The work Catherine did in the Edgar house wasn’t unlike the work she had done in the governor’s hacienda at Guadalajara, except on a smaller scale. She cleaned the kitchen and handled the laundry, and on her second night she helped Maddy prepare a meal. She met the Edgar child the first morning, a six-year-old recovering from the chicken pox who came into the kitchen and gurgled, “Hello: orange juice,” at the new housekeeper. Maddy came in and said, “You don’t need Catherine to get your orange juice, Jane. It’s where it always is.” Jane said to her mother, “Catherine? Is everyone in the universe named Catherine?” When Jane was gone, Catherine noticed Maddy looking at her the way other people had looked at her; she was seized by dread.
Maddy realized with some annoyance that she’d passed some twenty-four hours with this girl under her roof and hadn’t really looked at her. She could be anybody, Maddy thought; she’s a complete stranger and I’ve brought her into my house where my six-year-old sleeps. The other thing that annoyed Maddy, as a thought that didn’t coalesce until later when she was driving Jane to the doctor, was that for the first time ever, in the midst of a thousand girls in Hollywood with whom her husband came into contact all the time, Maddy was intimidated by a woman’s beauty. She may be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, Maddy realized: how could I not have noticed that yesterday? I must have been distracted. It was as though her face weren’t there, as though it became part of the house as soon as she stepped into it. All Maddy had seen were her bare feet. Maybe it’s an attitude I have about servants, she thought, maybe Lew is right: growing up in Pasadena made me a rich bitch whether we had money or not.
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
