He frowns. “I want prizes.”
Of course he does. “This meeting is the place to start. But we need your sister. Can you go annoy her into coming in here?” His face brightens. “Is that helpful?” he asks. “Extremely.” “Be right back.” In a matter of moments he’s back with an angry tween. I study her face. So different from my own baby girl. Sharper. Prettier, maybe? I don’t know. I suspect they’ll both be gorgeous in a few years. But Bridget is edges and lines and a tight ponytail. She moves with command and conviction. It’s intimidating, and it’s a perfect facsimile of her mother. A woman (to be) who has it all. And doesn’t even see what she has. “Phone, Mom,” she instructs. She says it with such authority that for a moment I lose my way and consider giving it back to her. But then I remind myself I’m not parenting someone else’s children—not from their point of view. I can treat them as I would my own. Not that my own would ever talk to me that way. “Sure,” I tell her, calmly. “Once I’m done, it’s yours.” She crosses her arms. “Go, then.” “I want you listening,” I tell her. “Not just thinking of what you’re going to text your friends in two minutes.” Her eyes bug out. “I’m not texting, Mom. I swear!” Oh, is she not allowed to text? This is interesting. Even Zoey has texting privileges. Perhaps I should rethink that. I clear my throat. “Do you two notice anything different about this room?” Their eyes roam the dining room. They shake their heads but say nothing. “Nothing?” I prod. “Did you paint?” asks Linus. “It looks shiny.” “I cleaned, Linus,” I tell him. Bridget sums it up when she asks, “Why?” I squelch the urge to cry, Because you’re living in squalor, that’s why! “The house is dirty. So I cleaned part of it. But I need help to keep it clean. And it’s Sunday, you have no school today, and you obviously have nothing to do, so you’re the perfect people to help.” Much moaning and complaining ensues. “Plus,” I remind them, “you live here. You get to use all this nice stuff. You have to keep it nice.” “Dad lives here, and he doesn’t clean,” says Bridget. Doesn’t he? I wonder. That’s a bit sad for Wendy. “But he earns money,” I say. “He does?” asks Bridget, incredulous. Oh dear. I don’t answer, because I have no idea. I know Seth is meant to be a successful urban artist. Don’t successful artists in thriving art scenes like the one downtown make loads of money? I have this powerful urge to text Wendy to ask about these questions. But coming from me, it’s not like she’d open up. “Let’s focus on what you can do,” I say. “You can clean. You’ll actually like it, too, once you realize how good it feels to have a clean home. You, Bridget, can do loads of laundry on Sundays. While you, Linus, can run the Roomba.” “We have a Roomba?” he asks, mystified. I grimace. “Um . . . we’re getting one. Today you’ll just vacuum and dust.” “We have a vacuum?” he asks again. “Don’t we?” I ask. “You gave it to Dad when it broke, remember?” Bridget says. I don’t remember, because I wasn’t there. Not the point. “Well, he’ll have repaired it by now, then,” I say. “Mom?” Bridget says. “I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure Dad used the vacuum in his artwork. You told him he could. You said the Merry Maids have backpack vacuums, so why did you need one here anyway?” “I did?” I ask. Both kids look at me funny. “Well, right, I did.” I’m chewing on all this. They have a housekeeping service, yet the house is filthy. The husband, Seth, took a vacuum to his studio and never brought it back. This is the same husband the kids just told me doesn’t clean or make money. This is all a very curious situation. “Let’s get you guys started. We need laundry baskets and, um . . . dusting wipes . . . and music.” Before long I’ve got the two kids working. They’re not bad kids and seem totally game to help out their mom once the path is made clear. They are listening to Top Forty played very loudly on the TV speakers and picking up all kinds of things, things I wouldn’t have necessarily had down as toys rather than trash, like Linus’s collection of acorns and a stack of box score sheets that Bridget assembles and files in an elaborate system in her bedroom desk. In an hour and a half the children are back in front of their screens, only now Bridget is getting up every fifteen minutes to address the laundry, and Linus to dust one more room. Meanwhile I take up residence in the kitchen, taking pantry items that are minutes from expiration and cooking, cooking, cooking up a storm. In four hours everything in this house is honestly livably clean, there are six freezer meals ready to roll, and a mound of clean clothes is being folded at the speed of snails as Disney Plus resumes and the kids feast on turkey sandwiches and apples cut into eighths. I want to run across the backyard and get Wendy and show her what I’ve accomplished in her house in half a day of walking in her shoes. I want to walk through the house taking “after” photos. I cannot wait for Seth to return from wherever it is he’s gone and see what a nice home he has so I can get him started on some of the long list of overdue repairs it needs to be its absolute best. I’m not exactly clear on how to replace porch screens or fill in drywall, but Seth is a sculpture artist. He’ll know his way around a staple gun and plaster repair. And I certainly know how to paint the dining room, which, now that I look at it, could really use a warmer color, one that isn’t quite so hunter green. I could try to strip the white paint off the baseboards and return them to the pretty dark walnut they used to be too. Without meaning to, I slip into the slightest little fantasy of me and Seth—who is, let’s face it, the hottest husband on the block—in painting clothes, rolling a rich, creamy light brown on the dining room walls side by side, and him embracing his lovely wife in a tender moment, and his wife being me . . . And then my eyes fly open in horror. I have been in Wendy Charles’s body for less than a day, and already I’m fantasizing about stealing her family, her home, and her husband.