Chore Whore (8 page)

I try to envision where she's going to have enough privacy to pee, let alone eat her tofu and kale. She'll be road tripping with three men, one of whom takes up the entire backseat.

“Do I have to make this by hand or can I order it and pack it as if you slaved in the kitchen making it yourself?”

“Oh no, I want you to make it. I bet you can whip up some good Southern-style food. I know you aren't from the South, but you can cook anything, Corki.”

“Maybe I could throw in some chitlins and home-fried pork rinds,” I joke.

“You know Bubba and Tommy Ray would probably love that, but I'm trying to steer him clear of pork right now,” Lucy says seriously. “I'm trying to clean up his diet.”

Two weeks and she's already trying to convert him. Good luck.

“We're leaving tomorrow night, so if you could just whip this up in the morning, we'll be out of your hair for the holidays. Oh, and buy some Bud Light for Bubba, Diet Coke for Tommy and Dave and mineral water for me.”

I quickly jot down these notes and get ready to leave.

“Lucy, I have to pick up Blaise. Anything else?”

“I know you've heard a lot about Tommy Ray, but most of it's not true. He's the love of my life and I really want you to feel good about him.”

“I'll try,” I say.

We hug goodbye.

The windshield wipers
beat frantically back and forth in rhythm with the Gypsy Kings coming from Betty's stereo speakers. I sing loudly, off key, making up Spanish lyrics as I go along. I pull up in front of the Baldwin Hills house Shelly inherited from her grandmother.

I dash from my truck and knock on the front door.

Shelly opens it looking frayed. Before I can say hello, she pulls me in and guides me to the front bedroom, then pushes the door closed behind us.

“Shell, what's wrong?”

“Corki, you know I love Blaise to death. Like one of my own.”

“Oh God, what's he done?” I ask, my heart sinking.

“I was cooking lunch, the kids were playing, and I started smelling the most horrific burning stench coming from the backyard.”

“Oh, no!” I gasp.

“Girl, he was back there burning shit up.”

“Like what? The wood behind your shed?” I ask.

“No. Shit. Dried-up dog shit.”

“Did anything catch on fire?”

“Thank God, no. It started to rain just in time. But living in the hills with all the brush and old wood roofs, we're a brush fire waiting to happen.”

“Shelly, I am so sorry. I beg you to forgive him.”

“Corki, you know I love that rogue, but this is all I have. I just can't risk it. If I lost this house I wouldn't know what to do.”

“I understand. I really feel terrible.”

“I know, girl. Look, it's all over, don't worry.”

I take a deep breath and walk from the room behind Shelly. Under the scent of Jamaican Love incense, I can smell the odor of burned feces. Every window we pass is open, letting the rain and fresh air blow in.

I turn the stereo off
as soon as I twist the key and the engine turns over. I start driving down the road, fuming silently until I can't hold it anymore.

“Blaise! Just what the heck did you think you were doing?”

“I was just playing,” he says calmly.

“No, honey, ‘playing' is throwing a ball. Lighting fires is seriously bad news. Do you realize the damage you could have done?”

“But I didn't do any damage.”

“Thank God!”

We drive home in silence. I pull up into the driveway and start to get out to unlock my gate.

“Sorry I'm such an ‘inconvenience,' ” Blaise mutters.

“What's that supposed to mean?” I ask, still perturbed.

“That's what you said to Mama Shelly—that it was an ‘inconvenience' having me around.”

“Honey, I said no such thing,” I say, heartbroken. “Is that what you thought? Because it's not true. I said that school getting out midweek is an inconvenience.”

“Same difference, Mom.”

I pause before getting out to open the gate.

“Are you hating your school?”

“No, school's fine. Why?”

“Well, there may be this other opportunity—”

Just then, my cell rings.

“Hello. This is Corki.”

“Hey, it's Dwayne, handyman extraordinaire! I just called to let you know I'm done with boarding up Liam and Esther's master bedroom. In fact, I finished just before the rain started. What's going on up there, anyway? The doors ripped from the frame, the toilet tank's lid has gone a-missin'. That place is becoming a wreck and they're a good ways from finishing the remodel.”

I unlock the gate and pull Betty into my backyard.

“I need to replace that toilet lid before her party this weekend. That means I have tomorrow to find a lid and get it up there. And I just got a request to cook for six tomorrow. Where can I find a lid like that?”

“Well, Corki,” he says in his Louisiana drawl, “you're in a bit of a pinch, huh? I reckon the best thing you can do is get yourself a piece of cardboard and draw an outline of the toilet tank that the lid sits on. Then take it over to that plumbing place over on Pico and Bundy and go through their spare porcelain lids out back.”

“Dwayne, that sounds awfully complicated. Can't I just get the brand and model and go pick it up at Home Depot?”

Dwayne sucks in air. He's obviously dealing with an incompetent in the toilet department of life. Without even seeing him, I can tell he's lighting his pipe. Dwayne, thirty-two, with sandy blond hair and green eyes, looks a whole heap like Brad Pitt. Dwayne smacks his lips, and inhales to get the tobacco lit.

“Listen to me. That there toilet is a good fifty years old. They don't even make that brand anymore, so it ain't gonna help you none to have the brand or model number. Toilet lids come in different shapes, colors and sizes, so you're just gonna have to go down to that plumbing place. I'm not even sure how the house passed inspection with those big old toilets that take ten gallons to flush.”

I know how those big old toilets passed inspection. Esther took them out and had them replaced, then put them right back in after escrow closed. Esther likes those big old toilets and her goal was to keep them even if they were environmentally unsound. I thank Dwayne, get out of the truck and close the gate to my backyard.

