Guilty Pleasures (15 page)

Maureen Flynn went home to her small village in County Monaghan, bringing her widowed mother a little cell phone. “I’ll be calling you every Sunday, Mum,” she promised. Her twelve siblings all gathered to see her off to America. She had four older brothers, five younger ones, and three younger sisters. Seamus, the oldest at thirty, was a priest. Her twenty-two-year-old sister, Mary, was in a local convent aspiring to be a nun. Twenty-year-old Bridget was married, with one child and another on the way. The remainder of her siblings—the youngest of whom was thirteen-year-old Rory—were still at home. The family farmed several acres, raising sheep and cattle, along with the grain needed to feed them. Her father had died just two years prior.

“This place has a church for you, I’m hoping,” Father Seamus said.

“St. Anne’s. Father Porter is the priest in charge. I Googled Egret Pointe.”

Her eldest brother nodded. “Good! Good!” he said.

“You’ll not forget the holy days,” her sister Mary said piously.

“I’ll get to church on Sundays,” Maureen replied, and her sister shook her head.

“These people you’re to work for,” her mother said. “They’re decent Catholics?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” Maureen responded. “Mr. Devlin is from Ireland, born and raised here by his grandmother. I Googled him too. He and his wife are most respectable, Mum. His wife works, which is why they need a nanny.”

“She’d do better to remain home and look after her children,” Mrs. Flynn noted.

“She works from home, Mum. She’s a writer. Writes novels,” Maureen said. “Her name is Emilie Shann.”

“Oh! My! God! Sorry, Mum,” sixteen-year-old Maeve exclaimed as her mother shot her a fierce look. “I just
love
her books. This is so exciting! You’re working for my favorite author, Mo! You have to write me all about her! Oh, I wish I had a cell phone!”

“Indeed, and who would be paying for such a frivolous thing, my girl?” her mother said sharply. “Where do you get books that aren’t schoolbooks to read?”

“From the library van, Mum. Bridget reads her too. Don’t you, Bridget?”

“It’s nice you have the time to read with your house, your husband, and your children to look after,” Mrs. Flynn said scathingly.

God,
Maureen thought. Her mother was such a hard woman. “Give over, Mum.” She attempted to defuse the situation by teasing. “Bridget only has one and a half children right now, so of course she has time to read.”

Her brothers guffawed. Mary giggled. Bridget and Flora smiled.

“A big family is a blessing,” Mrs. Flynn said. “With your brothers here to manage the farm, and Maeve still in school, at least I’m not alone.”

“She thinks when I finish school I’m going to stay home and look after her,” Maeve told Maureen later, when they were alone. “But I’m not! I want to go to university and study to be a teacher. Let one of the boys marry and bring his wife into the house to care for her. I’m going to make something of myself like you, Mo.”

“I’ll help you,” Maureen promised her youngest sister.

She stayed a week with her family, and then went into Dublin to shop for a few bits of clothing to round out her small wardrobe. Back at Ballyglen Nanny College, Mrs. O’Hara had a large packet for her, but to give the woman credit, she hadn’t opened it. However, she insisted it be opened in her office. Maureen complied. Inside the FedEx envelope she found tickets on Aer Lingus, an envelope with five hundred American dollars in it, and a note from her employer saying that it was a signing bonus.

“Very, very generous,” Mrs. O’Hara murmured, impressed. “Let me see your tickets.” She took them, looked, and gasped. “Glory be to God, Maureen Flynn! These are first-class tickets! You’ll be traveling like some swell, and not a plain Irish nanny. I can only hope that you won’t get spoiled with all this fine treatment.”

“No, Mrs. O’Hara,” Maureen said dutifully. She had never flown, but her brother the priest had, and had complained of being packed in like a sardine. A first-class ticket was obviously not sardine class. Secretly she was thrilled. No one in all her life had ever spoiled Maureen Flynn.

The rest of the packet contained a working visa from the U.S. Immigration Service, and a note from Michael Devlin saying that he would pick Maureen up at the airport and drive her home to Egret Pointe. He would be just outside of Customs waiting for her when she came through. A photograph was enclosed with a Post-it note that read, “This is what Mrs. Devlin and I look like.”

