Page 22 of The Housemaid Is Watching

Ada looks at me like I’ve lost my ever-loving mind. “No, thank you.”

“Do you have any friends that you want to have playdates with?” I ask her. “I’m happy to drive you.”

She shakes her head. I hope she’s making friends at school. She is not nearly as outgoing as Nico, but she has always had her little tight group of friends at school. It must be hard to start over in fifth grade, and Ada is not the type to complain. Maybe I’ll suggest a girls’ night out for the two of us, and I can probe a bit to see how things are going.

I consider inviting Enzo along, but then I realize I haven’t seen him all afternoon. He must be working. He had a lot of clients back in the city, but he’s trying to relocate all hisbusiness to the island, so he’s been hustling a lot. He’s incredibly concerned with our ability to make our mortgage payments. I appreciate what he’s doing, but at the same time, I wish he were around more.

Anyway, it looks like it’s just going to be me and Nico heading over there. So I grab my purse and we walk across the cul-de-sac to 13 Locust—the house that supposedly used to be for servants. As we pass Suzette’s house on the way over, I can’t help but notice a lot of noise coming from the backyard. What are they doing back there?

When Janice opens the door for us, her face falls, like in spite of the invitation, she had been hoping we might not show.

“Oh,” she says. “Come in, I guess.”

“Thanks,” I say.

As we step onto the welcome mat inside her house, she points down at our feet. “Shoes off.”

I slip out of my closed-toe sandals, and Nico kicks off his sneakers, which, to my horror, go flying down the hallway. I race over to retrieve them and place them gingerly in the shoe rack. We have barely left the house today, so I have no idea why his sneakers are caked in dirt. And when I look at his socks, they are equally dirty. How did that happen?

“Why are your socks so dirty?” I ask him.

“I was playing in the backyard, Mom.”

“In yoursocks?”

Nico shrugs.

He ends up peeling off his socks, and underneath the socks, his feet arealsodirty, but I guess less dirty than the shoes or the socks. I need to dip this kid in bleach tonight.

Spencer and Nico seem overjoyed to see each other, like long-lost friends, even though they were in school together literally two days ago. They race off to the backyard, as Janice shouts after Spencer, “Be careful!”

Janice is wringing her hands together, looking in the direction of the backyard. I don’t know if I should offer to stay or if she even wants me here. What she really looks like she needs is a stiff drink. She finally turns to me, and I’m certain she’s going to offer me some lemonade or cheese and crackers, but instead she says, “How often do you check Nico for lice?”

My mouth drops open. I want to be offended, but Nico has actually had lice three times. So has Ada, and that was much harder to deal with, because you can’t exactly shave the head of an eight-year-old girl. That’s the sort of thing she would have been describing in therapy years later.

But I definitely took a razor to my son’s head. He wasn’t thrilled about it at first, but when Enzo offered to shave his own head too, then it became fun.

“He doesn’t have lice,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. “But how do youknow?”

I don’t know what to say to that. “He’s not scratching so…”

“Do you have a good lice comb?”

“Um, yes…”

“What brand?”

I don’t know if I can take much more of this. I mean, I dislike lice as much as the next person, which is a lot. But it’s not a favorite topic of conversation.

“Listen,” I say, “I should get going…”

“Oh.” Janice’s face falls. “I thought maybe you could stay for a bit. I squeezed some fresh juice.”

Her face fills with genuine disappointment. Even though she was so rude about my choice to be a working mother, if she does stay home all day, she might be very lonely. And I’ve never been great at making friends either. Maybe Janice and I got off on the wrong foot, and she’ll be my first friend in Long Island. I mean,onLong Island.

“I’d love to try your juice,” I say.