 there could be real groceries from a supermarket with choices and meal planning. That required the car. A tow truck was called and the driver knew what to do to get the car started.
Mai had no 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 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’m illegal. I can’t have a license."
"Nobody is illegal." Then Deke put his face between his two hands and thought. Or perhaps just cried. Then he asked for his phone and asked Mai, or Mai to find the number for his attorney on it and call. She did.
"I’m calling for Deke Waturbury, or Decimus Waterbury I should say. He would like to speak with his attorney, Mr. Esterhouse, I believe." That got some action.
"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 OK."
Afterwards, "Who is Mr. Esterhouse? 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. For example, does he have anything printed?"
"I’ll do the best I can. She smiled as she said this."
"Don’t seduce him! We are paying him money. A lot of money. We are buying things."
"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."
Deke looked at her.
"Yes, you better. First impressions are important."
And when the truck arrived, Mai went with the driver back to the truck and sure enough, there were other things in there besides the “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 she 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. "Can I have a receipt, please? I want to show it to Mr. Waturbury." She even remembered not to smile, and to stand three feet away from the driver. 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 gave 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."
"I talked to the lawyer about that. 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, at least it doesn’t 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, I think."
"Well, that’s what I pay a lawyer for. Let’s wait and see what he can do about all that."