Under Rose-Tainted Skies(7)

‘What rule says it’s okay for you to break in to someone’s house?’

‘I didn’t break in. I had a key.’ He pulls a clipboard out from under his arm.

‘What?’ He’s lying.

‘A key. You know, one of those little metal things that open locks?’ He plucks a pen from behind his ear and holds it out to me. ‘I need you to sign.’

‘How do you have a key?’

‘You gotta hand one over when you sign up for the service. Like I said, knock-and-no-answer procedure. If you knock and the client doesn’t answer, you go inside to make sure they haven’t kicked the bucket or fallen off a ladder and knocked themselves unconscious. Died. It’s all in the terms and conditions.’ This guy has a real way with words. Mom’s never mentioned this key thing to me before. Understandably, I guess. Still, looks like I’m going to be deadbolting the door from here on.

Helping Hands Guy is getting impatient. He shakes his pen at me for a fourth time. I can’t touch it. It’s chewed and marked with fingerprints. The thing needs its own Caution: Contaminated sticker. Not that I can sign his paperwork yet anyway. I glance at the clock above the oven. It’s just past 5.45. When people change plans, times, locations, it turns my brain into the aftermath of an egg that’s been dropped ten thousand feet. He’s early. I’m not ready. Not prepared. The need to defend myself is overwhelming.

‘I would have been ready for you at six,’ I tell him.

‘I’ll make a mental note of that.’ He retracts the pen, uses it to scratch his scalp before tapping it on the paper. ‘Sign, please.’ I swear I see little luminous green blobs of bacteria peppering the sheet.

‘I think I have a pen,’ I reply, hugging my torso as I scour the kitchen for a stray Bic. There’s a Sharpie stuck to the notepad on the fridge. It will have to do.

‘You don’t look very sick,’ the guy says as I scrawl my name in thick black letters. It doesn’t fit neatly on the little dotted line. My nails find a scab on my wrist and start picking as his eyes saunter down my scantily clad frame, lingering on my legs.

‘How grossly inappropriate of you to notice,’ I reply, fighting hard to keep my voice even.

I’m not surprised by his comment. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I mean, I’m pasty, sallow, reasonably tall at five foot six, and my mom would say as thin as a rake. Social Convention dictates that I must deny being pretty, but I am . . . pretty. It’s one of the only things I have that makes me feel normal. Of course, I pervert that normality by embracing my looks. I’m supposed to pretend that I’ve never noticed my face. I see it happen on The Hub all the time: a person tells someone else that they’re pretty, and they deny all knowledge, refute the compliment into oblivion, but hell-to-the-no am I ever doing that. This is mine, one of the only things about me that I actually like. I own it. And Social Convention will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands before I ever give it up.

The thing is, Helping Hands has a roster of housebound clients who are all on the far side of sixty. And most are undergoing some pretty intense treatments. As far as looking sick goes, people generally think I don’t. I have what Dr Reeves calls an invisible illness.

‘Much feistier than the norm,’ Helping Hands Guy tells me. I steady myself against the countertop, moving as slowly as I would if he were a lion and I were a lamb. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond, so I say nothing. He doesn’t seem to mind. ‘Cool pictures.’ He nods in the direction of the two art nouveau prints hanging on the wall at the other side of the room.

‘Thank you.’ I’m trying not to be hostile. It’s hard. His personal comments are still circulating, and my mind has started asking questions that I can’t answer.

‘You paint them?’ he asks.

‘No.’ The pictures are originals. Given to my grandma the Christmas before she died by the artist himself, Franz Muto. He’s not much of a big deal . . . yet. He’s hoping that’ll happen the day after he dies. My gran talked about Franz all the time. I know I could elaborate on my sharp response, tell Helping Hands Guy half a dozen stories about these particular pieces of art, but my brain is too busy trying to work out what he’s still doing here. I’m fixated on the idea that he’s waiting for a tip. Trying to work out how much. Considering what will happen if he’s not waiting for that and finds the suggestion offensive. ‘Yeah. Anyway. Good talk.’ He rolls his eyes at me. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ Helping Hands Guy flicks his eyebrows once, and with that, he leaves.

Wait.

My eyes dart around the room like ping-pong balls.

Wait.

Countertop: clear.

Kitchen island: clear.

Floor: clear.

Where are my groceries?

‘Wait!’

Panic turns my dart to the front door into a tangled stumble of lanky limbs. I thwack my hip on a chair and stub my toe on the skirting board.

Alas, it’s all in vain. I fling the door open just in time to see Helping Hands Guy pull his truck away from the kerb. The grocery bags lined up against the side of my house make a brief appearance in my peripheral vision. ‘Wait!’ I scream, but my voice is drowned out by the sound of maggot rock music blasting from his stereo. And then he’s down the road, around the corner.