Fifteen minutes. Great.

“Millie!” His face lights up when he sees me, but then I notice he’s looking at the pie. “Apple pie… my favorite American dessert!”

“I made it,” I say, testing the waters.

“Really? It looks like from supermarket.”

Damn. I guess I didn’t make it rustic enough.

He comes over to give me a kiss, but I back away, holding up a hand to ward him off. “You’re filthy!”

“I was digging a hole,” he says, like it would be silly to think he was doing anything else. “I’ll shower after I do the baseball with Nico. He wants to practice.”

“Enzo.” I glare at him. “Suzette invited us for dinner! We need to be there in fifteen minutes. Remember?”

He looks at me blankly. I am amazed by his ability to forget any sort of social engagement, although he seems to be very good at keeping track of his work obligations.

“Oh,” he says. “Was it in the family calendar?”

Enzo always tells me to put things in the family calendar on our phones, but as far as I can tell, he does not check that—ever. “Yes, it was.”

“Oh.” He scratches his neck with his dirt-encrusted hand. “I guess… I shower now then.”

Honestly, sometimes it’s like having a third child. Actually, he is more like the second child, because Ada is much more like an adult.

I turn back to the pie. On a whim, I throw it into the oven. Maybe if it’s hot, I can pass it off as my own. Somehow, I feel this desperate need to impress Suzette Lowell. I’ve worked for a lot of women like Suzette back in the days when I was cleaning houses, but I’ve never been in a position to be anything more than the servant of a woman like her.

I don’t like Suzette, but if we can be friends with the Lowells, it’s a step up. It means I have finally achieved the normal life I always dreamed of. The life I’d do anything to get.

SEVEN

Twenty minutes later, we are standing at the front door of 12 Locust Street.

It took a little longer than expected. Even though Enzo took a quick shower, he then came downstairs in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt, because of course he did. So I had to send him back upstairs to change into something a little more respectable. Now he’s wearing the button-up black dress shirt I bought him six months ago when I realized he had absolutely no dress shirts, and as expected, it perfectly complements his dark eyes and hair, and he looks achingly handsome. Also as expected, he looks very uncomfortable and like there’s a chance he might rip it off at some point during the evening. (Suzette would die.)

The apple pie is now warm, which helps it look more homemade. It’s also very hot to hold. It’s currently scalding my hands, and I can’t wait to put it down.

Nico is tugging at his own short-sleeved dress shirt, which has an even higher chance of being ripped off due to discomfort tonight than his father’s. “Do we have to go to a boring dinner?”

“Yes,” I say.

“But I want to play baseball with Dad.”

“We won’t be there long.”

“What are they making for dinner?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I watch TV while we’re there?”

I turn my head to glare at my son. “No, you cannot.”

I look over at Enzo for support, although he looks like he’s trying not to laugh. He probably wishes he could watch TV too.

After a minute of my hands being scorched by the supermarket pie, an unfamiliar woman pulls open the front door. She is about sixty years old and built like a linebacker, with graying hair pulled back into a tight bun. She has the most perfect posture I’ve ever seen—like if you put a book on her head and checked on it two days later, it would still be there. She’s got on a flowered dress with a white apron over it. She stares at me with dull gray eyes that bore right into me.

“Um, hello…” I say uncertainly. I check the house number on the door, as if I might have somehow gone to the wrong house next door. “I’m Millie. We’re here for…”

“Millie!”

Behind the woman who greeted us, a voice floats out from within the depths of the house. A second later, Suzette descends the stairs, looking simultaneously slightly breathless and yet without a single hair out of place. She’s wearing a green dress that makes me realize her eyes are actually more green than blue, and whatever miraculous bra she’s wearing pushes her boobs practically up to her chin. Her butterscotch-colored hair is shiny, like she was just whisked out of the salon, and her skin almost seems like it’s glowing. She looks gorgeous.

I look over at Enzo to see if he’s noticing how she looks, but he’s busy fiddling with a button on his shirt. He really hates that shirt. Hopefully he can keep it on till we get home.

“Millie and Enzo!” she cries, clasping her hands together with more delight than anyone could possibly have over the neighbors coming to visit. “I’m so glad you could make it. And so fashionably late.”

Sheesh, we’re only five minutes late.

“Hi, Suzette,” I say.

“I see you’ve already met Martha.” Suzette’s eyes twinkle as she puts a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “She helps out here two days a week. Jonathan and I are just so busy, and Martha is a lifesaver.”

“Yes,” I murmur.

I have been many families’ Martha in the past. But I was never able to play the part as well as this woman clearly does. She looks like a maid right from out of the fifties. All she needs is a little feather duster and one of those vacuums with the comically large engines.

Yet there’s something unnerving about her. Possibly because she’s still staring at me like she can’t rip her eyes away. I’m used to women staring at Enzo, but she’s not interested in him or my children. Her gaze is laser-beam focused on my face.

What is so interesting? Do I have spinach in my teeth? Is there a celebrity I resemble and she wants an autograph?

“Could Martha get you anything to drink?” Suzette asks me and Enzo, although she’s looking at him. “Water? A glass of wine? I believe we also have some lovely pomegranate juice.”

We both shake our heads. “No, thank you,” I say.

“Are you sure?” she says. “It’s no trouble for Martha.”

I look over at the older woman, who is still standing there rigidly, waiting for the word to dash back in the kitchen and fetch us a beverage. “It’s no trouble,” she chimes in, her voice low and gravelly, like she’s not used to using it.

“We’re fine,” I assure her, hoping she’ll leave. She doesn’t.

Suzette finally notices Nico and Ada, who are patiently huddled in the doorway. “And these must be your two beautiful children. How completely precious.”

“Thank you,” I say. It always struck me as odd that when you compliment someone’s children, the parent says “thank you,” like they are the owner of the child. Yet here I am, saying thank you.

Suzette turns her attention back to Enzo. “They both look exactly like you.”

“Not exactly,” Enzo says, which is a bald-faced lie. “Ada has Millie’s mouth and lips.”