Scott had been recommended by the owners of the rental house to do yard work and housekeeping. The pool and hot tub needed maintenance. The house was airy and windowed, with double-height ceilings in the living and dining rooms. Six skylights, five bedrooms. Decks in front and back. Rosebushes and other plantings. It was a lot to keep clean.
Scott had a wide, open face and a flat nose. He was white, with pink cheeks, a square face, and unruly dark hair. He had narrow hips and serious muscles in his arms. He usually wore a baseball cap and no shirt.
When Jule first met Scott, she couldn’t quite tell what he was doing there. He was simply in the kitchen, cleaning the floor with a mop and a bucket. He seemed no different from Forrest and Immie’s various temporary island friends, but here he was, naked to the waist, doing housework. “Hi, I’m Jule,” she said, standing in the doorway.
“Scott,” he said, still mopping.
“You coming to the beach?” she had asked.
“Ha, no. I’m good here. I’m Imogen’s cleaner.” His accent was general American.
“Oh, I see.” Jule wondered if Imogen talked to the cleaner like a regular person, or if Scott was supposed to be invisible. She didn’t know what the codes of behavior were yet. “I’m Immie’s friend from high school.”
He didn’t say anything else.
Jule watched him for a bit. “You want a drink?” she asked. “There’s Coke and Diet Coke.”
“I should keep working. Imogen doesn’t like me to sit around.”
“She’s that tight?”
“She knows what she wants. I gotta respect that,” he said. “And she pays me.”
“But do you want a Coke?”
Scott got on his knees and sprayed cleaning fluid in the area underneath the dishwasher, where dirt collected. Then he scrubbed at it with a rough sponge. The muscles of his back shone with sweat. “She doesn’t pay me to take stuff out of her fridge,” he finally answered.
In later days, it became clear that Scott was not precisely supposed to be invisible, because he was in fact so decorative that nobody could possibly ignore his presence, but no one talked to him beyond a hello. Immie just said “hey” when she saw him, though her eyes tracked his body. Scott scrubbed the toilets and took out the trash and straightened up messes people left in the living room. Jule never offered him a Coke again.
The day Scott didn’t show up was a Friday. Friday mornings he usually cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, then watered the lawn. He was out of the house by eleven a.m., so no one thought too much of his absence.
The next day, however, he didn’t show up, either. On Saturdays he cleaned the pool and did garden maintenance. Immie always left him cash for the previous week’s work on the kitchen counter. The cash was there as usual, but Scott never came.
Jule walked downstairs, dressed to work out. Brooke was sitting on the kitchen counter with a bowl of grapes. Forrest and Immie were eating granola with heavy cream and raspberries at the dining table. The sink was full of dishes. “Where’s the cleaner?” Brooke called into the dining room as Jule poured herself a glass of water.
“He’s annoyed with me,” answered Immie.
“I’m annoyed with him,” said Forrest.
“I’m annoyed, too,” called Brooke. “I want him to wash my grapes, strip down, and lick my whole body from head to toe. And yet he is still not doing that. He’s not even here. I don’t know what went wrong.”
“Very funny,” said Forrest.
“He’s everything I want in a guy,” said Brooke. “He’s built, he keeps his mouth shut, and unlike you”—she popped a grape in her mouth—“he does dishes.”
“I do dishes,” said Forrest.
Immie laughed. “You do like a single dish that you ate out of.”
Forrest blinked and went back to the previous topic. “Did you call him yet?”
“No. He wants a raise and I won’t give it to him,” Immie said smoothly, glancing up at Jule and meeting her eyes. “He’s fine, but he’s been late lots of times. I hate waking up to a messy kitchen.”
“Did you fire him?” asked Forrest.
“No.”
“After you talked about the raise, did he say he’d keep working here?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.” Immie stood up to clear her mug and bowl.
“How can you not be sure?”
“I thought so. But I guess he’s not,” Immie said from the kitchen.
“I’m calling him,” said Forrest.
“No, don’t.” She came back into the dining room.
“Why not?” Forrest picked up Immie’s phone. “We need a cleaner, and he already knows the job. Maybe there was a misunderstanding.”
“I said, don’t call him,” snapped Immie. “That’s my phone you’re holding, and it is not your house.”
Forrest put the phone down. He blinked again. “I’m being helpful,” he said.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You leave everything here to me,” Immie said. “I take care of the kitchen and the food and the cleaner and the shopping and the Wi-Fi. Now you’re annoyed when I’m not handling something the way you want it?”
“Imogen.”
“I’m not your effing housewife, Forrest,” she said. “That’s the opposite of what I am.”
Forrest went to his laptop. “What’s Scott’s last name?” he asked. “I think we should search his name and see if anyone’s complained about him, what his deal is. He must be listed on Yelp or something.”
“Cartwright,” said Immie, apparently willing to stop the argument. “But you’re not going to find him. He’s a Vineyard guy who does handyman stuff for cash. There won’t be a website.”
“Well, I can find out— Oh God.”
“What?”
“Scott Cartwright of Oak Bluffs?”
“Yes.”
“He’s dead.”
Immie rushed over. Brooke was off the counter, and Jule came back from the hall, where she’d been stretching. They clustered around the computer.
It was an article on the Martha’s Vineyard Times website, reporting the suicide of one Scott Cartwright. He had hanged himself with rope from a beam high up in a neighbor’s barn. He had kicked out a twenty-foot ladder.
“It’s my fault,” said Imogen.
“No, it’s not,” said Forrest, still looking at the screen. “He wanted a raise and he was consistently late. You wouldn’t give him more money. That has nothing to do with him killing himself.”
“He must have been depressed,” said Brooke.
“It says here he didn’t leave a note,” said Forrest. “But they’re sure it was a suicide.”
“I don’t think it was,” Immie said.
“Come on,” said Forrest. “Nobody forced him to climb up a twenty-foot ladder in a barn and hang himself.”
“Yeah,” said Immie. “I think maybe they did.”
“You’re overreacting,” said Forrest. “Scott was a nice guy, and it’s sad that he died, but nobody killed him. Act rational.”
“Don’t tell me to act rational,” Immie said, her voice steely.
“Nobody’s going to kill the cleaner and make it look like suicide.” Forrest stood up from the computer. He twisted his long hair into a ponytail with an elastic he’d had on his wrist.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”
“Imogen, you’re upset about Scott, which is understandable, but—”
“This is not about Scott!” cried Immie. “It’s about you telling me to act rational. You think you’re superior because you have a college degree. And because you’re a man. And because you’re a Martin of the Martins of Greenwich and—”
“Immie—”
“Let me finish,” barked Imogen. “You live in my home. You eat my food and drive my car and have your messes cleaned up by that poor boy I used to pay. Some part of you hates me for that, Forrest. You hate me because I can afford this life and I make my own decisions—so you patronize me and dismiss my ideas.”
“Please, can we have this conversation in private?” asked Forrest.
“Just go. Leave me alone for a while,” said Immie. She sounded tired.
Forrest grunted and went upstairs. Brooke followed.
Immie’s face crumpled into tears as soon as they were gone. She walked over to Jule and hugged her, smelling like coffee and jasmine. They stood like that for a long time.
Immie and Forrest drove off in the car twenty minutes later, saying they needed to talk. Brooke stayed in her room.