Chap­ter 14

I’ve been liv­ing with the Win­ches­ters for about three weeks when I have my first parole offi­cer meet­ing. I wait­ed to sched­ule it for my day off. I don’t want them to know where I’m going.

I’m down to month­ly meet­ings with my offi­cer, Pam, a stocky mid­dle-aged woman with a strong jaw. Right after I got out, I was liv­ing in hous­ing sub­si­dized by the prison, but after Pam helped me get that wait­ress­ing job, I moved out and got my own place. Then after I lost the wait­ress­ing job, I nev­er exact­ly told Pam about it. Also, I nev­er told her about my evic­tion. At our last meet­ing a lit­tle over a month ago, I lied through my teeth.

Lying to a parole offi­cer is a vio­la­tion of parole. Not hav­ing a res­i­dence and liv­ing out of your car is also a vio­la­tion of parole. I don’t like to lie, but I didn’t want to have my parole revoked and go right back to prison to serve the last five years of my sen­tence. I couldn’t let that hap­pen.

But things have turned around. I can be hon­est with Pam today. Well, almost.

Even though it’s a breezy spring day, Pam’s small office is like a hun­dred degrees. Half the year, her office is a sauna, and the oth­er half of the year it’s freez­ing. There’s no in-between. She’s got the small win­dow wrenched open, and there’s a fan blow­ing the dozens of papers around her desk. She has to keep her hands on them to keep them from blow­ing away.

“Mil­lie.” She smiles at me when I come in. She’s a nice per­son and gen­uine­ly seems like she wants to help me, which made me feel all the worse about how I lied to her. “Good to see you! How is it going?”

I set­tle down into one of the wood­en chairs in front of her desk.

“Great!” That’s a bit of a lie. But it’s going fine. Good enough. “Noth­ing to report.”

Pam rifles through the papers on her desk. “I got your mes­sage about the address change. You’re work­ing for a fam­i­ly in Long Island as a house­keep­er?”

“That’s right.”

“You didn’t like the job at Charlie’s?”

I chew on my lip. “Not real­ly.”

This is one of the things I lied to her about. Telling her that I quit the job at Charlie’s. When the real­i­ty is that they fired me. But it was com­plete­ly unfair.

At least I was lucky enough that they qui­et­ly fired me and didn’t get the police involved. That was part of the deal—I go qui­et­ly and they don’t involve the cops. I didn’t have much of a choice. If they had gone to the police about what hap­pened, I would’ve been right back in prison.

So I didn’t tell Pam I got fired, because if I did, she would have called them to find out why. And then when I lost my apart­ment, I couldn’t tell her about that either.

But it’s fine now. I have a new job and a place to live. I’m not in dan­ger of being locked up again. At my last appoint­ment with Pam, I was sit­ting on the edge of my seat, but I feel okay this time.

“I’m proud of you, Mil­lie,” Pam says. “Some­times it’s hard for peo­ple to adjust when they have been incar­cer­at­ed since they were teenagers, but you’ve done great.”

“Thank you.” No, she def­i­nite­ly doesn’t need to know about that month when I was liv­ing in my car.

“So how is the new job?” she asks. “How are they treat­ing you?”

“Um…” I rub my knees. “It’s fine. The woman I work for is a bit… eccen­tric. But I’m just clean­ing. It’s not a big deal.”

Anoth­er thing that’s a slight lie. I don’t want to tell her that Nina Win­ches­ter has been mak­ing me increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able. I searched online to see if she her­self had any kind of record. Noth­ing popped up, but I didn’t pay for the actu­al back­ground check. Any­way, Nina is rich enough to keep her nose clean.

“Well, that’s great,” Pam says. “And how is your social life?”

That’s not tech­ni­cal­ly an area a parole offi­cer is sup­posed to be ask­ing about, but Pam and I have become friend­ly, so I don’t mind the ques­tion.

“Nonex­is­tent.”

She throws back her head and laughs so that I can see a shiny fill­ing in the back of her mouth. “I under­stand if you don’t feel ready to date yet. But you should try to make some friends, Mil­lie.”

“Yeah,” I say, even though I don’t mean it.

“And when you do start dat­ing,” she says, “don’t just set­tle for any­one. Don’t date a jerk just because you’re an ex-con. You deserve some­one who treats you right.”

“Mmm….”

