She knocked and then waited to demonstrate or drive the point home, because she had already told me she was sure my cousin was still at school. Why knock? Did they all think I was that stupid just because I had just arrived from a small Mexican village and they had to demonstrate such a simple thing? How sad that a Mexican would think that of another.
She opened the door.
I was not prepared for such an overwhelmingly grandiose bedroom. At the center was an enormous four-poster bed with a canopy and a headboard that had two great butterflies facing each other. Their eyes were filled with emeralds or stones closely resembling them. The bedspread looked softer than a cloud, and the pillows were enormous. The pink rug was so thick I felt as if I were truly walking on air when we stepped into the room.
Above the bed was a ceiling I didn’t understand. There were hundreds of tiny lights. Señora Rosario saw how I was staring, my head back.
“Mr. Dallas designed this room for Señorita Sophia before he died. He created a night sky in the ceiling.”
“Night sky?”
“Those little lights look like stars, and to the right up there, they form the Milky Way. There are other constellations as well. Do you know what that means?”
“Sí,” I said. “Stars shaped as things. Aquarius, Cancer.”
She looked surprised that I knew so much.
“Mi padre loved to tell me about the stars,” I said, and for a moment, I saw some pity and sadness for me in her eyes, but just as quickly, as if she were afraid she would be caught showing kindness, she blinked it away.
To the right, I saw the closet door was open, but the closet looked as big as my room, if not bigger. I could see the shelves were stacked with shoes, and there was a very long rack of dresses with blouses and jackets on the other side. At the end of the closet were a dressing table and a full-size mirror. There was even a small television set in the wall. Why would someone want to watch television in a closet? I wondered.
“Everything is supposed to be organized in that closet,” Señora Rosario said, smirking, “but never is, no matter how well it’s kept. Nevertheless, you are to put everything back where it belongs as best you can. You see where the dresses belong, the blouses and shoes. Just around the door, there are five bathrobes on hangers.”
“Five?”
“Some were presents, and some were just…some presents,” she added, holding her smirk. “Don’t ever hang a bathrobe where a dress goes,” she warned.
Glancing through the bathroom door, we saw a pink silk bathrobe on the floor. There was a slipper near it and another just outside the bathroom.
“She’s not in the habit of picking up after herself,” Señora Rosario muttered, picking up the slipper outside the bathroom.
When I entered the bathroom, my mouth dropped open. Not in the habit of picking up after herself? That was an understatement. Besides the wet towels and washcloths on the floor, there was a sanitary pad beside the garbage can, at which it had been tossed perhaps. The roll of toilet paper was unraveled on the floor. There were two sinks side by side, and both were streaked with makeup and toothpaste. The mirrors were smudged, and the shower doors were streaked with shampoo residue. Everywhere I looked, something was left open. Drawers were open as well.
Señora Rosario checked her watch.
“You have less than a half hour to do this and straighten out the closet and the bedroom, so work quickly, and don’t dilly-dally. When you’re finished, come down to the kitchen,” she said. “And don’t leave any cleaning supplies behind in the room. She hates that.”
I wanted to ask how a girl this young had so much authority and could put so much fear into the servants, but I didn’t have to ask. Señora Rosario saw it in my face.
“Señorita Sophia and Señor Edward are owners of the estate and of the family’s financial holdings. It is in the will their father left, and they have let everyone know it. Stay out of her way, and you’ll be all right,” she added.
How do I stay out of my cousin’s way? I wondered. What did that mean, anyway?
I began to clean up the bathroom. I had everything picked up and the tub and sinks washed down before I started on the shower stall. I had taken off my shoes and socks and had gone into the stall to wash down the tile. Time was never something I paid much attention to when I worked with mi abuela Anabela in our casa. I was determined to do a very good job and impress my aunt Isabela, so I lost myself in the work.
Squatting to get at the lower tiles in the shower, I had my back to the stall door and did not hear anyone enter the bathroom. Suddenly, a downpour of ice-cold water crashed down on my head and shocked me so much that I lost my footing and fell back onto the shower floor. The water rained down over me, soaking my clothes, my apron. I heard laughter and turned to see my cousin Sophia standing in the doorway.
As quickly as I could, I regained my balance and turned off the shower faucet. Dripping wet, I looked at her. Her smile evaporated, and her face filled with rage.
“How dare you go into my shower with your filthy, diseased feet?” she screamed. I understood filthy and feet and figured out the rest.
In Spanish, I said, “It was the best way to clean it.”
“I don’t speak Spanish, you idiot. Mrs. Rosario!” she cried. “Mrs. Rosario!”
Her screams echoed in the shower stall. I actually felt myself trembling. Mrs. Rosario came running to the bedroom.
“Look at where she is!” Sophia told Mrs. Rosario, and pointed at me.