The Housemaid(45)

I check out as quickly as I possibly can. I load the paper bags filled with groceries back into my shopping cart, so I can push it out into the parking lot to my Nissan. It’s only as I’m getting close to the exit that a hand closes around my shoulder. I lift my head and that heavyset man is standing over me.

“Excuse me!” I try to jerk away, but he holds tight to my arm. My right hand balls into a fist. At least a bunch of people are watching us, so I have witnesses. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He points to a small ID badge hanging from the collar of his blue dress shirt, which I hadn’t noticed before. “I’m supermarket security. Can you come with me, Miss?”

I’m going to be sick. It’s bad enough I spent almost ninety minutes in this place, shopping for a handful of items, but now I’m being arrested? For what?

“What’s wrong?” I gulp.

We have attracted a crowd. I notice a couple of women from the school pick-up, who I’m sure will gleefully report back to Nina that they saw her housekeeper being apprehended by supermarket security.

“Please come with me,” the guy says again.

I push my cart with us because I’m scared to leave it behind. There are over two hundred dollars’ worth of groceries in there, and I’m sure Nina would make me pay for all of them if they were lost or stolen. I follow the man into a small office with a scratched-up wooden desk and two plastic chairs set up in front of it. The man gestures for me to sit down, so I settle down in one of the chairs, which creaks threateningly under my weight.

“This has got to be a mistake…” I look at the man’s ID badge. His name is Paul Dorsey. “What’s this about, Mr. Dorsey?”

He frowns at me as his jowls hang down. “A customer alerted me that you were stealing items from the supermarket.”

I let out a gasp. “I would never do that!”

“Maybe not.” He sticks his thumb into the loop of his belt. “But I have to investigate. Can I see your receipt, please, Miss…?”

“Calloway.” I dig around in my purse until I come up with the crumpled strip of paper. “Here.”

“Just a warning,” he says. “We prosecute all shoplifters.”

I sit in a plastic chair, my cheeks burning, while the security guard painstakingly looks through all my purchases and matches them up with what’s in the cart. My stomach churns as I consider the horrible possibility that maybe the clerk didn’t ring something up properly, and he’ll think I stole it. And then what? They prosecute all shoplifters. That means that they’ll call the police. And that would be a violation of my parole for sure.

It hits me that this would work out pretty well for Nina. She would get rid of me without having to be the mean person who fired me. She would also get some pretty sweet revenge on me for having slept with her husband. Of course, it’s a little harsh to be sent to jail for adultery, but I get the feeling Nina may look at it differently.

But that can’t happen. I didn’t steal anything from the grocery store. He’s not going to find anything in that cart that isn’t on my receipt.

Is he?

I watch him scrutinizing the strip of paper as the tub of pistachio ice cream in my cart likely turns to liquid. My heart is pounding in my chest and I can hardly breathe. I don’t want to go back to jail. I don’t. I can’t. I’d rather kill myself.

“Well,” he finally says, “everything seems to match up.”

I almost burst into tears. “Right. Of course.”

He grunts. “I’m sorry to bother you like that, Miss Calloway. But we have a lot of problems with shoplifters, so I had to take it seriously. And I got a phone call alerting me that a customer matching your description might be planning to take something.”

A phone call? Who would call the grocery store and describe what I look like, and tell the security guard I was planning to steal something? Who would do such a thing?

I can only think of one person who would do something like that.

“Anyway,” he says, “thanks for your patience. You can go now.”

Those are the four most beautiful words in the English language. You can go now. I get to leave this grocery store with my hands free, pushing my shopping cart. I get to go home.

This time.

But I have a terrible feeling this isn’t the end of it. Nina has more in store for me.





THIRTY-TWO





I can’t sleep.

It’s been three days since I was nearly apprehended at the grocery store. I don’t know what to do next. Nina has been pleasant enough, so maybe she feels like I’ve learned my lesson about who is boss in this house. Maybe she isn’t trying to send me to jail.

But that’s not the reason I’m tossing and turning.

The truth is, I can’t stop thinking about Andrew. That night we spent together. The way I feel when I’m with him. I’ve never felt this way before. And until Nina dropped the bombshell about my past, he felt the same way. I could tell.

But not anymore. Now he thinks I’m nothing but a common criminal.

I kick the blankets off my legs. It’s stiflingly hot in my room, even at night. If only I could open that stupid window. But I doubt Nina is going to do anything to make me feel more comfortable here.