WARNING/DISCLAIMER: It’s Uber. It might be scary. It might have sex. There could even be violence. So, it’s for grown ups.
FEEDBACK: Is welcome. p.phair@comcast.net or you can visit my web site at http://www.phair1.com
The jarring clang of metal slamming against metal snapped Taylor from the depths of exhausted sleep. She fought to break loose from the covers as she rolled off the narrow cot in the room under the kitchen stairs. Landing hard on her ass on the damp cellar floor amid a tangle of sheets, she let out a yelp. She tried to calm herself with a deep breath before finally extricating herself from the knot of linens. Taylor managed to drag her weary body to her feet and climb up the stairs to find out who was making such a terrible racket in the middle of the night.
"What the…," Taylor bit back harsh words when she found Madame DuPrey standing in the middle of the kitchen slamming two pans together.
"You lazy, girl," Madame scolded. "I’ve been trying to wake you for forty five seconds. You sleep like a dead thing."
"Ah, I’m sorry," Taylor squinted against the glare of the bare light bulb illuminating the sparking clean kitchen. "Bailey and I worked really hard yesterday to finish this room. Guess I overslept. What time is it anyway?"
"Four o’ five."
"In the morning?" Taylor glanced out the grimy window and saw darkness.
"Of course," Madame said with a sneer. "How else will you be ready for breakfast at five and to start work at five fifteen? Now, go! Go out and shower. You’re filthy. You not only sleep like the dead, you are beginning to smell like them too."
With that pronouncement and a wave of her hand, Madame ambled back through the swinging door into the pitch black hallway.
"Yes, Madame. Whatever you say, Madame," Taylor mumbled under her breath.
Taylor’s muscles throbbed with each step down the stairs. She wondered if she would be able to move tomorrow after another brutal day of scrubbing. Bailey was not wrong about Sagamore Place. It was old, and dirty, and filled with all manner of vile creatures.
"Although, I’d take bumping into a mouse over Igor any time," Taylor chuckled to herself as she grabbed her shower supplies from the chair in her cramped room.
The predawn air was crisp. Dew covered the grass, chilling her bare feet. She hurried her steps up the path to the shower under the kitchen window. Taylor began to worry when she heard the water already running.
"Please be Bailey. Please, let it be Bailey. I don’t think I could stomach seeing Madame naked this early in the morning," Taylor whispered. "Then again, I don’t ever want to see Madame’s bare butt."
Shivering under the sputtering water spray stood a wet and very naked Bailey.
"Thank you, God," Taylor was truly grateful.
"What, what you thankin’ him for? It’s fr, friggin’ cold," Bailey stuttered the curse.
"Hey, I’m glad it’s you and not our landlord I’m staring at," Taylor grinned when Bailey laughed out loud.
The light from the kitchen window barely brightened the shower area. Of course, calling it a shower was being more than generous. The contraption was nothing more than a garden hose duct taped to the side of the house. A sprinkler head had been screwed on to it giving the cascading water more of a rain like effect. Below Bailey’s feet was a piece of plywood; a futile effort to keep the mud down. Just out of the splash range was a wooden bench.
"Can I leave my stuff over here?"
"Ya, it’ll be safe enough," Bailey stepped out from under the water and grabbed her towel. "The raccoons are back to bed by now and the squirrels aren’t up yet."
"You make it sound like the vermin have little furry schedules," Taylor laughed.
"No kiddin’, even the rats around here have a routine. I don’t know about you but I think it’s better to know what’s likely to come crawling out of the dark and bite me in the ass," Bailey explained as she tried to dry herself with the tattered remains of what was once a cheap hand towel.
"Hey, I’ve got my bathrobe so you can use this. I was only going to dry my hair with it," Taylor offered her fluffy pink towel. "That dishrag will never get you dry."
Bailey hesitated a moment. She reached out a tentative hand but did not take the offering. Taylor had to close the short distance between them in order to hand the woman the towel.
"Thank you, so much," Bailey’s voice cracked has she held the gift close to her chest. "I’ll wash it by hand and get it back to you tonight."
"Keep it, I’ve got another and…, oh my,…son of a piss,…geeze," Taylor squealed as she stepped under the frigid spray.
"Try to keep breathin’ through your nose so you don’t pass out," Bailey advised as she dried herself.
"Can’t breath, heart stopped," Taylor shuddered under the relentlessly cold spray.
"You’re just trying to get out of cleaning the bedrooms," Bailey chuckled, pulling on her jeans.
"What ‘bout the first floor…, mother of…," Taylor’s gargled cry was drowned out when she turned to face the frigid water.