“Now that was nice,” Mrs. O’Hara noted, “and quite practical. You’ll not be stolen away by some criminal element.” Then, opening her desk drawer, she pulled out a passport and handed it to Maureen. “This is yours. Remember, I had all the girls in your form get one when you first came to Ballyglen so you would be ready to go when you obtained a job offer.”

“I’m glad,” Maureen said.

A week later a livery car arrived at the nanny college to take Maureen down to Shannon Airport. She climbed into it and sat back, giving Mrs. O’Hara a farewell wave as the car pulled away.

At Shannon a representative from Aer Lingus came to escort Maureen on board her flight. Maureen pretended that this sort of thing happened all the time to her. When she was seated in her window seat, the stewardess informed her that the flight would take off right on time. “I’ve never flown before,” Maureen admitted to the pretty redhead.

The stewardess chuckled. “Well, first-class is certainly a good introduction for you,” she said. “What’s bringing you to the U.S. of A., Miss Flynn?”

“I’ve got a job,” Maureen said.

“Computer company?” The stewardess was curious. Usually it was the big important companies who flew new and valued employees in first-class.

“No,” Maureen said, and she was beginning to see the humor in her situation. “I’m a nanny. I’m going to be working for Emilie Shann, the novelist.”

“Wow! She’s giving you really special treatment. She and that hot husband of hers have flown with us a couple of times. They’re really nice. Well, good for you, Nanny Flynn,” the stewardess said and chuckled. Then she became all business. “Better get your safety belt fastened. We’re going to be taking off shortly, and so you don’t worry, the flight is expected to be smooth as silk the whole way.”

The stewardess didn’t lie. After a small whiskey, Maureen put her seat back and slept almost the entire way. A steward wakened her in time to have a bit of a snack, and she visited the lavatory for a quick wash and to brush and straighten her hair before they landed. As she exited the plane, the red-haired stewardess was waiting for her.

“Good luck!” she said with a smile and a friendly wave.

“Thanks,” Maureen said.

They checked her bags and her papers at Customs before finally waving her through. And there was Michael Devlin waiting for her, as he had promised.

“Welcome to the States, Maureen Flynn,” he greeted her.

“Thank you, sir,” she replied a bit shyly.

He put her baggage on a cart and led her through the terminal to the short-term parking lot, where he unloaded her possessions into a Chrysler Caravan. “I work in the city three days a week and telecommute from home the other two days,” he explained. He helped her into the car. “It’s about an hour-and-a-half to two-hour drive,” he said. “Take a look at the skyline as we skirt the city.” Then he got behind the wheel.

Maureen had never seen such big roads as the ones leading from the airport. The traffic was fast and furious. They traversed a large bridge and continued onto another large highway. Maureen couldn’t stop looking. The city looked magical with its tall towers. It almost sparkled on what was a beautiful late-spring day. And then suddenly the metropolis was gone, and the highway was edged in trees. Some of them were already flowering. Tall, symmetrical, fluffy white trees.

She couldn’t stop looking. It was so different from Ireland. It was as if she had been put down on another planet. Her employer spoke little, but she hadn’t expected a lot of conversation. He was an Irishman, and it had been her experience that men didn’t really do a lot of talking unless they had a strong opinion to express. The great highway became a smaller parkway. After a while Michael Devlin swung the car off it, and they traveled down a country road into a charming village.

“Welcome to Egret Pointe,” he said. “We’re almost home.”

“It’s lovely,” Maureen said. “Can I walk to the village with the children?”

“We live in the village,” he said, turning from Main Street onto Colonial Avenue, and then onto Founders Path. “It’s the house at the end,” Michael Devlin said. “The style is called American Empire.”

“It’s a big house, it is,” Maureen said. “I come from a farmhouse in Monaghan.”

He pulled into the driveway and gave one honk. “Ah,” he said, “here’s my missus and the two older ones.”

Emily welcomed the nanny warmly. Sean and Emlyn hung back shyly, but stooping down, Maureen quickly coaxed them from their mother’s side. “How do you do, Master Sean and Miss Emlyn?” she said.

“Mama says you’re our nanny,” Sean spoke up. “What’s a nanny?”

“Well,” Maureen said, “it can be a goat, but I’m not a goat, am I?”

The two children giggled.

