Meadow leaves first. I listen, playing with my phone, eating a KIND bar, waiting for Maya to follow. It takes a while. She putters around the kitchen, clanking pans, and my stomach growls over the scents filling the air. After, water runs, probably for a shower, and I squirm in anticipation.
Finally, I hear her walk through the house and close the heavy side door that leads to the garage. Her car is quiet, but I can see a part of the driveway and watch it drive away. I give it fifteen minutes in case she forgot something, then finally escape my little prison. The cleaners won’t come until tomorrow, so I should be relatively safe. I walk through the garage and into the house, smelling something garlicky and exquisite, which turns out to be grilled artichokes. Two halves are left in the fridge, and of course I can’t eat them, but I slide back the cling wrap and pluck a single blade free. Heaven.
On the counter are bananas and a loaf of bread. Easy stuff. I make toast with honey and a cup of tea and eat a banana sitting at the table, reading my phone, just as I always have. I fancy the rooms welcome me, that they haven’t forgotten me.
Stomach sated, I wash and dry and put away my dishes, then collect food that will keep for tonight’s meals and carry it out to my room. I haven’t washed clothes for a few days, but that will have to wait. First, a swim and a shower.
My favorite thing in the world is that pool. It’s long and narrow, about the width of two lanes, meant for laps and sunbathing. The tiles are beautiful, handprinted, turquoise and green renditions of sea creatures like octopuses and mermaids and fish, and I kept the temperature at seventy-eight degrees, which is heavenly if you’re human, barely cool.
Part of the pleasure of it is this: I drop my clothes to the concrete, the shift I was wearing, and my panties. I dive in naked, the water flowing along the parts that never get fresh water on them like this, the silkiness moving over my breasts and bottom, sliding between my thighs. I swim for many laps, never counting, just feeling it, and then when I’m done, I roll over on my back and let the sun warm my parts, too.
As I’m lying there in the sun, my brain starts to turn over the pieces of what I know about Meadow and how I might be able to find out more. The farm and her book emerged from the union with Augustus, but what happened before that? Her book is very light on details about her young years, starting basically when she began working at the Buccaneer, a local tourist trap, with Trudy Nickels, with her daughter in tow.
What happened before that? I feel like the answers to Meadow’s drive and ambition are more about the past than anything she’s written.
A pair of birds are squabbling in the bushes, and I open one eye to see if there’s anything to be worried about. Nothing. Only the bright, hot blue sky and the edge of the shrubs.
For a moment, I let myself imagine that Augustus is still asleep upstairs, the doors open to the breeze. I could go up and wake him, kissing his long back, nuzzling into his neck. He would stir, and roll over and make love to me, and then we’d shower the sweat away, and he’d go off to work and I’d—
What? What have I been doing the past nine months?
Not much. Lying here now, I’m ashamed of myself for dropping everything, all my fierce ambition and quests. I didn’t even think about it, just took up the mantle of kept woman as if I’d been training all my life. I dived into the ease he offered, the long, lazy days walking on the beach, swimming in the pool, reading in a way I’ve never had the luxury to indulge.
But is shame the right emotion? The truth is, when I arrived here, I was exhausted from years of foster homes, where I had to stay on my toes, then scrambling through undergrad, then grad school, trying to figure out how to make a name for myself, make a mark. Survival takes a lot of work if you’re an orphan woman in America.
I was lucky to have so many opportunities, the scholarships and awards, but it also takes a lot to keep your chin up in those glittering worlds of privilege. My hard work opened doors to rooms that were filled with people who only pretended to accept me, who made me all too aware that I was not from their ranks and no matter how far I rose, I would never be one of them.
I took comfort in the writings of women throughout history, and the ways those writings made me see my life. I’d grown fascinated with the tipping points in the sixties and seventies and eighties, when women moved from not being able to open a credit card account in their own names to running successful businesses of all kinds, like Meadow Sweet Organic Farms, one of the best farm-to-table establishments in the country.
What I feel now, lying in the hot sun, is gratitude. Augustus gave me some space to rest and heal. I will miss him terribly, but it’s time to get back to living my own life. I’ll get my research done here, earn enough money from the restaurant gig to get myself back to the East Coast, and then dive into my thesis.