Page 23 of The Housemaid Is Watching

Janice perks up a little, and I follow her to the kitchen. Not surprisingly, her kitchen is immaculate. The floor looks cleaner than my countertops. She has a kitchen table like I do, and it has place settings and coasters on it. Janice reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a giant pitcher of something thick and grainy and green. She pours two brimming glasses of it and slides one across the table to me.

“Don’t forget to use a coaster,” she tells me as I bring my glass to the kitchen table.

As Janice settles down at the table across from me, I examine the liquid in my glass. Well, it’s almost a liquid. It has some properties of liquids. “What is it, exactly?”

“It’sjuice,” she says, like I have asked a very stupid question.

I want to ask what she put in it that made it this vivid shade of green. I can’t think of any green fruits that I enjoy eating. Well, there’s honeydew, but I don’t know if I would want to have honeydew in drink form.

But she’s watching me, and I realize that I have got to take a sip of this alleged juice. Well, maybe it’s better than it looks—it almost has to be. I wrap my fingers around the glass, lift it to my mouth, and then bottoms up. I take a mouthful of it and…

Oh my God.

This is not better than it looks. Somehow it’s worse. This might be the grossest thing I’ve ever had in my mouth. It is taking all my self-restraint not to spit it right back into the glass. It tastes like she took the grass outside in the backyard, dirt and all, and then turned it into a drink.

“Delicious, right?” Janice takes a healthy swig. “And believe it or not, it’s very nutritious too.”

I just nod because I’m still working on trying to swallow the current mouthful.

“So,” she says, “how are you liking your new house?”

“I love it,” I say honestly. “It needs a bit of work, but we’re very happy with it.”

“Most houses do when you buy them,” she says. “And I’m sure you got a very good price on it.”

I lick my lips and am immediately sorry because they taste like the green substance. “Why do you say that?”

“Because nobody else wanted it.”

Janice’s words make me forget all about the bitter taste of juice in my mouth. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Only one other person put in a bid. And they withdrew it.”

That’s not what our real estate agent told us. She made it sound like there were other bids, but they were on the low side. Was she lying to us? Were we really the only ones interested in this cozy but gorgeous house in an excellent school district?

How could that be?

“Why wasn’t anyone bidding on it?” I ask Janice, trying not to let on how curious I am.

“I haven’t the faintest clue,” she replies. “It’s a fine house from the outside. Well built. Good roof.”

Well, that’s a relief.

“It must be something on theinside,” she adds.

Something on theinside? What’s inside my house that scared off the dozens of other couples who must have visited the house?

I can’t help but think of that horrible scraping noise that kept me awake at night. I was so happy when we got the call that the house was ours. But there hasn’t been a day that has gone by since we moved in when I haven’t wondered if I’ve made a horrible mistake…

“So,” Janice says, crisply changing the subject, “how was dinner with Suzette and Jonathan the other night?”

I jerk my head up, feeling a flash of irritation. Okay, now it makes sense why she wanted me to stay. She wants to pumpme for gossip about the neighbors.That’swhy I’m here—not to sample her juice concoction.

“It was good,” I say. The last thing I want is to trash-talk Suzette and let it get back to her.

“Good? That’s hard to believe.”

“They seem nice.”