Mona was her name. She was our maid. Later, much later, (right at the end in fact,) Sal changed all that and she became, 'Our Little Guinea Pig'. Which is what brought matters to a head, as it were.
A cold and stormy night it was, (the end), rain falling wetly in the yard, window frames rattling fit to burst. A terrine of iced gespachio was hurled at my head. Seventeen stitches. End of relationships all round, I'm afraid. Finito, finished, done.
"See, See!" was the key, of course -- it's easy now, on thinking back -- but the problem was I didn't, see. Not then. Not when it mattered. Otherwise engaged, one might say. Missed it completely.
She had no alarm clock, you see, (you will,) and she was not a naturally early riser. Some people are, many aren't, Mona wasn't. Perhaps it was her youth. Perhaps it was the work she got through in a day. Perhaps it was how late she went to bed. Who knew? But I didn't complain. I'd bought her a TV for her room and I knew she watched it late. Sal, my wife, grabbed a bite on the train to the technical campus where she worked so Mona's not being up before she left was not a problem. Sal was an early bird. Mona, our maid -- the one who hadn't an alarm and couldn't get up in the morning -- was not an early bird.
Mona was from the Philippines. A pretty, rather foxy little nineteen year old. Her lips and eyes were huge -- her lips were almost negroid. Her eyes were sultry pools. She had a hard, and very shapely bod ... as they say.
Anyway.
We had worked up a bit of a routine, Mona and me. It started off with my making an effort to welcome Mona into our family by being friendly. Then it started to irritate. Then something else had slithered into the mix. Sal warned me that my usual reserve might well alienate the youngster, her being so far from home -- we live in San Diego -- so I had gone out of my way to try to make her welcome.
Her second day, almost nine o'clock in the morning, no breakfast on the table, Sal long gone, I'd knocked on the door to her quarters. (We gave her a small wing to herself, overlooking the garden. A bright airy bedroom, shower and toilet off it, the laundry room, an ironing room.) There was no response. I tried the handle, found it open, went in calling her name. "Mona!". Again, no response.
I wondered where she was. I looked through the archway into her bedroom to see the girl, stretched out on her bed -- large and square, so big that the girl was almost lost amongst the sheets -- dead to the world. I cautioned myself, 'Be approachable. Be kind. Be considerate.' I moved into the room, up to the bed, noting how long the girl's legs seemed to be. They were stretched from the thin folds of sheet that covered the rest of her as if thrown away (or at least fairly thoroughly abandoned).
"Mona," I whispered, keeping it kind. No reaction. She had a pillow, one of three, clutched in her arms in a fond embrace, of sorts. "Mona," I tried again, my knees now touching the bed. No response. I reached forward to where I could see a single shoulder peeking out from her sheet. "Mona," I said a third time, this time shaking her shoulder as well. (This girl knew how to sleep!)
"Mona. Wake up. Mona!" I continued to shake her sleeping form, none too gently by now. Lazily her eyelids opened. I don't think she knew where she was. I remembered what Sal had cautioned -- approachable, kind, considerate. "You're in San Diego, Mona," I whispered to the girl, finding a smile and sticking it hurriedly onto my face. She was meant to wake me. Not me her. Wasn't that what maids were for? Never mind the matter of my breakfast! "San Diego," I repeated. All my comments triggered in her girlish face (with the huge lips and sultry eyes) was a rather vacant look. As if she wasn't really awake at all. "And I'm Doug Trabert," I added, stopping myself, just in time, from saying, "Mr Trabert". (Another Sal admonishment!)
"Oh," said Mona, softly, lifting herself onto her elbows. (Pretty shoulders.) I wondered what came next. The sheet had fallen from her shoulders but covered the rest of her, other than legs, (but I'd seen those already).
Should I tell her she had my breakfast to get? I wasn't sure that was the best way for her to waken to a new day, and a new country too, for that matter ... poor kid! So with Sal's message about 'being nice' ringing in my ears, and realising that a maid on my side was a damn sight better than a maid who hated my guts, I found myself sitting down on the edge of her bed, and saying -- damn smile still there -- "How are you normally woken. At home, I mean?"
This got a lazy smile, at first, then the smile drifted from her face and she eased herself back against the pillow, arms behind her head, seemed to stretch (nice stretch), and murmured ... "My father always woke me with a kiss."
"Really," I said, though wasn't sure why it surprised me. Sal and I have no children, you see. (Never got round to it really.)
"Step-father, actually," she amended.
"Mmmh," I responded, non-committally. And then, to the surprise I think of both of us, I leaned over, kissed her gently on the forehead, and said, "Good Morning, Mona."