When I flipped to the fifth page, I found a chink in Nadia’s efficiency. She’d gotten the salary wrong. No way should it be eighty thousand dollars. Nobody in their right mind would pay a housekeeper that. Not with health insurance on top. Much as I’d have loved to sign for that amount, the honest girl in me felt compelled to point it out.
Next, my untrained eye came to rest on a confidentiality clause, which forbade me from saying a word to anyone about anything. Surely that was overkill? It wasn’t as if the man was a celebrity, was it? I’d certainly never heard of him. Oh, what did it matter? I barely had anybody to talk to in any case.
The front door swung open as Nadia came back, clutching a small pile of papers.
“Got the weekly quota of junk mail.” She rolled her eyes. “Usually I just grab it and run. Fortunately, Nick has the important things sent straight to the office.”
I cleared my throat. “Can I ask some questions?”
“I thought you might want to. Shoot.”
“I can’t see anything about working hours. What are they?”
My colleagues at the agency were full of tales about being made to work sixteen-hour days, and I sure hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“There aren’t any set times. We all tend to be flexible.”
Flexible. There was that word again. I bit my tongue, managing not to make a ridiculous comment like I did with Bradley. Nadia wouldn’t care that I could do the splits.
“What about days?”
Nadia leaned back against the door, the only accessible surface in the room. “If Nick’s around, he’ll expect you to be here. If he’s away, not so much.”
How often was he here? Was I expected to be at his beck and call? My face must have shown my doubts because Nadia expounded.
“Last month, Nick was around, so I worked seven days a week. This month, he’s been travelling overseas, and I spent two weeks answering emails for an hour a day from the beach in Antigua.”
That didn’t sound so bad. “I can’t vacuum from the beach, but a few easy days would be lovely.” I flipped back to the start of the contract. “This paragraph mentions other locations?”
And I figured it wasn’t talking about Antigua.
“Emmy didn’t tell you?”
I shook my head.
“Nick’s got two more houses, one in LA and another in Italy. Lake Como. They’ll need attention at some point.”
“Are they…” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Are they as bad as this one?”
“I haven’t been to either of them. Probably.”
I didn’t swear much, but the only word that sprang to mind had four letters and rhymed with duck.
“How does one person create so much mess?”
“Years and years of practice, I think.” Nadia flashed me a grin. “But you haven’t run screaming, which is a good sign. Anything else?”
I pointed out the end paragraph. “The salary’s wrong.”
She stepped forward and peered down. “No, eighty thousand dollars is right. That’s what Emmy told me.”
“I thought it was eighty dollars a day?”
“Who would take on this car crash for eighty dollars a day?”
Er, me? When people got desperate, they’d do anything. Could eighty thousand really be right? I went a little lightheaded and my legs threatened to give way, so I perched on the edge of a box that apparently contained a coffee table. Oh gosh, Emmy must have thought I was ridiculously greedy when I turned down her offer of seventy. But I parked that embarrassment at the back of my mind as I did some quick calculations. At eighty thousand, even after tax, I could clear Momma’s medical bills in only five or six years. For that, I’d clean all three of Mr. Goldman’s houses, on my knees with a toothbrush if necessary.
Nadia’s tapping foot snapped me out of my stupor.
“Are you ready to sign now?” she asked. “I need to get back to the office.”
I grabbed the pen and scribbled on both copies, fearful they’d vanish if I hesitated. Nadia stuffed one back into the folder and handed the other to me, along with several pages of typed notes, her business card, and a bunch of keys.
“Here are the security codes, my number, and a sheet of information. Give me a call if you need anything.”
“I will.”
She took one last look around before she backed out the door. “Good luck.”
I’d need it. As the lock clicked, my heart sped up as the enormity of the task hit me. One woman against