“Another kind of nanny is the lady who takes care of you so your mama can write her wonderful stories,” Maureen continued. “I’m that kind of nanny, and I’ve come all the way from Ireland to look after you, your sister, and your twin brothers. I hope we’re going to be friends. I have lots of brothers back in Ireland, so I know a lot about little boys and what they like.”

“Do you like trucks?” Sean wanted to know.

“Yes, I do,” Maureen said, and she stood up.

Sean grabbed her hand. “Come on, then, Nanny, and let me show you my trucks. I have lots of trucks.”

“A moment, Sean Michael,” his father said. “Nanny Maureen has had a very long trip to come to us. I think we should show her to her room first and let her unpack. Plenty of time for your trucks.”

“Yes, Dad,” the little boy said obediently.

Maureen was impressed. She had heard that American children were a bit overindulged and spoiled, yet the child had immediately obeyed his father.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Emily said. “Now I can get back to work!”

Maureen settled into the Devlin household, and over the next few days, she established a nursery routine. The children now had their dinner in the middle of the day, which allowed their parents some time alone at night. Essie, the Devlin housekeeper, was very helpful and full of useful information. Maureen soon met Rina Seligmann, who was the wife of the town’s doctor and Emily’s friend and pseudomaternal figure. She began to learn the history of Egret Pointe. She would put Emlyn and the twins down for their nap and take Sean to nursery school three afternoons a week. She had decided on her half day.

“Unless you need me, I’ll be taking Saturday afternoons off along with my Sundays,” she told Emily. “But if you have a Saturday event, I can change that.”

Emily had agreed it was a perfect solution.

Maureen hadn’t availed herself of the Channel since she had arrived. Her trip had been tiring, and getting established in a new routine had left her wanting nothing more than a good night’s sleep. On her second half Saturday off, she had gone to five o’clock mass at St. Anne’s. On her first Sunday, when she had gone with the Devlins, Father Porter had informed Maureen that he had received an e-mail from her brother Seamus.

“Father Flynn asked me to keep an eye on you,” the priest said.

“Seamus worries too much, but I suspect it was our mum who put him up to it,” Maureen replied with a smile.

Father Porter chuckled, nodding in agreement. “You’re settling in, then?”

“I am,” Maureen answered him. “They’re a fine family, and the children are just little dears. I suspect I’m very fortunate to have found such good employers.”

“You are. You are,” the priest agreed.

This Saturday, as she hurried from St. Anne’s, Maureen could think of nothing but the visit she was going to make to the Channel tonight. She had found the remote for it tucked discreetly into the drawer of her bedside table, its A and B buttons almost beckoning her with their newness. Maureen had only one fantasy. Maybe she would eventually program a second, but tonight she needed to be ravaged by her Celtic warrior.

It seemed like forever since she had known his company, and the Channel itself had been a revelation to her. Her friend Brigid had told her all about it. Brigid came from Dublin. Almost everyone at Ballyglen Nanny College had had a subscription to it for their personal televisions. If you didn’t bring a telly to school, you had no access to the Channel. Despite her less than generous financial circumstances, Maureen had managed to find the money to purchase a small set from a girl who was leaving Ballyglen.

She hadn’t really believed what Brigid had said about the Channel, but she did think it would be nice to have a telly to watch when she had the time. She had gotten a student discount from the cable company, even though she had taken their most basic package, adding only one premium offering, the Channel. The first night she had tried the Channel, it had both scared the wits out of her and hooked her.

Maureen had treated herself to supper at the Egret Pointe Luncheonette before returning home to bathe and get into her bed. Taking the remote in her hand, she pointed it at the television across the room. She drew a deep breath and pressed the A button. Immediately she was in a field of white oxeye daisies. It was high summer, and a warm breeze blew across the land. Nearby was her small village of Ennis. A village of the elderly, women, and a few children.

It had never been a large settlement. The men who had fathered the few children were usually passing strangers, for the village men had either been lost at sea or had gone to fight and never come back. Still, they managed, and each Beltane sent the village elders to the Great Gathering with several young women to barter off into marriage. There were always eager chieftains ready to bargain generously for a bride from Ennis for themselves or their sons. The lasses from Ennis were known to be exceptionally skilled in bedsport and extremely fertile.