Different Circles

“Oh ... I see,” she said.

“There is a plate of my chicken parmesan in there,” Elsa told her. “There is a plate with meatloaf and my homemade macaroni and cheese. There is another plate with marinated tri-tip that I deliberately undercooked so that when you heat it up it will be medium as you prefer it. There is a baked potato that goes with the tri-tip. In addition, I have made three breakfast burritos with sausage, egg, potatoes, and cheese and one plate with a chorizo and egg scramble in it. All of these meals have written instructions on how to heat them up. Please adhere to the directions so you may enjoy the meals properly.”

“Uh ... wow,” Meghan said. “I will, Elsa. Thank you!”

“You are welcome,” she said. “And do not forget to clean up after yourself as you go through the weekend. If I come back on Tuesday morning and find your laundry scattered about, or dirty dishes in the sink, or your soda bottles laying around, or any other form of mess in the house, you and I will have words.”

“I’ll keep things clean, Elsa,” Meghan told her. “I promise.”

“Very well,” Elsa said with a nod. “On that note, I will make my leave. Enjoy your weekend.”

“You too, Elsa,” Meghan said.

“And do not forget to latch all the windows and lock all the doors,” Elsa told her. “Set the house alarm and activate the motion sensors when you go to bed. If the motion alarm goes off, immediately lock your bedroom window and go to the office to evaluate the situation. Do not hesitate to call the sheriff’s department if you even suspect an intruder.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Very good,” Elsa said. “You’re a bright girl. You have a good head on your shoulders. Just use your common sense and all will be well.”

“Common sense,” Meghan said. “Right. I have that.”

Elsa showed her a rare smile. “Yes, you do,” she agreed.

And with that, she made her way out of the house, leaving Meghan alone. This was the first time she had been all alone in the house since she had started working for the Kingsleys. It felt a little strange. She had no Caydee to take care of. She had no Jake or Laura or Elsa to talk to. She decided that the first thing she would do was eat. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the chicken parm plate. There was a neatly written set of heating instructions taped to the top of it. She read them and then took the plate over to the microwave and put it inside. She removed the plastic wrap and replaced it with a paper towel. She then set the timer for four minutes and thirty seconds and pushed the start button.

While her meal was heating, she walked into the entertainment room and went to the bar. Jake had told her that any food or drink in the house was hers to consume, including the alcohol (except for certain racks of the wine collection), as long as she was off duty when she consumed it. He had even instructed Elsa to stock certain things that she liked, such as diet Pepsi, Yoplait yogurt, Ritz crackers and chunky peanut butter, and Bartels and Jaymes wine coolers. She reached in and pulled out one of the B&Js—it was the tropical mango variety—and popped the cap. She took a nice long swig of the sweet beverage and then headed back to the kitchen to wait for her chicken parm to be done.

She ate in the kitchen nook and then rinsed her plate and silverware and put them in the dishwasher. She then went back to the entertainment room and found something to watch on the large screen television. She drank two more tropical mangos as she watched a few mindless sitcoms. By this time, the sun was low in the late spring sky and she was starting to feel a pretty good alcohol buzz. She looked out the window at the coming sunset and her eyes happened on the hot tub that sat out on a deck at the edge of the cliff.

Jake and Laura liked to go out there and watch the sunset from the hot tub. And when they did it, they went out there with their robes on and nothing on underneath. She had seen them on several occasions shucking their robes and climbing in (not that she had been trying to see them, of course but—oh, who was she kidding? She had been). She had been treated to a brief view of Jake’s bare butt on those occasions, but had never seen his cock. She had also seen Laura’s bare butt and the side swell of her naked breasts, and, while those sights did not particularly interest her, the idea that the two of them were naked together certainly did. And on one occasion she had seen, in the dim light of post-sunset twilight, Laura climb atop Jake’s lap and start bouncing up and down atop him while they kissed each other passionately.