Chore Whore (4 page)

I quietly put the groceries away. As I place them in Jock's stainless steel side-by-side Sub-Zero, I can't help hearing what's happening in the living room: slurping.

Jock calls out, “Oh, by the way, Cork?”

“Yes?” I say as I enter the living room. He strokes Icy's ass and she turns her face toward the couch cushion, running her hand over his six-pack abs.

“There's some stuff in the out basket for you. And what's going on with Concepcion? She didn't do all the laundry in the hamper. I need some clothes laundered before she comes back on Monday. I gave her tomorrow and Friday off and look what she does. This is terrible.”

“I'll drop them off to be done tonight and pick them up tomorrow. Is that okay?” I ask.

“Mmmmmm, yes, that would be perfect,” he moans. “There is one other thing in the out basket I'll be needing today. Probably sooner than later.”

I slip into the office. Concepcion's list awaits me: green kitchen sponges, Windex, a new mop, vacuum bags and laundry detergent. Under her list is an unopened condom. No note. I don't need one, I know what I have to do. Find this particular brand and find it quickly. He has apparently changed brands while my back was turned. This rubber with its “pleasure-enhancing pouch” offers “oodles of sexual pleasure.” It certainly doesn't look like typical grocery store or pharmacy fare.

The clock reads 2:16
P.M
.

I dodge into Jock's bedroom closet and throw open the lid to the hamper to get the laundry, but it's empty. I search the floors of both of his walk-in closets, places he might have piled the shirts. None to be seen. As I start back down the hallway, I hear Jock calling me from the living room.

“Corki, the clothes are in here.”

I walk back into the living room and he points to a pile of thongs, panties, bras and other assorted Iceland wear.

Bile rises up into my throat. This isn't “laundering.” Laundering is for button-down men's shirts. This pile is fluff and fold, and not even his fluff and fold.

“There's a bag to put it in at the bottom of the pile,” he says.

Miss Icy turns to watch me put her dirty underwear in the bag. My anger makes my head swim. I can't find a way to pick up someone else's used panties discreetly. I want to find some rubber gloves, but Jock has perked up to watch me separate the pile and put the panties in the bag and the jeans and blouses over my arm. I lower my head so they won't see my face. Why can't this low-rent heifer wash her own dirty underwear? There's a washing machine in the laundry room. I try to find a clean place to pick up the thongs, but with thongs, there is no clean place.

Hurrying out the front door with a barely audible “Bye,” I race across the walkway, slowing down to descend the “Stairway to Heaven” so as not to plunge to my death. I wave goodbye to Tito's workers, who are carefully returning escaped gravel to the lined pathways leading around the house.

Pressing the appropriate buzzers that release the doors and gates of Jock's citadel, I dash across the street. My cell phone rings as I throw Icy's clothes on the floor behind my seat.

“Hello.”

“Ms. Brown, this is Dr. Castillo again. I'm sorry to bother you, but school has ended and someone must come pick up Blaise. He's been sitting here for over an hour while the other children are playing out on the yard in the after-school program. He's miserable watching the other children and he's making everyone in the office miserable. The office is closing early today. What time will you be here?”

I exhale deeply.

“I'll come now. But I promised Shelly Ford that I'd pick up her daughter, Star, and her niece, Eden. Is it possible to have them called to the office and waiting for me so I can get them all in one fell swoop?”

“Yes, I suppose we can accommodate you,” she says.

“Dr. Castillo, I know you can hear the frustration in my voice, but it's not at you. I'm annoyed with Blaise that he's done this. I know you're just doing your job.”

“Thank you, Ms. Brown. We'll see you when you get here.”

I get into my SUV when a silver BMW pulls up beside me and stops in the middle of the road. Daisy Colette leans out the driver's-side window. She pushes her auburn-colored bangs from her face and hikes her sunglasses up on top of her head.

“Corki, after I rounded the corner I realized it was you I'd told to fuck off. Can you ever forgive me?” she asks.

Daisy gets out of her car, leaving it in the middle of the road just as I had mine a few minutes before. She comes to my window and leans inside.

“Daisy, I'm fine,” I say, “I know you can't control your potty mouth. But wait just a second.” I get the box of perfume off the passenger seat. “I'm glad I ran into you, it saves me one stop. Voilà!” I say in a French accent. “Your parfum has arrived!”

“Oh, you're brilliant, Corki. Thank you so much. I knew you'd do it.”

She opens the box, takes out a sample of the perfume and gives it to me. “Merry Christmas.”

I thank her and open the bottle. A scent of gardenias and something else floats in the air. I can't name the other flower, but it's beautiful.

“I'm so glad I could apologize and make amends. You know me, I fly off the handle a little too quickly.”

I flash on all the times she's nearly mowed down motorists, flipped birds and turned red in the face with anger.

“Why were you in such a hurry?” I ask.

“I'm editing my film and I get a frantic call from Odalis saying that the police are at my door with an arrest warrant for some guy who lived there before I bought the place. So, I had to get home.”

“Did you get it all straightened out?”

“Yeah.” Daisy pauses and looks pensively at me. “I'm going to miss you, Corki,” she says.

“What?” I ask, thinking I misheard. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“Look, I've been meaning to talk to you about something. Well, this film . . . you know I'm basically funding it. It's a huge undertaking, financially, one of the biggest things I've ever done. And like all films, it's costing a lot more than I thought it would. And since Peter left me, well, you know, he's not helping out with Smith's child support. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm really going to have to tighten the purse strings and cut out all the extraneous expenses. Between Odalis and the nanny, the pool guy and the gardener, I'm paying out almost eight thousand a month. Add on the film, the mortgage and everything else and I have my accountant screaming at me that I'll run dry in two years at the rate I'm going. I mean, I'm sure he's exaggerating slightly, but still. . . .”

