Chapter 1- Melanie

Melanie sat on the front steps of her friend Sophie’s villa. Smoking and running her manicured nails through her shoulder-length brown hair, Mel felt utterly washed out, done for the day. She listened as Sophie’s neighbor watered her plants and screeched at her child. Sophie was inside cooking for the kids.

The day had been horribly hot- easily 37 degrees- but at sundown a cool sea breeze had begun to push the heat and haze back toward the desert. The plants that filled Sophie’s carport had perked up noticeably in the last 20 minutes. Mel stubbed out the cigarette on the bottom of her sparkly Pomelo flip flops, stood up, sighed and opened the door.

“Hey Mel” Sophie called “How’d it go, are you alright??” in an exaggerated British accent. This was a joke between them, it rolled out of the mouths of so many people who were wholly uninterested in weather or not anyone around them was ‘alright’.

“I’m ok, just tired.” Mel sat heavily at the small table in the corner of Sophie’s kitchen. “It wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined, she’s doing well, considering…” Mel’s voice trailed off. “I wish I knew what to do. I mean, I know I’m doing what I can. But lord! This is a nightmare.”

“When does Bill get back?” Heather’s husband was a pilot with Discover Airlines, one of the largest and most prestigious carriers in the Middle East.

“Not until tomorrow morning. Jonah’s been trying to get in touch with him, but no luck. He’s in Nigeria. I don’t think cell coverage is all that good… I don’t know if the Airline’s employee assistance people have tried to talk to him, I don’t know what they do in these kinds of situations.

She’s a bit afraid that he’ll do nothing and let the government make an example of her. She didn’t say anything in court, they just read the charges to her and the boyfriend. Her parents have hired a local lawyer anyway, one who speaks Arabic, and seems to be known around the court.”

“Why should Bill do anything to help her? It’s just so stupid. Have you met the boyfriend?” Sophie spat. “He’s a complete asshole, truly.”

They were referring to their friend, Heather who had been seeing an Australian architect and real-estate developer for the last six months. And who now sat in a Dubai jail, charged with adultery and probably facing several months in prison, divorce and deportation. Mel had just returned from the jail and bringing Heather some clothes.

On a tip from her maid to the Police, Heather had been arrested outside of The Legacy Hotel in a gorgeous black and white Carolina Herrera cocktail dress. The maid had clearly called the newspaper immediately after the police. Heather looked absolutely fantastic on the cover of 3Weeks that morning, more a movie star than Dubai housewife. The dress was perfect for her 5’10” curvy frame and her long red hair was gorgeously tousled as she whipped her face around to the camera. The women of their housing complex were abuzz over her appearance as much as over the arrest.

The dress, however, was wholly impractical for wearing under the obligatory, pepto-bismol pink, prison-issue abaya or for Heather’s appearance before the court that afternoon. So Mel had Sophie pick up her kids from school and ventured first to Heather’s villa where she had retrieved some jeans and t-shirts and a simple, modest outfit from Talbot’s that clearly pre-dated Heather & Bill’s move to Dubai. Then she went to the jail to help Heather get situated and dressed for court. Mel had to comb Heather’s hair with her fingers when she realized she had forgotten her hairbrush. This seemed to undo both her and Heather’s composure totally and the two of them ended up crying together for ten minutes.

“I never noticed.” Sophie went on, “But Rebecca says she and the maid hated each other. We’ve got to ask Dulika what the story is.” Dulika was Sophie’s Sri Lankan maid who was forever clucking that “Philippini are not in Dubai to be maids, only to find husbands.”

“Where is she anyway?” asked Mel with some annoyance, she didn’t think it was appropriate that Sophie let her maid go anywhere she wanted to go.

“Oh, I don’t know- off with her sister, I didn’t get the whole story; she’ll clean up the kitchen when she gets back…”

After Sophie and Mel had given the kids their supper, Mel and her boys headed over to Heather’s villa to pick up Christine, aged 13 and Judy who was 11, from the custody of Rebecca, another friend who had volunteered to get them from school that afternoon. Both girls seemed cheerful enough, if a little embarrassed. They carried colorful Vera Bradley overnight bags and wore shorts, pretty embroidered t-shirts and flip flops, the Dubai pre-teen girl’s uniform.

Mel tried to be gentle as she spoke to Christine. “Sweetie, I need to know if Maria is here in the house and if she has keys.” Maria was Heather’s maid. “I don’t think she’s here Mel, but her room is locked. I know she has a key to the gate, but not the front door.” The maid’s rooms had separate entrances from the carport. “My mom didn’t want her to have one. Rebecca told me everything is in Daddy’s safe, Maria’s passport too.”

 “That’s good. Then we won’t worry about it tonight.” It occurred to Mel that everyone might be better off if Maria had her passport, and a bit of money. Maybe she would leave the country. Would it help if there was no witness against Heather?

Mel walked the kids over to her own villa, got them settled in to the TV room watching Kung-Fu Panda- Christine and Judy were actually really gracious about letting the boys watch their favorite movie- and poured herself a huge, cold glass of Italian white wine, a Trebbiano D’Abbruzo that Jonah had brought her back from his last trip to Milan.

Mel couldn’t wait for Jonah to get home. He was back in Italy, and would be gone for another two or three days. Jonah was good in situations like this. He was kind and a calming influence on everyone around him. She knew also that he would return home with a suitcase full of good food and little things they couldn’t always get in Dubai like her favorite brand of Italian olive-oil soap.

Jonah always returned home eager to make love. Sometimes he would bring Mel outrageously sexy lingerie which she would model for him after putting the boys to bed. As a Vice-President for a huge Italian department store, he had access to some gorgeous clothes at a huge discount.  She wanted the fun of his little gifts, the reassurance of him in the house  and in her bed right now.

Her cell phone chirped with a text message from Sophie “Should we get 3Weeks from their door?” 3Weeks was a newspaper published each day in Dubai, it thrived on scandals about the Western expatriates and hard luck stories of abused maids and construction workers who lived and worked in the city. Mel had made sure there were no copies of the paper for Bill to find on his return home.  “Got it, doubt it will help…Phyllis.”