Single in Suburbia (31 page)

“You’re fabulous.” Amanda hastened to assure her. “I just told Candace to book a third house for me on Fridays and Mondays so that I can try to pay off some of my debt and she must have decided to try to help.”

“Weren’t you going to tell me?” Brooke actually sounded hurt.

“No,” Amanda said. “You’re already doing way too much. I can’t bear for you to do any more. I told
Candee ass
I could do it myself.” She rounded on Candace. “I hate to sound unappreciative, but I don’t think you can waltz into a house in designer clothing and six-inch nails and expect to accomplish very much.”

“Have you ever scrubbed a toilet?” Brooke asked.

“No.” Candace’s wig swung about her shoulders as she shook her head.

“Mopped a floor?” Amanda added.

“Er…no.”

“Used bleach?” Brooke threw out.

“You mean besides on my hair?” Candace quipped.

Amanda and Brooke rolled their eyes.

“What, so now there’s a bar exam for maids?” Candace huffed. “I realize I’m not an expert, but neither were you when you started, Amanda. You’ll just have to teach me. Come on, go ahead and do my face so we can go.”

“Candace, I’m really moved that you want to help. But I’m cleaning houses because I
have
to. You don’t. Brooke has been kind enough to help temporarily, but she knows what she’s doing. We’re already late and I have three houses to do today. There aren’t any jobs you can do without running the risk of breaking a nail, messing up your clothes, and possibly even working up a sweat. I just don’t see how…”

“Wait a minute.” Brooke folded her arms across her chest and leaned back to study Candace. “There are things she could do to help.”

“Like what?”

“Well, let’s say I’m doing the laundry—she could strip the beds and gather up the sheets and towels and drop them in the machine. I’ll handle the detergent and bleach ratio, even the separating. When we do the floors, she could throw out the dirty water and clean out the bucket afterward. I’m sure she could push a vacuum. There are certainly enough unskilled”—she shot a look at Candace—“tasks that we could direct her through to at least help us pick up our pace and work in that additional house.”

“Well…” Amanda was having a hard time picturing the elegant Candace in any of these scenarios, but it was getting late and there wasn’t time to argue.

“And about that third house?” Brooke said. “Don’t even think you’re going there without me.”

“That’s right.” Candace nodded emphatically. “It’ll all go faster if we do this together.”

Amanda looked at Brooke and Candace. She smiled through a blur of tears. “OK already. I’m convinced. And I’ll never forget what you’re doing for me.”

She took hold of Candace’s shoulders, turned her toward the mirror, then settled her on the makeup stool. “Let’s see,” she said as she riffled through her tackle box. “Chanel deserves a special disguise. Because with her in the mix we weel be like zee three musketeers. All for one and one for all.”

Gingerly, Candace felt the slightly bulbous nose and the latex padding that extended her chin. She opened the visor of the vacuummobile and confronted her new reflection in the mirror. “Did you really have to make me look like Gerard Depardieu?”

Candace was riding shotgun in the vacuummobile, which was, in fact, almost as humiliating as having been made up to look like the oversized French actor. Cars whizzed by and in almost every one of them the passengers were laughing. The less well-bred folk laughed
and
pointed.

A lifetime of dignity swept aside by a single act of compassion.

Candace’s gorge rose and she fought it back down. The only thing more embarrassing than riding around in this disguise in the bright yellow “look at me” mobile would be opening the window and losing her breakfast out the side of it.

Or being recognized.

“Has anyone else noticed that Amanda is the only one of the de Papillon girls who’s attractive? How come she got better looking and we got worse?” Brooke asked.

“Hey,” Amanda protested. “I went to great pains to give each of you a signature look. It took real talent to create that hairy mole and bulging nose.”

“Not to mention chutzpah,” Candace pointed out.

Brooke laughed. “OK, so you struck a blow for first wives everywhere.” She peered at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Actually, after all the years of relying on and worrying about my looks, it’s liberating to be this ugly. Do you know what I mean?”

“Actually, I do,” Amanda replied. “That’s kind of how I feel about Solange. She’s a lot freer and surer of herself than I am.”

They turned onto the Simmons’s street. “But both Solange and I hope Susie’s not home today,” Amanda said as they neared the house. “I absolutely hate the way she follows us around and treats us like we’re either potential jewel thieves or ignorant thugs.

