Chap­ter 16

It’s safe to say I hate every sin­gle woman at this PTA meet­ing.

There are four of them total, includ­ing Nina. I’ve mem­o­rized their names. Jil­lianne (Jil­ly-anne), Patrice, and Suzanne (not to be con­fused with Jil­lianne). The rea­son I have mem­o­rized their names is because Nina will not let me leave the back­yard. She’s been mak­ing me stand in the cor­ner, con­stant­ly at atten­tion in case they need some­thing.

At least the hors d’oeuvres are a suc­cess. And Nina has no idea Andrew picked them up for me.

“I’m just not hap­py with the field day menu.” Suzanne taps her pen against her chin. I’ve heard Nina refer to Suzanne before as her “best friend,” but as far as I can tell, Nina isn’t close with any of her so-called friends. “I feel like there needs to be more than one gluten-free option.”

“I agree,” Jil­lianne says. “And even though there is a veg­an option, it’s not veg­an and gluten-free. So what are peo­ple who are both veg­an and gluten-free sup­posed to eat?”

I don’t know? Grass? I’ve hon­est­ly nev­er seen women more obsessed with gluten. Every time I brought out an hors d’oeuvre, each of them ques­tioned me about the amount of gluten in it. As if I have any idea. I don’t even know what gluten is.

It’s a swel­ter­ing hot day today, and I would give any­thing to be back in the house, under the air con­di­tion­er. Hell, I would give any­thing to have a drink of the pink sparkling lemon­ade the women are shar­ing. I keep wip­ing sweat from my fore­head every time they’re not look­ing at me. I’m afraid I may have pit stains.

“This blue­ber­ry goat’s cheese flat­bread should have been heat­ed up,” Patrice com­ments as she chews on the morsel in her mouth. “They’re bare­ly luke­warm.”

“I know,” Nina says regret­ful­ly. “I asked my maid to take care of it, but you know how it is. It is so hard to find good help.”

My mouth falls open. She nev­er asked me any such thing. Also, does she real­ize I’m stand­ing right here?

“Oh, it tru­ly is.” Jil­lianne nods sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly. “You just can’t hire any­one good any­more. The work eth­ic in this coun­try is so hor­ri­ble. You won­der why peo­ple like that can’t find bet­ter jobs, right? It’s lazi­ness, pure and sim­ple.”

“Or else you get some­one for­eign,” Suzanne adds. “And they bare­ly speak the lan­guage. Like Enzo.”

“At least he’s nice to look at!” Patrice laughs.

The rest of them hoot and gig­gle, although Nina is odd­ly silent. I sup­pose she doesn’t have to ogle the hot land­scap­er when she’s mar­ried to Andrew—I can’t blame her on that one. She also seems to have some sort of strange grudge against Enzo.

I’m itch­ing to say some­thing after the way they’ve been bad­mouthing me behind my… Well, not behind my back because I’m stand­ing right here, as I men­tioned. But I’ve got to show them that I’m not a lazy Amer­i­can. I have worked my butt off in this job and nev­er com­plained once.

“Nina.” I clear my throat. “Do you want me to heat up the hors d’oeuvres?”

Nina turns to look at me, her eyes flash­ing in a way that makes me take a step back. “Mil­lie,” she says calm­ly, “we’re hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion here. Please don’t inter­rupt. It’s so rude.”

“Oh, I—”

“Also,” she adds, “I’d thank you not to refer to me as Nina—I’m not your drink­ing bud­dy.” She snick­ers at the oth­er women. “It’s Mrs. Win­ches­ter. Don’t make me remind you again.”

I stare at her, flab­ber­gast­ed. On the very first day I met her, she instruct­ed me to call her Nina. I’ve been call­ing her that the entire time I’ve been work­ing here, and she’s nev­er said a word about it. Now she’s act­ing like I’m tak­ing lib­er­ties.

The worst part is the oth­er women are act­ing like Nina is a hero for telling me off. Patrice launch­es into some sto­ry about how her clean­ing woman had the gall to tell her about how her dog died. “I don’t want to be mean,” Patrice says, “but what do I care if Juanita’s dog died? She was going on and on about it. Hon­est­ly.”

“We def­i­nite­ly do need the help though.” Nina pops one of the unac­cept­able hors d’oeuvres into her mouth. I’ve been watch­ing her and she’s eat­en about half of them while the oth­er women are eat­ing like birds. “Espe­cial­ly when Andrew and I have anoth­er baby.”

The oth­er women let out gasps of excite­ment. “Nina, are you preg­nant?” Suzanne cries.

“I knew you were eat­ing like five times as much as the rest of us for a rea­son!” Jil­lianne says tri­umphant­ly.

Nina shoots her a look—I have to sti­fle a laugh. “I’m not preg­nant yet. But Andy and I are see­ing this fer­til­i­ty spe­cial­ist who is sup­posed to be amaz­ing. Trust me, I’ll have a baby by the end of the year.”

“That is so great.” Patrice puts a hand on Nina’s shoul­der. “I know you guys have been want­i­ng a baby for a long time. And Andrew is such a great dad.”

Nina nods, and for a moment, her eyes look a bit moist. She clears her throat. “Excuse me for a moment, ladies. I’ll be right back.”

Nina dash­es into the house, and I’m not sure if I’m sup­posed to fol­low her. She’s prob­a­bly going to the bath­room or some­thing. Of course, maybe now that’s one of my responsibilities—following Nina into the bath­room so that I can pat her hands dry for her or flush the toi­let or God only knows what.

As soon as Nina is gone, the oth­er women burst into qui­et laugh­ter. “Oh my God!” Jil­lianne snick­ers. “That was so awk­ward! I can’t believe I said that to her. I real­ly thought she was preg­nant! I mean, doesn’t she look preg­nant?”

“She is get­ting like a house,” Patrice agrees. “She seri­ous­ly needs to hire a nutri­tion­ist and a per­son­al train­er. And did any­one else notice her roots show­ing?”

The oth­er women nod in agree­ment. Even though I’m not par­tic­i­pat­ing in this con­ver­sa­tion, I also noticed Nina’s roots. On the day I inter­viewed with her, her hair looked so immac­u­late. Now she’s got a good cen­time­ter of dark­er roots show­ing. I’m sur­prised she let it get that bad.

“Like, I would be embar­rassed to walk around like that,” Patrice says. “How does she expect to keep that hot­tie hus­band of hers?”