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How have I never put two and two together? Then again, that’s Natalie’s personality, so I didn’t even think twice.
I plop down onto the couch and blow out a stressed breath. "You don't even know. First of all, the Schneiders never answered any of my calls, and I sent text message after text message to no avail. I even went as far as telling them Grammy fell down a flight of stairs and was in critical condition so I needed to get to the emergency room. Crickets. I started to think they were never coming back, until they strolled in like nothing happened four fucking hours later. I had to keep my cool, though, because they still needed to pay me, and I wanted my money."
"Are you fucking shitting me? I would've left those monsters alone and dipped out."
"Of course I wanted to just walk out, Nat, but I couldn't do that. It’s not the kids' fault their parents are ignorant assholes. But it gets better."
"I can’t wait to hear this shit."
"They only wanted me to use lemon juice to clean off the lipstick from the walls. I'd rather muck a horse stall than do that again. I found an old container of bleach in the basement and switched to that. Oh, and the cloth diapers they use because they're worried about the environment? They wanted me to wipe off the shit from the diapers first before throwing them into the washer. I'm all for saving the animals and being a tree hugger, but you will never catch me putting literal shit into my washing machine."
Natalie's face pinches into a scowl of disgust. It's exactly how I feel.
"So Mr. Schneider takes me to the railroad station and as he hands me my pay, he proceeds to tell me he’s short by five-fucking-hundred dollars."
"You can’t be serious," Natalie says, and her jaw drops.
"As a heart attack. He said he’d give it to me next weekend. That was the icing on the cake. I take care of his kids all weekend and he can’t even pay me in full!" I take a deep breath. Just thinking about it again gets me all worked up.
I crack my neck and the sound echoes throughout the room. I was supposed to be paid eight hundred for the weekend. I got three.
"They've done this before, but this was just the straw that broke the camel's back."
"Fucking losers." Natalie rolls her eyes at the lunacy of the situation and shakes her head. "So, do they know you quit?"
"Sure do." I smile as I think about Mr. Schneider's shocked expression. "He told me he’d see me Tuesday and Thursday and then the weekend again, and that I needed to make sure I could fulfil those dates indefinitely."
"What the fuck!" Natalie’s eyes bulge and I can feel her anger. It's as hot as mine.
"Once I had the cash in my hand, I told him the next time he wants to ask someone to be his bitch, he should be the one to bend over and say please."
"Bend over? That's the best you could come up with?"
"Of course now I have better comebacks since I've had time to stew. But you know what's funny? His face went pale white, almost as if someone actually told him to bend over."
Natalie covers her mouth. "No way! You're kidding me!"
"I wish I was. He looked so shocked. He didn't drive off for a solid minute after I got out of the car."
"That's amazing. I wish you would've been like, 'Go fuck your mother,' but sometimes you like to keep it classy and I get it. You’re the nice one in this relationship."
I shrug. For the most part they were nice to me while I worked for them, but that was because I was taking care of their kids. They shouldn't treat the hired help like shit, definitely not the nanny anyway. When I look back on it and think about all the things they had me do on top of watching their kids, how they had little to no concern for the train schedules I needed to catch, or my extremely few obligations I needed to fulfill, I was just another pebble in their driveway for them to kick around.
I yawn and stand up. "I'm gonna hit the sack. I'm exhausted."
"Later, sleeping beauty," Natalie says, and I walk into my room and get settled into my bed.
I turn over onto my side and curl up into a ball, pulling the covers tight to my chin. The horns and whistles and the police sirens don't bother me anymore. The noise is almost like a lullaby that soothes me to sleep. Later on today I'll need to see if I can pick up a few extra shifts at the laundromat, then I'll deposit the rest of the money, save for like a hundred bucks, into Grammy's account.
"I got you an interview," Natalie says quie
tly.
I pop up into a sitting position and turn to face her standing in my doorway. My heart begins beating faster than usual. I'm both excited and nervous, definitely more nervous than anything.
"Already? I figured we'd talk about it first. How? When?"
She looks around my darkened room, then flips on the light. "Ah, I thought we already did talk about it."