For a moment, I allow myself to think about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dat­ing a man in the future. I close my eyes, try­ing to imag­ine what he might look like. Unbid­den, the image of Andrew Win­ches­ter fills my head, with his easy charm and hand­some smile.

My eyes fly open. Oh no. No way. I can’t even think it.

“Also,” Pam adds, “you’re beau­ti­ful. You shouldn’t set­tle.”

I almost laugh out loud. I’ve been doing every­thing I can to look as unat­trac­tive as I pos­si­bly can. I wear bag­gy cloth­ing, I always keep my hair in a bun or a pony­tail, and I haven’t put on even one scrap of make­up. But Nina still looks at me like I’m some kind of vamp.

“I’m just not ready to think about that yet,” I say.

“That’s fine,” Pam says. “But remem­ber, hav­ing a job and shel­ter is impor­tant, but human con­nec­tions are even more impor­tant.”

She might be right, but I’m just not ready for that right now, I have to focus on keep­ing my nose clean. The last thing I want is to end up back in prison. That’s all that mat­ters.

I have trou­ble sleep­ing at night.
When you’re in prison, you’re always sleep­ing with one eye open. You don’t want things to be going on around you with­out you know­ing about it. And now that I’m out, the instinct hasn’t left me. When I first got an actu­al bed, I was able to sleep real­ly well for a while, but now my old insom­nia has come back full force. Espe­cial­ly because my bed­room is so unbear­ably stuffy.

My first pay­check has been deposit­ed in my bank account, and the next chance I have, I’m going to go out and buy myself a tele­vi­sion for my bed­room. If I turn on the tele­vi­sion, I might be able to drift off to sleep with it on. The sound will mim­ic the noise at night in the prison.

Up until now, I’ve been hes­i­tant to use the Win­ches­ters’ tele­vi­sion. Not the huge home the­ater, obvi­ous­ly, but their “nor­mal” TV in the liv­ing room. It doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal, con­sid­er­ing Nina and Andrew go to bed ear­ly. They have a very spe­cif­ic rou­tine every night. Nina goes upstairs to put Cecelia to bed at pre­cise­ly 8:30. I can hear her read­ing a bed­time sto­ry, then she sings to her. Every night she sings the same song: “Some­where Over the Rain­bow” from The Wiz­ard of Oz. Nina doesn’t sound like she has any vocal train­ing, but there’s some­thing strange­ly, haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful about the way she sings to Cecelia.

After Cecelia goes to sleep, Nina reads or watch­es tele­vi­sion in the bed­room. Andrew fol­lows upstairs not long after. If I come down­stairs after ten o’clock, the first floor is com­plete­ly emp­ty.

So this par­tic­u­lar night I decid­ed to take advan­tage.

This is why I’m sprawled out on the sofa, watch­ing an episode of Fam­i­ly Feud. It’s near­ly one in the morn­ing, so the high ener­gy lev­el of the con­tes­tants seems almost bizarre. Steve Har­vey is jok­ing around with them, and despite how tired I am, I laugh out loud when one of the con­tes­tants gets up to demon­strate his tap-danc­ing skills. I used to watch the show when I was a kid, and I always imag­ined going on it myself; I’m not sure who I would’ve invit­ed to go with me. My par­ents, me—that’s three. Who else could I have invit­ed?

“Is that Fam­i­ly Feud?”

I jerk my head up. Even though it’s the mid­dle of the night, Andrew Win­ches­ter is some­how stand­ing behind me, as wide awake as the peo­ple on the tele­vi­sion screen.

Damn. I knew I should have stayed in my room.

“Oh!” I say. “I, uh… I’m sor­ry. I didn’t mean to…”

He arch­es an eye­brow. “What are you sor­ry for? You live here, too. You have every right to watch the tele­vi­sion.”

I grab a pil­low from the couch to con­ceal my flim­sy gym shorts that I’ve been sleep­ing in. Also, I’m not wear­ing a bra. “I was going to buy a set for my room.”

“It’s fine to use our mon­i­tor, Mil­lie. You prob­a­bly won’t get much recep­tion up there any­way.” The whites of his eyes glow in the light of the tele­vi­sion. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. I’m just grab­bing a glass of water.”

I sit on the couch, clutch­ing the pil­low to my chest, debat­ing if I should go upstairs. I’m nev­er going to fall asleep now because my heart is rac­ing. He said he was just get­ting some water, so maybe I can stay. I watch him shuf­fle into the kitchen and I hear the tap run­ning.

