Chap­ter 25

It’s a beau­ti­ful June evening. I brought a wrap with me, but it’s so warm out, I end up leav­ing it in Andrew’s car, so I’ve got noth­ing besides my white dress and my purse that doesn’t match as we wait in line to be allowed into the the­ater.

I gasp when I see the inside of the the­ater. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any­thing like this in my life­time. The orches­tra alone con­tains rows and rows of seats, but then when I lift my head, there are two sets of seats stretch­ing up all the way to the ceil­ing above. And up in the front is a red cur­tain that is lit from below with tan­ta­liz­ing yel­low light.

When I final­ly tear my eyes away from the sight in front of me, I noticed Andrew has an amused look on his face. “What?” I say.

“It’s just cute,” he says. “The look on your face. I’m so used to it, but I love see­ing it through your eyes.”

“It’s just so big,” I say self-con­scious­ly.

An ush­er comes to hand us play­bills and lead us to our seats. And then comes the real­ly amaz­ing part—he keeps lead­ing us clos­er and clos­er and clos­er. And when we final­ly get to our seats, I can’t believe how close we are to the stage. If I want­ed, I could grab the actors by their ankles. Not that I would because that would def­i­nite­ly vio­late my parole, but it might be pos­si­ble.

As I sit next to Andrew in one of the best seats of the hottest show in town in this amaz­ing the­ater, I don’t feel like a girl who just got out of prison, who doesn’t have a pen­ny to her name, who is work­ing a job she hates. I feel spe­cial. Like maybe I deserve to be here.

I gaze at Andrew’s pro­file. This is all because of him. He could have been a jerk about the whole thing and charged me for the tick­ets, or gone with a friend of his. He would have had every right to do so. But he didn’t. He took me here tonight. And I’ll nev­er for­get it.

“Thank you,” I blurt out.

He rotates his head to look at me. His lips curl. He’s so hand­some when he smiles. “My plea­sure.”

Over the music play­ing and the com­mo­tion of peo­ple find­ing their seats, I just bare­ly hear a buzzing sound com­ing from my purse. It’s my phone. I take it out and dis­cov­er a mes­sage from Nina on the screen:

Don’t for­get to put out the trash.

I grit my teeth. If any­thing can bring your fan­tasies of being more than a maid to a screech­ing halt, it’s a mes­sage from your employ­er telling you to lug the garbage to the curb. Nina always reminds me about trash day, every sin­gle week, even though I’ve nev­er once for­got­ten. But the absolute worst part is that when I see her text, I real­ize that I have for­got­ten to take the garbage to the curb. I usu­al­ly do it after din­ner, and the change in the sched­ule threw me off.

It’s fine though. I just have to remem­ber to do it tonight when we get back. After Andrew’s BMW turns back into a pump­kin.

“You okay?”

Andrew’s eye­brows are knit­ted togeth­er as he watch­es me read the text. My warm feel­ings for him evap­o­rate slight­ly. Andrew isn’t a guy I’m dat­ing who is spoil­ing me with a Broad­way show. He’s my employ­er. He’s mar­ried. He only brought me here because he feels sor­ry for me for being so uncul­tured.

And I can’t let myself for­get it.

The show is absolute­ly amaz­ing. I am lit­er­al­ly at the edge of my seat in the sixth row, my mouth hang­ing open. I can tell why this show is one of the most pop­u­lar on Broad­way. The musi­cal num­bers are so catchy, the dance num­bers are so elab­o­rate, and the actor play­ing the lead is dreamy.

Although I can’t help but think he’s not quite as hand­some as Andrew.

After three stand­ing ova­tions, the show is final­ly over and the audi­ence starts to fil­ter toward the exits. Andrew leisure­ly ris­es from his seat and stretch­es out a kink in his back. “So how about some din­ner?”

I slide the play­bill into my purse. It’s risky to save it, but I’m des­per­ate to hold onto the mem­o­ry of this mag­i­cal expe­ri­ence. “Sounds good. Do you have a place in mind?”

“There’s an amaz­ing French restau­rant a cou­ple of blocks away. Do you like French food?”

“I’ve nev­er had French food before,” I admit. “Although I like the fries.”

He laughs. “I think you’ll enjoy it. My treat, of course. What do you say?”

I say that Nina wouldn’t enjoy find­ing out that her hus­band took me to a Broad­way show and then treat­ed me to an expen­sive French din­ner. But what the hell. We’re already here, and it’s not like the meal would make her more mad than the show alone. May as well go for broke. “Sounds good.”

In my old life, before I worked for the Win­ches­ters, I nev­er could have gone into a French restau­rant like the one where Andrew takes me. There’s a menu post­ed on the door, and I only glance at a few of the prices, but any appe­tiz­er would wipe me out for sev­er­al weeks. But stand­ing next to Andrew, wear­ing Nina’s white dress, I fit in here. Nobody is going to ask me to leave, any­way.

