I SIGH WISTFULLY AS I STARE at his huge portrait hanging on the wall.

His name is Jeffery Lawrence Vandercourt.

He’s a powerful man in this country. A billionaire. He’s also been my employer for the past three months now, a very generous employer at that. I’ve been earning a decent living since I became one of the house staff of Everland, the ancestral home of the Vandercourt family. Yes, those Vandercourts of New York high society.

Jeffery officially inherited the manor after the death of his grandfather last year, being the eldest of the Vandercourt grandchildren and the overseer of the family’s vast wealth all over the world. He’s thirty-eight years old and considered one of the most eligible bachelors in America. He’s the only man whose portrait and pictures had my heart skipping a beat, my breath hitching, and my stomach fluttering like crazy.

Jeff’s portraits are all over the manor but he can be easily seen online. The manor has free wifi. Yes, the Vandercourts are quite generous with the house staff.

Needless to say, Jeff is as handsome as his name. I shouldn’t be too familiar with him but it’s only in my head, so I can call him whatever I want. He’s tall, with thick, dark-brown hair, a well-built body that fits his sophisticated business suits perfectly, and the most piercing pair of blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

The first time I saw his portrait, I’d stared in a trance, my heart clenching in a feeling akin to regret. I was in a Cinderella moment, but reality hit me hard in the face when the mop I was holding slipped from my hand, making a sharp sound on the marble floor. I stupidly looked at it, reminded of who I was.

I was one of the help living in the staff house of Everland, and I had no business fantasizing about the resident prince and future king. Jeff was the type of man that an ordinary woman like me could only dream about. He was straight out of a fairy tale book, and totally inaccessible to the likes of me.

That was three months ago. I thought it was just a little crush.

I was wrong.

I still feel the same right now as I stare at his portrait.

I flick my feather duster like a fairy godmother’s wand at the imaginary dust on his portrait’s gilded frame, imagining him live in front of me.

Would he even look at me? The maid?

He’s surrounded by the most beautiful women in New York. He’s been featured in dozens of society and even gossip magazines in the company of heiresses, famous movie stars and supermodels. There was even a countess from Europe. Why would he even bother with someone like me?

My thoughts are shameful. No, pathetic. But sometimes when you’re so desperate, you can’t help but be carried away to dreamland and wish for a knight to come rescue you from your dire situation. But yes, it’s all wishful thinking. He’s a man that I can only admire from a distance. A sublime thought that comforts me when I feel like giving up.

This is all Mama Zon’s fault though. The woman is the official head of the Jeffery Vandercourt fan club.

My simple crush on Jeff grew into a deep admiration from listening to Mama Zon’s stories of him. She worships the ground he walks on. He could never do wrong in Mama Zon’s eyes. He’s the kindest, nicest, most generous person in her book. Why not? The Vandercourt Foundation has sent the Martinez children to college and all of them, aside from Corina who’s the youngest, are working for the companies owned by the Vandercourts.

I walk along the hallway, looking at the portraits of Jeff’s relatives mounted on the walls. This is a gallery of his ancestors’ extensive achievements. The history of the Vandercourt clan can be revisited in a glance. Aside from the portraits, old documents and artifacts are encased within glass frames, as well as newspaper write-ups as far back as the early 1800s.

I learned that the Vandercourts hail from the Netherlands but they became deeply rooted into the American history especially during the Industrial Revolution. They were businessmen and they pioneered technologies in assembly line manufacturing, transportation, particularly in the railway system. Today, the family has diversified into aviation, oil exploration, computer technology, banking and commodities trading. Jeff is one of the biggest financiers in Wall Street.

I’ve never met Jeff. Circumstances have not permitted our paths to cross yet.

Maybe God is sparing my heart from heartbreak. It’s already hard that I’m fantasizing about him from his portraits, it would be hell to see him in person and know that I will never figure in anything remotely meaningful in his world.

Cheesy and cliche, but it’s the plain truth.

Jeff has a penthouse in the city and he stays there on the regular. His family owns several skyscrapers in New York and he lives on top of one of those buildings. Mama Zon is the one tasked to clean Jeff’s penthouse twice a month. I’ve never been to that place, and it’s just as well. I’ve grown afraid of the city since the new President came into office with his threats to deport illegal aliens. I’m a month’s shy of being just that.

But I found a small slice of happiness and safety at Everland. I was so lucky I met Mama Zon’s niece in New York when I was working as a nanny there to earn a small living. My money was getting depleted fast even if I was living a very frugal day-to-day existence. I had no relative in the US and the only person who helped me here bluntly told me that she couldn’t let me stay in her small apartment any longer as she had a family of her own to support. I understood and I was grateful to her for letting me live with her for two months.

