No

Time: 12:10pm

Raquelle helped Ken abort the sour dough bread operation and get rid of the evidence, dumping the half-baked bread into the fancy trash compactor they had in their backyard.

Everything they had was fancy, but Raquelle tried not to notice. Ken told her she could wait in the kitchen, or get her demonstration set up while he threw the foul-smelling bread away, but she insisted on coming with him.

-I don’t mind, she said, putting her phone on the counter and taking her pillbox hat off and putting it on top.

Ken left the list of chores on the kitchen counter. They didn’t matter to him anymore. He felt his mind start decluttering.

-Yeah, he said. I don’t mind either.

It really was a fancy backyard. Raquelle might not have even known how to imagine one before she’d seen the Darcys’. She always thought she grew up ok. Her parents always worked, nice jobs.

The backyard, first of all, was huge. It had a gazebo in the middle, and pebble trails. There was the add-on greenhouse on the right, behind the extra garage.

Toward the end on the left there was a kind of mound that drew Raquelle’s attention.

-There’s a little pond on the other side, Ken explained.

-What, no pool? Too cliché? Raquelle asked. She was trying to be playful, but she could tell it hadn’t worked. Someone must come to take care of all this, she continued. Is it really just you?

DH said he’d only ever seen the mailman coming, but there was definitely someone else coming for this backyard, right? She pondered it.

Ken turned to look at her, noticing her thinking. She seemed so gullible.

-Yeah, I do everything, he said, deciding to put her on. She didn’t even add that to the chores list, it’s so, well, baked in, he laughed.

Raquelle felt sad but she laughed because he laughed and that’s what you’re supposed to do when people laugh and share. Then she just listened again.

-I get up at three in the morning to get started, he went on, gesturing at the little mini-gardens. I have to feed the fish in that pond. Do you want to see it?

He turned back to look at Raquelle and noticed the sadness now. She believed him and she felt bad about it. That made him feel bad about putting her on. This is what helped turn Barbara off, he thought to himself.

-I’m sorry, he rushed to say, grabbing her shoulders instinctively. I didn’t mean it.

-What?

She’d been a little jolted by the sudden touch, even though it felt welcomed before she could name the feeling. Oh no, she thought to herself.

Ken felt awful, thinking he’d turned himself into a charity case when he thought he was being funny.

-We have a gardener, with a whole team of contractors in, fact, they come out once a month, Ken assured her. It was true. And a maid, he added, that comes three times a week. That was true too.

Raquelle half-heard the comment about the gardener, and then figured DH could’ve missed that when he was watching the Darcys’ house and then she heard Ken mention a maid coming in three times a week.

-Really? she asked. The confusion was a mix of what she’d assumed and the way Ken’s story had changed. He perceived it as a premature loss of trust, caused by his own dumb immaturity.

-I’m sorry, he said. It was never enough for Barbara, so he went on. I shouldn’t have put you on about not getting any help around the house.

She put it together

-The chores list? Raquelle asked herself and Ken. It had reinforced DH’s story. He’d made it seem like he’d staked the house enough to say for certain they didn’t have regular help.

-It’s real. My wife wants me to do more, Ken said, which you obviously know, selling decluttering services and all.

-Right.

Raquelle had been used to DH being disappointing, underwhelming, and lacking. Here she thought he’d made her look foolish.

She wanted to text him, reaching for her pocket, remembering she’d left it on the counter only when her fingers slid through the empty space.

Ken could tell there was an awkwardness there, but this should be easy, he thought. She was here for a reason after all.

-I’d love for you to show me the demonstration for the decluttering stuff, that you’ve got inside. I’m sorry for being an idiot.

-What? Raquelle asked. Don’t be. It was funny, she insisted. Imagine, the rich trophy husband with no maid or gardener to come help.

Trophy husband struck Ken. Not house husband or stay-at-home like he was usually called, or, sometimes, by some bitter people, or people who were projecting, a lay about or even a rake or a fortune hunter. He couldn’t help it.

-Trophy husband, huh? he asked Raquelle, puffing his chest out as they walked back into the kitchen. I guess you don’t get a lot of men, do you?

He regretted asking it even though it felt natural to bring up. He was emasculating himself, probably because he’d been thinking of the things he was sometimes called. He picked up his chore list again.

Raquelle didn’t take it that way. She was only a few years younger, but enough not to get trapped in those weird gender role expectations. At first she took it as a question about her romantic life, but caught herself before reacting.

-You’d be surprised, she said, assuming that there were probably quite a few husbands who laid about the house of rich wives these days, and that it would surprise Ken, who it was hard for her not to notice felt some isolation, physically in the house, but also of his circumstance.

It woudn’t be easy, she thought as she picked up the pillbox hat to look at her phone. There it was. Just the one message from DH. *3 minutes ago* “ok go”

She grabbed the phone and typed N, then O. She looked to Ken, who was putting some things away in the kitchen, she couldn’t tell, and back to the phone. She double tapped the backspace button.

-Let me show you what’s in the briefcase, she said, turning back to the coffee table in the den area.