Woman in Black (18 page)

“You have that kind of face.”

“Do I? Funny, my wife doesn't seem to have noticed.”

Despite his joking tone, Lila wondered if there was some truth to his words. Was Abigail's much-vaunted home life all it was cracked up to be … or were there cracks in the marriage that had been painted as ideal in all those magazine articles she'd read? Lila had only just met Kent, but already she could see how different he was from Abigail. She wondered how they'd ever gotten together in the first place.

But she didn't spare much thought for Abigail as she and Kent sat chatting over breakfast. She found herself lingering over a second cup of coffee, thinking how nice it was, enjoying a quiet moment with a husband on his way to work, even if that husband wasn't hers.

Apparently she'd met with Kent's approval as well, for he announced as he was pushing away his empty plate, “Well, Lila, I think you're going to work out just fine. Oh, I admit I had my doubts at first, but that was before I had a chance to get to know you a bit.”

“I suppose you were expecting someone who was afraid to get her hands dirty,” she said with a laugh, feeling more at ease now that it appeared she had at least one ally. “Okay, I confess I wear rubber gloves, but I'm not too proud to get down on my hands and knees with a scrub brush, and I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to know how to operate a vacuum.”

He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, frowning slightly, before he ventured, “Look, I hope you don't think I'm being too personal, but there's no sense in ignoring the eight-hundred-pound gorilla since we'll all be more or less living under the same roof. So I'm going to come right out with it: I know you've been through a lot. And I give you a lot of credit for the way you've handled it. A lot of people would have cracked under that kind of pressure.”

It had been so long since Lila had been paid a compliment by someone who didn't have a vested interest in cheering her up that she found herself fighting back tears. “Thank you. That's very kind of you.” It was all she could manage at the moment.

Kent clinked his coffee cup against hers. “Well, here's to success, however you define it.”

While they cleaned up in the kitchen, he told her a bit more about his practice, which was located in a storefront downtown, the site of a former shoe store. “It's not the Mayo Clinic,” he said, “but since my partner and I are pretty much the only game in town, we don't get a lot of complaints.”

Lila's thoughts turned to Vaughn. “My brother could have used someone like you. Most of the places he travels to, the nearest doctor is hundreds of miles away. Maybe if he'd seen someone sooner—” She caught herself before she could blurt out her latest woe.

But Kent was too quick for her. “Your brother's sick?”

She gave a solemn nod. “He just found out he has cancer. Stage two lymphoma. He starts chemo the day after tomorrow.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Kent sounded genuinely sympathetic. He must have seen the worry on her face, for he added, “But you know, Lila, it's not a death sentence.”

“That's what he keeps telling me.”

“Who's his doctor?”

“Guy named Grossman. He's with New York–Presbyterian.”

“Paul Grossman? Yes, I know him well. We were in residency together at Columbia. He's one of the best,” Kent assured her. “Your brother's in excellent hands.”

She felt her anxiety ebb the tiniest bit. “That's good to know.”

“I'd be happy to speak with Paul, if you'd like. That way, if there's something you don't understand, I could explain it. Sometimes it's hard to make heads or tails of all that medical mumbo jumbo, and as I recall, Paul didn't get high marks for his bedside manner.”

“Would you? That would be wonderful.” Lila felt a wave of gratitude wash over her, which caused her to choke up again. She quickly turned away so Kent wouldn't see the tears in her eyes.

He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Think nothing of it.”

For a moment, Lila was almost lulled into forgetting the reason she was here. But she told herself that she couldn't lose sight of the fact that this very kind man, however sociable, was her employer. With that in mind, she shooed Abigail's husband out of the kitchen and set about the task of acquainting herself with the house. A house that suddenly didn't seem so hostile anymore.

That is, until she encountered Phoebe.

“
So you're the
new replacement.”

