THE UNDERBELLY
Dr. Jacquelyn and Mrs. Hyde
by
Evelyn Cole

CHAPTER ONE
Trishita MacCabe stepped over a man sleeping on the sidewalk in front of Russo's Bar and Grille. A pile of rags smelling of paint thinner under the guy's head caught her attention—Clark University T-shirts. The sight of those shirts refreshed her longings as she unlocked the door to Russo's. She began cleaning the place with a vengeance.

That damn paint contractor used Clark T-shirts as rags when she would give anything to be able to wear a new one. That thought struck her irony-bone for she was the illegitimate child of Dr. MacCabe, an exchange professor from Scotland for one semester. He knew naught of her. Nor did she know his academic field, for Flossie, her mother, had not asked. This particular unknown skewered Trishita's academic fantasies.
Just before noon the cook and dishwasher came in the back door chattering in Spanish. Russo stuck his head in the front door and said, "I'll be at the track. Looks good, Trish. Don't let the assholes get you down."

By noon the place was full with hung-over guys at the long bar overlooking Beacon Street, a few law students and some older bitches at the tables. Regulars at the bar called her "The Red Amazon" behind her back, "Trishita" to her face. Newcomers always asked how tall she was. At that question she pointed to a hand-lettered sign over the bar that read, "six foot, one inch" in red ink. Men in suits spoke in hushed tones about having those long legs wrapped around them.

University women called her, "Miss."

"Miss, would you please turn down that hideous music."
"Miss, I don't believe this fork is clean. Please bring another."
"Where do you buy your clothes?" one asked today as Trishita set a steaming plate of beans and rice on the table.
Trishita ignored her.

"Who does your hair?” another woman with straight blonde hair asked. “Do you have it tinted red and then permed?" The others smiled behind their napkins.

She hated them but continued to wait on them.

By four in the afternoon the place emptied except for a couple at the bar. Trishita stretched her legs across a booth and picked up "The Grapes of Wrath," for a few minutes of reading about a life worse than hers, but not much worse. There's supposed to be progress, she thought. These poor jerks sleeping on the streets of Worcester, Massachusetts, a city that brags about being home to ten fine colleges, are no better off than those Okies in California during the last full-on depression. And that was seventy years ago, at least.

Sharp claps of thunder outbid the police siren that wailed down Beacon Street and stopped at Russo's Bar and Grille, interrupting Trishita's reading. Pellets of hail stuck to the jacket of the policeman who strode in. Trishita looked up from her book.
"To what do we owe the honor of your visit?" she asked
"We're looking for a Miss, a Ms. Patricia MacCabe."
Trishita stood, wary. "Yours truly. What do you want?"
The officer, no taller than five-seven, tilted his head to examine her face, thereby avoiding her breasts which she knew confronted him. "Is Florence Giraux your mother?"

"Yes sir."

"I need to take you in for questioning."

Rage burned its way up Trishita's torso, exploding in her throat. She swallowed hard, stifling it.

"What did she do this time?" she asked.

"Painted what looked like tulips all over the inside of the city hall bell tower," the officer said, lowering his head as if to hide his smile.

"Why do you need me?" Trishita asked.

"She said you hatched the plot," he said.

"I did not. I have nothing to do with her shenanigans."

"You'd better come along easy like," the officer said with a stifled giggle.

Trishita hung up her apron, called for the cook to replace her, and followed the officer out to the patrol car. It was a familiar scene.
Flossie came toward her from a hallway in the station wearing a torn red and yellow pantsuit and a wobbly grin on her face.

"Thanks, Mija." She hugged Trishita, her head hitting Trishita’s breast hard.

Don't suck me dry, Trishita thought, and turned to the desk to pay Flossie's bail.

"Why, Ma?" She asked as they left the station.

"It seemed like such a good idea," Flossie said, "I knew it had to be yours."

Trishita just shook her head and walked her mother home, wanting the storm to whip them with icy rocks. But, like Trishita, it was spent.

Together, they climbed the three flights of stairs of the old tenement building to their flat. Trishita's long legs skipped every other stair while Flossie scampered beside her like a child.

As she ushered Flossie inside, she looked at the only home she'd ever known as if she were a rental agent surveying the opposite of anyplace she would want to represent. The kitchen connected to all the other rooms in the flat and was the heart of a web of rooms. It had windows on the north side only and was big enough to feed a crowd. Of course, the normal feast consisted of hot dogs on Wonder Bread rolls with a squirt of French's mustard. The plaid sofa, on which Trishita was born, filled the south wall. And then, when she was only nine, she had to be midwife for the birth of her half-brother Robert on that sofa, and then, three years later, Johnny. The baby girl Flossie had in between was born in the hospital. Flossie gave her up for adoption.

