Page 10 of The Housekeeper

“No brownie for me, thank you,” Tracy said.

“Tracy is very health-conscious,” our father explained as I reached for the biggest one.

“I’m lucky,” Tracy said. “I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth.”

“Unlike Jodi,” our father added, shaking his head. “Audrey and I found her in the pantry one afternoon, having eaten her way through an entire box of chocolate chip cookies.”

“I was five at the time,” I reminded him.

Elyse laughed. “Sounds just like me. I could honestly eat nothing but desserts all day.”

“And yet you manage to stay so slim,” my father remarked.

“Good metabolism.” Elyse shrugged. “And the luck of the draw. Well?” she asked, looking from me to my father. “What’s the verdict?”

“Delicious,” my father and I said together.

At last,I thought.Something we agree on.

“I’m so glad. There’s milk and sugar for the tea.” Elyse’s long, elegant fingers motioned toward the middle of the table.

“Neither for me,” Tracy said as I helped myself to both.

“So,” Elyse began. “I’m sure you have questions. Who wants to go first?”

We spent the next half hour discussing my father’s requirements and concerns. But it was just for show, really. We all knew it was a done deal. The invisible contract had been signed the minute Elyse waltzed through the front door twenty minutes early, carrying a plate of homemade brownies. Even before Tracy and I arrived, she’d managed to disarm our father with her effortless charm and trim physique.

Although being my father, he wasn’t about to let her know that.

“Would you mind letting us talk everything over?” he asked as she was clearing the kitchen table. “Jodi will get back to you this evening.”

“Sounds perfectly reasonable,” Elyse replied. If she was at all put off by the request, it didn’t show. “It was a real pleasure meeting you both,” she said to Tracy and my father as she was leaving. “And please say goodbye to Mrs. Dundas for me.”

We watched her walk down the front path. Once again, it took all my self-restraint to keep from running after her and tackling her to the ground.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked my father as he was shutting the front door. “What’s there to talk about? She’s phenomenal!” I looked to Tracy for confirmation.

Tracy shrugged. “It’s up to Dad.”

“You don’t think she’s perfect?” I pressed.

“She seems nice enough,” Tracy conceded. “But it’s not whatIthink that counts.”

Our father smiled. “You can call Mrs. Woodley this evening. Tell her we talked it over and we’re willing to give it a go.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell her that before she left.”

“Because it’s never a good idea to let the help get the upper hand,” he said, winking at Tracy, as if it was something I would never understand.

“Okay. Fine. Whatever,” I said, silently bristling at his condescending use of the word “help,” and thinking we’d be lucky if Elyse stuck around a week before running for the hills.

“I should get going,” Tracy said.

“Aren’t you going to say hi to Mom?”

“Of course I’m going to say hi to Mom,” Tracy said, although the daggers shooting from her eyes indicated she’d had no such intention.

I followed her up the wide staircase. The top floor had four bedrooms, two at the front of the house and two at the back, each with its own en suite bathroom. When we were little, my sister and I had shared the larger room overlooking the street, our father using the room across the hall as his home office.