The Housekeeper

Julieanne Himelstein.

Word Count 1187

I was in the laundry room in the basement of my building. It was chilly down there and the ceiling lightbulbs were struggling. I was violently stuffing a bottom sheet into a pillowcase after giving up on trying to fold it and thinking about how much I hated my husband when I first saw her. 

Several months earlier, I left my job after a career as an international terrorism prosecutor traveling all over the world and trying complicated conspiracies in ornate courtrooms overflowing with spectators and international press corps so that I could “write a book”. 

Three days into my retirement, my husband fired the housekeeper because, as he said in a tone like he was expressing sympathy at a funeral, “You are home now.” 

Oh, and get this: Every day upon his return home, he had the audacity to ask “What did you do today?”  

And no he doesn’t consider indulging in a writing class, lunching (and day drinking) with writing class participants, writing stories and poems that will never be seen again, and binging on Netflix, doing anything. 

On top of all that, he did absolutely nothing at home. And I mean nothing.  I finally insisted he do one job and it became his only job. After adamant and lively protestation and saying things like “But I work all day”, he finally acquiesced.  His one job was to take the dog out for a nighttime walk.  

At the very moment the syllables were forming in his mouth telling me that he unilaterally fired the housekeeper,  I hatched a plot to deceive him. 

So back to the laundry room. There she was bathing in the flickering laundry room light like an angel. She was seamlessly folding several towels in a matter of seconds and stacking them like bread slices in a loaf of Wonder Bread. 

I asked her if she lived in the building, knowing full well she didn’t and that she was a housekeeper. 

She replied, “No, madam”, with what sounded like an accent from an Eastern European country, introduced herself as “Anna” and explained she works as a “maid for 5B and 9C.”  

I told her everything I just told you minus the career as a prosecutor and the dog walking skirmish, and I asked her if she could help me.

In a whisper that could only be interpreted as co-conspiratorial, she said, “Of course, madam.”

At that point, we could have talked about what people talk about when they are negotiating with a housekeeper. Bleach versus no bleach. Windows or no windows. Murphy soap or no Murphy soap. Will the key be with the doorman or under the mat? Price. How many times a week?  

Not we. We huddled together even though we were the only ones in the laundry room. I glanced from side to side and spoke softly, “I will leave you cash in an envelope inside Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven on the second shelf in the study.”

I studied her face to make sure she wasn’t a snitch and added,   “You can only clean on Wednesdays between 2:00 and 4:00 and you have to leave at 4:00 sharp.”  


Clearly comfortable with her role as a co-conspirator, she asked, “What about” and then mouthed the word “laundry?”

“No!”  I said with no hesitation.  “You are too good at it. It would be a dead give-away.” 

She whispered, “What should I say if he catches me?” 

I was thrilled that she realized we needed to get our stories straight in the event of exposure. Unbeknownst to her, I had heard every defense in the book and I knew which ones worked and which ones didn’t.  

I knew that if you get caught red-handed, that is, with your hand in the cookie jar, you have to stay within the hand in the cookie jar narrative.  You can’t say, “My hand was not in the cookie jar.” It has to be something like “My hand was in the cookie jar but I was only counting the cookies.”

Or if you are caught stabbing your husband as if there is no tomorrow and the knife is in your hand and there is blood all over the floor, you don’t say you didn’t stab him. You say that you did stab him but that it was in self-defense. 

I instructed her: “Say hello in the heaviest accent you can muster and tell him I hired you for the day to do deep cleaning.”

I couldn’t believe how easily that alibi rolled off my tongue.  I guess you can say it wasn’t my first rodeo.

“But I must tell you who we are dealing with,” I warned.  I noticed her eyeing my trembling hands and moist forehead.  “He’s a cop and a good one. He interrogates and conducts counter-surveillance in his sleep so don’t venture outside that narrative and don’t attempt to make small talk.  He is a master cross-examiner and relishes trapping one in prior inconsistent statements and even the most benign perjury.”

At this point, we were eye to eye and careful not to raise our voices.  

I said, “He will pick up any scintilla of evidence in your voice that reflects the slightest deceit. 

In fact, in the event he follows up with   any questions, just say, ‘No English.’”

Everything was going fine for the first few weeks until I realized the apartment was too clean. It smelled too good.  The floors gleamed. The toilets sparkled. A couple of days earlier, my husband noticed the dust chamber in the vacuum cleaner had been cleaned, something he knew I would never know how to do.  Another time, he almost slid across the floor and complained that the floors were too shiny. And one Wednesday night, he struggled to pull down the sheets because they were tucked in too tightly.  

So I started undoing her housekeeping which is a full-time job in itself.  This deception wasn’t for the faint of heart who think having a secret credit card, or dumping prepared food from the grocery store hot-food bar onto dinner plates is too much work.  This was a real grind!  Re-making beds, spilling things on floors, dirtying the countertops with coffee grounds, and unfolding perfectly clean towels, throwing them on the bathroom floor and stomping on them.  

Until I’d had enough. 

I decided that upon my return home after my writing class in Brooklyn that night, I was going to tell him to go to hell and that I was going to hire back our former housekeeper. 

After my class and a glorious night at the bar with my writing class friends, I was almost at my building when I spied my dog being walked by someone, not my husband. 

It was Chris,  a guy who walked several other dogs in the building.  

Before I could say a word, he stopped right in front of me and stammered, “Your husband asked me to cover the walk just for tonight.” 

As I saw him duck around the corner, I never felt closer to my husband.

Julieanne is a former federal prosecutor from Washington, D.C. She prosecuted numerous cases involving sex crimes against women and children. She also played a leading role in the prosecution of one of the leaders of the attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. Julieanne lives in New York City with her husband, an FBI agent, and is writing a novel.