Trishita retreated to her imagined role. Opposite the sofa, under the window, was a picnic table and benches. A refrigerator with legs stood between the table and a porcelain, rust-stained sink. The refrigerator was as old as the tenement, probably lifted into the kitchen as it was being built by that particular wave of immigrants.

She remembered a program on public radio about those waves that came to Beacon Street and surroundings. Since the sixteen hundreds, immigrants have clung to Worcester's center, then, gaining power, fanned out, thus making way for more. First were the Pilgrims followed by all manner of English and Scots. After the potato famine the Irish came. These were followed by Italians, Swedes, some few Lithuanians, and Poles. The most recent are the Puerto Ricans. Consequently, some of Worcester's finest ivy-covered universities are surrounded by slums. Yeah, drunks sleeping on stinky Clark T-shirts.

Although her room connected to Flossie's through the bathroom, it had a blessed fire escape out one window. Now was the time to escape all the way.

Back in the kitchen she heated the stew she'd made that morning. "You need your vegetables, Ma. Sit down."

"If you say so, Mija," Flossie said.

"Ma, I'm job hunting." Trishita dished up some stew and handed it to her mother. "Got leads on some live-in housekeeping jobs. Soon as I land one, I'm moving out."

"No! Why Mija? Why would you do a thing like that?"

"Why do you keep calling me Mija?" Trishita asked. "You're French, for Christ's sake."

"Sounds good around here." Flossie's eyes filled. "Why're you moving?"

"Ma, I'm almost twenty-six," Trishita said, lowering her voice. "Last month, when Johnny's Dad came and took him to California, I decided to get on with my own plans. Don't you think it's time?"

"Time for what?" Flossie asked. "What you need I can't give you? Besides a man. Them you can have whenever."

Trishita placed her hands on her mother's thin shoulders as if to make her words penetrate Flossie's consciousness.

"I want to learn how to drive a car, Ma, to use computers properly, to work in a downtown office. I really want to go to college someday. Shit, I could pay a semester's tuition on what I spend bailing you out."

"Ha! You spend lots more on books," Flossie said. "You need to go to high school first, you know."

"I did. When you weren't looking. Took a test." Trishita took a bite of the stew, then added some dill.

"But you get nothing as a live-in," Flossie said.

"Not money, I guess, but I'll learn all kinds of things I need to know to get outa Russo's." Trishita pulled at a lock of her hair, straightening it. "I need to stop taking care of you, start taking care of myself."

Flossie's head snapped to the right as if Trishita had slapped her. "You don't take care of me. I take care of you. Always have."
"Yeah, Ma, I know." She picked up the classified section of the Telegram and stared at each circled name.

The next morning she managed to use the computer at the Worcester Library, at least the word processing part, to forge three letters of recommendation from fictitious employers, varying the writing styles for each. She wanted out of her mother's life. Out of waiting table for drunken Puerto Ricans making passes, listening to loud rapping blacks accuse her of racism every time she blocked her ears at them, and away from the whine of testy little Orthodox Jews complaining about the size of the matzo balls in the soup. Once she'd yelled at a customer, "Then put your own balls in it." Even Flossie looked shocked.

Trishita smiled at the memory; sealed and stamped the envelopes. Which elegant family, if any, would believe her false references and hire her without checking them?

CHAPTER TWO
Ten miles down route twenty toward Boston, hemlock, ash, and maple saplings sprout every year on cleared land in the hills of Northboro, reclaiming it. Dr. Jacquelyn Hyde, assistant superintendent of local schools, had escaped Worcester for this former dairy town, now a bedroom community for Worcester and Boston. Northboro houses high-tech businesses and gentlemen farmers who share remnants of the Puritan ethic as well as total hands-on democracy. When its town hall burned down, the people mourned and rebuilt an exact replica of the three-story, square, Victorian building. Dr. Hyde spearheaded the reconstruction.
One of the many ponds in New England shimmers among Northboro's adolescent woods. Cold underground springs feed one called Rocky Pond after the huge rock protruding from its center. Luxurious homes nestle among the trees nearby on three
acre lots that used to be cleared for cow pastures. Arthur and Jaquelin Hyde and their two children, Ethan, age sixteen, and Sylvia, thirteen, live in one of these two-story homes with circular driveways. Since Jacquelyn is the assistant superintendent of a school district that covers three such towns and Arthur runs a small electronics business, they are in great need of domestic help.
Sunday night Jacquelyn dropped her book on the floor, turned off the light and willed herself to sleep. Her mind would not obey.

