I knew that stealing wasn’t good, but that was exactly why guilty pleasures were described as guilty. Though I wasn’t really stealing, more like secretly borrowing—after all, who would want to live in a house full of strangers? Certainly not me.
Being a maid wasn’t my dream job until I began working for this family—the Rahns. They were a rich, kind family of three. The parents were both successful business owners, whilst their daughter, Emmaline, was studying at a boarding school in France.
It might have seemed like a lonely job, but I was more than happy with the arrangement. As the only maid working in a six-bedroom estate, it was too luxurious to be lonely, hence the development of my guilty pleasure.
It was common for the property to be empty. As someone who had been given full disclosure of each family member’s calendar, I knew exactly when they would be home from work trips or vacations.
Most people with an architecture degree dreamed of one day opening their own firm, or working at another prestigious company where they can compete with designs for opera houses and pavilions. They could never understand why I was happily working as a maid rather than using my degree, yet I knew the truth.
Rather than returning to a house full of shrieking children and fighting adults, I often stayed at the estate for the nights it was empty, borrowing a different room each time.
I would spend hours and hours in that room, drawing out perfect floorplans and diagrams, designing each room until it was perfectly fit to my liking. Effectively keeping hold of my skills, avoiding the displeasure of human company, and efficiently cutting down on the cost and time required to commute to work every day.
It was a perfect plan—at least it had been until approximately four seconds ago.
“What exactly are you doing in my room?”
I felt every ounce of guilt as Emmaline opened her bedroom door to reveal me, cross-legged on the floor with disheveled papers scattered around me. My pajamas were neatly folded on her bed, and my strictly instrumental playlist played at the second-highest volume.
I immediately scrambled to turn it off, casting all the blame on the fact it had been so loud I hadn’t even heard her opening the front door.
“Drawing?” I supplemented, trying my best not to look like a deer in headlights.
“I can see that. I’m obviously referring to everything else.” Emmaline raised her eyebrow, a newly manicured hand abandoning the handle of her suitcase to rest on her hip.
She could definitely break my rib with that pointed elbow.
I rose to my feet and mustered up as much dignity as I could. “I was staying here briefly until your mother returned from her trip to Malaysia. I apologize for overstepping my bounds, my lady. I will clear my things immediately and write a formal letter of apology to you and your parents tonight detailing every aspect of this situation clearly—”
“You can’t.”
My jaw went slack at her words. Was she actually going to let this go?
“My parents don’t know that I’m home, so you cannot be the one to tell them.”
Realization dawned on me. I knew that I would never have made a mistake with their calendars. I was too meticulous in my planning to make such a damning error, which meant that Emmaline was not meant to be here right now.
“Right, you’re meant to be at boarding school.” I probed.
“Yes, I dropped out.” Her gaze drifted to the window. “Two months ago.”
“Two months!” My jaw practically unhinged itself this time.
Emmaline’s brown eyes cut to mine with ferocious accusation.
“You’re one to talk. How long have you been doing…whatever this is that you’ve been doing?” she exclaimed, gesturing to the entire room.
“Three…” I didn’t want to continue. It felt too shameful.
“Three months? That’s still longer than—”
“Three years.”
Dear Earth, please swallow me whole and devour my memory so that I never have to think of this moment ever again.
“You.” She laughed, and I stood awkwardly, crossing my arms over my midsection as if they could keep my food trapped inside. “You have been living like this since you started working for us? You’re really crazy. Like psycho-level crazy.”
I couldn’t get out a single word of defense as she left her luggage by the open door and walked across the room. She avoided my papers before collapsing on her bed, the recoil sending her bouncing back slightly.
“We’re both crazy, me and you,” she whispered, and seeing the way she was currently sprawled across the bedsheets that were clearly not hers, with her eyelids fluttered closed and her phone still by the door with her bags, I was inclined to agree.
“You still have seven years of catching up to do before you can say that we’re on the same level, my lady.” I raised an eyebrow as she laughed again.
“What have you been drawing, then?” She sat up, eyes looking over my sketches and plans with appraisal that made me want to snatch them all up and stuff them in the bin.
“Just some plans.”
“Oh right, you studied architecture before coming here, right?” She slid off the bed and picked up one of the sheets. “Wait, isn’t this my room?”
There was absolutely no point hiding anything anymore, not when this would probably be my last day here, so I sent a prayer to the heavens. I thanked them for the ability to work this dream job for the past three years and asked them to help me find a new job that was anything else but working the exhausting hours of an architecture firm, using my university experiences as a way to summon their pity.
“Yes, my lady. It’s a design I made according to my own preferences. I have several for each of the rooms here. It helps to keep my mind sharp between housework.”
My legs were beginning to ache from standing for a while, so I joined her on the carpet, not caring too much about etiquette anymore.
“No way, this is too perfect,” Emmaline mumbled, grabbing my folder and leafing through the designs of each of the rooms I had done with an expression I could only describe as greedy.
Without warning, she grabbed my hands from my lap, pulling them towards her with an intensity that made me want to pull away.
“You have to work with me! I want to open a hotel,” she began rambling at top speed, “I’ve been working on the plans for the past five months now, and I was just about to start looking for an architect to help me. This is so perfect. You’ll do it right?”
I did not want to do it. Not even one single bit, but I was about to be out of a job, and I had no desire to go back to the four-bedroom shared house I moved into after university.
They weren’t joking when they said all it takes is one second for your entire life to turn upside down, because this… this is very much down.
“I have a few conditions, but I suppose it wouldn’t be a terrible idea.”
It was a terrible idea and meant I ended up losing my dream job to open up my own architecture firm. The one job I wished I’d never have.
All because I didn’t want to stay in a house full of strangers.
Alisha Umar has a deep thirst for knowledge and a beautiful appreciation for learning. She spends hours pondering over her recent reads, researching for her own stories and scouring every inch of the library. When she’s not engrossed in her books or posting on her social media she can be found spending quality time with her friends and family, engaging in meaningful debates with her loved ones, taking down the next food destination on her bucket list and fantasising about which places she wants to travel to next- whether fictional or real. You can find her on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube @authoralishau
Featured image by Spacejoy on Unsplash.
