Given that the guest house had come furnished, I had to tip my hat to whoever had bought the furniture and the bedding. The sheets were buttery soft, and the comforter was like being wrapped in a fluffy warm cloud. Because I didn’t close my drapes, the relentless sun kept poking me in the eyeballs and I had to pull the blanket over my head and shut out the light. This worked for another hour before my restlessness roused me.
I had decided that today’s mission was to go out and hit all the thrift stores until I found some art to hang on the walls. I didn’t care if it was portraits of scary clowns. I needed something to look at besides a vast expanse of Swiss Coffee–painted walls.
I’m not sure why the creamy color was called that. It seemed like a misnomer since there wasn’t even a hint of brown in it, but I’d always envied whoever it was who had the sweet job of naming the colors of paint or nail polish or lipstick. In another life, that would be my dream job. Imagine spending all day coming up with new and different names for all the shades of red that have nothing to do with the color red, like I Can’t Even, which could be an orange red or Sorry Not Sorry, a bluish red. Those were my favorite reds, the blue-toned ones.
Shaking off my contemplation of color hues and their names, I strode to the kitchen to make my coffee. Once I had frothed the milk and poured in the coffee, I decided to take my cup out to the front of my house to enjoy the sounds of the birds chirping, the crisp breeze, and the warm sun. I would have sat on the back patio, but I was overly conscious of the fact that I could be seen from the big house, and having been chastised about the hot tub, I didn’t really want to put myself out there in my morning attire, which was not the stuff of runways. Heck, it wasn’t even fit for an emergency grocery run.
I opened the front door and stopped short. Taped across both doors was another envelope. So this was going to be a fun Saturday.
I wondered if it had been Jackson who’d stuck it there. I seriously doubted it was Mr. Daire himself. I snagged the note and sat on the top step, letting the sun heat my shoulders while pondering the sealed missive. Like the others, it was business-size, white, with my name, Ms. Martin, written in the same blocky, exacting handwriting.
Had I taken my trash to the curb? Yes. Had I brought the bin back up? Yes. Had I used the pool or the hot tub? No. I tried to remember the list of rules. As far as I could remember, I hadn’t broken any of them. Heck, I hadn’t even been here much as I’d put in long days all week, getting acclimated to office life and such.
I sipped my coffee then tapped my chin with the envelope. To open or not to open, that was the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of my anxiety or open the damned thing and remove all doubt. Shakespeare would be proud, I know.
I decided to go with removing all doubt and opened the letter. It was one sheet, neatly folded into thirds. I snapped it open and read.
Dear Ms. Martin [It started cheerfully enough]:
Per the rules that were delivered to you by our mutual acquaintance, Miguel Vasquez, it was stated quite clearly on page four, paragraph two, line twelve that there was to be no noise past the hour of nine o’clock at night. And yet, at approximately ten fifteen last night, a lone voice was heard to be belting out the old Irish favorite “Danny Boy.”
And just like that, my stomach bottomed out. I cringed, remembering that beer-infused moment when I had been convinced I was singing with the trees and the stars. I wondered how badly I had butchered the song and if this was grounds enough to get me ousted out of my house. I had become quite fond of it over the past week and didn’t really want to have to pack and move again. I glanced at the note and braced myself because there was more. Of course there was.
Because I and my staff were all accounted for at that precise hour and because you were seen on the gate’s security camera, singing the same song with a carful of people, I feel it is a safe assumption that the source of the noise was you.
I paused to stare down the drive at the gate. Was that the only security camera on the grounds? I mean, it made sense, you want to see who is swiping your packages these days, but it made me wonder what else was on camera around here and perhaps I needed to rethink not pulling my drapes closed. Hmm.
In the future, please refrain from singing after the hour of nine. In fact, if you could curb the need to sing at all, that would be much appreciated.
—Gratefully yours,
Daire
Well, that last line was just insulting. Granted, I was no Beyoncé, but I wasn’t exactly an alley cat sitting on a fence either. I sipped my coffee and pondered my response, because of course there needed to be a response. I couldn’t let his aspersions upon my singing go unchallenged.
I stood and stretched. I supposed I should be grateful that he hadn’t evicted me. I knew if I could just meet the old coot, I could probably win him over. I was a very good listener and I genuinely liked people. Surely the old guy and I could find some common ground. I just needed an introduction.
I ducked back into the house, and while eating my yogurt and granola, I found a fresh piece of paper and an envelope. I doodled on this one just like last time, but instead of cactus flowers and koi fish, I decided to go with a brilliant sunset over a purple mountain range, much like the sunset I’d seen upon my arrival. It took up the entire page, and only when I was finished and my fingers were cramping from holding my colored pencils did I realize I hadn’t left much room for a note.
The only available space was the very narrow margin I’d left all around the paper, so I wrote in the allotted space, turning the page as I went.
Dear Mr. Daire [I, too, can be cordial]:
Please excuse my excessive celebration upon the completion of my first week at work. I was unaware of the time, clearly, but must point out that the rules state no loud “noise” after nine o’clock. I do not consider my singing to be noise but understand that this is a subjective opinion. I will refrain from any further displays of overt happiness.
Yours in silence,
Annabelle Martin
I found a fresh envelope and stuffed my note inside. Then I quickly showered and dressed. I went for a casual Saturday look, a navy blue and cream floral dress with a loosely crocheted shrug in ecru and a pair of cloth flats in dark blue. I brushed my hair into a ponytail and tied it with a cream-colored scarf, letting the ends hang down over my shoulders. I completed the look with mascara and pink lipstick. I was going for cute, because when I marched my note up to the house, I was determined to meet Mr. Daire once and for all, and I needed all the ingénue in my arsenal queued up and ready.
Locking the door behind me, I trekked the path to the big house. The sun was warm but the air was still cool. The enormous olive trees whispered overhead as a soft breeze rippled through them. I could hear the birds singing, and the smell of spring was on the air. It was impossible to feel low, given the beauty of the day.