The Billionaire and His Driver

CHAPTER FOUR

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

Four-thirty am.

The alarm clock woke her up with a screeching sound and she slammed her hand down on the top button just to stop the noise. Annoying as fuck, she thought. But it did its job. She got up.

She showered. She brushed and gargled. And then she put on her uniform and name tag and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her hair that had always been thick and full and wavy, was a little less thick and a little less full and instead of attempting to style it into anything considered fashionable the way she used to do it, she kept it in a ponytail nowadays. A neat ponytail in the morning. A messy one by knockoff time. And her face, that used to be so full of hope and considered so cheerful, looked a little haggard to her now. Well-worn like an old suit. A face tired of looking hopeful. Tired of thinking it was all going to work out, only it never did.

A maid. That was where life had brought her. Two years in prison got her out on good behavior and to job interview after job interview that netted her nothing because of her criminal record. Many of the people that interviewed her knew her from her work with non-profits. They knew her. And they were non-profits. But nobody wanted to take a chance on a thief. To them, and to her when she was in their position, embezzlement was one of the worse crimes you could commit because it made you somebody nobody should trust.

And that went for every single job she applied for. Even fast-food restaurants.

Until Mrs. Elvira Dash, the head of housekeeping at Bradshaw Manor, took a chance on her and offered her a probationary maid’s position through the same labor pool she always hooked up with when all else failed. It was a crappy job. No way around that. But it was enough of a job to get her an apartment, albeit in the show-nuff hood, and food in her belly. It was better than nothing.

But as she smoothed down her hair to put it in that ponytail again, it felt like next to nothing. Because it reminded her of everything she said she’d never be when she went into that shelter for wayward girls and came out a high school graduate and later a college grad. Everything she said she’d never be, she became: a convicted felon. Unemployable after her release. And now a maid for the past six months. Yesterday she passed probation and was put on permanent status. They even celebrated at the Manor with a cake in her honor. She smiled. Pretended she was happy too. But it felt so final that it scared her. Most people in service stayed in service. Was that her end too? Was this as good as it was ever going to get for her? Was this it ?

She forced another smile, pulled down on the string over her bathroom mirror that turned off the light, and then left her apartment and walked up the street where other domestics were waiting at the bus stop to go to their respective service homes. Bradshaw Manor was distinctive in that it had its own van that picked up their domestics. That was mainly because Bradshaw Manor was in a small, wealthy community and had to go out of town to find help.

Brina hopped on the van where she was greeted with more grunts than hellos by the other maids already onboard. She plopped in a seat alone as she prepared herself to make the hour-long drive from Eugene to the estate located in Windale, Oregon, which was a super-wealthy town almost exclusively populated by millionaires and billionaires. For Brina, and everybody else on that van, every single day when they arrived in that town it felt as if they were entering another world where houses comprised city blocks and where streets were brick-lined and tree-lined and filled with such beauty and cleanliness that it always took their breath away. All of them lived in what many would call the slums, even though most of them kept their yards tidy and their homes or apartments clean too. But there was no comparison anyway. It was an unbelievable experience every single day.

But before they left Eugene to head over to Windale, they made their final stop near the outskirts of town and picked up another maid. This one in her early twenties: her first day.

Brina moved her backpack to make room for the younger lady when nobody else budged. But not that long ago Brina was a newbie too. She still remembered what that felt like. The girl gladly plopped down beside her.

And she was all smiles. She was thrilled to have gotten the job. Which at first surprised Brina. Who would be thrilled to in essence be somebody’s servant? But she realized the girl was still very young. It was one thing to get a job at twenty and be thrilled about it. She still had places to go. But to get the same job at thirty-two, as Brina had gotten, was a different ballgame. Especially when she absolutely had nowhere else to go.

And the fact that it all was so unfair had a lot to do with it too. Brina had been unjustly punished and stigmatized for crimes she didn’t commit. It had unended her entire world. But she was done with the sympathy tour. Nobody was feeling it anyway. She had no choice, she felt, but to move on.

“I think I’m going to love this job,” the bubbly young lady said to her. “I’m Shanilla by the way.” She extended her hand.

“Brina.” Brina shook it.

“Nice to meet you, Brina. Are all the employees black like us?”