A Sunday from Hell, she thought, as she relaxed her muscles. Although she'd practiced with the choir for two hours on Thursday, she'd sung off-key. She couldn't even get the Doxology right. Arthur had refused to go to church with her. Ethan had gone to the Catholic Church with that Kraemer girl. Jacquelyn hoped nothing would come of that relationship. And Sylvia had defied her, refusing to change out of those grubby shorts and black T-shirt. It would be a relief to go to work tomorrow. She cuddled against Arthur's back and let herself fall asleep.

Too soon, she awoke with a start. Her jaw ached from grinding her teeth. The clock on the bedside table, glowing in the dark, read 2:13. And it was really dark out—the first night of the new moon. Resigned, she slipped out of bed. Despite all her resolutions to the contrary, she knew she'd be going out again.
Arthur's snores reassured her. She backed away from their king-sized bed and into her walk-in closet. She felt around for her navy blue sweatshirt in the back of her bottom drawer until she touched the rough texture of the burlap lining she'd sewn into it five years ago. Then she checked the drop-down gauze mask attached to its hood. She rarely washed the sweatshirt half of her costume. Now, as she pulled it over her head, she smelled the scared sweat locked into its fibers.

She put on her jeans then opened the secret compartment behind the bottom drawer of her dresser where she kept her belt and tool pouch. The pouch was lined with sheepskin to keep the tools from clinking against each other. It held wire cutters, pliers, scissors, mace—in case anyone caught her and she had to make a quick exit—a small ball-peen hammer, two screwdrivers, tweezers, a pen flashlight, dog biscuits stuffed with tranquilizers, and a magnifying glass. At forty-seven she was beginning to need glasses for close work.

She tightened the belt at her waist and pulled her sweatshirt down to cover it and the tool pouch while listening to Arthur's light, rhythmic snoring. She envied him. Then, with a stealth born of determination and practice, she backed down the hall to her daughter's room She found it empty and remembered that Sylvia was staying overnight at the Jasmine's. Next she peeked in on Ethan to make sure he wouldn't hear her. He was in as deep a sleep as Arthur, with one leg uncovered, the other wrapped in the top sheet.

The burlap scratched her bare skin as she made her way downstairs. It was just painful enough to get the job done. At least they didn't have a dog to rouse the house. She'd managed to circumvent her children's pleas for a puppy by inventing an allergy to animal fur.

She entered the garage and disengaged the automatic door opener by pulling the cord over her black BMW. She opened the door manually, slipped into the driver's seat, and started the engine, grateful for its singular lack of noises.

The dark made her think of black holes in the universe. She backed out of the garage, left the car idling while she closed the garage door. Everything was working well and she had her alibis intact. Couldn't sleep. Decided to go for a drive. Headed toward Rocky Pond to stare at the water. And, if more were needed, she'd mention menopause, disgusting as that would be.
She drove west on 290 into Worcester, confident that she would have no trouble finding her target house near Tatnuck Square. Not too far away was her childhood home on Glendale Street.

* * *

A five-by-ten foot plywood shed in her parents' back yard held Mr. Nestrom’s chair and metal polishing equipment. Jacquelyn's brother Billy, six years older, taught her how to play hide and seek around the shed and hedges that lined the yard. She went from "peek-a-boo" to "All-y, all-y in-free" within a year. She was a quick study when it came to hiding.

One summer evening, in a game with several neighborhood kids, she hid herself in the shed under a pile of towel-like cloths that smelled of silver polish. No one could find her. After Arnie Johnson had tagged all the others and yelled, "I win," she slipped out from under the rags and touched the "home" fence post.

"Doggone it," Arnie said. "You always win. Where were you, anyway?"

"Under here." She showed him the rag pile. A shrill whistle from someone's father ended the game. All the children went home except Arnie. He said, "Let's play hop and jump." He jumped and landed on the rag pile.

She giggled and jumped, too.

"I'm much older than you are," he sang.

"No, you're not," Jacquelyn sang back.

"I'm five and you're only four." He stretched out on the rag pile on his stomach.

Jacquelyn flopped down beside him. "I'm four and a whole half." She rolled onto her back. "Besides, you can't be older than me. Your clothes don't match."

Arnie stood and looked down at his shirt. "Hunh? How don't I match?"

"A pink striped shirt doesn't go with red plaid shorts."

Arnie pulled off his shorts and threw them out the door of the shed. "Now I match."

