I knew this pet sitting job would be different from my usual, but this is another dimension. Lately, most of my clients have been well off, wealthy enough to hire someone to care for their pet while they’re traveling for months at a time.
But there’s wealth and then there’s wealth. The fact was impressed upon me when I went to rap on the door to Elvis’s home, and the door opened before I could touch it. I promptly overbalanced and fell over, right at the butler’s feet. A butler. In this day and age! I gaped at him from the polished floor. He looked at me like I was a bit of muck stuck to his shiny shoe.
That’s when I knew I wasn’t being hired to watch a parrot for a year. I was being paid to nanny a bird the owner loved more than a child. A child you left at home with a nanny while you traveled the world for a year, but apparently, rich people do that.
Elvis came with a ninety-five page handwritten manual, which is one page shorter than the manual issued with the space-age espresso maker built into the kitchen wall. But the job comes with a free stay in a nine thousand square foot mansion. No gardening or house-cleaning required—the owner has separate staff who visit for that.
And she’s gone for a ‘grand tour’ which includes several continents, and traveling by planes, trains, and automobiles. And boats. Can’t forget the boats. Or yachts, as rich people call them.
Luckily, the butler isn’t around to look down his nose at me. Once he’d let me in and given me a tour, he left to catch up with his employer. Lady Drey is paying him and a maid to travel with her.
Leaving me and her espresso machine to live happily ever after. Or, at least, for the next ten months.
I finish a second latte—I deserve it—and stretch. My agenda for the day: coffee, check on Elvis, take a long bath, check on Elvis, watch an old movie in the theater room. Maybe I’ll let Elvis watch with me. He loves Cary Grant.
My room is in the east wing, near to Elvis’ jungle room. But it’s no servant’s quarters. I have a private bathroom, and a walk-in closet bigger than the bedroom at my old apartment. The bathroom has a bathtub in the corner, with windows overlooking the garden and the Tudor style mansion next door. A lot of windows. More windows than anyone should be comfortable with in a bathroom, but okay… I shrug off my robe, exhibitionist style, and fill the bath, adding a generous amount of bubble wash. I don’t bother with modesty—even if someone wanted to spy through the second story windows, I’ve never seen anyone next door. Once in a while there’s a car in the drive, but they probably avoid the side of their house closest to Elvis. Even from here, I can still hear faint strains of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, along with the occasional shriek from the parrot.
I sink into the luxuriously hot water and frothy bubbles, and prop my feet up.
“A bath at ten in the morning. So leisurely.” I do my best Katherine Hepburn impression. One must always talk like Katherine Hepburn when one stays in a mansion.
I never thought I’d ever live like a rich person. My parents were barely working class. I thought I’d be more uncomfortable living in a mansion, but I quickly got used to it.
Maybe I can add mansion-sitting to my resume. Find another lady on grand tour, with a house full of antiques and a garden full of topiaries, and a parrot perched… in a tree?
“Elvis,” I gasp, jolting up in the bath. I lose my balance and fall back. A tsunami of soapy water hits me in the face.
“Shit!” I sputter and haul myself out, my feet threatening to slide on the soaked marble floor. I grab my robe and pelt downstairs, wet hair flying. I pause before the door to the garden, my robe twisted around my wet body, and spot Elvis perched on a Japanese maple.
“How did you get out?” I cry, and throw open the door. My exit startles the bird, who flaps away, over the low stone wall dividing Lady’s Drey’s property from her neighbor’s. Ducking low, in my own version of stealth mode, I scramble over the wall and sneak through boxwoods and rhododendrons, clutching my robe tight to keep the silk from snagging on the manicured branches.
The grey parrot lands above me, on the rail of the neighbor’s sprawling deck.
“Elvis,” I hiss.
The parrot cocks his head at me, not impressed. I need to trap him, but all I have is my robe. I tug it off and sneak around to the deck stairs, where I pause to say a prayer to St. Francis, patron saint of animals. Surely he’s also the patron saint of pet sitters.
Elvis glides down to the deck, four feet in front of me.
Thank you, I mouth, and stalk forward, bare-assed, robe outstretched between two hands. I’m just about to snag the escapee bird when the deck door glides open. A tall, dark-haired man steps through, mug in hand, undoubtedly about to enjoy his coffee while looking over his garden on this fine, quiet morning.
A quiet morning that is ruined by Elvis, the African Grey parrot, zooming past his head and me, wide-eyed and completely nude, streaking after it, screaming, “Don’t let him out!”
Two hours earlier…
Benedict
The woman across from me doesn’t look happy. “Benedict, I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations,” I say solemnly, matching her serious tone.
“Indeed.” The queen’s mouth sets in a hard line. Not quite a frown.
She couldn’t have picked a better place to deliver the news. Palaces are such gloomy places. Their exteriors are so grand on TV, so beautiful and luminous, with guards and gates surrounding them to keep out the commoners. But inside is palatial and dark, with that particular smell I associate with antique furniture. No matter how often the place is cleaned, no matter how spic and span the huge expanses of parquet floors and thick carpets are kept, the air feels heavy and old, pregnant with the weight of centuries and countless decisions made by my ancestors. Every conversation gains gravitas. The fate of nations rests in each word.
If I ever become king, I will not enjoy moving into the palace. But I will do it. It would be my duty.
“How are you feeling?” I ask the queen. She looks paler than normal. Morning sickness?
“Fine,” she sighs and flicks her hand. “Much to my doctors’ surprise.”
“Yes, well…” I shift in my chair, searching for a way to approach the subject delicately.
“Just say it.” The queen raises her chin. She didn’t miss how closely I was studying her. “I’m too old. Everybody knows it.”
“Forty-five is hardly ancient,” I protest and she snorts.
“I may as well be. Pregnant. After all these years?” She shakes her head with mild disapproval, as if her pregnancy is an unruly diplomat who’s arrived ten minutes late to an audience, unforgivably tardy.
She leans forward and pushes a red folder across the low table towards me. “It’s a high risk pregnancy, of course. My age is enough to make it so. But also…” She nods to the folder and I open it to see for myself.
A large, black and white ultrasound shot greets me. I flip past it to a page of three smaller ultrasound pictures, labeled ‘Baby 1’, ‘2’, and ‘3’.
“Triplets,” I breathe.
“Indeed.” The queen rises and when I rise with her, she waves me down. She paces to the giant floor-to-ceiling windows framed with waterfalls of royal blue curtains. “I’ll be lucky if I’m not put on bedrest before the month is out. The press release is scheduled for the Midsummer Ball.”