“What a pretty name. A pretty girl. You’ll do just fine. I’ll be back at five.”
* * *
Coca was right — the woman did not leave behind much dirt. Marie’s biggest job was to go over her own cleaning of the week before, vacuuming and dusting, replacing wilted flowers in vases that were never looked at, plumping pillows on the sofas that were never sat on for guests who never came.
Linda was gone most of each day, and at night she sometimes brought her boyfriend home. They went into the kitchen that Marie had cleaned after it had not been cooked in that day, and they stood and drank water out of bottles before they went into Linda’s bedroom and closed the door behind. When she came home alone, Marie would often hear her crying, and sometimes she watched her outside in the hot tub, drinking from a bottle of wine.
“Are you okay, Linda?” Marie would ask.
“Just need to take my happy pills. Men get mad over nothing.”
“This is true.”
One night Marie snuck into the kitchen in the dark to take a cold apple from the crisper. By the weak light of the open refrigerator, she stood deciding if she should have a piece of chocolate cake also. She could still not get used to how, as much as she ate, there was always more, and she was growing plump. Already the loose clothes Linda bought were getting filled in. Suddenly the overhead light came on, blinding her, and there stood the boyfriend in his underwear. He was slim and olive-skinned, with curly brown hair. He was as young and carefree as Linda was not.
“Hello?”
“Sorry, sir,” Marie said, dropping her eyes and backing out the door.
“Don’t leave. Get what you came for.” He smiled. “You’re the new one.”
Marie nodded, ashamed of her old cotton nightgown.
“Stats?”
She looked up, confused by the question.
“Name?” he said.
“Oh. Maleva.”
He grinned. “Bad girl. You must be. I was shocked to find food in Linda’s house.”
They both laughed. It was true, until Marie’s coming the cupboards and refrigerator were empty.
“She gets mad when I cook anything here. Cooking smells bother her. It reminds her of people actually living in a house. I’m James, by the way.”
“Maleva,” she said again.
He nodded. “Since you’re living here, watch out for Linda’s drinking, okay? She takes antidepressants, and she’s been known to take too many.”
Marie looked at him, blank.
“The last girl had to call an ambulance.”
He tapped his hand on the phone. “You know 911, yes?”
“Okay.”
“Good girl. Eat away.” James took a bottle of water and turned away. “Don’t worry — I won’t rat on you. We both need the job, right?”
* * *
In Linda’s bedroom was a table piled high with books, and some days she stayed at home and sat over these books, reading and writing.
“You like to read?” Marie said, bringing folded laundry through the bedroom to the closet. She always warned Linda of her presence with a few words because the habit of aloneness caused Linda to startle and get angry as if Marie were an intruder.
“Oh. My dissertation. For my doctorate. In case James doesn’t offer a ring.”
Marie shook her head, not understanding.
“Matrimonio, entiendes?” Linda said, tapping her ring finger. “I’m writing a biography about an author. Then I graduate.”
Marie continued to the closet.
Linda yawned. “Actually, you might find it interesting — the author Jean Rhys. Pretty obscure. I needed something off the beaten path to get my topic approved. She’s from Dominica, your part of the world.” Linda looked down at the paragraph she was marking with her finger.
“Yes, I would like to read sometime,” Marie said.
“Hmmm.” Linda had already forgotten her.
Marie was sure Linda would not remember because she never remembered their talks, repeating instructions to her over and over, although Marie always pretended to hear them as if for the first time, never telling her that French, not Spanish, was spoken on her island, but the next day Marie found a book on her bed, Wide Sargasso Sea.
Once she opened the book, she was home. She knew Antoinette’s mother-loss, but also knew the peace of her childhood in abandoned Coulibri, the joy of nature, living under trees, how it made the hatred not sting so much. She understood how the convent felt like a refuge, a place of sunshine and of death, because Linda’s house felt the same way to Marie. She never wanted to leave. Would her fate in Florida turn out better than Antoinette’s in Rochester’s bitter England? She would make something of herself, she hoped, she prayed.
She did not remember her work that day, much less to eat. For the first time, she had the experience that another human being had felt much the same as she did, that her life was not so unique. Never again would she have to feel so alone. This was the release of art, what Maman must have felt while she painted vodou figures. Loneliness had stuck in her bones since Maman died, and this was the first time the pressure released just the smallest bit. Parts of the novel made her cry, and when she bent her head down close to the pages, she imagined the tears on the paper smelled of the island’s flowers. Was it a lingering trace of Linda’s perfume or her own longing for home?
When Linda had left that morning, Marie had stayed in her room and did not clean a single thing, and when Linda came home that night, she absentmindedly praised Marie’s work, saying the place looked perfect. She was right because it was unchanging, never anything less than perfect. But reading that book, Marie was more exhausted than if she had cleaned without stopping all day.
* * *
The day before Christmas, Linda packed for a trip with James. “Tomorrow clean out my closet thoroughly so it’ll be straightened when I get home.”
“Tomorrow is Christmas,” Marie said.
“Oh, I forgot.” Linda went into her bedroom and came out with a hundred-dollar bill. “Here you go. I always have some stashed for a rainy day. Polish my shoes, too.”
Marie learned to adjust to silence and quiet. The only people she saw each week were the people who serviced the house — postman, gardener, pool man. They waved at Marie through the windows, and she waved back. Once a month, she called Coca, who invited her to family dinners, but the trip back and forth was too long for Linda not to complain of the inconvenience of not having her. Marie went twice: for Christmas Day and again in the spring for a funeral.
But Coca and Marie did not really know each other. When Marie was lonely, she called Jean-Alexi. Sometimes just to hear his voice, then she’d hang up. Sometimes she’d cry on the phone. He would not comfort her, but he would not hang up either. When he was in a good mood, which was less and less frequently, she got him to talk about the island, the village, and Port-au-Prince. Their days in her father’s abandoned house grew into a missed opportunity, something she knew was false from reality, but they both allowed this. The story of the lone cricket turned into a whole orchestra of crickets that serenaded their lovemaking. Eventually Jean-Alexi would ask her where she was or suggest they meet, and then she would quickly hang up. She knew her loneliness and homesickness were misleading her. But he was the only link to who she was.
* * *
Linda finished the long paper on Jean Rhys, and James threw a party at a restaurant because she did not want the house dirtied. Although it was at a Caribbean restaurant, with food and music of the area, they had not thought to invite Marie. Afterward, Linda put a signed, first-edition copy of Wide Sargasso Sea in a glassed shelf of her bookcase — a present from James. When she left for work, Marie took the book out and stared at the signature, thrilled at this proof that the actual person who had expressed her deepest thoughts had held those pages. She imagined the yellowed paper smelled of spices.