Still, I fantasized about the man behind the poem. Even three months later.
2
Britta
I was on edge as I pulled the sheets on the bed, tucking them tightly around the edges. He didn’t want us to change the sheets, Melody had said. Honestly, I wasn’t sure he even wanted us to make his bed but since I had to send the towels from the second floor down the chute anyway, I figured I’d check if his room was open and needing any services.
I’d only ever been in his room once before. Usually, his door was closed and, in our business, a closed door contractually meant “do not enter”. Though we’d all signed non-disclosure agreements, there were still clauses added to the contracts that told us how to determine when a space was off-limits, and that was almost always dictated by a closed door, or something hanging off the doorknob. As I continued to fluff his pillows and make his bed, I remembered back to the first, and only other time, I’d been in that space.
His door was open, so I relayed the information down to Melody using the house intercom. She’d replied that if it was open, we needed to at least check if the room needed servicing, like a vacuum, or an obvious mess to be cleaned. The green light from her let loose the butterflies in my belly—finally, I get to go into the bedroom of the man who remembers everything but his first kiss. The poem still excited and intrigued me, though I wasn’t sure I completely understood it.
It was dark with the floor to ceiling walls of glass covered by an ash-colored curtain that seemed to fall straight out of the ceiling. The smell of amber aftershave hung in the air and though I’d still not seen him, my pulse zoomed. That’s what he smells like. My nipples pebbled under my white button up, and I inhaled—deep and slow—trying to commit his scent to memory. Looking around the room, I noticed everything was, as the entire home was usually is, neat and tidy. The bed was made, the closet doors were closed, the bathroom lights all off. My breathing grew heavy despite my racing heart, and suddenly I wondered if he had accidentally left the door open. As curious as I was about him, I did not want to invade his privacy. Nothing in here needed any housecleaning services, he probably left the door open on accident. Instantly I left the room, not wanting to be caught in there by him.
Whoever he was.
It was strange because though I didn’t know him at all, but I was aware of him. I supposed he could be a grouchy old troll, for all it concerned, but the idea that he wasn’t a troll kept me going. I needed something to keep me going while trying to repay this insane debt. A silly crush is harmless enough.
Even if I were to meet him, I’m a maid. His maid.
He’s clearly a wealthy, mature, intellectual man. He wouldn’t even see me.
After making his bed, I dusted the lamp on his night table, lifting the empty whiskey glass to wipe away the ring. Had it been whiskey he was drinking last night? Quickly, I glanced around me to make sure Melody hadn’t come upstairs then, quietly, privately lifted the glass to my nose and inhaled. Faint, but yes, it was whiskey. Probably really expensive stuff, too, because it didn’t smell like alcohol and I knew from my mom that the expensive stuff was smooth. “Virtually tasteless,” she’d say in a titled grin.
I put the lid back on the laundry bin and held the glass to my chest as I made my way down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen.
“Mel?” I called for her, but we were nearing the end of our four hours, so she was probably on the second floor, finishing cleaning the home gym—the room she liked to end on. She said it made her motivated to work out after we got off work.
I stood at the sink, waiting for the water to get hot. It always warmed quicker if I turned it up so I pushed the handle, causing the stream of water to intensify.
“I remember my first vacation, I remember my first heartbreak, I remember my first drink, I don’t remember my first kiss,” I spoke the words out loud, watching the water in the infinity pool ripple in the calm spring breeze outside as I slid the glass under the stream, letting it fill and run over, repeatedly. “I remember everything.”
Mulling over his words again, I wonder if they’re about a lost love. Did he have a broken heart? Or was it simply about something else—maybe it was about sex, maybe he’d not been with a woman in years. Maybe he was a recluse who hadn’t left his house and had all these anxieties about returning to normal life. Maybe that was what it was about. Maybe the first kiss was symbolic for life or something.
I’d thought of this scenario before. I’d thought of many scenarios. But the fact of the matter was simple—I didn’t know much about him other than he liked whiskey before bed and lived alone. And that just wasn’t enough information to decipher a small poem that I probably shouldn’t have read in the first