Lila, on her knees in the master bathroom, scrubbing the Jacuzzi, looked up to see a teenaged girl standing over her. Pretty but much too thin, with curly dark hair cropped short and huge brown eyes that made her think of Bambi. She sat back on her heels. “And you must be Phoebe.” Abigail's daughter hadn't made it down for breakfast, and the house had been so quiet ever since that Lila had simply assumed she'd slipped out the door without making her presence known. Now she raised a rubber-gloved hand in greeting. “Hi, I'm Lila. Sorry for not introducing myself earlier, but I didn't know anyone was home. Aren't you supposed to be in school?”

“I told my dad I was sick.”

“You don't look sick.”

“I'm not.” Phoebe spoke flatly, offering no explanation. She eyed Lila askance, her arms crossed over her chest. “So what's your story? My mom says you two knew each other when you were kids.”

Lila nodded, wondering what else Abigail had told her. She decided to play it safe and volunteered only, “Her mother worked for our family.”

“Seriously?” Phoebe's dark eyes glittered with sudden interest. “So did you two used to, like, hang out together?” Clearly, Abigail hadn't told her daughter much about that period in her life.

Lila was a bit taken aback to learn that she'd become a mere footnote in Abigail's history, but she rallied. “We practically grew up together. It would have been hard not to,” she replied, doing her best to be circumspect.

“Yeah? Well, I kind of got the impression she doesn't have such happy memories of those days.”

Lila didn't dispute this. She merely shrugged and said, “We all remember things differently.”

“It must seem weird. That you're working for her now.”

“It
is
a little weird,” Lila admitted. There was no use denying it. One look at her, and you could see that she and Mr. Clean weren't exactly on intimate terms.

Phoebe was silent for a moment. “I read about you in the papers,” she said after a bit.

Lila gave a tight smile, as if to say,
Who hasn't?

“So were you, like, seriously rich?” Phoebe pressed on.

“You could say that.”

Phoebe appeared unimpressed. “Mom says you have a son my age.”

“Yes. His name's Neal. He's a little older than you, actually.”

“What's he like?”

“He's nice.”
Unlike you
. “You'll see when you meet him.”

“When's he coming?”

“In a few weeks. Soon as the semester's over.”

“Cool,” Phoebe replied indifferently. She turned to peer out the window, which overlooked the driveway in back. “So is that your car? The one with all the boxes in back?”

“I haven't gotten around to unpacking yet,” Lila said somewhat defensively.

“Well, it looks like you're going to need some help with that. I'll give you a hand later on, if I'm not doing anything else.”

Phoebe's offer took Lila by surprise. She didn't seem the type to knock herself out on another person's behalf, especially when that someone was getting paid to wait on
her
. Lila replied as nicely as she could, “Thanks, but I think I can manage.” She didn't want it getting back to Abigail that she'd had Phoebe do her dirty work. She resumed her scrubbing, and when she looked up again a few minutes later, she was surprised to find Phoebe still standing there. “Do you need anything?” she asked pointedly.

“No.” Phoebe picked at a hangnail. There was a long pause before she asked in a soft voice, “I was just wondering … what was she like back then?”

Distracted, Lila asked, “Who?”

“My mom.”

“Oh. Well. Let me see …” Lila had to stop and think about it. At last her face relaxed in a small, remembering smile. “She was sweet and funny. Pretty fearless, too. There was a pecan tree that grew alongside the house she and her mother lived in, and she used to climb out onto her roof to collect the nuts that dropped onto it. There was this one time she slipped and fell and probably would have broken her neck if a branch hadn't caught her on the way down. We all thought she'd be scared of heights after that, but the very next day she was back up there again.”

The memory sparked a tiny flame of remembered affection that sputtered, then took hold. They'd had their share of adventures, hadn't they? However unforgiving Abigail was now, nothing could alter that.

“Just think, if she
had
broken her neck, neither of us would be here now.”

Lila looked up at Phoebe, somewhat startled by the morbid turn her thoughts had taken. But she sensed that Phoebe was only testing her, to see how she would react, so she replied evenly, “I'm not sorry. Are you?” She'd rather be here, on her knees scrubbing someone else's bathroom, than have taken the unthinkable route Gordon had chosen.

