The Lovely Miss Maine

|| two ||

May 14 2016

7 : 00pm

"Babe, you allright?" Maine's boyfriend of 3 years asks her while they are having dinner.

Maine has been quiet all evening, ever since she arrived home ten minutes ago. Although, stressed and tired from whole day looking after the kids, she is quite glad to come home to their flat to have Phil already prepared dinner for them.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just tired you know." She replies with a weak smile.

"What made you come home late?" he asks,

With a heavy sigh, she starts to tell him "You know the couple who lives in this area that died in a car crash a week ago?" She looks at him but he seems preoccupied with his phone but he is nodding his head, "Well, their four year old kid happens to be one of my students, I'm starting to worry. I think the person who they're left with isn't fit to even look after them," She sighs as she twirls her fork around the pasta that Phil prepared for her. "He comes to school everyday unkempt and his guardian doesn't even bring him packed lunch! And also, he does't even bother to pick them up on time, this stupid guardian just expects a four year old to go to the Day Care Center to be with his --- are you even listening to me, Phil?"

Phil looks up from his phone and murmurs, "Yeah, babe. Are you done eating?" Maine stares at him and shakes her head. "I gotta go," he starts to stand up and Maine looks at him confused,

"Go where?"

"The lads are meeting up at Harvester's tonight," Harvester's being the pub a few streets away from their flat. Maine glares at him and Phil rolls his eyes, "It'll be just a quick drink, babe."

She waves him off, he does not even bother to kiss her goodbye and she continues to finish off her dinner after he leaves. But she knows it won't be a quick drink, she's used to him going out at this hour everytime his friends text him and not coming home until the wee hours of the morning.

She has been living with Phil for a year now, they were so in love and now everything's just comfortable that she doesn't mind him most of the time at all. She and Phil met in University, studying English Literature while Phil studied Physical Education and Sports. But he is currently living off unemployment benefits so he is basically free to come home late since he doesn't have a job. Maine has almost given up nagging him about getting a job.

As soon as she finishes her dinner, she washes up  the dishes and tidies up the kitchen before letting   herself relax in front of the television. The good thing about being a pre-school teacher is that she doesn't need to have a lesson plan, she just has to teach the kids how to draw, sing, dance and good manners.

But although she is watching the latest drama on Hollyoaks, she cannot help but think about the poor Faulkerson kids and she contemplates on whether to call their guardian for a quick chat.

No, not even a quick chat.

Because hell, she has a lot to say to him.

Just thinking about how those poor grieving kids that are neglected is already making her blood boil for their guardian.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the town. Richard sits alone the balcony that connects with what used to be his brother's room. He looks up the sky, desperately trying to find some peace and quiet so he can think properly.

He hasn't been able to these past few days, everything just happens so fast. One minute he was celebrating his promotion, bedding the hottest girl he met the night he was celebrating and then the next he was burying his brother and sister-in-law six feet under and now he found himself taking care of their two orphaned little kids.

Frustrated as he tries to block out his niece's screaming inside the house. Oh God help me, he prays as he grips on the cold steel arm rest til his knuckles turn white.

Little Henry sleepily walks into the room, "Richard! Ellie is crying!"

With a heavy sigh, he gets up from his seat and follows his four year old nephew into the nursery room where Ellie is crying in her crib, having just woken up. Henry just simply goes back to sleep.

"Ellie, what's wrong little girl?" he tries his tone of voice to be gentle as he can. He picks her up and tries to comfort her but she doesn't stop crying. He goes down to the living room to get the home phone to call the kid's babysitter.

In the next ten minutes, a woman 20 years his senior appears at their doorstep. She has that pissed off look in her eyes. She was already wearing her bedtime clothes.

Richard can't blame her for being pissed.

"Mr Faulkerson, this is going to be the last time I let you call me at this hour!" she scolded him, while he opens up the door wider to let her in. She moves to him and takes Ellie from him.

He must have given a thousand frustrated sighs that night, "I'm terribly sorry Mrs Rodriguez, you know I'm still getting used to this."

Mrs Rodriguez just stares at him, annoyed eyes softened and replaced with sympathy. Richard was secretly thankful for his charms. "I understand you, Mr Faulkerson. But maybe you should hire an in-house nanny or something to make it easier for you,"

As much as Richard would love to hire a nanny to make things a lot easier, it would be too expensive for him. Robert and Sam didn't exactly leave him with a large amount of money, only enough to cover all the expenses in their funeral and the house mortgage. The rest of their money are straight to the kids' trust funds, which he isn't allowed to access. He may be the new art director for GQ magazine but since the accident he is forced to abandon his bachelor pad in Central London for the meantime and live in Hertfordshire with the kids, which means he has to travel everyday to the office and that means half of his salary goes to gas for his car.

Ellie finally stops crying after Mrs Rodriguez changed her diapers and put her to sleep. And when she's done, she bids Richard goodbye.

"Thanks a lot Mrs. Rodriguez, I promise this will be the last time," He hands her a tenner (£10)

Mrs Rodriguez shakes her head, and declines the money. "Yes it will be because I am going away for two weeks, gonna visit my kids and new grandchild in Manchester,"

Richard's face looks fallen but he nods anyway.

"A piece of advice, Mr. Faulkerson. Find yourself a woman." She says and then leaves.

He breaths a sigh of relief when he realizes that the kids are finally sleeping for the night and for the first time, he appreciates the silence.

🔥🔥🔥

Vocab Lesson: Flat is what English people call their apartments. .

Trivia:

Hollyoaks is a British soap opera that started in 1995.  The difference between Filipino teleseryes and British soaps is that British soap goes on forever but has different story line every season or depending on the current issues. Di tulad ng Filipino soap operas na same plot lang palagi: long lost daughter/son found; kapatid mo pala boyfriend mo ganern, tapos may kidnapping tapos may tita kang traidora. Hahaha same story lines palagi, nag iba lang talaga un actors at title ng teleserye.
(Pinapanood ko to dati non nasa UK pa ako, habang nagtitimpi ng mga damit 😂)

Also, having a nanny in the UK is expensive. Only the upper class/ posh people can afford an au pair. Richard is a working class, so he can only afford day care centres and babysitters.

PS. Teejay Marquez plays Phil in this story.