The Sitter (8 page)

19

I
sat across from Abby in the kitchen. I hadn’t changed—I still wore my bikini with an oversize, white T-shirt on top.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, making the room rosy and warm. We sat with our legs tucked under us at the small, square white table in the breakfast nook. The red straw place mats from breakfast were still on the table. A glass vase brimming with blue and white hydrangeas sat in the middle.

Abby leaned over the table to pour tea into my cup. She was wearing white sweats, which made her tan look even more sensational, and she had a white bandanna around her hair. She shook her head sadly as she slid into her chair.

“I don’t know why Brandon has become so violent,” she said. Chip was upstairs, watching a Disney cartoon video with the kids. So we didn’t have to whisper.

She sprinkled a packet of Equal into her tea. “I just don’t know what to think about that boy. I’m at a loss, Ellie. I really am.” She sighed. “I feel so helpless. Why would he do a thing like that? What would make a four-year-old boy kill a bird . . . so brutally . . . in front of all those other kids? It’s just sick.”

I raised the cup to my lips and took a sip. “His doctor—?” I started.

“Yes, of course, I’m going to tell Dr. Kleiner about this,” Abby interrupted. She was spinning her cup slowly in her hands, tapping her magenta-polished nails on the china, but she hadn’t taken a sip. “I have to tell him about this right away.”

She sighed again, tapping the cup some more. “But I don’t know about these shrinks. I really don’t. Is Dr. Kleiner getting anywhere with Brandon? Is he reaching him? I don’t see any sign. The boy has killed two animals in the short time since you arrived.”

Her shoulders shook. I thought she might cry. She stared into the steaming teacup.

Then, she reached across the table and took my hand. “He seems to like you, though, Ellie. You’re the first one he’s responded to.”

I sure didn’t see any signs of it. But if Abby said so . . .

“Well, thanks . . . ,” I said.

She squeezed my hand, then let go. “I hope you’ll stay, Ellie. I know it’s kind of tough. Not your normal baby-sitting job. But I hope you’ll stick it out. I think you can help Brandon. I really do.” Her eyes watered over. She brushed the tears away with her paper napkin.

“I’ll try,” I said.

She took a sip of tea. The cup shook in her hand. Suddenly, her eyes went wide. She jumped up. “Oh, my goodness. I totally forgot.”

She hurried out to the hall, her sandals clicking on the wood floor. A few seconds later, she returned carrying a long white box, tied with a satiny red ribbon. “These came for you, Ellie. Looks like roses.” She handed the box across the table.

“Weird,” I muttered. “Who would send me roses?”

I took the box from her. As I set it down, I saw a little white envelope tucked under the ribbon. I opened it and read the note, written in blue ink, very neatly, in a handwriting I didn’t recognize:

Congratulations!

To the new nanny.

Love,
A FRIEND

Abby had walked to the kitchen counter and was sorting through some mail. “These must be from my friend Teresa,” I said.

“Nice,” she muttered.

I tugged off the ribbon, pulled open the lid—and let out a sickened groan.

20

I
dropped the box to the table. The flowers weren’t roses. They were carnations and lilies, I think. And they were spray-painted black.

The blossoms were withered . . . shriveled . . . and crawling with bugs.

“Ohhh—cockroaches!” I cried.

Abby hurried over. “What’s wrong?”

Cockroaches—dozens of them—swarmed over the black flowers. Swarms of bugs began crawling over the sides of the box.

“Oh, my goodness!” Abby let out a cry. “Who—? Who—?”

“I don’t know,” I said. My stomach lurched. I felt sick. I slammed the lid back on the box. Too late. Cockroaches were scrambling over the kitchen table, darting over and under the straw place mats.

Abby ran to the sink, grabbed a roll of paper towels. She tore off some sheets and began slapping at the slithering cockroaches. “Sick,” she muttered. “Sick . . . sick . . .”

I grabbed up the flower box. My arms prickled as roaches slid onto my skin. They poured out of the box. The back of my neck itched. My
hair
itched.

Were they crawling through my hair?

“Oh, help.” I slapped the back of my neck and felt a warm, wet squish. “Abby, where’s the trash?”

She swung a place mat off the table and slapped it at a fleeing roach. “In back. Under the deck. Hurry. Get it out of here!” Roaches scattered over the floor. Abby did a wild dance, stomping them under her sandals.

Clamping the box shut with both hands, I hurried out the kitchen door, down the deck stairs, and to the ground. I found three metal trash cans near the driveway and shoved the box into one of them.

“Oh, gross.” Gritting my teeth, I frantically brushed cockroaches off my arms, off the front of my T-shirt, out of my hair. Did I get them all? I couldn’t tell. My whole body tingled and itched. I could still feel their prickly legs all over my skin.

By the time I returned to the kitchen, Abby seemed to have everything under control. She stood behind the table, her arms crossed tightly in front of her.

I shuddered. I rubbed my arms, the back of my neck. I could still feel those fat bugs. “I’m so sorry,” I muttered.

“What was
that
about?” Abby asked. “Was it a joke? Who would send such a horrible thing? Your friend Teresa?”

