Underneath It All by Margo Candela Read Free Book Online

me.
    “OK. I won’t tell Mr. Mayor that you keep a rolled-up porn mag underneath your seat in the car, if you know what I mean.”
    “Let me put on my shirt.” Danny shuts the door in my face.
    “Thanks, Danny, you’re a peach.”

12
    Anita and Lei
    I wander into the Kitchen as Anita and Lei, the two-woman cleaning machine, polish and wipe. Since they wear jeans and T-shirts, not the traditional maid uniform Mrs. Mayor believes more appropriate to a mayor’s mansion, she insists Danny or I answer the door. She answers only when she wants to seem down-to-earth and she knows it’s friendly press or one of her stray Hollywood friends dropping in on their way to Napa.
    “Hi, guys. How’s everything going?” I try to sound as if I’m asking them not because I’m supervising them but because I myself am being supervised.
    “Very good, Jacquelyn,” Lei answers cheerfully. She’s mopping the Kitchen floor and Anita is scrubbing the counters. Everything looks dust-free and polished. Like a house in a magazine. Exactly the way Mrs. Mayor likes it and Mr. Mayor expects it.
    Lei is from China, and how she hooked up with Anita, who’s from Honduras, I don’t know. Anyway, they’ve been cleaning the Mansion as a team for years. I don’t think they ever exchange more than two words to each other about anything except cleaning while at the Mansion.
    Anita hardly ever talks. When I first met her, I asked her something in Spanish, only she gave me a curt reply in accented but perfect English. Lei serves as the de facto head housekeeper. She takes care of all the nitty-gritty details, such as making sure that there’s always a large supply of toilet paper and that the mail makes it from the mailbox to my desk for sorting after Danny makes sure it’s bomb-free. She also deals with the other people the Mayors employ to keep their house looking good and running smoothly.
    The Mayors have a professional landscape service take care of the yard. Bert, the owner, comes along to supervise an ever-changing parade of Latino and Asian men who never come in the house. Not even to ask to use the bathroom. I think they’re under orders from Bert to hold it until they’re done. Or else they’re peeing in the bougainvillea.
    Midway through their work, Lei will have Bert in for a cup of coffee in the Kitchen, where they’ll talk about the state of the plants and flowers. If Mrs. Mayor wants new plants or whatever, she tells me, and I tell Lei, and Lei tells Bert. While this is going on, Anita goes outside with water and snacks for the crew.
    There is a very set hierarchy but sometimes I don’t quite know where I fit in. I know Anita thinks I’m privileged, and she treats me with the same polite detachment she treats Mrs. Mayor with. She’s a bit warmer toward Mr. Mayor and babies him a bit, which he seems to like. Danny she hates outright. She thinks he’s lazy and immoral. She found his porn stash while cleaning his room, and Lei asked me to tell him to keep it somewhere else on days they clean his room.
    Lei is friendly with me the same way my bikini wax woman is. She’s privy to a lot of the intimate details of my and everyone else’s life, but she’s so matter-of-fact about what she sees, hears and knows, it doesn’t seem to make anyone uncomfortable. Lei does treat me as her superior, though, even when she merely comes to me for confirmation of something she knows needs to be done and has probably already done.
    “Would you like some coffee or tea?” Lei asks. Anita pauses. It’s her job to make the coffee or tea that Lei offers.
    “No thanks. I have some work to do in my office.”

13
    Natasha
    I head through the Kitchen and into my office, the former maid’s room, where I spend most of my time when I’m not attending Mrs. Mayor’s needs. She had a decorator come in and do it up for me based on my chakras. They don’t have a live-in maid since it would be very un-PC. Anita and Lei, who keep this place shiny, have