Just the ones in the lowest positions, Brina wanted to say. But she wasn’t about to burst that young girl’s happy bubble this soon. “No, they have other positions filled by non-minorities.”

“Positions like what?”

“Like house manager. Like the head of landscaping. Like Mr. Bradshaw’s driver-slash-footman. Those kinds of positions.”

“What’s a driver-slash-footman?” Shanilla asked.

Brina smoothed down her hair. “He’s the guy that assists Mr. Bradshaw with his clothes for that day, getting them out for him, helping him dress, make his bath for him. In other words make sure he has whatever he wants without him having to call downstairs and request anything. And then he chauffeurs him around.”

“That’s a lot of job for one person.” She grinned. “That sounds like that should be two or three jobs.”

Brina inwardly smiled. This girl wasn’t going to last a week if she thought those nothing duties should be several jobs. If that were the case, their job as maids should be four jobs!

But she didn’t burst her bubble. She was going to have to do that on her own. She remained silent as they rode on to work.

Some of the oldest maids, those in their fifties and beyond who’d been in service all their lives, sang spirituals as they rode, as if they were content with their lot in life. Others chatted like the big gossips they were, as if they needed to involve themselves in other people’s lives to keep their own lives interesting and worth the bother. And some, like Brina, sat quietly. Those were the ones who never thought they’d end up in this predicament. At least that was how Brina saw it. She was in a bad spot: in her thirties and still struggling like she was thirteen again and living on the streets. Unable to hit a lick with a stick.

At least those fifty-year-old maids had children and husbands to go home to, and even grandkids to spoil. Brina had none of that. As soon as she was arrested, Jeremy dumped her. He wouldn’t even take her phone calls as if just talking to her would taint his image. She had to get a second mortgage on her house just to hire herself a lawyer. Jeremy’s friend Jamal did pay part of her attorney’s fees when she ran out of money, which she was eternally grateful to him for that, but it wasn’t as if he was all in with her either. He just didn’t buy the government’s case against her. He couldn’t imagine her stealing from anyone, let alone a charitable organization. But when her court case failed and she was convicted, he was done with her too. Lost her house, car, everything.

This so-called nothing job was all she had.

When they arrived at Bradshaw Manor, the electronic gate parted, the guard at the booth waved at the van’s driver, and they made their way onto the vast property of cedar trees and perfect landscaping until they were all the way in the back of the main house at the servants’ entrance. When she was first hired, Brina had no idea people still had servants’ quarters, or that they still called people who did domestic work servants at all.

“They don’t call us that in public,” Elvira Dash had made clear to her in the early days of her employment. “But to our faces, they call us nothing else. And don’t you give it a second thought you hear me? Just do your job and get your paycheck and live your life. That’s the secret to happiness.”

It sounded like the kind of secret she never wanted to know, but now was living in that secret anyway. And she just couldn’t see happiness at the end of that revelation.

They piled out of the van and made their way inside the massive mansion.

Their home base was literally downstairs in the servants’ quarters, just like on Downton Abby or Upstairs/Downstairs or any of those other British shows, and all of the domestics, as they called themselves, sat at this long table every morning to get instruction from Elvira Dash and/or James Prado, the house manager, on the days’ events or for them to ask some to stay overnight because of parties or other functions suddenly planned or thrown together at the last minute by Mr. Bradshaw, the man they all called the boss. The man the servants rarely ever got to see. Brina had been in his employ six months and still had yet to lay eyes on him.

But they all loved Mrs. Dash. As the highest-ranking black woman at Bradshaw Manor, she was respected by all. Including Mr. Bradshaw, who was, ironically, her direct supervisor. Not the house manager as was usually the case. Was there resentment between Mr. Prado and Mrs. Dash because of that? Even a newbie like Brina, who had just gotten off of her six-month long probationary period, saw that it was.

After the house manager concluded the overview of events, especially talking to the above stairs higher paying job people, he turned it over to Elvira. A very elegant, attractive woman in her early fifties, it was rumored that she once was the concubine (that was the archaic word used, to Brina’s shock) of Mr. Bradshaw’s father, who had employed her when she was like nineteen years old. But Brina didn’t believe it. Elvira Dash, in her view, was too practical a woman to fall in love with her boss. Especially one as old as Mr. Bradshaw’s father would have been. Nope. Brina was unconvinced. Elvira was too smart for that.