“I mean for all she knows Solange and Simone could have come from a fine French family fallen upon hard times. Or we could be former rocket scientists reduced to scrubbing floors in order to bring the rest of our family over.”

Brooke shot her a look. “OK, now you’re starting to scare me. Besides I thought we were part of a small family. Just me and you and those poor fatherless twins.”

Amanda pulled the vacuummobile into the driveway. The garage door was up and Susie’s SUV was in it. “Ugh. She’s here. And Lucy and Chas are probably still sleeping. Even with a third person, it’ll take twice as long to work around everybody.”

“My, you are whiny today,” Brooke observed. “Still no word from Hunter?”

“What makes you think I’m whining about him? I have plenty of things available to whine about,” Amanda said. Like Rob’s sudden reappearance and the mountain of bills she was trying to climb. “Everything I do and think is not about Hunter James.”

Just every other thing. Which was really starting to irritate her. Amanda tried to shrug off her bad humor. Arriving at Susie Simmons’s house in this kind of mood was like taking coals to Newcastle; she normally didn’t feel this bad until she was leaving.

Susie greeted them at the door, the phone to her ear. “It’s the French contingent,” she said into the receiver. “And it looks like they’ve added a third musketeer.”

Amanda kept Solange’s cheery smile plastered on her face, but she could tell by the rigidity of her friends’ shoulders that Brooke and Candace were also reacting to Susie’s snide tone.

“Madame,”
Amanda said. “Thees is also my cousin. Her name is Chanel.”

“Like the designer?” Susie seemed to find this hilarious.

Solange, Simone, and Chanel turned up their faux French noses and sniffed in unison.

“But of course,” Candace said, still sounding unfortunately like Maurice Chevalier. Or a foghorn. “Most French women they are simply born with zee sense of style.” She shrugged a completely Gallic shrug. “American women must try so much harder.” She looked Susie up and down and sniffed again. “And so often they do not succeed.”

They left Susie with the phone frozen next to her ear, her laughter stifled, but saved their high-fives for the laundry room.

“I can’t stand that woman in any language,” Amanda said, “but we are not going to let her ruin our day or slow us down.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “All we have to do is draw the good thoughts in.” She inhaled again. “And let the bad thoughts out.” She exhaled.

Brooke and Candace followed suit. They breathed together for a while in the closed laundry room, probably sucking all the oxygen right out of it, and then looked at each other.

“I’m dizzy. I need to sit down,” Candace said, lowering herself into the laundry room’s caned-back chair.

“I think we should accidentally wash her best outfit in hot water and make sure it ends up in the dryer,” Brooke suggested.

There was a knock on the laundry room door. Amanda opened it and poked her head out. Susie Simmons stood on the threshold. “Chas is up.” She mimed someone opening their eyes and stretching.

Amanda kept her own eyes wide.
“Oui, madame?”

“I want you to come strip his bed now.” Susie mimed a motion that might have been hoeing a garden or rowing a boat.

Amanda furrowed her brow enjoying the show.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Susie grabbed Amanda’s wrist and led her to Chas’s room then walked her to the side of the empty bed. “Change the sheets now,” she demanded.

“At thees moment?” Amanda asked.

“Yes.” In one rapid movement, Susie reached down and pulled the sheets off the bed and stuffed them into Amanda’s arms. Then she shook the pillows out of their pillowcases and added them to the pile.

“Merci, madame,”
Amanda said when Susie had finished stripping the bed. “I appreciate zee help.”

Muttering under her breath, Susie marched in the opposite direction and tromped down the stairs.

Feeling a little cheerier, Amanda tossed Chas’s sheets in the washing machine then directed Candace to strip all the other beds and bring the sheets to the washer.

They met up about ten minutes later in the master bedroom.

“Look at this.” Brooke motioned them over to the dresser where the weekly “pot of gold” had been planted.

This time it consisted of three hundred-dollar bills, the diamond studs they’d snubbed the week before, a strand of 5 mm freshwater pearls, a square cut diamond surrounded by baguettes in what appeared to be a platinum setting, and a lapis lazuli necklace.

“She’s starting to get serious,” Brooke said. “What do you think we’re looking at? Fifteen hundred bucks? Two thousand?”

Amanda wasn’t sure of the accumulated value, but she knew the increased stakes spelled trouble.

