Lady Lucia
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The Tutor, Part Seven
🕑 Added 2022-06-23 14:59:28 +0000 UTCHow had I lost track of time?
There was literally a clock on the oven. The kitchen may have been huge, but it was also an open design with plenty of visibility. All I had to do was look up from the various tasks Trixie gave me, and I could have seen how long we were taking to prepare lunch and prep for dinner. But I didn’t. And now Trixie was telling me there was more to do.
“Sorry, Trixie,” I said, deciding immediately to call it quits. An extra set of hands may be helpful, but she would have managed just fine if I had decided to turn down the tutoring opportunity and wasn’t here today, “I need to continue my session with Annabelle.”
“Ms. Moore, stay. Please.” After the low key subservient way the young brunette girl spoke to Annabelle, she was surprisingly firm when speaking to me. “You said you would help me with the kitchen. That means cooking and cleaning. The job isn’t done until the room is spotless.”
If you’re a stickler, sure. Personally, I tend to do the dishes a little while after making my meals. This didn’t exactly line up with my lifestyle, however, so who was I to argue? “I know, but-”
“But nothing. How about this? Get started on the dishes while I take Ms. Annabelle her meal. I’ll ask her if you may return upstairs instead of assisting me. Okay?”
“Trixie-”
“Dishes, Meredith. I’ll be right back.”
With a pointed drop of the prepared plate onto a silver tray, Trixie added a small salad bowl and a glass of sparkling ice water she had recently poured to the mix. Then she walked out of the kitchen without another word, tray in hand, leaving me speechless behind her.
What was happening?
Rather than treating me as a guest, the girl literally dressed as a maid was bossing me around. I’m pretty sure she and I were the same age, too. And yet, I felt powerless to do anything but reluctantly obey. I wasn’t the biggest fan of confrontation, especially with people I barely knew, and something told me that following Trixie upstairs would result in something like that. Surely Annabelle didn’t want her new tutor wasting this much time downstairs, but she also hadn’t come to check on me. Was she too spoiled to bother? Or maybe she lost track of time as well. Or, more likely, she wanted a bit of her Saturday morning to herself if given the opportunity.
Regardless, there wasn’t much I could do in the meantime. At least Trixie said she would ask Annabelle, and I’m pretty sure the teenage girl would suggest that I should return. There were plenty of people who could wash dishes, but only so many that could teach undergraduate-level mathematics.
Sighing, I trudged over to the sink and started running the water to warm it up. Even if I was heading upstairs in a minute, I could at least help Trixie a little. Better than just twiddling my thumbs. While I didn’t appreciate the way she spoke to me, I could understand how stressful it could be to handle all the chores that came with a house this size.
Where to start? Trixie had only made lunch for Annabelle; a meal for one girl, and yet there were so many dirty dishes. I suppose we did some dinner prep as well, but still. Rather than coming up with a game plan like I might do at home with my more familiar kitchen, I simply grabbed the closest pan and began scrubbing. I actually don’t mind dishes; it’s one of those chores that can be cathartic if you allow it to be. But not when there’s something more important to be doing with my time; Annabelle’s time, too.
It took Trixie a little longer than I expected for her to simply deliver a meal and have a short conversation with Annabelle. From what I had seen so far, conversations between the two of them didn’t last very long. But finally, a few minutes later, she returned. “Miss Annabelle said to stay down here until the kitchen is done,” she said, right away, “Then you may resume your tutoring.”
“Wait, what?” I asked. The moment I saw the girl arrive out of the corner of my eye, the plan was to finish washing the cutting board I was working on and then dry my hands. But, with Trixie coming to stand between me and the hand towels, that wasn’t as simple any more.
“We’re not done with the kitchen yet,” she replied.
So what? Trixie is the maid; not me. “I’m only here for 45 more minutes,” I said, a bit exasperated as I set the board aside, “This is a total waste of my time!”
“Meredith, it will go much more quickly if you stop complaining about it,” Trixie said, “Now, will you please keep working on the dishes while I put everything else away?”
“No, I just said-”
“Now, Meredith.”
My aversion to confrontation wasn’t helping, nor was the girl’s curt tone. I hadn’t even noticed that she had switched from ‘Ms. Moore’ to my actual name, but it definitely snapped me to attention mid-conversation. But wasn’t she listening? At this rate, Annabelle and I would barely have any time for actual teaching. “But-”
“Dishes, Meredith. You’re wasting your own time at this point.”
“Umm . . .” I trailed off, at a complete loss. You’d think a girl dressed like that wouldn’t be intimidating, but I had no idea how to handle the abruptly bossy attitude. Relenting, with a small sigh, I turned back to the sink. “Okay.”
Continuing to work on the barely halfway completed task, I picked up the salad bowl next. Once she saw that I was committed to the dishes, Trixie began working on everything else. Putting everything on the counters away, wiping down the counters, and eventually drying some of the dishes I had already washed.
All in all, it took a solid ten minutes together to make the kitchen spotless. It could have been twenty for Trixie, and I could have been with Annabelle, but no. Finally turning off the faucet and drying my hands off, I looked at the young maid with as stern a look as I could muster after subjecting myself to all that cleaning. “Are we done, now?” I asked.
