Different Circles

“He makes an effort not to look at her in that way when I’m in the room,” she said. “But he’s a guy. I’m sure he appreciates the occasional glimpse he catches.”

“What about Meghan’s thoughts about Jake?” she asked. “Anything there?”

“I don’t really know,” Laura said with a shrug. “Jake is a good-looking guy, and he’s famous and all that. But if she is attracted to him, she doesn’t let it show, doesn’t give off any vibes about it. And I trust Jake. He would never do anything with her even if she wanted to.”

Celia nodded. She strongly suspected that Laura was right about this. She knew Jake as well as she knew anyone on Earth. He might enjoy looking at the young nanny—especially when she made an appearance in a long t-shirt and no bra—but he would never actually fuck her. Not while he had two other lovers that he needed to keep satisfied. And speaking of that...

“We’re not going to be able to get together for some fun this weekend, are we?” she asked.

Laura shook her head sadly. “The only night we could do it is tonight,” she said. “But we’ll be staying with Tom and Mary tonight. They presumably do not know about the three of us. Jake and I would like to keep it that way.”

“No sneaking into your room then?” Celia said with a pout.

“No sneaking into our room,” she confirmed.

“Well ... that’s a rip,” she said, using a Jake-ism.

Meghan Zachary arrived back at the Kingsley’s house just after six o’clock. She used the remote control she had been given to open the gate to the property and drove through. As she had been instructed, she stopped immediately once she reached the other side and was clear of the gate’s swing. She watched in her rearview mirror until it was firmly shut again. Nobody tried to dash through or enter the property behind her—no one ever had—but she did not let herself be complacent. The incident with the hippies had convinced her that the Kingsleys really did have crazy people who would try to get to them.

She pulled up to the garage and pushed another button on the remote which opened the automatic garage door. She parked next to Laura’s minivan and then got out, grabbing her purse and the now-warm bottle of diet Pepsi she had been drinking out of. She carried these things to the door that led into the house, pushing the garage door button on the wall and watching as the door slid down. Only then did she use her key to open the solid door and enter the house. The alarm was not set, which meant the Elsa was still here. She would have set it if she had gone back to her quarters for the night.

Sure enough, the Nigerian housekeeper was in the kitchen when Meghan entered it. She was just putting some finishing touches on her cleaning before calling it a workweek.

“Hey, Elsa,” Meghan greeted politely. She liked Elsa a lot but was also more than a little intimidated by her. There was no mistaking who was actually the boss of the household, and it was not Jake or Laura. Though Meghan and Elsa were technically equals under their employment agreements, Meghan knew that Elsa was really her direct supervisor and had the power to have her dismissed if she felt like exercising it. So far, she had not.

“Meghan,” Elsa said with a nod. “Did you get Miss Cadence off safely on her journey?”

“I did,” she confirmed. “And I got to meet Celia Valdez! How cool is that?”

“Very cool indeed,” Elsa said. “I am very fond of Ms. Valdez myself. She always makes a point to make her bed when she stays over. Of course, I remake it because she does a terrible job of it, but I do appreciate the effort.”

Meghan blushed a little at these words. She always made her bed as well and Elsa always came behind her at some point during the day and re-made it (as well as stripping it down and washing her bedding every Monday and Friday). And she had organized Meghan’s dresser space and closet with military precision, with the socks and underwear she laundered for her neatly folded and arranged according to color, and her shirts, blouses, pants, and dresses always neatly ironed and hung in a similar arrangement. “That’s good to know,” she said.

“I am about done here for the night,” Elsa said. “I will be making the trip to Orange County early tomorrow morning so you will have the place to yourself. I trust you will abide by the visitor policy that you agreed to in your employment contract?”

“Yes, of course,” Meghan told her. The visitor policy was that she could not have anyone but her sister or her parents over to the house. No boyfriends, girlfriends, priests, rabbis, or even the Pope Himself was authorized to be present on the Kingsley property without explicit permission from Jake or Laura.

“Excellent,” Elsa said. “I prepared a few meals for you and put them in the refrigerator.”

“Really?” Meghan said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know I was not required to do this,” Elsa said simply. “I did it anyway. I rather like you, truth be told, but that is not the primary reason. I did not want you cluttering up my kitchen trying to concoct something yourself.”