He comes back into the liv­ing room, sip­ping from his water glass. That’s when I notice he’s only got on a white under­shirt and box­ers. But at least he’s not shirt­less.

“How come you poured water from the sink?” I can’t help but ask him.

He plops down next to me on the sofa, even though I wish he wouldn’t. “What do you mean?”

It would be rude to jump off the sofa, so I just scoot down as far as I can. The last thing I need is for Nina to see the two of us get­ting cozy togeth­er on the sofa in our under­wear. “Like, you didn’t use the water fil­ter in the refrig­er­a­tor.”

He laughs. “I don’t know. I’ve always just got­ten water from the sink. Like, is it poi­son?”

“I don’t know. I think it has chem­i­cals in it.”

He runs a hand through his dark hair until it sticks up a bit. “I’m hun­gry for some rea­son. Any left­overs from din­ner in the fridge?”

“No, sor­ry.”

“Hmm.” He rubs his stom­ach. “Would it be real­ly bad man­ners if I eat some peanut but­ter right out of the jar?”

I cringe at the men­tion of peanut but­ter. “As long as you’re not eat­ing in front of Cecelia.”

He tilts his head. “Why?”

“You know. Because she’s aller­gic.” They real­ly don’t seem very respect­ful of Cecelia’s dead­ly peanut aller­gy in this house­hold.

Even more sur­pris­ing, Andrew laughs. “No, she’s not.”

“Yes, she is. She told me she is. The first day I was here.”

“Um, I think I would know if my daugh­ter were aller­gic to peanuts.” He snorts. “Any­way, do you think we would keep a big jar of it in the pantry if she were aller­gic?”

That was exact­ly what I thought when Cecelia told me about her aller­gy. Was she just mak­ing it up to tor­ture me? I wouldn’t put it past her. Then again, Nina also said Cecelia had a peanut aller­gy. What’s going on here?

But Andrew makes the most valid point: the fact that there’s a big jar of peanut but­ter in the pantry indi­cates nobody here has a dead­ly peanut aller­gy.

“Blue­ber­ries,” Andrew says.

I frown. “I don’t think there are any blue­ber­ries in the refrig­er­a­tor.”

“No.” He nods at the tele­vi­sion screen, where Fam­i­ly Feud has entered the sec­ond round. “They sur­veyed a hun­dred peo­ple and asked them to name a fruit you can fit in your mouth whole.”

The con­tes­tant on the screen answers blue­ber­ries, and it’s the num­ber one answer. Andrew pumps his fist. “See? I knew it. I would be great on this show.”

“The top answer is always easy to get,” I say. “The tricky part is get­ting the more obscure answers.”

“Okay, smar­ty pants.” He grins at me. “Name a fruit you can fit in your mouth whole.”

“Um…” I tap a fin­ger against my chin. “A grape.”

Sure enough, the next con­tes­tant answers “grape” and is cor­rect.

“I stand cor­rect­ed,” he says. “You’re good at this, too. Okay, what about a straw­ber­ry?”

“It’s prob­a­bly up there,” I say, “even though you wouldn’t real­ly want to put a whole straw­ber­ry in your mouth because it has the stem and all that.”

The con­tes­tants man­age to name straw­ber­ries and cher­ries, but they get stuck on the last answer. Andrew is crack­ing up when one of them says a peach.

“A peach!” he cries. “Who could fit a peach in their mouth? You’d have to unhinge your jaw!”

I gig­gle. “Bet­ter than a water­mel­on.”

“That’s prob­a­bly the answer! I bet any­thing.”

The final answer on the board turns out to be a plum. Andrew shakes his head. “I don’t know about that. I’d like to see a pic­ture of the con­tes­tants who said they could fit a plum in their mouth whole.”

“That should be part of the show,” I say. “You get to hear from the hun­dred peo­ple sur­veyed and get the ratio­nale behind their answers.”

“You should write to Fam­i­ly Feud and sug­gest that,” he says sober­ly.

“You could rev­o­lu­tion­ize the whole show.”

I gig­gle again. When I first met Andrew, I assumed he was a stuffy rich guy. But he’s not like that at all. Nina is cer­ti­fi­able, but Andrew is nice. He’s com­plete­ly down-to-earth, and he’s fun­ny. And it seems like he’s a real­ly good dad to Cecelia.

The truth is, I feel a bit sor­ry for him some­times.