Phoebe didn't answer. She merely stared at Lila, scrutinizing her in a manner that was less than friendly but not outright rude. Lila could see how vulnerable she was under her tough-girl facade: a sad little girl in a young woman's body. Finally Phoebe announced, “I'll be in my room if anyone wants me. And don't bother trying to get in to clean it.” She cast a pointed glance at the bucket of cleaning supplies at Lila's feet. “It's off limits.”

With that, she spun around and was gone.

Even without Phoebe's bedroom to clean, it took Lila the rest of the morning to finish the upstairs. Making Kent and Abigail's bed alone was a daunting task. It was king-sized, with numerous layers of blankets, a duvet, shams, pillows, and throw pillows, which took forever to assemble in what she assumed was the correct order and nearly caused her to throw her back out in the process. Lila felt a tiny stab of guilt, remembering the bed she and Gordon had shared in their Park Avenue penthouse, which had been similarly elaborate. Her housekeeper, Martina, had never once complained, but had Lila truly appreciated the amount of work involved in making it every morning? She might have dispensed with a few of those shams and throw pillows if she had.

By the time she'd cleaned the entire house top to bottom, hours had gone by, and every muscle in her body ached. She wondered how she was going to survive a week of this, much less longer than that. She'd never worked this hard in her life. Back in the day, she could've saved at both ends had she dispensed with both her housekeeper and personal trainer and done Martina's job herself.

Lila felt ashamed now to think that she'd ever imagined the going rate she'd paid her housekeeper had been enough to compensate Martina for all her hard work, not to mention the extra jobs Martina had taken upon herself to do without being asked. Maybe this was punishment, Lila thought, not for her sins against Abigail but for those against the underclass.

She was stowing away the cleaning supplies when she remembered that she still had to unload her car and unpack her things. She quickly headed out back, while it was still light out. Grabbing a cardboard carton out of the backseat, she lugged it up the steep flight of steps to the maid's quarters above the detached garage, where she and Neal would be living. Abigail had pointed it out to her earlier, but Lila had yet to see what it was like inside.

As soon as she walked in, her heart sank. It was so small! It consisted of a living room with a kitchenette at one end, a tiny bedroom, and a bathroom. Neal wouldn't even have his own room; he'd have to sleep on the convertible sofa in the living room. But at least it was a roof over their heads, she reminded herself after she'd had time to adjust. It would be a tight squeeze, but they'd manage. On the bright side, there wasn't much to clean.

Lila was back downstairs wrestling the heaviest of the boxes from the Taurus's trunk when a deep, accented voice spoke behind her.

“Let me help you with that.”

She straightened and turned around. Standing before her was a man dressed in grass-stained trousers and a sweatshirt. He was around her age, muscularly built, with dusky skin and tight brown curls that hugged his skull like a cap of Persian lamb. He had the most beautiful brown eyes she'd ever seen, long-lashed like a girl's, only there was nothing remotely feminine about him. She watched him hoist the box as easily as if it had been filled with Styrofoam peanuts.

He carried the box upstairs and lowered it onto the living room floor. “Karim Najid,” he said, straightening to introduce himself.

She shook his hand, which was work-hardened but at the same time surprisingly long-fingered and supple, that of an aristocrat. “Lila DeVries. I'm the new … housekeeper.” She stumbled a bit over the word.
Housekeeper
. She'd spent the entire day cleaning Abigail's house, but she still hadn't quite gotten used to her new role.

“I know. I was told to look out for you.” His Middle Eastern accent had a British inflection to it, she noted. He must have lived abroad before coming here. “I take care of the grounds. But any of the heavier work you need done around the house, please don't hesitate to ask.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't showed up. You really saved me.”

“My pleasure,” he said, inclining his head in a courtly little bow.

Together, they carried up the rest of her things. The only pieces of furniture were the small end table and bentwood rocker that had been her grandmother's, which Lila had been unable to part with when she'd sold the rest of her furnishings.