"Hey, Constance," Lauretta said softly, standing exactly in the center of her doorframe. "Hey, are you awake?"
"No." came the muffled answer, from someone who was decidedly awake and choosing to ignore the world under two quilts.
Lauretta moved softly across the snow-white carpet. She was fairly new here, in the Harlow house, this was only her second year, but she felt she had known Constance her whole lifetime. There was something pitiful about the Harlow girl, who existed in this world like a bleak shelf for her parents to push piano lessons onto. When she started she had seen right through Constance, who wore the best mask everyday she had ever seen, and it had taken a while for her to catch the girl in the act of breaking her perfect facade for the two to become friends.
It hurt her soul to watch this girl.
"I got the mail from James. I think this is your report card. I can buy you some time, say I misplaced it, but not long."
There was no response.
"What are you struggling with in school? I know I'm just a maid, but I graduated, you know." she pressed.
There was no response.
"Constance, please. Tell me what's going on. It isn't like you to fail at anything."
There was no response.
"I'll hide it in the dumbwaiter." Lauretta turned to go.
"Let them see it," she heard, from a voice that sounded like it was coming out from underwater. "I don't care."
"You do care. You do. It's okay to have a hard time with school-"
"Go away. Go away, Lauretta."
Stung, the maid paused at the door.
"I know they're going to yell, Constance, but don't think for one minute you're not smart. Please, ask for help if you need it. It's important to stay on top of your studies."
She was gone before she saw the girl raise a bleary head from under the quilt, eyes shining like river gemstones.
They yelled. Oh, they yelled.
Lauretta lowered the tea towel every single time the glass in the china cabinet rattled, and hunched her shoulders like she was the one in trouble. The cook shook her head and continued peeling potatoes. There was a party tonight, where all of Mr. and Mrs. Harlow's esteemed friends would come over and laugh their tinkly laughs, and hold their children in front of them all trussed up like Thanksgiving turkeys. Lauretta knew that Mrs. Harlow would scrub Constance's face with a washcloth like she always did, points of her lavender manicure pressing into the girl's shoulder, and put her into this dress that looked like a medieval contraption. Then Constance would be kicked underfoot if her smile's wattage wasn't high enough, and they would all eat hors d'oeuvres, and laugh the tinkly laugh.
Another house she had worked at, the Adlers, when the little boy had done something wrong they would put on these great downturned mouths and go, "Oh, he isn't feeling well tonight, he's just taking a nap." and the little Adler would have a mini, genuine downturned mouth, clutching the banister and watching the party and the platters of chilled oysters go by. But the Harlows used these parties as punishment for Constance, she knew, screaming at her until their throats were raw and then becoming the most gracious parents in the world. It made her heart ache. It was creepy, the first time she saw it, Constance smiling what she thought was genuinely at another boy her age and then rounding the corner into the kitchen and the expression dropping like rain off a window, just gone, this look of utter vacancy replacing it.
Lauretta would tell her mother about it on the days she was off, curled up in her big bed while the train rattled by the window. "Rich folk are as closest to aliens we're ever gonna get," her mother would say, and stroke her hair.
She wished she could help Constance, and she tried. When the Harlows were out they practiced mathematics and history. Lauretta's head would ache, trying to remember these things, but she felt a pit of worry gnawing in her stomach that she had to at least try. She wished there was more she could do for the girl, be her friend outside of this house she saw as a prison. Whenever Constance got home from school she was so drained, acting in a way Lauretta had never seen before, that she was just too tired to talk. Constance used to live for Lauretta's gossip, about her mother's friends and her on-again-off-again boyfriend, but now she didn't take any interest, avoiding her homework and sinking into the bed that was like a cloud.
So before the Harlows got home, Lauretta would sit next to Constance on the bed, pressed and starched apron brushing the tops of her knees, and work on the girl's homework. She would ask her questions, what's so-and-so divided by so-and-so, and would chew on the eraser and do it herself. If she didn't know what was going on with Constance, if the girl wouldn't talk to her anymore no matter how much she asked, at least she could be her friend, and help her avoid the yelling that would surely make it worse.
One day they were working on spelling, and Lauretta had brought some cornbread that her mother had sent over with her. The Harlows weren't permitted to see it. The last time she had brought fried chicken and they had asked the cook what 'that food' was doing in their kitchen, and so Lauretta kept it to herself and the staff. She had made it for Constance the way she'd had it as a child, with lots of honey and butter, the heart attack way, and did Constance's spelling around the girl feeding herself sad, pitiful bites of honey-soaked food.
"Arachnid." Lauretta mused to herself. "Which one...B. That's it."
Constance's hand crept out of its cave under the quilts and reached for her fingers. Lauretta held the hot ones in her cold ones, clutching it tight, and waited.
"I wish I could come live with you." Constance said softly, and Lauretta raised her face to the ceiling to blink back thick tears.
