Mrs. Saint and the Defectives

She hadn’t set out to memorize the daily goings-on across the fence, or even to take note of them. She had no interest in getting to know her neighbor or the elderly woman’s household employees or how any of them went about their days. Her goals were to be alone at her own house and to maximize her income by reviewing as many claim files as she could. But the fact was, it was impossible to live or work in the bungalow without hearing almost every word spoken next door. Mrs. Saint had half an acre at least, but her house sat so far back from the street that it was mere steps from the low wooden fence that separated the two yards. Markie’s property was tiny—there were only a few feet of lawn space between the house and the property line. This meant that neither Markie nor Mrs. Saint could have a conversation in their yards, or even inside their houses if the windows were open, without the other hearing.

Markie had taken to whispering to Jesse when they spoke on the patio and to making sure her kitchen window was closed before she called down the basement stairs to let him know the pizza was ready, or that she was going up to her bedroom to watch TV, or any other announcement that might elicit a disapproving finger wag from her neighbor. She made work-related phone calls from the patio from time to time but never personal ones—those she took inside, from the corner of her bedroom farthest away from her neighbor’s house.

Mrs. Saint took none of those kinds of precautions, however, and that was why Markie could predict not only how coffee hour would go, but the rest of the day as well. First, Ronda, the cook, would produce a tray of baked goods, apologizing about how undercooked or burned or misshapen they were, while everyone would tell her it all looked wonderful. But halfway through the meeting, when Ronda went inside to fetch more coffee, the others would huddle together and discuss in hushed voices how terrible the day’s scones or muffins were and how they planned to get rid of them. The least offensive ones could be rendered somewhat edible by smothering them with jam, while the worst would be tossed out the door and onto the lawn for Bruce to collect later and bury at the bottom of the compost bin behind the garage.

Next, Mrs. Saint would ask Bruce, Patty, and Ronda what they had planned for the day, and no matter what answer they gave, she would offer suggestions for amendment: Do this thing first, the other second. Spend more time on that one than you did last week. Markie noticed that Mrs. Saint rarely asked Frédéric how he intended to spend the day, and when she did, it didn’t seem she was doing it to provide a critique, but only to make conversation. After the meeting ended, Frédéric and Bruce would confer outside the screened porch for a few minutes while the sounds of running water, clinking dishes, and Ronda’s humming would float out the kitchen window. Markie would have thought cleaning the kitchen might be something on Patty’s list, but she was trying not to let herself deliberate over the proper division of tasks between the cook and the housekeeper.

Several times during the day, Mrs. Saint would check on everyone’s progress—Markie could hear her voice ringing out through the house or yard as she pointed out errors and made suggestions for fixing them. Most of the fixes seemed to require Frédéric’s oversight, so Markie heard his voice often, as well, as he checked in on the others and tried to help them avoid disaster before it was too late.

“That kind goes in the shade, not the sun, remember?” she had heard him call to Bruce when the other man was poised to plant a shrub in the wrong spot in the garden. “You have to unplug the iron every time,” she had heard him remind Patty—not that this one had stuck, as Markie heard him say it almost every day. She had lost count of the number of times she had heard his low, gentle voice in the kitchen, followed by Ronda crying, “Oh, you’re right! I can’t believe I did that again! It’s completely ruined!”

At the end of the day, Patty would leave in a frantic hurry, claiming she was going to be late for some evening activity that everyone seemed aware of but no one ever named, while Ronda, Bruce, and Frédéric stayed to eat dinner with Mrs. Saint. Markie found the fact that her neighbor took all of her meals with her employees to be equal parts endearing and controlling—which, she had decided, was the perfect description for the Frenchwoman herself.

Markie was opening her first claim file when she heard her neighbor’s voice. “So. You will join us for coffee today?” She was at the fence, gesturing to the screened porch behind her, where the others were still getting set up. “It has been some long time now.”

In the three weeks since she and Jesse had moved in, Markie had exchanged polite waves with Frédéric and a few sentences with Bruce, but she hadn’t yet met Ronda or Patty, or Patty’s young daughter, Lola, who appeared at the house after school and on weekends, or Patty’s mother, Carol, who came only rarely and never stayed long. And she hadn’t heard a peep from Mrs. Saint, until today. True to her word, the older woman had given them time to settle in.

Markie raised her coffee cup. “Thank you, but this is my caffeine quota for today, I’m afraid.” With her other hand, she lifted her file. “And now I’m on the clock.”

“But are you paid by the hour with such a job?” Mrs. Saint moved a hand to her hip and tilted her head, and Markie felt like an eight-year-old who had been caught shoving all her dirty clothes under the bed.

She also felt a small amount of irritation at Bruce, to whom she had once revealed the nature of her job and the fact that her pay was piece rate. As the groundskeeper not only for Mrs. Saint but also for the bungalow’s landlord (something he had shared with Markie during her first week living there), Bruce was always outside, often hovering nearby. Thankfully, he seemed as uninterested in conversation as Jesse, but one day he ambled close to the patio and confessed he had been wondering about the stacks of files she was always working on.

Recalling how socially awkward he had seemed the day she met him, she wanted to reward him for his effort in initiating a conversation, so she told him a little about her job. She didn’t want him to think she was slacking by stopping to chat—no matter how little she cared about insurance claims review, she was determined to bring her trademark work ethic to it—so she had also explained she was paid by the file, not the hour.

“I mean, I’ve started work for the day,” she told Mrs. Saint. “And I don’t like to stop once I’ve started. Trying to harness momentum.”

“Oui,” Mrs. Saint said, nodding with understanding. “Because this is a job much more boring than your last. So it is hard to keep excitement.”

Markie was stunned—she hadn’t shared any such information with Bruce. Noticing her shock, Mrs. Saint said, “Chessie tells me, when he is walking home from school last Friday.” She pointed in the direction of her front door, out of Markie’s sight.

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