Jacquelyn giggled. "Yay—your shirt matches your pink weenie."
Then an arm reached into the shed. Its hand grabbed Arnie by the collar and pulled him out. A voice screeched, "You go home before I spank the living daylights out of you, you nasty little boy."
Shocked, Jacquelyn crawled out of the shed in time to see Arnie running home with his shorts in his hand. She looked up at her mother's red face and asked, "Mama, what did he do?"

* * *

She tensed at that memory, so clear all of a sudden, and let her mind jump a few years to the time when she turned into a woman. At thirteen she became aware of the moon's cycles and much ashamed of her own body's response. Her blood flowed, but her breasts refused to grow.

The day Billy moved out on his own, he said, “You’re going to be a pretty woman, Jacquelyn, even if you are a smart ass.”
Jacquelyn felt his loss from the top of her head to the high arches of her size five feet. To her dismay, his room became a storage bin—a new challenge for her to keep in order. She spent many hours arranging the room and suffered many disappointments when she discovered yet another trombone left by her father or more sewing debris from her mother.

The onset of puberty also aroused in her a vague but persistent curiosity about other people's lives. Were their lives in order? she wondered as she walked by each house in the neighborhood. One night curiosity got the best of her. Wearing the same navy blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans, she sneaked out her bedroom window and jumped over the hedge in her back yard into the neighbor's yard. Crouching in a corner, she peered through binoculars into the neighbors' bedroom.

She didn't see much. A fat man scratched his belly and yawned as he undressed. His wife sat at a dressing table and applied cold cream to her face. Her hair was rolled in fat curlers. A big black and white mutt jumped onto the bed. The man, now naked, slapped the dog off.

Jacquelyn made her silent way to the next house. There she watched a woman polishing ten silver bells of varying sizes. A man came into the room. The woman jumped up and kissed him. He made a face and turned away. She resumed her polishing.
When her curiosity was somewhat satisfied, Jacquelyn went home and climbed back in her bedroom window. In the bathroom mirror she caught a glimpse of her mother's pinched little face. Her heart raced until she realized it was her own reflection. Then it almost stopped beating.

That year her mother often asked why it was so hard to rouse Jacquelyn in time for school. "Never could get you to sleep when you were a baby. Now I can't get you to wake up."

* * *

Later on she just learned to live with less sleep. Now, still on route 290, she thought about her one brief spell of shoplifting after Sylvia had started kindergarten. It wasn't any good, though. She ended up spending too much time searching for safe trash barrels to dispose of the stupid stuff she'd stolen, and she still couldn't get relief from the urge that drove her to distraction. Besides, stores couldn't give her the thrill that sneaking into houses did.

For years, that's all she did, mainly around Boston. Then one night she broke into a house that had a collection of Betty-Boop dolls scattered all over the living room. Filled with sudden rage, she broke the arms off six or seven of them. A noise from another room sent her scurrying out. How well she slept the rest of that month.

* * *

She drove off the highway and, at 3:22 a.m. and parked on a side street. She pulled her folded aluminum ladder out of the trunk. Adrenaline racing, she breathed in the black air and let exhilaration command her. The land behind the house was a pine grove. The scent was more pervasive than the needles that crackled under her feet.

Soon she found herself on a brick path that led right to a back door that looked like her best entrance. With her hood on and the veil dropped, she crouched by the door lock and inserted two pieces of wire. After a few turns to the left and only one to the right, she heard the click that signaled success. She opened the door a foot, peered in, listened, and sidled backwards into a game room, holding the ladder to her chest. She remembered seeing a ping pong table in the center of this room and had to be careful she didn't bump the ladder into it. A mosquito buzzed her ear. She stood still for a moment, holding her breath. How she loved these moments just before the kill.

Tonight's job would be tough. She would have to open her ladder all the way and climb to the very top to reach the majority of figurines in that living room. No time for lolly-gagging, she told herself, and hurried through the kitchen to her quarry.
She opened the ladder with great care and then climbed it.

Working with eyes now accustomed to the darkest of black holes, she pulled her ball-peen hammer out of her pouch and covered it with a small piece of felt to muffle the sound. Next, she knocked the heads off all the figurines within reach. She placed each head beside the body of a different figurine. Every fifteen minutes she would move the ladder. When she'd finished her work on the upper shelves, she folded the ladder and leaned it against an easy chair. It was a relief to be at floor level.

Engrossed, she saw the person coming down the staircase as if she were in a dream. With a sudden shock of recognition, she came to and squeezed behind an upright piano in the hallway. Fingering the can of mace in her pouch, she watched as the tall, stoop-shouldered man made his way in the darkness toward her. What if he turned on a light! She held her breath.

