Hired Wife. Karen Van Der Zee

      “There was never much point,” he’d said with a faint shrug of his shoulders. “I was free to do the work overseas, and most of the time I enjoyed the experience. There was never a reason to stop.”

      He had no brothers and sisters, she knew, and when his parents died when he was twenty, he’d lost his parental home. Kim remembered her mother being impressed by Sam’s courteous appreciation of their welcoming him into their home during weekends and holidays, how he’d always brought a thoughtful little gift for her mother to thank her for her hospitality. Kim hadn’t realized it then, but now, as she paced restlessly around the loft, she wondered if Sam had been lonely. Lonely for family and companionship.

      And she wondered if he was lonely now, living like a global nomad.

      Except for the widowed uncle who ran the company in New York, and one married Greek cousin, all his extended family lived in Jordan and Greece. Although he’d been thoroughly Americanized during his high school and college years, in his younger years he had lived and been educated in Jordan, but spending much time in Greece as well with his mother’s family.

      “I don’t have a very strong sense of really belonging anyplace,” he’d said over dinner, and his dark eyes had suddenly been full of shadows. She’d wondered what had been hidden in those shadows. Loneliness? It was an odd thought to have about Sam, who had always seemed so self-reliant, so…together. Yet who could tell what dwelled in the deepest part of people’s souls?

      Kim gave a little shiver. How awful it must be to not feel you belonged somewhere, to feel so rootless, to not even have a place to really call your own.

      And now he wanted a house that was his, with everything in it belonging to him. A home.

      And she was going to help him get it.

      They met the next evening at Sam’s office to discuss the job in more detail, then headed home to Kim’s loft so she could show him what she’d done with her own place.

      A clown in full circus costume was sitting on the doorstep when Kim and Sam arrived at her building. A sad clown, mouth curved downward, big fat tears painted on his face. He held a bouquet of huge rainbow-colored balloons. Several children had congregated and were laughing and teasing him.

      It didn’t take long to figure out what he was doing there and it wasn’t a gig at a children’s birthday party. I Adore You, Kim! one of the balloons read. Please Be Mine, was on another.

      “Kim!” he called out as she emerged from the limousine. “Oh, please, Kim, listen to me, my heart is breaking!”

      Hers was sinking, like a ton of cement. She was aware of Sam next to her, tall, silent, observing the spectacle. She didn’t need this. A clown was not part of the plan.

      “Tony,” she said coldly. “This is enough, d’you hear? It’s not funny anymore. Will you please just stop it?”

      He began to sob, big, noisy, wet clown sobs. The children cheered.

      “She doesn’t love me!” he wailed between convulsions of grief. “I’m going to die of a broken heart!” The children laughed harder.

      Kim took her key and pushed it into the lock, saying no more. She felt Sam behind her, knew he was wondering who Tony was. “Don’t pay any attention to him,” she said casually, loud enough for Tony to hear. “He’s my stalker.”

      “Your stalker?”

      They got into the elevator. “It’s the newest craze, haven’t you heard?” she asked breezily.

      Sam frowned. “Who is this guy? What does he want?”

      “I met him at a party three weeks ago, and he sort of trapped me in the corner of a room and bored me with endless self-involved stories about how he is misunderstood as an artist and an actor and how the world owes him respect and admiration. I found it a little hard to take, but I was trying to be nice and I tried to listen, and I think he thought I was…eh—”

      “Charming?”

      She made a face. “Something like that. I didn’t want to charm him at all. What I really wanted to do was to get away from him.”

      “You’re not having a lot of success,” Sam said dryly. “So what else does he do besides play the clown?”

      She shrugged carelessly. “Oh, harmless stuff. He sends me things—flowers, paintings, poems, love boat tickets. He leaves sappy messages on my answering machine, nothing dangerous. He’s basically a frustrated, out-of-work, aspiring actor in need of a cause.”

      “And he sends you cruise tickets?”

      “He has a rich daddy.”

      The clanging elevator struggled its way to the top floor. She wondered what Sam was thinking of the rattling old contraption, what he would think of her rather unusual living quarters.

      She’d spent the morning housecleaning, shopping for food and getting ready for Sam’s visit. Her plan was to cook something simple yet delicious, not wanting to overdo things by offering him something extravagantly expensive and ostentatious. Simple, yet elegant was the key. She’d made a cold sauce of olive oil, Gorgonzola, prosciutto, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, to be tossed with hot pasta and lots of parsley and chopped walnuts. It was ready apart from cooking the fettuccini and assembling the salad. The washed greens were in the crisper, the lemon-ginger dressing was made.

      She opened the door to the loft, looking forward to a nice evening, and stopped dead in her tracks. A man lay sprawled on her sofa, asleep—or dead, or in a coma, you couldn’t tell by the way he lay there—lifeless, motionless, his mouth slack, one arm dangling off the side.