Page 7 of All Out of Love

She walked even faster up the long sidewalk that led to what she was certain would be called the servants’ quarters in the movies. But just as long as they hired her on, and just as long as they gave her the ability to do all she could to stay on, they could call that entranceway anything they liked. To work for a company of the magnitude of the office building she saw when she first arrived In Brockhurst, and the grounds she now walked upon, would be a major come-up for her. This was her chance to prove herself. She felt it in her bones.

She felt that way, however, until she met Miss Javits.

CHAPTER SIX

As soon as she knocked, it took mere seconds for the door to be opened by a man who had the look of the butler. (She would later learn he was the assistant butler, since the butler was on front door duties). It was her first experience seeing a butler, in person, open a door.

She didn’t even have to tell him who she was. That was how efficient that house was being run apparently. He stepped aside and allowed her to walk in.

When she walked inside, she was amazed by how many people were rushing around in the servants’ quarters as if they were downstairs at Downton Abby.

“Follow me,” the assistant butler said as he led her down corridors after corridors. Then he stopped in an intersection of corridors, told her to go right and all the way at the end of that particular corridor was a door. That was where the other ladies were waiting.

“Wait what? What other ladies?” she asked the butler. But he had already turned to head back to his post.

And she had no time to delay. She was early for her appointment, thank God she thought as she hurried down that corridor. Her goal was to find a bathroom she could dip into right quick, pee, freshen up, and then go meet her new employer.

And quickly found a bathroom that had Unisex written on it, which she knew meant it was for men or women, so she hurried inside. It also said Executive Unisex Restroom, but that was too bad. Because of how long she and that assistant butler had to walk from the back entrance to that corridor up front where the bathroom stood, she had no time to waste.

But as soon as she entered, a white man in shirtsleeves and suspenders was standing at one of the two sinks, with his butt leaned against the sink and his dress shoes crossed, as he was thumbing through his phone.

When the man looked up from his phone, she stopped in her tracks. This unisex bathroom thing was unusual for her and probably couldn’t work except inside somebody’s house, but he looked normal enough and she had no further options. “I can’t hold it,” she said as she dropped her big Gucci bag where she stood and rushed into the nearest stall.

Grayson found it odd that she would just drop her bag in the middle of a bathroom floor like that, but within seconds he understood it. She truly couldn’t hold it because she was peeing loud and long. She even sighed relief, which made him smile. And her peeing went on and on and on until she said something.

“Sorry about this,” she said to him from behind the stall. “Whenever I get really nervous I have to go and go like a big dog.”

He sniggled as he continued to read over an important text message.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a sec,” she added.

And sure enough, she finally stopped peeing, wiped herself he assumed, and then flushed and hurried out of the stall. She walked up to the second sink and began washing her hands vigorously. “That feels so much better,” she said to him as she looked over at him.

When he didn’t respond, she kept on talking. “I have a job interview.”

“Do you?” He didn’t bother to look at her.

“Well not an interview exactly, but a placement. I was assigned to work here. This is my first time here.”

He still was reading his text. “Welcome aboard.”

She grabbed two of those thick, fancy paper towels in a basket with the designs on them and began drying her hands. “You work here too?”

Did he work there? He did actually. “Yes,” he said and then looked at her.

When he finally looked at her up close and personal, he was surprised by how earnest she appeared, as if she had no hidden agendas, and the sincerity in her very soft, very bright brown eyes caught him off guard. They were so bright and so brown that they almost looked golden. Wow, he inwardly thought, about her eyes alone.

But Toya wasn’t as impressed with Grayson. He was a very good-looking man. There was no doubt about that. Any woman, she believed, would say he was great looking. But he looked rather unkempt to her, as if he didn’t care about his appearance at all. Which was fine lounging around the house. But it was highly inappropriate, in her view, at work. And besides, didn’t his wife or girlfriend care? Or were they unkempt sort of people too?

But she had her own self to worry about. She stood back, looking at herself in the mirror that stood over the sink. “How do I look?” she asked him with concern in her voice as she was checking herself out. “Do I look professional enough you think?”

She looked at him with a worried look on her pretty face, as if she felt she wasn’t good enough to work on his grounds. He quickly disabused her of that notion. “I think you look quite professional, yes,” he said as he gave her and her lavender pantsuit a quick perusal.

She had a nice figure, he thought, and a very pretty, endearing face. But he wondered what type of professional job did she expect to have at his house when those jobs, such as house manager and butlers and various supervisors of various household sectors, were already taken?

But whatever job it was, she wanted to make a good impression because she hurried over, picked up her big bag and brought it with her to the sink, pulled out her makeup-compact-thingy and began freshening up her makeup. He found it refreshing that she would do so in front of him when most girls wouldn’t dare. But there was nothing about this person, he was beginning to believe, that was anything like most girls.

And she wasn’t exactly a girl anymore. She looked to be in her early thirties at the very least. Which, again, made him wonder what kind of job she would be doing at his house when they generally hired people in their twenties who were able to get around swiftly in a very demanding household?