He was wearing nothing but a striped pajama top. His limp member swung like a tail between his legs as he walked. Obviously, he wasn't expecting company. His pajama sleeve brushed the piano as he moved past and pushed into the kitchen, letting the door swing behind him. She heard him burp, turn on the faucet, drink, then burp again. For a second she thought of suggesting bicarbonate of soda. Instead, she got the hell out of there through a side door off a porch. She left only ten figurines intact, and her ladder.

Feeling her way among the pine trees, she touched gooey sap, adding to her sense of being alive and powerful.
She started the engine of her BMW and backed down the side street to Tatnuck Square. Leaving the ladder was a nuisance, but she could replace it. Fingerprints wouldn't be a problem unless she got caught and police took her prints. She shuddered at the thought, and then smiled. It would never happen because, she promised herself, tonight's would be her last caper.

While driving home she replayed the scene that had led her to this particular task. Last Tuesday she had gone to Clark University to address a rather large group of students interested in pursuing advanced degrees in education. Dr. Marie Arlington, head of the department, had invited her to the Arlington’s home for tea afterwards to chat with some of the more "dedicated" graduate students. Jacquelyn had accepted without a thought. The house was one of those built in the twenties in English Tudor style, white stucco with brown trim and several garrets with sloping roofs. Dr. Arlington ushered Jacquelyn and the other guests into a vaulted ceiling living room. The only thing Jacquelyn would remember about the room was one wall with shelves from floor to ceiling that held at least a hundred Lalique figurines.

Her stomach had cramped throughout the thirty minute lecture. Mr. Arlington, the collector, babbled on about his collection, telling where he got each piece. A tall, thin, graying man with a paunch that made his belt ride high, he managed to be completely boring. She hated him. When he finished, she could barely respond to the students who had come to chat with her.
She'd vowed to avoid thoughts of getting revenge here. This particular house was professionally too close to home. But the figurines had hovered in her thoughts for days.

Dr. Arlington had shown her through the house so she knew where they slept—-upstairs over the game room with its ping pong table and several hundred feet away from the figurines. Awful close. But she’d estimated the distance and calculated the risks.

Now, as she pulled off 290 and drove through the woods toward home, she hummed the Triumphal March from Aida, picturing those large, majestic animals parading across a stage.
Tomorrow she would arrange to interview that maid with such good letters of recommendation. A live-in maid will make their lives so much easier.

CHAPTER THREE
Stomach muscles fluttering, Trishita walked through rain, sleet, and snow flurries for two miles—from the bus stop in Northboro center to Dr. Jacquelyn Hyde's pearl gray clapboard, two-story, neo-Colonial house. It was surrounded by acres of young woods. A large concrete driveway lined with lilac bushes circled in front of the house and extended on one side to the garage in back. Trishita checked the address on the paper in her hand, sweaty despite the cold December air, and shook the brass knocker on the front door.

Mrs. Hyde welcomed her into a slate-floored foyer with a spiral staircase leading to the second floor. The octagonal foyer was lined with mirrors which made her think the family of four greeting her was a family of sixteen. She focused on Mrs. Hyde, a tiny, middle-aged woman wearing a soft peach silk dress. Her frown formed a distinct V in the middle of her forehead, mirroring her chin, and she didn't seem to know what to do with her tiny hands. But her smile was genuine.

Mrs. Hyde introduced Trishita to her husband, Arthur, a short, norm-shaped man with graying temples and a small brown mustache, trimmed. Before he could speak, their teenage daughter, taller than both of them, shook Trishita's hand and said, "Hi, I'm Sylvia. This is my brother, Ethan." She nodded toward a compact little bundle of muscle with blond hair and one tiny, gold earring reflecting light in the mirror. "We won't give you any trouble, honest. What's your nationality?"

Trishita smiled, already loving the girl. "French and Scottish."

"Who's French?"

"My mother. From Montreal."

So that's why your skin is smooth, not all freckled. Looks great with your red hair."

"Sure is red," the boy said, extending his hand.

Mr. Hyde beamed; his mustache grew. "I'd say it's as bright a red as that of a true Viking."

"Is your mother tall, too?" Sylvia asked.

Why all these irrelevant questions? "No," Trishita replied. "She's about the same size as your mother." Mrs. Hyde broke in, "Now, there's no need to discuss Miss MacCabe's looks." Then to Trishita, "I see you live near Oread and Benefit. I hear that's a pretty rough neighborhood. Yet so close to Clark University."

"Yes, Mrs. Hyde. It's predominantly white Puerto Rican now but has its share of black Africans, black Ricans, Jews, Maine-i-acs, Irish and Italians. My mother's the only French one I know."

