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Well, God, if this is how their husbands talk to them.
“Well, I suppose it’s all right. There will be other warm nights.” Clara laughs after that, an uncomfortable, harsh sound, like glass shattering on an aluminum countertop. “Come with me,” she says. “I’ll take you to the pool.”
She steps outside and leads me around the side of the house. The thought of allowing me into their home never even occurs to them.
I’m actually kind of grateful for that. I felt utterly out of place in Vivian’s home. Not to mention the fact that she was clearly flirting with me and I was a half-step away from giving into that temptation.
I can’t imagine a world where Clara Kensington could do anything to get me to give into temptation, but it’s nice to be back into a familiar lane. I don’t belong here. I’m here to do a distasteful job, then disappear as quickly as possible. That’s how they like it, and it’s how I like it.
“You’re going to replace the pool filter, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. The service includes a thorough cleaning, filter replacement and water treatment.”
"Oh, good. It makes this horrid rattling noise, and I just can't wait for it to stop."
I open my mouth to tell her that if there’s a mechanical problem with the filter pump, I’m not going to be able to fix it, but I don’t really want to have that conversation right now. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
So, I just smile and walk into the backyard. The pool is in worse shape than Vivian’s, but it’s not an unmitigated disaster. It’ll take me about twice as long to clean this one, but it’ll get done before the sun sets.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” I say. “I should have this all set by…”
My voice trails off when I look up and see I’m alone in the backyard.
“Yep,” I finish.
I head back to the van and get my equipment. I’ll need the vacuum for this one, not just the net.
I figure out the rattling noise in the pool filter pretty quickly. There’s a pearl necklace tangled around the motor’s chain. By some miracle, it’s managed to avoid tangling itself in the actual chain and is just wrapped around the cylinder head with a few pearls laying against the chain.
I take it off and set it to the side. I’ll take it in to Clara when I leave.
I take a moment to look at the necklace before replacing the filter. I don’t even want to know how expensive that necklace was when it was new. Hell, even now, it’s probably worth as much as the van I drive.
A thought crosses my mind. Clara will almost certainly just throw this necklace away and buy another one. This necklace, which is worth tens of thousands of dollars to anyone willing to take twenty minutes to clean it, will spend the rest of its existence in a landfill.
This could solve all of my problems.
I reach for the necklace, but I close my fist before my fingers wrap around it.
This won’t solve all of my problems. It’ll bring all of them back. I learned that lesson the hard way. I don’t want to learn it again.
I replace the filter and get to work on the pool. I’ll have to put the treatment in after I clean it. I’ll just end up vacuuming all of the chemical out if I put it in now.
The sun is blistering hot, and I’m grateful for the lemonade Vivian gave me. God, I can’t understand how people work landscaping in this heat. At least I’m working around water. It’s not like I can just take a dip, but enough water splashes on me to cool me down a little bit. What if I had to be mowing grass and picking weeds like this?
I get most of the debris with the vacuum then take a break before I use the net. Best Pool allows me to take a single fifteen-minute break during the job, but they ask that I save my meals for in between houses. That’s reasonable enough. It’s not like I want to spend any more time here than I have to. I just need to take a load off for a second.
I catch sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. I make the mistake of following that movement to an open second-floor window.
My breath catches in my throat for the second time today.
The girl in the window is around my age. She is absolutely stunning.
It’s a different kind of beauty than Vivian’s. Vivian is all of the best stereotypes of an attractive, healthy older woman and none of the worst.
This girl is more like a specter. She’s slender with skin so pale it’s almost translucent. She has enough curves to look attractive, but her… um… assets aren’t as well-developed as Vivian. They’re proportionate to her delicate frame, though, and since she only wears a bra and panties at the moment, I see all but the most sensitive parts of that frame. Her hair is long and straight, a dark brown color that matches Julian’s. Probably his and Clara’s daughter. I don’t get a good look at her face, but the side profile I see tells me that her features are as delicate as the rest of her.
Vivian Chase looks like the kind of woman you dream of having tell you what to do. This girl looks like the kind of person you want to protect and care for, the kind you want to hold in your arms and ensure nothing ever happens to her.