“Pick up,
Mom, it's me,” I say into her answering machine. “I know we're supposed to come there on Christmas Eve, but I have to bring Blaise up tonight.”

She picks up her phone. “What did he do?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“What did he do, Cornelia?”

I give her a sanitized G-rated version of the day. “If I don't get my work done, Mom, we won't even be there on the twenty-fourth. Please, I need your help.”

I hang up the phone and exhale. Blaise sits at our piano and bangs out the beginning notes to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

“Grandma says you can spend the next week up there with the understanding that for your punishment there will be no television, no computer and no Game Boy. You're going to help her clean out the garage, clean up the yard and put up the decorations. And if you so much as get close to a match, she'll kill you and me. Understand?”

Blaise nods.

“All right, go pack some books and I'll get your clothes. I'm taking you now.”

“Now? Mom, it's Thursday night! You said you desperately need sleep and that you've got to work in the morning.”

“I do, but I can sleep and work a lot better knowing you're safe with Grandma rather than lighting someone's house on fire.”

“God, Mom, it's like you're desperate to get rid of me,” Blaise says, sulking.

“Blaise, I have to work. I don't want to live at a bus stop. We need a roof over our heads—”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Blaise interrupts. “That's always your excuse. I don't care where we live.”

“Well, there's a nice covered bus stop down on the corner. Want to try it out for the night?” I bite my lip and regret saying it as soon as it comes out of my mouth. “Blaise, I'm sorry. I know I've been very busy, but if I don't work, we don't have money. And living here or anywhere costs.”

“Whatever.” He goes to his room and plops some books on his desk. “I'm ready.”

I drive the 179 miles
north to Visalia, in the heart of California's San Joaquin Valley, drop Blaise off, then turn around and head back to Los Angeles. I usually can't drive late at night, but being fueled with guilt and worry keeps me awake. Home at two o'clock in the morning, I fall asleep in my clothes.

· · ·

Six hours later,
barely able to keep my eyes open, I break at least thirty traffic laws to get the twenty miles down Sunset Boulevard, toward the beach, before nine
A.M
. As the higher-paid working stiffs are driving toward their offices in Century City and Hollywood, I fly past them going in the opposite direction, clutching my Starbucks double espresso.

I pull past Shelly's old Mercedes parked on the street, into Liam and Esther's driveway, grab my cardboard and pencil and disgorge from Betty unsteadily as I try to dance over thick lines of black ants covering the driveway.

Esther can't see why I would suggest an exterminator visit when ants are just a part of nature. She calls me a “human supremacist” who thinks ants have no souls. Since she won't let there be any bug spray in her home, I get out the countertop cleaner and spray them all I want when she's not looking. It does the same job. Shelly, who believes the same way as Esther, looks the other way when I destroy my karma by spraying or stepping on bugs. However, Liam, who thinks like I do, has me call the exterminator to eradicate the swarms of ants the moment Esther goes out of town.

I push open the two-inch-thick outer door to the huge hacienda-style covered patio, and there, staring me in the face, thirty feet away, is Lord Ganesh. I can tell Shelly has been bathing him because the stone patio flooring is wet. Terra-cotta pots, filled with orchids, surround Lord Ganesh's feet, and all the bamboo patio furniture has been rearranged to face him. I give him a wide berth and push open the door to the house.

“It's Corki!” I call out.

Shelly comes out of the kitchen. “Girl, how did you make it here so fast? It's only a quarter to nine. You have a helicopter or something?”

“Parked out on the helipad right now. How about you?”

“My sister has the girls 'cause I knew I was gonna need more than a full day to have this place looking good for tomorrow's party. I've been here since seven-thirty.” We both shake our heads and roll our eyes.

“Where's Blaise?” she asks.

“I took him to my mom's house last night.”

“And you're back already? I thought you don't drive so well at night.”

“I don't. But thinking about his recent attempt at being an arsonist kept me up. Is Esther here?”

“No, but Liam's here. Esther's walking the dogs. I'm surprised you didn't see her on the way up.”

“I wasn't exactly looking for her. . . .”

I pick up my cardboard and pencil and head out of the foyer. “I have to go measure the loo. If you need me, you know where I'll be.”

Liam and Esther's home was originally two very big 1950s ranch-style houses. The present huge living room is where both backyards butted up against each other. Ebony polished hardwood floors are topped by “Gauguin sunset” orange walls with “wainscoting” of imported Tahitian woven fibers. The entire place has been converted into a Balinese work of art. All four fireplaces have been covered with thousands of seashells.

The bathroom with the missing tank lid is approximately the size of my living room. The shower/bathtub combination is lined with massive boulders shipped in from Hawaii. Water comes out of a hidden showerhead and simultaneously tumbles down a waterfall of rocks. It always reminds me of a television commercial that shows a woman shampooing her hair in a waterfall.

Esther had the former bathroom completely demolished to create this tropical island paradise, but insisted on keeping her high-volume, old-fashioned toilets. I thought perhaps she'd have a real bush hidden behind a wall where you could squat and do your business as you would in nature. But no!

I set to work balancing the cardboard on the toilet tank and trying to sketch it from underneath to achieve the most accurate shape. I'm suddenly aware that the room has darkened slightly. Looking up, I see Liam resting casually against the doorframe. He is clad in the plush terry-cloth robe he acquired from the Phoenician Spa and Resort in Arizona.

I have worked for Liam for nineteen years, ever since he was voted one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors by Premiere magazine. When he hired me, Liam was a young, handsome, white-hot producer for Columbia TriStar Pictures. He had a success record as long as the line of women queuing up to be the one he chose to marry. He dated frequently, had his heart broken a time or two and kept up the search into his early forties.