That seemed best, so I had to get to the kitchen.
But I heard some rummaging and banging around in the kitchen, so I didn’t move.
Then I heard the person come back out into the hall.
They came up to the head of it, rolling something over the floor. I could tell they went as far as the front door. There was no sound for a second, then a sort of scratching noise.
A motor roared to sudden life.
For a second my heart stopped.
I was sweating all over by this time and damn near crapped my drawers.
But a second later I relaxed.
I suddenly felt cool all over.
I got it.
I almost laughed.
It was a vacuum cleaner.
It was the goddamn maid.
I came out from behind the bar on my hands and knees and scrambled up to the entrance to the living room. I looked across the living room toward the hall outside the arches, but I couldn’t see much.
I looked up at the camera on the ceiling.
The light still blinked, but I began to doubt it was a camera.
Probably a smoke alarm. And anyways, when the alarm was turned off, maybe the cameras were turned off too.
Maybe.
I had to risk it.
I darted across the living room like a flash, got over to the first archway, and looked through. I still couldn’t see much of anything; the angle was bad and just showed me those fancy glass stands with the old books on them.
I moved fast to the second arch, my back skimming against the wall.
There.
I saw her.
It was the maid.
I mean the cleaning lady.
She was turned away from me, a small woman in a pale blue knee-length dress, her graying black hair pulled into a bun. She was rolling this fancy vacuum cleaner over the floor, the kind that looks like a droid from Star Wars and probably cost a thousand bucks. She was bent over slightly and her head was lowered to check the red carpet as she rolled the vacuum back and forth.
I had to move while her back was still turned, while the vacuum cleaner still roared.
I was so nervous I thought I might puke.
What if she turned around?
What if I tripped or knocked something over, like one of those nifty glass stands?
She’d probably have a heart attack. This poor old lady would drop dead of a heart attack, and it’d be all my fault.
I couldn’t stand thinking about it.
So I didn’t think about it, but just stepped into the hall—one big long step. I mean, I almost practically jumped. The kitchen doorway was, like, twenty-five feet back and full of light.
I spun toward it, and just as I did, the vacuum cleaner went off.
I froze dead still.
I was, like, ten feet behind her.
I didn’t breathe.
I heard her do something. Maybe pull a piece of carpet out of the vacuum cleaner where it had snagged; there was this little ripping sound.
At my left was a stairwell. I hadn’t even seen it as I left the kitchen earlier; I passed right by it because it was sunk into the white wall. It led upstairs, on a curve up over my head.
I still held my breath.
If the maid turned, I was done.
But she didn’t turn.
The vacuum cleaner went on again. She started walking jerkily backwards, toward me, always walking backwards so as not to step on where she’d just vacuumed.
I couldn’t risk the kitchen anymore. It was too far. I sprang to the left and as quietly as possible ran up the stairs, hoping to god the maid couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the vacuum.
At the top of the stairs I jumped to safety and stopped. I dropped flat on the floor and peeked down through a railing.
The hall was straight under me, the front door way up at the end. The maid had come about a third of the way down. She still had her back turned.
I sat up with my back pressed against a wall. I raised my eyes and looked all around. There was a skylight above me. The whole hall was bright with mellow daylight glowing off the pearly white walls.
I saw plenty of windows—windows over roofs.
I could go through any of them, find a tree and climb down. I could pick a place where the roof wasn’t very visible through the tree branches outside, and I doubted any neighbors would even notice me.
I thought I’d do that, do it in just a few minutes, once I felt less nervous and got my breath back, because to tell you the truth, I still felt pretty nervous and a little out of breath. If the maid came upstairs, I could just hide anywhere, no problem.
I started to prepare myself for getting out. I even sat forward a little, you know, like I was going to maybe stand up.
But then I sat back again and didn’t budge.
Something had sort of occurred to me.
Maybe it was because I was just sitting there and had some peace for a minute and could catch my breath and everything, I don’t know. Because I started to think a little about the whole time I’d been in the house, and mostly about how all my feelings for Laura had been reactivated, like I said, and I have to admit that they felt more reactivated than ever, now that I was upstairs and had a second to sort of think and catch my breath.
I mean, up to then I’d really been thinking about how I had to leave, and mentally planning all the necessary steps for getting out of there.
But I must admit this thing occurred to me while I sat there, just listening to the maid downstairs, and I completely stopped thinking about leaving.
Because it suddenly occurred to me that
