Two
A butler let us inside. A butler. Wearing a suit. Who apparently worked at four in the morning.
“Welcome, Ms. Junco,” he said to my mom. “Miss Junco,” he said to me.
She smiled at him, but all I could do was stare at the house’s entryway. An abstract art chandelier hung from a ceiling so tall it might as well have been the sky. Art lined the walls as well, like someone had meant to place the installation in a gallery and whoever owned this house decided it belonged here instead.
I didn’t have time to gawk, though. The butler—Robert, he called himself—was leading us through the mansion, telling Mom the plan of attack. We were to start with the kitchen and dining quarters today, the living areas tomorrow, and so on until the entire home was cleaned in the span of a week. Cleaning this place would take us that long, and I hoped Mom was prepared for that amount of work on top of the other small jobs she’d acquired for us.
But if this guy paid like he should (well and in cash, unlike the trades Mom made with other clients), she was right. Our bills would be covered and then some.
“This is Mr. Rush’s office,” Robert said, pointing at a room with glass French doors. Inside, a tall, thin man with a thick head of graying hair worked in front of five computer monitors, lines of code pouring down each screen. “However, if you have questions, they should be directed at me. He likes not to be disturbed.”
I barely caught what Robert said though, because my mind was fumbling over one word: Rush.
This was the Rush mansion?
As in the popular gaming app, Rush+?
As in our school’s resident billionaire, Kai Rush, lived here?
A glance into the expansive living room confirmed the truth. Over the fireplace with floor-to-thirty-foot-celling built-ins was a photo of Kai and the man I’d seen in the office.
The blood drained from my face. This was the client Mom had landed?
How?
And more importantly, why?
This had to be a joke. A prank. Something that would land us on a reality TV show looking like fools.
Suddenly, the creak of our cleaning cart’s wheels seemed so loud on the marble floors, like they were a giant glaring buzzer letting me know I did not belong here.
Robert led us into a kitchen even larger than the one at school, with more ovens than two people could ever use and the kind of cabinetry so fancy it masked the refrigerator. There were no magnets holding up photos and old receipts here. No room for a mess. Honestly, this room already looked spotless.
“The chef, Mr. Wallace, will arrive at six to begin breakfast,” Robert said, folding his hands in front of him. “If you need anything, I will be in my office, which is down the hallway to the right.”
There was another office for the butler?
But then again, what else would there be? They could have had an entire football stadium inside and a helicopter pad on the roof for all I knew.
Mom was acting like none of this bothered her. Like she wasn’t repulsed by all of the waste happening in this “house” where only two people lived, wait staff not included. In my opinion, billionaires might as well have been villains. They were holding on to exorbitant wealth that could have made such a difference in the world—kept children from starving, built houses for widowed mothers, supported any number of meaningful causes, but they sank it into mansions like this instead. Just thinking about it made my blood boil. I’d rather work fifty jobs like Seaton Bakery, trading for food, than spend another second making life even easier for billionaires like the Rushes.
Mom was already going through the cart, gathering buckets and the cleaning solution for the countertops. How was she not completely appalled?
Glancing over my shoulder to be sure Robert had already left, I whispered, “We’re not seriously doing this, are we?”
“Did you not hear a word I said this morning?” She walked to the sink and flipped on the hot water. Lowering her voice, she added, “We should be thankful to have this job. I am.”
“Which means I’m the only one not being grateful to shine marble floors.”
She frowned at me over the top of the cart. “I didn’t raise you to be like that.”
I sighed. “You’re right.” I should be grateful. Having Juana’s bills paid off might mean we could get into a different apartment, that my mom could take a weekend off just to relax here and there. Still, I resented the fact that the Rushes would be the ones to help us do it. Mere pennies to them were lifelines to us.
I took the dust mop from the cart and began on the opposite side of the kitchen so I’d stay out of Mom’s way. She was the hardest worker I’d seen and could move so quickly it was almost like magic.
We worked in silence for the next couple of hours until the chef came in and introduced himself. A drool-worthy personal trainer eventually passed through the kitchen as well.
After he walked out, Mom leaned against her mop handle and whispered conspiratorially, “Kai might be off limits, but him? Hubba hubba.”
I winked at her. “He can train me any time.”
She laughed and continued working, but my heart twitched painfully as I realized that was the first time I’d been attracted to anyone since Martín. My fingers itched to reach into my pocket and dial his now-deleted number for the millionth time, even though he’d moved on.
I hated myself for wanting to get back together with him, even if he’d found another girl so quickly after breaking up with me. The scary thought crept into my mind that he’d already found her before ending things, and I beat it back. I so couldn’t go there.
“Look at the time,” Mom said. “You better get changed.”
I glanced at the clock over the stove, still not trusting myself with my phone. I had about half an hour to get into my uniform and make myself look like I hadn’t just finished a housekeeping shift.
I had better hurry. “I’ll head out to the car.”
She shook her head and grabbed my drawstring bag from the cart. “You can use one of the bathrooms.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “You’re sure?”
She gave me a soft smile and whispered, “They have fifteen. I’m sure one’s open.”
Was she exaggerating? I definitely couldn’t tell from the size of this house.
Mr. Wallace, the cook, pointed his spatula over his shoulder, “The one down the hall is for our use. Go ahead.”
Our use. The help’s use. I didn’t know how my distaste could grow even more, but it did. Mr. Rush kept us in servants’ quarters and had us watched by his butler. He was making sure we knew where we belonged: on our knees, scrubbing, below the king he thought he was.
F-U-know-what that.
I walked down the hall like I was going to the designated bathroom, but then went up a set of stairs. This floor seemed less imposing than the ground level, even though it had the same abstract art pieces lining the walls. I carefully opened a couple of doors until I found a bathroom that looked like it was for guests.
My first thought was that the last cleaning service hadn’t done a great job. The toilet paper wasn’t creased into corners like my mom always did, and the towels were lazily folded. Pride swelled in my chest. My mom and I may have been poor, but we did honest work for honest pay. And we did it well.