Pleasure Palace by Marian Thurm

Author:Marian Thurm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Housecleaning (2000)

The young husband-and-wife team that the cleaning service has sent over arrives ten minutes early, which pleases me no end.

“There’s nothing like starting off on the right foot,” I tell them buoyantly, and hold the door open as they drag in an industrial-strength vacuum and a shopping cart full of cleaning supplies. The man, who introduces himself as Dell, is startlingly tall—halfway between six and seven feet, I’d guess—and has a cigarette tucked behind each ear. His wife, Starlet, a tiny figure in a zippered teal-blue jumpsuit, has her hair just like Mary Martin’s in Peter Pan. I eye her worriedly, already convinced that Starlet is too small and delicate for the heavy workload in store for them.

“And who’s this?” I ask. Hanging back behind the threshold of the doorway is a little girl; as the child stands there gazing downward at the rubber welcome mat, I admire her dress, which has a large black-and-white likeness of a winking cat across the front, one eye ornamented with a rhinestone. The child is wearing black leggings that end a little past her knee and beat-up-looking sneakers with Velcro closures.

“That’s Princess,” Dell says. “Just stick her in front of the TV and you won’t hear a word out of her.”

“I’m hungry and I have to go to the bathroom,” says Princess, but remains in the doorway. She flicks away the thin dark bangs that are hanging in her eyes and takes a single step forward.

“You know,” I say to Dell, “I’ve got mattresses that need to be turned, heavy couches that have to be pulled away from the wall … there’s actually quite a lot for you to do. Do you really think your wife’s strong enough for that kind of work?”

“Not to worry,” says Starlet, and places her hand briefly on my shoulder. “We’re the best in the business. We’re a great team.”

At fifty dollars an hour you ought to be, I almost say, but do not. (Having lived through the Depression, I can still remember when you stopped in the street to pick up a penny because it was worth the effort.)

“Fine,” I say now. “My husband’s being discharged from the hospital tomorrow and what I’d really like is to have everything spotless. If you can manage it.”

“Heart attack?” Starlet says.

“What? No, he’s asthmatic. He had a very severe attack. It scared the hell out of me,” I say. “He—”

“The master bedroom’s that way?” Dell asks. “We’ll set up in there first.”

I nod, waving him past. My husband, Sidney, stopped breathing halfway through the eleven o’clock news last week, and if not for a neighbor in our condo who knew CPR, I would have lost Sidney right there in our den, just as the weather forecaster in his smart-looking blue blazer was poised in front of his map predicting three straight days of rain for the Miami–Fort Lauderdale area. Marvin Greenspan, the neighbor who resuscitated Sidney and summoned the paramedics, happens to be a courtly, handsome man with not a hair on his head.

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