Page 5 of Longing for Liberty

Instead of thinking, I looked down at the mug and imagined myself taking that last drink—my lips touching where his mouth had been.

The intrusive thought made me dizzy. Cameras were surely all over the penthouse.

I quickly dumped the coffee and cleaned the mug.

I dried it and opened cupboards until I found its spot, and then I memorized where every dish and utensil went.

The place was fairly clean, making me think of the last girl who’d worked here.

The girl who’d married early and been let go from this job.

It was probably best that I didn’t know what had happened.

My imagination was good enough on its own.

I wiped down every minuscule spot of the kitchen, getting into corners and underneath fancy appliances.

I found the cleaning closet in the hall and took everything out.

Halfway through sweeping the entire place, I was cursing my shoes and wishing I could take them off.

The terror of cameras was too great though.

Taking a moment to lift my ponytail hairs from my sweating neck, I tried to calm myself before continuing on.

Once I did a thorough cleaning today, each day after this would be easier as I focused on the places that got dirtiest the quickest.

As I bustled through, next filling a bucket with hot, soapy water, I tried not to think too much about the message I was pretty sure that girl Macey gave me today.

Secretary Fitzhugh was about forty years old.

If the last maid was unmarried, she’d probably been seventeen or eighteen.

So he liked younger girls. That gave me hope that he wouldn’t look twice at me.

I suppose I’d been cute back in the day with my long, wavy, reddish-blond hair, but that felt like a lifetime ago.

My hair was still long because haircuts were hard to come by, but I had some fine lines now.

Nothing crazy, but I couldn’t be confused for seventeen.

This was a good thing. Maybe this had been my boss Kathy’s line of thinking.

I started mopping the bedrooms first—there were three—the primary room and two smaller rooms with multiple beds for the children. I did those first, saving the primary bedroom for last.

Walking into the Secretary’s dim bedroom was a heady experience.

I stopped, momentarily overwhelmed by the masculine smells of expensive soap and cologne, which working men no longer had access to.

As much as I was loath to think it, I missed those smells on Jeremy, the way his cologne mixed with his natural scent.

Smelling it now, here, and enjoying it felt wrong.

Above the ample, plush-looking king bed and black leather headboard was a huge State flag in a frame. It looked just like the old flag with thirteen stripes for the original colonies, but now only one blue star was in the upper left corner. One State of America broken into four communities.

I worked quickly to get out of there.

The whole place was mopped. The bathrooms were sanitized and polished, every tiny whisker hair accounted for and removed.

He wasn’t a huge slob like some of the men I’d cleaned for, and he actually hung his towel, albeit sloppily.

But it didn’t matter because I washed all of the towels and sheets in his glorious, oversized washer and dryer.

Then I remade the bed, fluffed the pillows, and headed to the kitchen to start his dinner.

It was 4pm. My timing was perfect. I was almost finished and had made it through the whole day without seeing him.

In the refrigerator were all of the ingredients for a grilled chicken salad.

I read the instructions. The Secretary wanted his salad with any available vegetables, seasoned chicken, and two hard-boiled eggs.

No dairy. I set the lettuce, red bell pepper, red onion, and cucumber next to the sink to wash, noticing how vibrant and perfectly shaped the vegetables were compared to the ones from our community garden.

I started to wonder where the elite got their vegetables but decided not to go down that road of thought.

I set a pot of water on the stove and lit the flame for the eggs.

Next, I opened the butcher paper and gasped.

I hadn’t seen a full, plump chicken breast in years.

When we had a chicken protein month, it was either chunks scraped from carcasses or it was ground already.

I always had to sift through with my fingers for pieces of bones or cartilage, inevitably missing some and crunching down on them when I ate.

This piece of chicken was a beautiful thing of the past—something I’d taken for granted and sorely missed.

I internally banged down the rising anger and injustice I felt over the stupid chicken as I preheated the pan and finished prepping the meat, deciding to butterfly it.

The kitchen eventually filled with the scent of sizzling, well-seasoned meat, and my stomach grumbled.

I realized I’d been so focused I’d forgotten to stop for lunch.

The moment I acknowledged it, I felt light-headed.

I took out the stale peanut butter sandwich from my purse and quickly shoved it in my face while flipping the chicken, making sure to wash my hands between every single thing.

Everyone else could pretend germs didn’t exist, but if the Secretary ever got sick, I would know it wasn’t my fault.

I looked at the clock. 4:45.

“Come on, come on,” I whispered to nobody. I was so close to being finished and getting out of here.

I assembled the colorful salad with sliced egg along the sides. When the chicken was cool enough not to wilt the lettuce, I placed the slices on top and put the covered salad into the fridge for him with a shaken lemon pepper dressing.

Done!

Grabbing the basket and my purse, I rushed for the door, almost giddy now. As I reached for the handle, the door started to open. I had to jump back to avoid being hit, giving a startled yelp and dropping my purse and the empty basket to the floor.

A deep chuckle came from the doorway as I pressed a hand to my chest and looked up into the face of Amos Fitzhugh.