“Mom!” Peter poked his little blond head through the bedroom door. “This whole room is really mine?”
“Yep.” I shook the suds off my hands and grinned. “All yours. But you better keep it clean. Understood?” A shudder rocked though me at how much I sounded like my mama.
“I will. It’s so cool to have my own room.” With that, he disappeared back into the tiny bedroom, door closing softly behind him. I loved the sound of my son’s voice, still high and sweet and colored with the nasal Midwest accent so different from my Ozark tongue.
It was time he had a room of his own. Living in an efficiency studio in Chicago had been fine when he was a toddler, and tolerable when he was too little to be bothered by the lack of personal space. But next year Peter would be ten. He needed room to breathe. We both did.
And we’d found it in Maine. In this second-floor walk-up so close to the ocean I could smell the salt air. The place wasn’t exactly big, but it was affordable and clean and only a ten-minute walk from the restaurant. I didn’t mind that I’d be sleeping on the pull-out couch and waking up at all hours to the chattering of gulls and drunken sounds of men arguing in the bar next door. Drawing in a long, slow breath, I plunged my hands back into the soapy water and resumed scrubbing the kitchen floor.
Tomorrow I would start my new job. Head chef at Bella Vista, a fine-dining Mediterranean venture opened by the restaurant group I’d spent the last five years in Chicago busting my tail for. Riccardo was taking a big chance on me, and I was determined to do him proud. Smiling softly to myself, I lifted my eyes to my freshly pressed chef’s whites hanging on the bathroom door. I’d seen the pictures of the kitchen. My kitchen. I’d scrolled through them hundreds of times trying to picture myself running the operation. Brand-new and bigger than any space I’d worked in before. Gleaming pots and pans, top-of-the-line range, everything open to the tastefully decorated dining room. I wanted to squeal with excitement but bit my lip and started in on scrubbing the baseboards.
I lost myself in the methodical work of cleaning and nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of two loud raps on the glass pane of my front door. My eyes squeezed shut and my whole body stilled.
Squaring my shoulders, I stood tall and let my gaze shudder over to the door. All my breath rushed out of my body and a smile tugged at my mouth. A middle-aged lady with black rimmed glasses and shoulder length brown hair beamed at me and lifted a hand in greeting.
“Hi there.” I tried not to sound too breathless as I yanked the door open. It stuck a little bit but that was just fine with me.
“You must be Adah. So nice to meet you in person. I’m Vanessa.” The woman thrust a bouquet of sunflowers into my hands and let herself right on in.
It took my whirring brain a moment to catch up. Right. Vanessa Tyler. My landlady. The sweet woman who’d spent the last month filling my email inbox with helpful tips about my new city in Maine. The fairy godmother who, upon discovering my single-mother status, dropped the rent by four hundred dollars a month. I wanted to hug her but that really wasn’t my style.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I rubbed the back of my neck nervously and a few drops of soapy water slithered under my T-shirt.
“Ma’am nonsense. I do love that accent though. Where’d you get that? I thought you moved from Chicago.”
“Sure did.” I bit my lip to hold back the instinctive ma’am I’d been raised to keep in my mouth. “But I grew up in Missouri.” I tried for a smile. “You’ve got quite the accent yourself.”
Vanessa laughed, a hearty chuckle, and batted the air with her hands. “Well, that’s because I’m from so far north I practically grew up in Canada. You’re lucky I’m not speaking goddamn French.” She winked and glanced around the apartment. “You getting settled in okay? Place looks great. Nice to know you’re clean. The last guy was a real disaster. Pizza boxes stacked as high as my shoulder.” This word was pronounced without the final r. “Where’s your young man?”
Peter, never one to pass up a grand entrance, burst out of the bedroom and waved at Vanessa. “I’m here.” My boy wasn’t shy, I had to give him that.
“You certainly are. And what a handsome young man! What’s your name, sir?”
“Peter. Peter Campbell. Nice to meet you.”
“And you’re polite! I’m Vanessa.” She extended her hand and Peter shook it without hesitation. “I live right downstairs. You liking South Bay so far, kiddo?”
Peter nodded and I took a moment to admire my son’s earnest politeness. I’d been busy when he was little, swamped with culinary school and work, but he still turned out sweeter than any of my siblings despite all the manners forced on us. “It’s really pretty. I think I might miss Chicago, though. It seems a little boring here.”
“Well how about tomorrow I take you to the beach while your mom here gets cooking?”
Peter’s blue eyes flashed wide and I could practically hear the please, Moms radiating off him.
I pressed my lips together. As nice as Vanessa seemed, I didn’t know the woman from Adam. I’d hired a nice woman with state background checks from a reputable nanny service to take care of Peter for the two months until he started school. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’ve got a sitter. You’ve been too kind already.”
She nodded seriously. “Look, I get it, Adah. You don’t know me. I’m just your landlady. I could be a total weirdo. But I was the principal at Water Street Elementary for almost two decades. I can give you references, and I won’t charge you.” Her expression was soft, the sort of open kindness I’d always looked for in my own mother’s eyes.
“Really, you don’t have to do that. You’ve done so much as it is.”
“Mom,” Peter whined, “I wanna go with Ms. Vanessa. The beach.” He cast a wistful look out the window.
Guilt twisted in my stomach. After two full days of driving, retrieving the keys from underneath the flowerpot Vanessa described in great detail in one of her emails, and collapsing onto the couch for a fitful few hours of sleep, I hadn’t exactly prioritized fun excursions for Peter in our new hometown. When we’d discussed moving up to Maine, we’d spent hours looking at slideshows of hiking trails, lighthouses, and wildlife in the frozen north. So far all we’d done was clean, eat pizza, and walk around the corner to buy light bulbs. Not exactly thrilling stuff for a nine-year-old. Or for a thirty-one-year-old, for that matter.
Vanessa tapped away on a giant smartphone. “Okay. I just sent you a list of five references you can call. Teachers I worked with, admins in the district, and my best friend Sally. Oh, and the pastor at my church for good measure.”
I kept my face neutral even as her final phrase lit up every one of my nerves like fire tearing through dry brush. Deep breath in, hold it, push all the air out.