“An overnight guest complained over the weekend that their room was not up to par,” Elvira stood at the head of the table and said, “which upset the boss greatly. He was out of town when he got this complaint, which made it worse. I, of course, had to apologize and make it right, but it was inexcusable.” Then she looked directly at the fifty-something woman seated next to Brina. “Don’t let it happen again, Gail, or you will be terminated.”

Gail sat up straight. She was a generally lazy maid who, in Brina’s estimation, never pulled her fair share. Being called out was a good thing, Brina felt. Maybe it would put more fire under her feet.

But she, instead, copped an attitude. “There was nothing wrong with any of those rooms I cleaned before I left on Friday. If we didn’t have to do so many jobs, we’d have time to spend all day on one room. But there’s twenty-two bedrooms and twenty-four bathrooms in this coliseum of a house. And just eight domestics cleaning all those rooms? Give me a break. Who can keep up with all that?”

She was contradicting herself and Brina could tell Elvira knew it too, and although she was a tough supervisor, there wasn’t a mean bone in her body. She didn’t call Gail out on her contradictions. “You’ve been warned,” Elvira said, which was what she always said whenever she felt her point needed no clarifications. “You’ve all been warned,” she added.

They all said yes ma’am and then dispersed to their assignments. All except for Brina. Elvira divided Brina’s rooms up for the other maids to take one room apiece. They grumbled and complained, and so did Brina for being discharged of her duties, but Elvira could be as spicy as the seasoning she was named after, or was it named after her as she alleged? She brook no debate. The maids went to work, and Brina stayed back with her supervisor.

“Why can’t I clean my own rooms?” A puzzled Brina asked her.

“You have a different assignment today.”

“Different? What do you mean different?”

“You’re going to have to be the boss’s driver today.”

Brina was floored.“What? His driver ?Why?”

“Jockey showed up drunk again this morning. Mr. Prado sent him back home to sober up. He would have fired him on the spot had I not intervened.”

“He should have fired him,” Brina said. “Who shows up drunk for work? And a driver no less? That’s crazy.” And it wasn’t his first time either. Brina knew of two other times in the six months she’d been there. Fortunate for him, Mr. Bradshaw was out of town both of those times. This time, too, at least Brina thought he was. “Isn’t the boss out of town still?”

“His plane touches down within the hour,” Elvira said. “Jockey’s uniform is hanging on his locker. Put it on quickly. I’ll get the valet to pull the car around front. And then get to that airport. You always want to be at least half an hour early.”

“But why me? Why can’t Mr. Prado get one of the lawn guys or the valet to be his driver?”

Elvira looked at Brina as if it was obvious. “His driver’s real name is Luther. Why do you think we call him Jockey?”

It wasn’t something Brina had ever considered. She had to think about it. “I don’t know. Because he’s so small?”

“Bingo,” said Elvira. “And you’re the only person in this entire household small enough to fit in his uniform. We don’t have time to go out and buy another one. Just get to it now, Sabrina, because if you show up at that airport late and the boss has to wait on you? Heaven help you. Now get to it!”

The idea of getting fired put fire under Brina’s feet and she got to it. It was crazy and confusing to her. She’d never driven for anybody ever before. And as she grabbed the chauffeur’s uniform Jockey usually wore and hurried to take off her maid dress she was wearing, she felt so apprehensive it was making her jittery. She’d heard how mean the boss could be if he thought you weren’t up to par. She’d heard how he would dress down people for the pettiest of reasons. And now she had to pick him up from the airport? She had to be his driver for a day? What if she blew it and ended up fired? What would she do next? It was a miracle Elvira took a chance on her. Would anybody else?

She nearly ran out of that house and was pleased to find the valet had already brought around the big, fancy Mercedes-Maybach. When Brina got behind the wheel it still had that new car smell she loved. And it drove like she was floating on air. She’d never even been in a fancy car like that one before. Now she was driving it? It was a lot to take in.

But she kept her focus. She drove as fast as she could whenever she didn’t see a cop around. She made it to the airfield just as his plane was touching down. Her heart was hammering. But she made it.