"And your father?" Mrs. Hyde asked.

"He's in Scotland."

"Really?" Arthur Hyde exclaimed. "I find Scotland most fascinating. Does he live near Inverness by any chance?"

"I'm afraid I don't know." Trishita felt a sudden longing for a father, a longing she thought she had squelched years ago.

"Well, Patricia—what did you say your nickname was?" Mrs. Hyde asked.

"Trishita."

"Welcome, then Trishita. Come into the kitchen. I'll show you your room and go over the terms of your contract." Mrs. Hyde then led the way to the kitchen.

"Man, this is heavy." Ethan said, picking up Trishita's suitcase.

What do you have in it?"

"Books."

"What kind of books?"

"I have a reading list I'm—just novels."

Sylvia tripped over something and fell against Trishita. "Sorry," she said. "Ethan can build you some bookshelves if you want. He's good at stuff like that."

Trishita felt the warmth of the household seeping through her damp shoes and clothes. "What are you good at?" she asked Sylvia.

"Nothing yet. I'm only thirteen."

"I don't believe—" Trishita stopped in her tracks when she saw the kitchen. It shined in the December light, so bright were its walls and appliances. So many appliances. So many cupboards.

A library of elegant cookbooks stood on a shelf above the microwave. A double convection oven was built in next to a pantry and a central island held a five-burner ceramic stove top, cutting board, and a stainless steel sink. A window over the double sinks against the wall looked out on a lawn sloping down to a brook that she could hear flowing through the woods. Trishita almost genuflected.

"I'm home," she whispered.

***

Six months later:

"The best part of being a housekeeper is you get to see the underbelly of the upper crust," Trishita said when Flossie phoned for money the following June.

"Well I still don't see why you took a cut. You useta make twice as much as you do now just in tips."

"I'll send you twenty on Friday, okay?" Trishita hung up the laundry room extension that reached into her bedroom. I'm outa that hell hole. Grinning, she pulled on her shorts and Grateful Dead T-shirt. She wasn't a Deadhead, but she liked to let her employers think she was. And the weather was hot. Steamy hot.
She placed one long, bare foot onto the threshold of the adjacent room. With a grunt of elation, she catapulted into her employer's home office and in the process spilled a bag of old slide rules that Mr. Hyde was collecting.

June fourteenth, Flag day and Trishita's birthday, was coming up soon. She would turn twenty-six and celebrate, if that's the right word, her first six months as live-in at the Hyde's. Now, ready to tackle the computer in Arthur Hyde's office, she tucked a clump of her thick red hair under her plaid sweat band and struggled to tune out the sounds of television commentators commenting on race relations. She'd had it all the way up to her sweatband with problems that were only skin deep. Skin had nothing to do with who she or anyone else was.

It would be strange celebrating her birthday here. Not that she'd ever celebrated it. She wondered if Northboro had a parade on Flag Day. Some towns did. More likely it would be Independence Day or Patriot's. Tears sprang to her eyes at the memory of one Patriot's Day parade when she was ten.

* * *

The base of the flagpole in front of city hall gave Trishita a dandy vantage point for the parade. Some kids in her class spotted her and rushed over.

"Got room for us up there?" one asked.

"Sure. Climb up."

Soon five kids were on the base with her, clinging to each other and the pole. Trishita watched the parade over their heads.
A veteran's band came by playing "Yankee Doodle Dandy." One of the kids on the pole shouted, "Hey, Dad, go for it." He turned to Trishita. "See that guy on the tuba? That's my dad."

Another said, "My dad's marching with the Shriners."

"Mine, too," said a third.

The next group of marchers wore plaid kilts and played bagpipes. The mournful sounds were unfamiliar to Trishita, yet comforting. They tugged at her, burned her eyes. She jumped down and said, "Later alligator." She took off running, longing for a father in her very bones.

* * *

Trishita blinked away the tears and stared at Arthur's computer set-up, demanding that she concentrate. This wholesome, country environment stirred up a whole pot-full of longings and with them, some bitterness.

When Ethan first started popping into the kitchen for visits, she'd told him about Johnny, her little half-brother who had to move to California.

"Johnny used to call me "Three T's" for Too-Tall-Trish, "she told Ethan. "He said I didn't belong in our neighborhood. He was right in more ways than one. It's a damn shame, but all communities are for the look-alikes. Otherwise you're a freak."

And Ethan answered, "I guess real beauty is kinda freaky."

Smart kid.

