After coming clean to Max about wrecking his car reservation, I’d returned to the house heading for my upstairs office when three cars—a black sedan with deep tinted windows flanked by two unmarked police cars with their lights on—blew into the driveway at top speed and then, just as quickly, came to a perfectly centered, graceful stop in the middle of the circular drive.
I had two thoughts:
- Who is this?
- Am I ever actually going to make it to my upstairs office today?
The cacophony of car doors opening and closing was quickly silenced by the commotion of the front door being flung open. Two suit-wearing, sunglass-clad plainclothes policemen barged in, took a look at me, took a look in my upstairs office and the sitting room opposite, took positions on either side of the hall and then stood stock still.
The Lieutenant Governor
As the cloud of chaos dissipated, a tall woman calmly and gracefully walks up the front steps, through the (still open) front door, glides across the entry hall and stops right in front of me.
“Hello. I’m Kathleen,” she said.
Oh, seriously, I think to myself, the lieutenant governor of Maryland just walked up to me and introduced herself. For (at least) the second time in as many days I tell myself to act as though this happens to you every day.
I smile.
“Welcome home, Madame Gover…”
My inner monologue starts screaming, “HOW DO YOU ADDRESS A LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR?? OH GOD, YOU CAN’T SCREW THIS UP, TOO. YOU MEMORIZED AND REHEARSED ALL THIS AND JESUS HOW CAN YOU MESS THI…”
“…welcome home, Lieutenant Governor,” I corrected myself.
“Thank you…” she stops and gives me a questioning look.
“Brett,” I said.
“Thank you, Brett.”
“Max and Mrs. K are down at the pool.”
She looks through the dining room, out the open door and heads towards the pool. Her security detail doesn’t budge.
The Book Launch
With tranquility restored to the entry hall and having given myself a moment to revel in the fact that I’d just met the lieutenant governor of Maryland, I take one step towards my upstairs office. Out of nowhere the woman-whose-name-I-forget appears holding a tatty sheet of yellow legal paper covered in scribbled writing.
“Oh good. There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “We need to go over the logistics for tonight’s book launch party.”
“Book launch party?”
“Yes. Max wrote a book and there’s a party here tonight to honor it.”
It suddenly dawns on me that I hadn’t seen or spoken to Mrs. K. yet today. And it further dawns on me that this person who has a list of things to do thinks she’s in charge? Who is this woman?
In that moment I felt like I’d lost the confidence of my employer and lost control of the house. I’d also lost all confidence in myself. “Why am I here?” my inner voice start, “If she doesn’t think I can handle this…”
“Brett!” the woman said, interrupting my silent mental meltdown. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get the dead pine tree removed before tonight, so she’s just going to have to be angry about that.”
“You’re right,” I said.
We divide the tasks between us and she heads for the kitchen.
Post-Its in the China Room
“Brad!” she bellows as she wanders in from outside.
“Well…she’s getting closer,” I think to myself.
“Come downstairs with me. I need to show you what china is going to Massachusetts,” she says.
“They’ve had houses there for decades,” I think to myself, “and they don’t keep it stocked with dish ware? Odd.”
She heads for the stairs with me in tow. At the bottom of the stairs she opens a door I hadn’t noticed before. We enter a large storage room filled with rows of boxes stacked high on one another.
“This goes. This goes. This goes,” she says pointing to boxes as she squeezes through the tight walkways between the rows.
I’m madly scribbling notes on a sheet of paper until I realize she’s stopped talking. I look up to find her staring at me in utter disbelief.
“There are yellow Post-It notes on the boxes that go, Bryce,” she says. “Also, make sure the everyday silver gets packed and goes.”
“Everyday silver?” I think to myself. “They use silver every day…”
“This is also the wine cellar,” she continues, pointing to one of the walls. “I’m sure there’s an inventory somewhere. Just be sure the everyday stuff is kept chilled.”
I follow her gaze to a case of Cavit Pinot Grigio on the floor. (Without a Post-It, I note.) Then I take another look at the wall of wine. A floor-to-ceiling lattice held hundreds of bottles of wine. Most of them dusty.
“I have a few more things I need you to get,” she says, “but they’re on a notecard upstairs.”
The ‘Every Day’ Silver
I grab a couple bottles of Pinot Grigio, tuck one under my arm, shut the door to the china room/wine cellar and follow her upstairs.
Back upstairs in the entry hall, there’s a notecard on the newel post of the staircase to the second floor. She hands it to me.
“Be sure to buy two of the electric toothbrushes. I don’t remember the brand. You can find it in my bathroom. They seem like they’re difficult to get, so that’s why I want two.”
She turns and walks through the dining room to the backyard.
I shove the notecard in my pocket and head to the kitchen to put the two wine bottles in my hands in the fridge. Walking in to the kitchen, I find the cook-who-quit unloading the dishwasher.
“So I guess the cook didn’t quit,” I think to myself.
I set the wine on the counter and she looks up.
“I want to be sure there are always two bottles of this wine chilled,” I say. “Will you put them in the fridge for me.”
She glares.
“Is that the ‘everyday silver’ you’re unloading from the dishwasher?” I ask, completely ignoring her glare.
“Yes.”
“Why are we running silver through the dishwasher??”
“She doesn’t care,” she says. “She told me I can do it.”
“Okay.”
I pick up a fork and a spoon to commit the pattern to memory and notice that the frequent dishwashing has mottled the silver. I shake my head trying to comprehend a reality where using actual silverware on a daily basis is the norm and running it through the dishwasher is okay.
I hand the fork and knife to the cook and glance out to the backyard through the open kitchen door. I see unfamiliar people down at the pool. “Who’s here now?” I think to myself leaving the kitchen and heading in their direction.