Page 12 of The Housemaid Is Watching

Fifteen minutes. Great.

“Millie!” His face lights up when he sees me, but then I notice he’s looking at the pie. “Apple pie… my favorite American dessert!”

“I made it,” I say, testing the waters.

“Really? It looks like from supermarket.”

Damn. I guess I didn’t make it rustic enough.

He comes over to give me a kiss, but I back away, holding up a hand to ward him off. “You’re filthy!”

“I was digging a hole,” he says, like it would be silly to think he was doing anything else. “I’ll shower after I do the baseball with Nico. He wants to practice.”

“Enzo.” I glare at him. “Suzette invited us for dinner! We need to be there in fifteen minutes. Remember?”

He looks at me blankly. I am amazed by his ability to forget any sort of social engagement, although he seems to be very good at keeping track of his work obligations.

“Oh,” he says. “Was it in the family calendar?”

Enzo always tells me to put things in the family calendar on our phones, but as far as I can tell, he does not check that—ever. “Yes, it was.”

“Oh.” He scratches his neck with his dirt-encrusted hand. “I guess… I shower now then.”

Honestly, sometimes it’s like having a third child. Actually, he is more like the second child, because Ada is much more like an adult.

I turn back to the pie. On a whim, I throw it into the oven. Maybe if it’s hot, I can pass it off as my own. Somehow, I feel this desperate need to impress Suzette Lowell. I’ve worked for a lot of women like Suzette back in the days when I was cleaning houses,but I’ve never been in a position to be anything more than the servant of a woman like her.

I don’t like Suzette, but if we can be friends with the Lowells, it’s a step up. It means I have finally achieved the normal life I always dreamed of. The life I’d do anything to get.

SEVEN

Twenty minutes later, we are standing at the front door of 12 Locust Street.

It took a little longer than expected. Even though Enzo took a quick shower, he then came downstairs in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt, because of course he did. So I had to send him back upstairs to change into something a little more respectable. Now he’s wearing the button-up black dress shirt I bought him six months ago when I realized he had absolutely no dress shirts, and as expected, it perfectly complements his dark eyes and hair, and he looks achingly handsome. Also as expected, he looks very uncomfortable and like there’s a chance he might rip it off at some point during the evening. (Suzette woulddie.)

The apple pie is now warm, which helps it look more homemade. It’s also very hot to hold. It’s currently scalding my hands, and I can’t wait to put it down.

Nico is tugging at his own short-sleeved dress shirt, which has an even higher chance of being ripped off due to discomfort tonight than his father’s. “Do we have to go to a boring dinner?”

“Yes,” I say.

“But I want to play baseball with Dad.”

“We won’t be there long.”

“What are they making for dinner?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I watch TV while we’re there?”

I turn my head to glare at my son. “No, you cannot.”

I look over at Enzo for support, although he looks like he’s trying not to laugh. He probably wishes he could watch TV too.

After a minute of my hands being scorched by the supermarket pie, an unfamiliar woman pulls open the front door. She is about sixty years old and built like a linebacker, with graying hair pulled back into a tight bun. She has the most perfect posture I’ve ever seen—like if you put a book on her head and checked on it two days later, it would still be there. She’s got on a flowered dress with a white apron over it. She stares at me with dull gray eyes that bore right into me.

“Um, hello…” I say uncertainly. I check the house number on the door, as if I might have somehow gone to the wrong house next door. “I’m Millie. We’re here for…”