Corina, Mama Zon’s niece is currently a student on a full scholarship at the NYU and works as a nanny on her free time. We met when we were both nannying for the children of a wealthy couple on the Upper East Side. Corina and I became good friends. She introduced me to her parents and relatives in Newport, Rhode Island last Christmas, just as I was desperately in need of a new place to stay that I could afford.

Living in New York was very expensive but it was a place where I wouldn’t likely be found. Whoever might be looking for me will think I’m somewhere in Florida, my port of entry into the United States.

I was praying for a small miracle and maybe God granted me some in the form of the Martinez family. They are immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and knowing this gave me a feeling of affinity. They understood my struggles and they warmly received me and made me feel like I had a new family to belong to here in America.

Corina’s sixty-year-old spinster aunt, Corazon Martinez, who told me to call her Mama Zon from the get-go was sympathetic of my plight and offered me a position as a staff at Everland where she’s been working as the head housekeeper for many years.

Rhode Island is home to many of the wealthiest families of New York. They built mansions, villas and manors here where they could spend their summer vacations.

Everland is a magnificent sprawling seaside estate, and it became my sanctuary in the past months. I’ve never felt safer here. It’s very peaceful, and the people are warm and kind. I don’t ever want to leave this place.

This manor is the Vandercourt family’s ancestral house but there is no family here to speak of. The Vandercourts live either in New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. The manor is managed by Mama Zon and her able staff of twenty, excluding the security people and the ones that tend to the grounds. Yes, it takes a village to run this grand estate as it is being generously lent by the Vandercourts for lavish galas and charity events hosted by their friends.

I know why this is a favorite venue for such parties. The manor is magnificent with a classic Italian architecture sitting in the middle of a 30-acre prime real estate. Inside, it’s elegant and luxurious, jaw-dropping in its opulence, a director’s dream location for a period movie.

When I first got here, I was swept away by the Everland magic and I was never the same. I learned how to day dream in this place. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad for me.

Jeff has visited only twice since I came here. The fact that I’ve never met him is because I was never assigned to serve him, and because I was new then. He also likes to keep to himself. He does play golf in the country club nearby.

The manor is enormous, with a great hall spanning two stories, formal dining areas, entertainment rooms, a huge ballroom, sun rooms, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a library and sixteen bedrooms with a bathroom each. Jeffery lives on the third floor. I get to work on that floor once a week to help clean Jeff’s bedroom and it always happens when he’s not around, so no such luck in ever meeting him.

Jeff is like Mama Zon’s own son that she dotes on and keeps track on. I even teased her once about the fact that she’s never introduced me to Jeff. All the house staff know him except me.

Mama Zon gave me a puzzling answer. “When the right time comes, you will, mija. You just wait. Now, you work hard. The right time will come, the perfect time, and it will be destiny.”

I was like, ”Yeah, sure.”

The most interesting thing Mama Zon told me about Jeff was even though Jeff was always running around with women in New York, she has never met any of his girlfriends. Meaning, he’s never brought them to Everland. Mama Zon then concluded that Jeff was probably not serious with those women as he would have brought them to his beloved Everland and introduced them to the staff. Mama Zon has strange theories for sure. I fail to see the connection between Jeff’s seriousness in his relationships and Everland.

“Mara, what are you still doing here?”

I practically jump at the sharp voice coming from behind me.

“Mama Zon, you scared me!” I chide her affectionately, my hand on my chest. Mama Zon talks like a drill sergeant but she’s in fact one of the kindest persons I’ve ever known.

“I thought you’d be done here already. Staring at him again?”

I feel my cheeks grow hot. “Of course not. I’m just removing the cobwebs.” I pretend to dust Jeff’s portrait again. This room is already spotless clean.

Mama Zon harrumphs. Then she stares at Jeff’s portrait, too.

“He’s muy guapo, no?” she murmurs, looking at Jeff up and down as though she’s surveying a masterpiece.

“He’s okay,” I reply dismissively. I don’t want my feelings to give me away. Mama Zon is quite sharp and can easily tell what I feel. I don’t want my pathetic feelings for our employer to become a laughingstock among the Everland staff, not that Mama Zon would gossip about me. She’s my second mother and I love her to pieces. I just don’t feel comfortable exposing my admiration for Jeff, not even to Mama Zon. I badly want to get over it anyway. It’s no longer good for my well-being. It’s starting to really hurt lately.

Unrequited—

No. I don’t. I won’t. I shouldn’t.

It’s a one-way, one-sided, pathetic feeling.

“Finish up here already and come down to the kitchen, okay? I’m hungry. I’m sure you are, too.”

“Si, Mama Zon.”

Mama Zon leaves.

I stare longingly at my “prince” again.

Maybe one day soon I will finally meet you.

I hope to God I won’t feel like this anymore.

For my own good, at least.