Page 7 of Wished

Dorene knocks her fist against the back of her van and then swings open the doors. They let out a querulous creak, like they’re protesting the early-morning wake-up thump. The van should be used to it though—Dorene always gives it a whack before opening the back end. She’s superstitious and has specific rituals to make sure her day goes the way she’d like. Whacking the van before opening the doors is one of those rituals. She also plugs and unplugs the vacuum three times before the first use of the day. And she refuses to clean any rooms with books in them. I don’t know why. That’s just Dorene. I don’t mind—I like rooms with books. They’re cozier. Homier. Happier.

The astringent scent of bleach and furniture polish greets us as Dorene and I pull free the supplies we’ll need to clean. We move in the steady choreography of partners who have been working together for years.

Dorene brought me on seven years ago, after my stepdad left and my mom and I were in a tough spot. She told me, “This may not be the job you dreamed of, but it’s a job, and that’s more than you have now. What do you say?”

I said yes.

Before that day, I’d only known her as our frizzy-haired, wrinkled neighbor who chain-smoked in a lawn chair on the stoop while watching angsty art films at maximum volume on an ancient portable TV.

I never knew she watched art films because her late husband was a French director in the eighties, or that in her twenties she sang mezzo-soprano in the opera, or that once she drove naked through the streets of Paris in a stolen Bugatti convertible, belting out “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem. The owner of the Bugatti proposed to her after that escapade. She turned him down.

Dorene drops a bucket full of cleaning supplies to the gravel and grunts as I pull out the vacuum.

“It’s too bad,” she says, giving the chateau a gimlet-eyed appraisal, “that the owner of this chateau is not as appealing.”

I think about Maximillian Barone. He’s here sometimes, when we’re cleaning. It’s a full-day job for us, from 6:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. There are twelve bedrooms, six bathrooms, a mammoth kitchen, a butler pantry, a staff kitchen, two formal living rooms, a library, two home offices, a gym, a garage full of exotic and vintage sports cars . . . You get the idea. It’s a big job.

Usually, he’s gone by the time we’re punching in our code at the front door, but sometimes he’s still here. Or sometimes he works from home.

I have to admit, I like those days. The chateau feels less empty and less cold. All those closed-up rooms echo with too much emptiness when it’s just Dorene and me.

We dust them, we vacuum, but the deep cleaning is reserved for the rooms Max uses. His bedroom. His office. The library. The kitchen. The gym.

If he’s here and he sees me he gives a quick nod, a polite, “Madame,” and that’s that.

There’s only one time in three years he’s said more than that single word to me. It was the first time I saw him, the fourth time we cleaned his home. I felt I already knew him a little. It’s hard not to learn things about someone when you clean their house.

I knew he had a sweet tooth and that he loved milk chocolate and hazelnut ice cream. I knew he preferred mint toothpaste and that he used a hand-milled soap that smelled like autumn rain in the mountains. I knew he was meticulously neat and always picked up his laundry and made his bed. I knew he listened to classical music in the library from the playlist left open, and I knew he watched British detective shows while making his dinner from the episodes paused and waiting to resume. I knew he was slowly working his way through the stack of Dickens novels on his nightstand, although I didn’t know whether he was reading them because he liked Dickens or because Dickens put him to sleep. I knew he had straight black hair, thick stubble, and from the clothes he owned, he was probably in his early thirties.

I’d never seen him. I hadn’t looked him up. But I thought I knew him. A little.

I thought I had him figured out.

Then I walked into his office, pushing the vacuum in front of me, the roaring hum drowning out all ambient noise. I didn’t expect him to be home. Dorene was upstairs working her way through the bathrooms. I had a pair of headphones on and I was listening to Motown. My family’s from Detroit, and when I was little we always played Motown when we cleaned our house every Saturday.

I was sashaying with the vacuum, doing a sort of half-dance, half-push move. The main office was large, with old, honey-colored wood floors, a massive desk, and a computer that collected dust like a miser hoarding gold coins. There was a large potted plant in the corner that I liked to say hello to while I dusted its leaves. The room always smelled like warm leather, printer toner, and sunshine on wood floors.

I didn’t look at the desk. I was watching the vacuum as I thrust it across the wood floor in time with the music and my mostly terrible singing voice. But then a slow tickle swept over my spine until a buzzing tingle, almost like the vibration of the vacuum, infused my whole body.

I was vibrating with a strange awareness I’d never felt before.

The office didn’t smell like printer toner. Instead it smelled like coffee, hazelnut croissant, and Max’s hand-milled soap.

I paused in a spray of sunlight falling through the lead paned window and slowly turned toward Max’s desk.

He was there, watching me as if he’d just asked me a question and he was waiting for my answer.

I couldn’t say anything.

I couldn’t move.

The blasting chords of Motown disappeared. The roar of the vacuum receded. The familiar, comfortable lines of the office faded.

He wasbeautiful.

He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

Not classically beautiful. Not magazine beautiful. Not movie-star beautiful.

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