“I don’t have my loupe with me.” Candace picked up the ring and held it up to the light. “The diamond looks a little cloudy. It’s only average color with a number of imperfections. But the setting’s nice, and the baguettes aren’t bad.” She set the ring down.

“Where do you think you are? The sales counter at Tiffany’s?” Amanda ushered Candace and Brooke away from the cache. “This is a trap and we don’t want to be anywhere near it. For all we know, Susie has a camera pointed this way.”

“So do you think we should act tempted?” Brooke asked.

“Act tempted?” Candace said.

“Well, if we were really who we’re pretending to be, this might be very attractive. Maybe we should act out Chanel wanting it and Simone or Solange stopping her. You know, kind of like Good Maid, Bad Maid.”

“Hey, how come I’m the bad maid?” Candace put on a hurt expression. “I want to be the good maid whose real reason for coming to this country is to make her bad cousins give up their life of crime.”

Amanda laughed. “We are not going to stand here and worry about whether we’re offending Susie Simmons by not wanting to steal her jewelry. And I’ll handle the dramatic scenarios, thank you.

“Now let’s get this job done and get out of here.” Amanda checked her watch. “It’s getting late and we still have to do the Glantzes’ and the Sullivans’.”

“Here.” Pulling a bottle of ammonia from the bucket of supplies, Brooke handed it to Candace. “Go put about a half a cupful in each of the upstairs toilets. Let each sit for about five minutes and then use this to scrub the bowls.” She handed her the toilet brush.

“Oui! Oui!”
Candace saluted smartly and went into the master bathroom. But when she unscrewed the cap and leaned over to pour the ammonia into the toilet, the sharp odor made her gag. Before she could stop herself, she was vomiting into the toilet she was supposed to be cleaning.

Amanda found her in there on her knees. She called Brooke in to help her and they half carried Candace to the master bedroom chaise. “Consider yourself off toilet duty,” Amanda said. “Are you all right?”

“Sorry. I must be coming down with something.” Candace looked around. “I’m OK, though. Give me something else to do; something without chemicals.”

“Here.” Brooke pushed the vacuum toward her. “Why don’t you catch your breath and then start vacuuming?”

Candace opened her mouth preparing to protest, but Brooke waved her off. “Look, we don’t have time to debate this. If you can vacuum all three floors, it’ll be a big help. When you get done with that, take the feather duster and hit the most obvious spots. We’ll rendezvous in the foyer at eleven thirty prepared to move on.”

Amanda had just picked up the envelope of cash from the counter and was joining Brooke and Candace in the foyer when a shout reached them from upstairs. “Stop! Thief!”

Lucy’s voice joined her mother’s in perfect schoolgirl French.
“Au voleur! Arrêtez!”

The three musketeers froze.

Feet pounded down the back stairs.

“They’ve stolen my jewelry!” Susie shouted.

Amanda, Brooke, and Candace looked at each other. For about two seconds, Amanda considered turning and standing her ground.

“Forget it!” Candace said, seeing her hesitate. “I am not going to be exposed on my virgin outing.”

As one they picked up their cleaning supplies and sprinted for the front door.

“Chas, call the police!” Susie Simmons shouted, her voice growing louder as she got closer. “Lucy, go through the garage and try to head them off!”

“Oui, Maman!”
Lucy shouted in beautifully accented French.

Racing outside, the de Papillon girls ran toward the car. “Forget the trunk,” Amanda shrieked. “Just throw everything in the backseat with Brooke.”

She tossed in the vacuum and threw the bucket of rags on top of it. Slapping a hand inside the purse that flapped around her shoulder, she found the keys and slid into the driver’s seat. Brooke was in the back and Candace just pulling the passenger door shut when Amanda turned the key in the ignition and stomped on the gas. But when Amanda reached for the door handle to pull her door shut, there was a body in her way.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Susie Simmons wedged herself more firmly between Amanda and the door. Lucy did the same on the passenger side.

“You give me back my jewelry!” Susie shouted.

In the distance, a police siren sounded. Amanda’s heart thudded in her chest; her foot hovered over the gas pedal. If she put the car in gear and stomped down on it, they might get away in time, might even be able to ditch the vacuummobile at the bottom of the nearby Chattahoochee River and make it home undetected.