I’m sure as we walk into the restau­rant, every­body thinks we’re a cou­ple. I saw our reflec­tion in the glass out­side the restau­rant, and we look good togeth­er. If I’m hon­est, we look bet­ter as a cou­ple than he and Nina do. Nobody notices that he has a wed­ding band and I don’t. What they might notice is the way he gen­tly places a hand on the small of my back to lead me to our table, then pulls out a chair for me.

“You’re such a gen­tle­man,” I remark.

He chuck­les. “Thank my moth­er. That’s the way I was raised.”

“Well, she raised you right.”

He beams at me. “She’d be very glad to hear that.”

Of course, it makes me think about Cecelia. That spoiled lit­tle brat who seemed to get off on order­ing me around. Then again, Cecelia has been through a lot. Her moth­er tried to mur­der her, after all.

When the wait­er comes to take our drink orders, Andrew orders a glass of red wine, so I do the same. I don’t even look at the prices. It’s just going to make me sick, and he already said he’s pay­ing.

“I have no idea what to order.” None of the names of dish­es sound famil­iar; the whole menu is in French. “Do you under­stand this menu?”

“Oui,” Andrew says.

I raise my eye­brows. “Do you speak French?”

“Oui, made­moi­selle.” He winks at me. “I’m flu­ent, actu­al­ly. I spent my junior year of col­lege study­ing in Paris.”

“Wow.” Not only did I not spend any time study­ing French in col­lege, I nev­er went to col­lege at all. My high school diplo­ma is a GED.

“Do you want me to read the menu to you in Eng­lish?”

My cheeks grow warm. “You don’t have to do that. Just pick out some things you think I’d like.”

He looks pleased by that answer. “Okay, I can do that.”

The wait­er arrives with a bot­tle of wine and two glass­es. I watch as he uncorks the bot­tle and pours us both heap­ing glass­es. Andrew ges­tures for him to leave the bot­tle. I grab my glass and take a long sip.

Oh God, that’s real­ly good. So much bet­ter than what I get for five bucks at the local liquor store.

“How about you?” he says. “Do you speak any oth­er lan­guages?”

I shake my head. “I’m lucky I speak Eng­lish.”

Andrew doesn’t smile at my joke. “You shouldn’t put your­self down, Mil­lie. You’ve been work­ing for us for months, and you have a great work eth­ic and you’re obvi­ous­ly smart. I don’t even know why you would want this job, although we’re lucky to have you. Don’t you have any oth­er career aspi­ra­tions?”

I play with my nap­kin, avoid­ing his eyes. He doesn’t know any­thing about me. If he did, he would under­stand. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He hes­i­tates for a moment, then he nods, respect­ing my request. “Well, either way, I’m glad you came out tonight.”

I lift my eyes and his brown ones are star­ing at me across the table. “Me too.”

He looks like he’s about to say some­thing more, but then his phone starts ring­ing. He pulls it out of his pock­et and looks at the screen while I take anoth­er sip of wine. It’s so good, I want to guz­zle it. But that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“It’s Nina.” Maybe it’s my imag­i­na­tion, but he has a pained expres­sion on his face. “I bet­ter take this.”

I can’t hear what Nina is say­ing, but her shaky voice is audi­ble across the table. She sounds upset. He holds the phone about a cen­time­ter from his ear, winc­ing with each word.

“Nina,” he says. “Look, it’s… yeah, I won’t… Nina, just relax.” He purs­es his lips. “I can’t talk to you about this right now. I’ll see you when you get home tomor­row, okay?”

Andrew jabs at a but­ton on his phone to end the call, then he slams the phone on the table next to him. Final­ly, he picks up his wine glass and drains about half the con­tents.

“Every­thing okay?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He press­es his fin­ger­tips into his tem­ples. “I just… I love Nina, but some­times I can’t fig­ure out how my mar­riage got this way. Where nine­ty per­cent of our inter­ac­tions are her yelling at me.”

I don’t know what to say to that. “I… I’m sor­ry. If it makes you feel bet­ter, that describes nine­ty per­cent of my inter­ac­tions with her also.”

His lips twitch. “Well, we’ve got that in com­mon.”

“So… she used to be dif­fer­ent?”

“Com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent.” He grabs his wine and drains the rest of it. “When we met, she was a sin­gle mom work­ing two jobs. I admired her so much. She had a hard life, and her strength was what drew me to her. And now… She doesn’t do any­thing except com­plain. She doesn’t have any inter­est in work­ing. She spoils Cecelia. And the worst part is…”

“What?”

He picks up the bot­tle of wine and fills up his glass again. He runs his fin­ger along the rim. “Noth­ing. Nev­er mind. I shouldn’t…” He looks around the restau­rant. “Where is our wait­er?”

I’m dying to know what Andrew was about to con­fess to me. But then our wait­er rush­es over, eager for the giant tip he will almost cer­tain­ly get from this meal, and it looks like the moment has passed.

Andrew orders for the both of us, as he said he would. I don’t even ask him what he has ordered, because I want it to be a sur­prise and I’m sure it will be incred­i­ble. I’m also impressed with his French accent. I’ve always wished I could speak anoth­er lan­guage. It’s prob­a­bly too late for me though.

“I hope you like what I ordered,” he says, almost shy­ly.