I shouldn’t think that. Nina is my boss. She gives me pay­checks and a place to live. My loy­al­ty is to her. But at the same time, she’s awful. She’s a slob, she’s con­stant­ly telling me con­flict­ing infor­ma­tion, and she can be incred­i­bly cru­el. Even Enzo, who’s got to be two hun­dred pounds of sol­id mus­cle, seems afraid of her.

Of course, I might not feel that way if Andrew wasn’t so incred­i­bly attrac­tive. Even though I have sat as far away from him as I pos­si­bly can with­out falling off the side of the couch, I can’t help but think about the fact that he is wear­ing his under­wear right now. He’s in his freak­ing box­ers. And his under­shirt mate­r­i­al is thin enough that I can see the out­line of some very sexy mus­cles. He could do a lot bet­ter than Nina.

I won­der if he knows it.

Just as I’m start­ing to relax and feel glad that Andrew joined me down here, a screechy voice breaks into my thoughts: “Gosh, what’s the big joke you’re laugh­ing about down here?”

I whip my head around. Nina is stand­ing at the foot of the stairs, star­ing at us. When she’s in her heels, I can hear her com­ing a mile away, but she’s sur­pris­ing­ly light-foot­ed in her bare feet. She’s wear­ing a white night­gown that falls to her ankles, and her arms are fold­ed across her chest.

“Hey, Nina.” Andrew yawns and climbs off the sofa. “What are you doing up?”

Nina is glar­ing at us. I don’t know how he isn’t pan­ick­ing right now. I’m one sec­ond away from pee­ing in my pants. But he seems total­ly cav­a­lier about the fact that his wife just caught the two of us alone in the liv­ing room at one in the morn­ing, both of us in our under­wear. Not that we were doing any­thing, but still.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Nina retorts. “You two seem to be hav­ing a lot of fun. What’s the joke?”

Andrew lifts a shoul­der. “I came down to get some water and Mil­lie was here watch­ing tele­vi­sion. I got dis­tract­ed by Fam­i­ly Feud.”

“Mil­lie.” Nina turns her atten­tion to me. “Why don’t you get a tele­vi­sion for your own room? This is the fam­i­ly room.”

“I’m sor­ry,” I say quick­ly. “I’m going to buy a tele­vi­sion next chance I get.”

“Hey.” Andrew rais­es his eye­brows. “What’s so wrong with Mil­lie watch­ing a lit­tle tele­vi­sion down here if nobody’s around?”

“Well, you’re around.”

“And she wasn’t both­er­ing me.”

“Don’t you have a meet­ing first thing in the morn­ing?” Nina’s eyes bore into him. “Should you real­ly be awake watch­ing tele­vi­sion at one in the morn­ing?”

He sucks in a breath. I hold my own breath, hop­ing for a minute that he’s going to stand up to her. But then his shoul­ders sag. “You’re right, Nina. I bet­ter turn in.”

Nina stands there, her arms fold­ed across her ample chest, watch­ing Andrew trudge up the stairs, like he’s a child she’s send­ing up with­out sup­per. It’s unset­tling to see the extent of her jeal­ousy.

I get up from the couch as well and shut off the tele­vi­sion. Nina is still lin­ger­ing at the base of the stairs. Her eyes rake over my gym shorts and tank top. My lack of a bra. Again, it strikes me how bad this looks. But I thought I would be all alone down here.

“Mil­lie,” Nina says, “in the future, I expect you to wear appro­pri­ate attire around the house.”

“I’m so sor­ry,” I say for the sec­ond time. “I didn’t think any­one would be awake.”

“Real­ly?” She snorts. “Would you just wan­der around any stranger’s house in the mid­dle of the night because you assume they won’t be around?”

I don’t know what to say to that. This is not a stranger’s house. I live here, albeit up in the attic. “No…”

“Please stay up in the attic after bed­time,” she says. “The rest of the house is for my fam­i­ly. Do you under­stand?”

“I under­stand.”

She shakes her head. “Hon­est­ly, I’m not even sure how much we need a maid. Maybe this was a mis­take…”

Oh no. Is she fir­ing me at one in the morn­ing because I was watch­ing tele­vi­sion in her liv­ing room? This is bad. And there’s no chance Nina is going to give me a good rec­om­men­da­tion for anoth­er job. She seems more like the sort of per­son who would call every poten­tial employ­er to tell them how much she hat­ed me.

I’ve got to fix this.