"Don’t know nothin’ ‘bout the first floor. Madame said we be haulin’ boxes from the attic to set up the guest rooms."
"Do you think I’m clean enough?" Taylor asked when she took a side step away from the tormenting water.
"Ya, squeaky," Bailey answered without looking up as she tied her sneaker. "Hey, Taylor, what kind of stuff are you studying at college?"
"I’m working on a masters in English Literature," Taylor sighed after wrapping herself in the soft warmth of her bathrobe.
"Whatcha do with that kind of …," Bailey stopped because she didn’t know the right word.
"Degree?" Taylor saw Bailey shrug unsure so she continued. "Ya, masters degree. Well, my Dad thinks I’ll be the best educated book store clerk in Boston. But, I want to stick with it and get a Phd so I can teach at the college level and do research."
"Oh," Bailey knew she was way out of her usual social circle with Taylor.
"What about you? When you finish here, what’s next?" Taylor asked before sitting on the bench next to Bailey.
"Ain’t no master’s degree waiting on me and that’s for sure," Bailey started to get up, feeling the need to make a quick escape but Taylor grabbed her arm.
"I wasn’t being mean. I really want to know what you think you might do in the fall. Or, what you want to do," Taylor tried to explain.
"Why? You want to know if I’m gonna pick up where I left off? Is that it? You think I’m gonna run right back to the gutter they dragged me out of, don’t you?" Bailey hissed.
"No."
Bailey was surprised that no further defense was attempted, "Then why do you want to know?"
"You asked about me because you’re curious. So, I guess, I asked about you for the same reason," Taylor explained.
"Well, I don’t want to talk about me with you or Madame or Igor or that probation guy," Bailey pulled free of Taylor’s grasp and stomped back to her shed.
Taylor sighed heavily. The morning had been going so well and she ruined it with an innocent question. It seemed everything at Sagamore Place required a great deal of patience and tremendous effort.
***
Breakfast had been a quiet affair. The four occupants sat around the kitchen table for a full fifteen minutes and ate hot cereal in complete silence. Room temperature water was the only beverage provided. Taylor yawned halfway through the meal which drew a warning frown from the Madame.
"I miss my tea," Taylor thought as she followed Bailey out of the kitchen toward the attic after they cleared the plates.
They had been informed that the rooms were named, not numbered. Their job was to go to the attic and find the boxes for each of the rooms and unpack. Madame expected all six rooms to be cleaned and set up by evening. She made it very clear no excuses would be accepted. Taylor worried what that kind of threat would mean for Bailey.
"Okay, I doubled checked and this is the last box for the Algonquin Room," Taylor announced after setting the box on the round, cherry wood table near the fireplace.
"The bed is made. The fireplace is closed off so we don’t need to do anything there," Bailey gave a big grin. "All that’s left here is unpacking these last few boxes."
Taylor noted one was already open, "What’s in ‘em?"
"Really old magazines. Like from 1915, 1920. Why would anybody want junk like this cluttering up the place?" Bailey pulled one out and began to wave it around.
"Easy there. That is a mint condition Vanity Fair. It’s worth a bit of money." Taylor took another faded magazine from the box, "Wow, Vogue. Bailey, I think there’s a trend here."
"Like what?
Taylor went back to the box on the table.
"Here we go! Playbill, theater reviews, a copy to the screenplay for A Star is Born…Dorothy Parker!"
"She at the bottom of the box," Bailey cracked.
Taylor ignored the joke, "We are in the Algonquin Room and here is a round table. Dorothy Parker was part of a writer’s circle known as the Algonquin Round Table. She wrote for these magazines during the 1900’s. And she won an Oscar for co-writing A Star is Born, I think. I bet all the rooms are a sort of weird little shrine."
"So," Bailey was clearly unimpressed.
"It’s like a theme park for writers. They pay to come here, relax, talk about what they do in an environment that idolizes the greats of the past."
"Well, I don’t think the folks in Florida need to worry about this idea catching on. It’s boring. What happened to this Dorothy anyway?" Bailey asked.
"A couple of bad marriages, a heartbreaking affair, she got really cynical which cost her jobs and friends. I think she died alone in a hotel. Not a happy ending."
"Great, dull and depressing." Bailey laughed.
"Such is the fate of many a writer."
"That’s why I want to be a painter," Bailey whispered without looking up from the box at her feet.
Taylor felt a rush. Bailey was trusting her enough to reveal part of herself.
"If you’d let me," Taylor replied, "I loved to see you work sometime."
"I’d like that too."