Concentrating on her good fortune, Trishita flipped a switch that turned on Arthur Hyde's electronic work station. Although the Hydes paid slave wages, only a hundred and thirty-five per week, plus room and board, she was getting a free education in computer use from both Ethan and Arthur, in the language and graces of the suburbs from Jacquelyn, and best of all, "real" cooking. The Hydes gave Trishita the green light to experiment with their magnificent collection of cookbooks.

Arthur's office was an add-on adjacent to Trishita's bedroom and the kitchen. It served also as Trishita's access to the kitchen. Large windows provided an expansive view of a huge lawn, dotted with ash and oak trees. She loved the sound of the brook trickling down from Rocky Pond up in the hills.

While she waited for his Dell to boot up, Trishita watched Arthur maneuver around the trees on the Deere mini-tractor he rode to mow the grass. Sitting erect yet at ease, he drove it as if it were a golf cart. He looked cool in his orange shorts, green pastel jersey and John Deere cap, despite the heat and humidity.

Trishita turned back to the Dell. She preferred to practice on the son's Macintosh, but he didn't have any accounting programs. Since it was Saturday, the whole family was home to interrupt her, and she had much to learn before she could pursue her dreams.

Concentrating, she flipped her eyes back and forth from the screen to the manual in her lap. Her long legs straddled a pedestal that held the keyboard and monitor. She slouched around it, almost obscenely, but she didn't care. The accounting program was easy to use for manipulating the numbers under the assets' column, but she was lost on the debit side.

"Hey Trishita," she heard Ethan Hyde call, and knew he'd jump at her from somewhere. The son: sixteen, a grown replica of her brother Johnny when he was six and she eighteen.

* * *

On her birthday that year, Johnny came into Russo's Bar & Grille after the lunch bunch had gone and before the regulars showed up. He stood in the doorway, light ringing him like a full body halo. His blond hair sprouted to the left from a distinctive cowlick. Freckles sprinkled his face and arms. His little six year old body gave off hints of the short, compact, neat little macho package he would become.

The crowd at the bar wasn't so bad early in the afternoon.. They tipped well and weren't shit-faced. She didn't mind if Johnny came to Russo's after school, but she hated it when, feeling lonely or scared, he came in the evening. Then, any small spark could ignite the crowd. Protecting him became her reason for being.
When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he spotted Trishita and ran into her arms. "Happy birthday, Trish," he said, and kissed her cheek. "I brought you a present." He pulled a long, narrow cardboard box out his hip pocket and handed it to her. "I couldn't find any wrapping paper."

Trishita pretended to untie a fancy bow and tear off wrapping. When she opened the box, her pretense evaporated. There, cushioned on tissue, was a shiny wire whisk. It took her breath away.

She started the juke box and danced him around the bar tables. "My Johnny, my prince," she crooned.

* * *

Now here came Ethan Hyde. Sixteen, bright and shining. Baseball catcher thighs. Good, all-around athlete. B-plusGPA.. Tiny Catholic girlfriend who wouldn't put out.

"Where's the peanut butter, Trishita?" the shining son asked as if on cue.

"In the cupboard over the refrigerator." Trishita stared at the computer monitor. "How do you change the figures in the debit column once they're entered?"

He leaned against her shoulder and peered at the screen. She smelled his deodorized sweat.

"That's dad's program. Ask him. Why did you put it up so high?" A small whine piped through his recently deepened voice.
"Put what up so high, the debit column?" She turned to look at his face. He sure was a cute kid, styled blond hair shaved up the sides, poofing out on top.

That loop of gold adorning one ear. So tasteful. Even adolescent rebellion was muted in suburbia. Still, at five-foot-seven and a hundred and thirty-five pounds, Ethan Hyde was a tasty little package.

"No, the peanut butter. I can't reach it up there."

She turned back to the screen to hide her grin. "Go on, Ethan. Get your sweet little cojones outa here so I can concentrate."

"I wish you'd quit moving the step stool, then."

"I thought you were a rock climber." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Climb for it."

He giggled and tripped into the kitchen.

The manual slipped off her sweaty lap onto the floor. Cursing the humidity and the user directions that led her step by step on a circular trail, she didn't notice for several minutes that the engine noise from Arthur's tractor had stopped. When she became aware of the songs of bluebirds, she glanced around. He'd be in any moment now, looking for something.

"Trishita?" The interruption, though, came from Jacquelyn. A nock on the kitchen door jamb preceded a tight, high pitched voice.

"Sorry to bother you, Dear, but could you tell me where you put the espresso roast?"

"The what?" Trishita pulled back from the monitor and looked hard at her employer entering Arthur's office.

Jacquelyn glanced at the toppled paper bag with Arthur's old slide rules spilling out. The V in her forehead darkened.