“I understand,” I say softly. My voice doesn't give away the panic I feel.

“Do you really understand? I still want you and Blaise to drop by. Smith loves playing with him. Come over anytime you want, promise?”

“Of course.”

We hug our goodbyes and I watch her get back into her new BMW.

To override the panic fighting to spring to life, I turn on my internal calculator to tabulate how much less we'll have to live on. We'll forgo Blaise's swimming lessons, piano lessons, the weekly lunches out, my occasional pedicures, those cute shoes I saw on Rodeo Drive. Getting back to the work at hand, rather than letting my emotions overcome me, I drive toward Blaise's school and call Concepcion on her cell. She picks up after the first ring.

“Allo!”

“Concepcion, it's Corki. Jock wants to know why you didn't do all the laundry in the hamper.”

“I did all his clothes.”

“No. He wanted you to do all the clothes. Even hers.”

“I don't do whore's underwear,” she states flatly. “I did his ex-wife's underwear, I did Miss Lucy's, but I don't do the underwear of prostitutes y putas!”

“Yeah, well, Con, she may be a hussy, but I don't think she's a prostitute. There are plenty of girls givin' it up for free—he doesn't have to pay. Besides, you could have used rubber gloves—I had to pick the nasty-ass things up with my bare hands . . . with Jock standing over me! Thanks a lot.”

I hang up with a “humph” and scan the glove compartment for some antibacterial hand sanitizer. I wonder if the steering wheel would peel if I rubbed it down with alcohol.

I pull into the parking lot of Crown Cleaners on Fairfax Avenue and grab the panty bag and other clothes from Betty's floor. I plop them down on the counter and wait for my turn. Watching a young girl next to me place some neatly folded clothes on the counter, I notice that she clutches a white envelope in her hand with a return address of a local business accounting office. I know instantly that she is a new celebrity assistant.

She's dressed nicely because she hasn't had to scrub dog shit off the bottom of her client's shoes yet. She's innocent—who else would carry five hundred dollars in petty cash around in a flimsy envelope tearing under the weight of the coins rattling at the bottom? She's careful, spineless and enthralled. She tries to be charming, thinking she needs the job more than her new star needs her. She's just graduated with a degree in Theatrical Arts, one of the least-useful degrees in the history of universities, and thinks her celebrity will help her get an acting job. She treats her client's pants like gold because they still have the eight-hundred-dollar price tag attached. What she doesn't know is her client will no doubt donate them to charity without ever wearing them because Meg was wearing a pair just like them. This fresh-faced assistant is in awe because eight hundred dollars is three times the amount she's paid per week. God bless her innocence. In a few years she'll have a full portfolio of dignity-robbing moments.

Susan, the owner of the cleaners, approaches me with her usual smile and nod of the head. I try to stop her from dumping out the contents of the bag, but she is already diligently at work, upending it. She isn't ready for just how much I have stuffed in there. Thongs shoot across the counter and onto the floor near the new assistant's Prada-knockoff shoes. New assistant steps back, away from the roving panties, innocent and embarrassed. I pick them up.

“What name should I put? Colette? LeMay?” Susan asks.

“No, no, not this time. Straupman. First initial, J.”

I find myself saying this a bit louder than I had intended, as if to make sure the new assistant knows the kind of details her future will most certainly hold. I note her head turning, curiously, when I say Jock's last name. I ask Susan if I can use her restroom. Before I maneuver around sewing machines and ironing boards to get there, I nod my head to the new assistant, the assistant I used to be, and mouth the words “Good luck.”

Pushing through the bathroom door, I spy two things so beautiful tears practically spring to my eyes—antibacterial soap and a hot water spigot.

Blaise and his two friends,
Eden and Star, wait in the school's office. The girls look nonplussed by their situation. Blaise surreptitiously shoves spitballs into the lock of the door next to him. I gather the kids up, take Blaise by the collar and lead them to the truck.

“Mom! Let go of me, you're bugging me!”

“Boy, you'd better be happy that's all I'm doing!”

Blaise wriggles free and runs ahead to the truck.

“Mama Corki, are we in trouble?” asks Eden.

The girls' mothers, Shelly and her sister, Dani, insist the girls use “Mama” in front of my name as a show of respect. Sweet and old-fashioned.

“No, you girls aren't. I just had you taken to the office so I wouldn't have to spend time looking for you on the schoolyard,” I explain. “I would have let you play after school but Blaise messed that up!” I say loud enough for him to hear. “So now you guys have to go to work with me.”

I stick my hand in my jeans pocket and feel the condom slipping around in its package. How am I going to pull this off?

“Mama Corki, what will we be doing?” asks Star.

“Nothing special.”

As I unlock the 4Runner, the kids poke at each other, titter and giggle incessantly. Blaise acts nonchalant. I'm more worried about him not having a conscience than I am about the naughty behavior. I hadn't planned on raising a sociopath.

The kids pour into Betty's backseat and put on their seatbelts. Eden has dark brown skin, a perky nose and twisty braids in a rainbow of colored barrettes. Star, with her shoulder-length dreads and wide-set brown eyes, fumbles with her pink backpack. Blaise puts his seatbelt around himself, pulls Star's hair and gives me a guiltless smirk. This is an unlikely trio with whom to shop for condoms.

I drive toward a well-known porn shop. To lessen the chances of having to go to more than one place, I pick up the cell phone and whisper, “The Pleasure Chest,” into the microphone. When the salesman answers, I try to speak in code.

“Uh, hello, do you carry prophylactics . . .”

The salesman yells into the phone, “Speak up! You're whispering. I can't hear you.”

“Mister, I'm at work, I can't yell.”