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“If you can book one.” Julia turned away, towards the table where she had tossed her purse. “I’ll write you a check for your final pay. I don’t care what you do after that. Get another room. Change your flight and go back to the States. It goes without saying that you can’t continue to live in our home. I’ll have your things packed up. You can get them yourself, or we can ship them to a place you designate.”
“But that’s my residence. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Is it even legal to evict me like this?” Not that she wanted to return, but homelessness didn’t appeal, either.
Steven’s voice sounded from the door behind her. “It isn’t legal to try to blackmail your boss with lies about an affair, either. It would probably be best for you just to leave quietly, before we have to involve the police.”
Hanna’s skin felt tight. A blush burned over her face as shame and rage flushed through her. “You lying bastard. How dare you.”
“Really, Hanna, I’m embarrassed for you.” Steven walked around her to join his wife. His shoulder brushed Hanna’s on the way by, and she flinched. “Your references were so good. I really thought you had more integrity than this. Yes. I’m embarrassed for you. Get out of our suite. Don’t you think you’ve caused my wife enough pain? Make no mistake, I’ll be calling the agency we hired you through. They need to know what kind of woman you are.”
Outrage stole whatever words Hanna might have spoken on her behalf. She spun on her heel to duck into her room before the urge to slap the priggish, condescending smile off Steven’s face overcame her. Never in her life had she changed clothes faster or shoved her belongings into a bag with more speed.
Only Julia remained in the living room when Hanna carted her bags out. Silently, the other woman held out an envelope. Hanna took it and tried once more. “Julia, you have to know I wouldn’t–”
Julia shook her head. “What’s done is done. For what it’s worth…” Her words trailed off, and whatever she’d intended to say died before it could escape her lips.
What’s done is done.Quite a number of things fell into that category now. Done. Finished. Not the things that should have ended, but once again, whatever agents of destiny laid out the steps before her couldn’t handle the responsibility of their position. She adjusted the straps of her bags, took hold of the handle of her rolling suitcase, and walked out the door with her head low.
As she waited for a taxi outside the resort, she checked the contents of the envelope. She found her final paycheck, along with a few high-denomination bills. A scrap of paper clipped to them read, “This should be enough to cover the fees for changing your flight. I’m sorry.”
Hanna glanced back towards the hotel. The Dawsons’ room was on the other side, facing the water instead of the street, but she could imagine Julia behind the walls, waiting for a bottle of wine to help drown the bitter taste of the night.For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too.
* * *
“I really appreciateyou rescuing me, Athena, and letting me crash on your couch. I know it’s inconvenient.”
Inconvenient because she’d had to unearth the couch from beneath a pile of research volumes and style manuals, then find another place in the tiny cottage to stack them. Athena Hibou lived in a guest house on her own property, and every time Hanna visited, she discovered her friend had piled in more books, more odd knick-knacks, and sometimes, more computer equipment. That left less and less room for human backsides to settle on.
Athena waved a hand without looking up from her book. “They tell me this is what friends are for, Hanna. I could hardly leave you stranded in New York and homeless. You were desperate, especially if you called me. By the time anyone gets to my number, they have exhausted all other options.”
Hanna looked down at her hands, stung by the truth in those words and ashamed to agree with them. She’d called nine other people before she’d stared with intent at Athena’s number on the screen. Hanna had rung contacts at the nanny agency first, only to receive icy, pointed replies that told her Steven Dawson had already made good on his threat.
In between the third and fourth pleas for help, an inbound call had interrupted her search for a place to stay. The agency director reached out to fire Hanna personally, and to inform her that the company would not offer her positive references in the future. Six years of work history flushed down the drain.
After she’d exhausted all her agency contacts, Hanna had tried people she’d once thought of as friends. Every one of them had an excuse for why they couldn’t help out. Several were valid. Others were weak, anemic, the kind of excuses that showed her how badly she’d misread those friendships.
In the end, out of options and low on the ability to cope, Hanna had called Athena. Not just texted, as the woman preferred, but hit the green phone icon on the screen to put in an honest-to-mercy voice call. Athena picked up, listened to Hanna cry, then said, “I will be there in several hours. You can stay with me until you sort yourself out.”
Acquaintances avoided Athena for her eccentricities, her oddness, and her occasional yet severe lack of tact. Few realized Athena avoided them in return for their plebeian attitudes and their small, closed minds, which bored her to tears. Fewer still understood that weird waters ran deep. For all her strangeness, one couldn’t find a truer friend than Athena Hibou.
“Maybe I should have called you first, ‘Thena,” Hanna said softly.
Athena snorted. “Why? We all know I am an introvert with a dubious outlook on guests. My available facilities for friends are not stellar. If you could have found more comfortable accommodations, more power to you.”
Hanna chuckled. “How about accommodations for paying customers?”
“Slightly better, if you are one who enjoys that sort of thing.” Athena’s phone chimed. She checked the screen. “And in need of cleaning. Last night’s lodgers have checked out. Care to help reset the place?”
“What happened to the cleaning guy you had?” Hanna asked as she stood up.
Athena’s nose wrinkled. “He had an extreme courage malfunction. I will need to find another. Until I can, the cleaning is down to me. There is a milk crate in the laundry room with the supplies we will need. Sponges, cleaning products, gloves, charms against evil… Grab it, won’t you?”
“Wait. Charms against evil?”
“Technically they are ‘charms against malicious intent, uncanny energies, and motivated spiritual energies’, but that takes far too long to say.” Athena pulled her long hair, black with blue-green and purple tips, back into a sloppy bun.
“Glad we cleared that up,” Hanna said, not sure about how glad she was, and fetched the plastic crate.
She’d never seen the main house on Athena’s property. During the housing crash, Athena had snatched up a large and notorious house in the woods of Vermont, then turned the investment into a strange source of near-passive income. While most of Athena’s money came from freelance writing gigs of both normal and questionable repute, her side hustle brought in plenty of cash.