Trishita studied her. Mrs. Hyde, at five-foot-two and ninety-eight pounds, made all her own silk dresses. Sylvia had told her people often said that her mother "really knew color." Now the tiny woman in rose silk backed into the kitchen.
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"Coffee," Mrs. Hyde said, "the espresso roast. I can't find it."

"It's in the top left hand cupboard over the sink," Trishita said.

"Oh, that's where it is. Thanks."

Trishita gloated. The poor little lady knew no more about relating to a maid than Trishita knew about being one. The nuances escaped them both. Mrs. Hyde would never be able to reach the cupboard where Trishita had stashed the coffee. Feeling a rare touch of guilt, Trishita closed the manual and entered the kitchen to fetch the coffee. She made a hasty retreat before Mrs. Hyde had a chance to thank her.

Every once in a while she had to fight off creeping affection for her little employers. Such feelings could interfere with her plans to milk them for all the direct training in computer use and business management she could get, plus indirect coaching in the social graces. She figured her momentary lapses into affection came from seeing too much of the underbelly.

Mrs. Hyde had a Ph.D. in reading and a high mucky-muck job in the local school district. Made more money than Arthur, he'd once told Trishita in a moment of candor. All the teachers adored her and asked for "Dr. Jacquelyn" when they called. Townsfolk respected her, too. She sang in the choir of the Congregational Church, supported local charities. Often she was asked to give lectures on reading, although she never read a book beyond the first chapter.

Trishita caught this particular view of the country underbelly by picking up the books Dr. Jacquelyn left lying around, splayed open for weeks at the same page. The more impressive the book to their intellectual guests, the sooner Jacquelyn stopped reading it. In Moby Dick Ishmael never got out to sea. Thanks to that bastard Jacobsen, English professor at Clark University and her last lover, Trishita had read all the way to the chapter on the whiteness of the whale before she gave up. But, since it was a major book in the reading program he'd prescribed, she knew she'd get back to it.

Jacquelyn knocked on the door jamb again. "I'm going to run some errands. Is there anything we need for dinner?"

"Nope. I'm all set."

"Did I tell you the children are going elsewhere tonight? You won't have to make as much as usual. By the way, what are we having?"

"Chicken fajitas." Trishita swallowed a sigh and opened the manual.

"Wonderful. I'll get some ripe avocados to go with them."
Trishita punched in a few numbers. "Good idea." She heard Jacquelyn backing into the kitchen. The woman backed out of situations often. Probably born breech.

Before Trishita could figure out her next step, Arthur came in, smelling of fresh cut grass. "How you doing with that stuff?"

"Man, am I glad to see you. I keep going around in circles with this damn accounting program."

He glanced at the pedestal between her stretched out legs. His eyes registered both shock and amusement. "I guess when you're six-foot-one," he said, "it doesn't matter how slender you are. There's just not enough space in here." Leaning forward, he inspected the screen. "Do you want me to shower first or should I explain it now?"

His shirt armpits were damp circles and his narrow brown mustache glistened. "You smell of chlorophyll and fecundity—is that the right word? Stay and help me."

"I see you've been playing with the thesaurus again. Yes, it's an appropriate word, especially this time of year." He leaned over her left shoulder, his damp pectorals just brushing it, and showed her each step for setting up and varying the equations. She concentrated; he taught. An hour went by. Finally he said, "I really must take a shower. You practice some more." He headed toward the kitchen, but stopped to pick up the slide rules. "I'd like to hang these on the wall in here. What do you think, Trishita?"

"Nice. It'll give the room some class."

When he came back smelling of after shave lotion, he asked, "Do you know where my golf clubs are?"

"They're on the top shelf on the window side of the garage."

He disappeared for five minutes and then returned.

"Trishita," Arthur asked, "where's the step stool?"

"I think Ethan used it to find the peanut butter. Look in the kitchen." She sighed and shut down the computer. With all the interruptions there was no point in going on any longer, and the girl hadn't pestered her yet. Trishita went back to her room, tore off her sweat band, and stretched. Her fingertips brushed the overhead light. She let her hair swing loose and tugged at her shorts, which had worked their way too far up for comfort. She knew he was watching her through the hole she'd discovered in the pantry wall. Which "he" had drilled the hole and was watching now didn't matter. She could feel the eyes of either father or son. They were so genteel, these educated shorties, not a bit grabby like the ones she used to wait on. These guys didn't dare look at her body directly. Had to use the peephole. The very subtlety of their watching gave her a new and happy challenge. She got a kick out of giving them something worthwhile to watch.