Steve Erickson - Rubicon Beach

In fact she still hadn’t told her husband about the new housekeeper. He had passed an entire night without knowing that someone else was in his house. That night she told him first thing. “I hired a new housekeeper yesterday.”

“Oh,” he answered. A moment later he said, “When’s she start?”

“What?” said Maddy.

“The new housekeeper, when does she start?”

“She started. Yesterday/”

“Oh,” he said again. He looked in the direction of the kitchen door. “Is she here now?”

“Well, she’s in the back room. Richard recommended her.” She said this as though it would bolster her case, though considering Richard, she supposed it didn’t.

“Richard? What’s Richard know about housekeepers?

What’s her name?”

“Catherine.”

“The last one was named Catherine.”

“There can be more than one Catherine.”

“Is she English too?”

“I think she’s Hispanic of some sort.”

“ ‘Hispanic of some sort’?”

“Don’t get liberal on me,” said Maddy, “you know what I mean.”

“But not Catherine.”

“Why not?”

“Catherine? What’s her name . Katrina maybe. .”

“Not Katrina. Her name’s not Katrina. Wouldn’t it be worse to latinize her name when it isn’t even her name? To be honest I’m not sure the last one was named Catherine. I think it was the one before and I just called the last one Catherine out of habit. I call this one Catherine out of habit. I’ll call the next one Catherine out of habit.”

“But the last one was English!” he protested.

“Now who’s stereotyping whom?”

He shook his head. “Is everyone in the world named Catherine?”

The following morning Catherine managed to put the kitten behind her back just as Llewellyn Edgar walked into the service area looking for clean laundry. Llewellyn was athletic-looking like his wife; in a couple of years he’d be forty but he didn’t show his age. He had light longish brown hair and a mustache. Catherine steeled herself to the impact of his regard.

His eyes fell on her for a moment, and then he turned away. He turned away too quickly to notice whatever she had hidden behind her; he walked out of the service area without even getting the shirt he had come for. He walked through the kitchen into the dining area where he met his wife. “Going to the studio today?” she asked hopefully.

“No. We can’t afford a housekeeper,” he said.

“What?”

“We can’t afford the housekeeper,” he said again. He headed toward the study. “I’m going to do some work.”

“We’re not paying her anything,” Maddy said, “except room and board.” He seemed funny to her.

“Uh”—he patted his pockets for his keys—”I have to go out after all. I forgot something” He went directly to the front door and opened it, leaving without any of his work or his papers, and in his undershirt.

“Lew?” she said.

“We still can’t afford her,” he muttered before closing the door.

At night Catherine sat in her room in the back of the house, without a picture on the wall or a television or a radio or a book, none of which she missed, since none of them she knew to miss. There wasn’t even a window. A small light burned on the chest. She was content to play with the kitten, who bounced across the room and the bed and insisted on perching herself at every precarious point, balancing on the side of the bathtub and tumbling into impossible corners. Both Catherine and the kitten were perfectly satisfied to be in this room with each other. Catherine sat on the bed for hours laughing at this crazy little white cat. She realized, watching the kitten attack her scarf ferociously, that except for her father this animal was the only actual friend she’d ever had, and for an hour after that she didn’t laugh any more.

Since Catherine had no clothes and wasn’t being paid a wage, Maddy bought her a minimal wardrobe: two simple light-brown dresses, some underwear which the girl seemed disinclined to use, and a pair of shoes half a size too large. Maddy didn’t invest in a more extensive selection since by the end of the first week she’d decided Catherine wasn’t going to be around very long. Someday she would learn not to listen to Richard, who wasn’t exactly ringing the phone off the hook for progress reports on his new discovery.

One morning she decided to bring Catherine out of the back of the house and put her to work in the living room entryway. There wasn’t any doubt that the girl worked hard, and Maddy had her own things to do upstairs. Jane was on the mend from her chicken pox and would be back in school the following week. “The mantel over the fireplace needs cleaning,” Maddy said to Catherine, still manually illustrating every point, “and you can dust the tables. Use the window spray on the mirror.” She squirted the spray as an example. “When you’re through with that I’ll show you how to run the vacuum. God, do you understand anything I say?” Actually, thought Maddy, she’s not at all a stupid girl. “Jane,” she said to her daughter, who was at the foot of the stairs, “don’t bounce the ball in the house.” Jane had a translucent red ball with glitter on it. “If you have that much energy you ought to be in school.”

“I’m sick,” Jane explained.

“Yes, I can see.” She handed Catherine the dust rag and spray gun and went upstairs. In her bedroom she spent a few moments attending to the unmade bed before sitting on the edge of it, looking out the window to the drive, wondering if Lew would return today at noon or three or ten. He had come back at different hours the three previous days, out there driving around; she knew he wasn’t at the studio, since he’d been leaving and arriving without carrying any work. Of course she considered the possibility that he was seeing someone, but she didn’t believe it; she had the feeling it was something worse. How can it be worse? she thought. She sat on the bed with her hands in her lap, looking out the window about five minutes, when she heard a tremendous shattering in the room below.

She leaped up and ran down the stairs. In the living room she found Jane stunned and motionless, the translucent red ball rolling at her feet. The housekeeper stood at the side of the room in terror. In the middle of the floor was the glass of the mirror in pieces, its remaining edge framing a white gouge in the wall. “Christ!” Maddy exploded. She came down the stairs and took her daughter by the hand. “I told you not to bounce it in the house,” she said in rage; the child, amazed, just shook her head. The mother looked at the mirror again and began leading the child up the stairs.

“No,” Maddy heard someone say; it wasn’t lane. She stopped on the stairs and stared down into the living room. “No,” Catherine said again, quietly, the first word Maddy had ever heard from her; and Catherine pointed to herself and pointed at the pieces of the mirror on the floor. She was shaking, struggling for composure. Then Maddy saw her hands. They were slivered with glass, small dots of blood turning to wild streaks down her arms.

With one shard of the mirror and her own bloody hands wrapped in the skirt of her dress, the girl ran from the living room out to the back of the house.

Maddy stood on the stairs several moments before she realized her daughter was watching her, looking up. “Go to your room,” the mother said quietly, “it’s all right. Just go play in your room awhile, okay?” Jane walked slowly to her room, and Maddy finally came down the stairs to pick up some of the glass. She watched in the direction of the kitchen, expecting to see or hear something unimaginable. Then she turned to the front door and said, “Lew?” as though he would arrive on command.