“No way.” I let out a sigh and dropped back into my chair. A cockroach floated belly-up in my mint tea.

“Then who?” Abby asked.

“Probably my ex-boyfriend, Clay. I’m really sorry, Abby. He—he’s been acting like a total jerk. I broke up with him in the city before I came out here, and he—well—he can’t seem to take a hint.”

“What kind of guy sends bug-infested black flowers? Is he crazy?”

I tugged at my hair with both hands. “Aggggh. I don’t know. He’s been acting crazy. I think he’s very angry. He just won’t take no.”

She crossed the room and stepped up close beside me. “Is he dangerous? Can I help you call the police about him, Ellie? I’d be happy to help call. If you think it would do any good.”

I hesitated. “I don’t really—”

A cry from upstairs. Heather. I jumped up.

Abby pushed me back down. “No. I’ll go. Chip is up there with them. He probably fell asleep. You sit for a while and get yourself together.” She hurried down the hall.

I sat for a long moment, staring at the dancing dots of sunlight on the kitchen counter beneath the window. I shut my eyes, and I saw those disgusting shriveled flowers and the fat roaches scrambling, scrambling over the flowers, over the table, over me.

I pictured Clay’s teddy bear face, the chubby, pink cheeks, the round, dark eyes under the furry eyebrows. Did he really think this was the way to win me back?

Or had he given up?

Was this his crude, angry way of saying good-bye? Did he hate me that much?

Well . . . maybe it means I’m rid of him, I thought.

Way to go, Ellie. Always look on the bright side.

And then, another scene with flowers flashed through my mind. Another time when flowers made me want to cry . . .

A dance recital at Miss Crumley’s, the dance studio on Henry Street in Madison that my sister and I faithfully attended every Saturday morning. Wendy was eleven and I was eight. I was so excited about the recital because I knew I was a better dancer than Wendy. Our grandparents were going to come, and I’d have a rare chance to show off in front of them.

I was so nervous, I sweated right through my tutu. But I danced wonderfully. At least, I thought I had. I can still remember the applause, the feeling of exhilaration. And then there came my grandparents, leading my parents into the dressing room, everyone beaming, so many big smiles.

Arms outstretched, I ran to them—and then stopped. I saw that my grandmother held a bouquet of flowers—yellow roses—in her hands.

A bouquet she started to hand to Wendy.

“Oh, goodness, Ellie,” Grandma Estelle said. “We completely forgot that you dance, too!” I saw her cheeks blush red. She lowered her eyes to the bouquet—my sister’s bouquet—pulled out a single yellow rose, and handed it to me. Then she gave the bouquet to Wendy.

I held myself in. I didn’t cry. I think I might’ve even thanked Grandma Estelle.

But later in my room, I ripped the petals off the rose one by one, and I said a dirty word for each petal.

Wendy kept her flowers in a vase in her room. She asked me several times if I wanted to come in and smell them.

Whoa. Amazing how memories jump back to you.

The card that came with the black flowers sat in a puddle of spilled tea. I grabbed it and ripped it in two. Then I jumped to my feet and carried my teacup to the sink.

I poured the cockroach down the drain and washed the cup clean. Then I held my hands under the faucet and just let the hot water pour over them.

I was still standing there, leaning over the sink, when I heard someone come up quietly behind me. Then I felt a hand caress the shoulder of my T-shirt.

Thinking it was Abby comforting me again, I turned. And there stood Chip, with his crooked, sleazy grin.

“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

“I . . . didn’t hear you. I didn’t know you were home,” I lied, taking a step to the side, drying my hands on a dish towel.

His eyes flashed. “I can be quiet as a mouse when I want to be,” he whispered.

I let out an awkward laugh. “You missed all the excitement. I—”

“Check this out,” he said, showing off the hip-length, brown leather jacket he was wearing. “I just bought it. In Easthampton. Like it?” He spun around, modeling it for me.

“Sure. Very cool,” I said.

“It’s Armani. The leather is not to be believed. Made from virgin calves or something. Here. Feel it.”

I hesitated. Virgin calves? He was joking, yes?

“Go ahead, Ellie. Feel it. You’ll fall in love, no kidding.” He stuck out his arm.

I ran my fingers down the jacket sleeve. “Really soft leather,” I said. That’s what I was supposed to say, right?

“I put it on and I couldn’t take it off. I just had to have it. A total impulse thing.” He brought his face close to mine and whispered again: “You ever do anything just on an impulse?”

The question hung in the air between us for a moment. When he didn’t get an answer, he changed the subject. “How about a drink, Ellie? It’s almost late afternoon. And who’s counting, right? I’m going to have a vodka tonic. Nice and summery, I think. What can I get you? We could go out on the deck and chat. You know. Get acquainted.”

Down, boy! Down!

“Well—”

“Hey, I really like that swimsuit. I saw you down on the beach with the kids. You look great in it.”

I straightened my long shirt. “Thanks, Chip . . . but . . .”

I heard Abby talking to Heather. Does Abby know what Chip is like? Would she be surprised to know that he’s coming on to me while she’s just down the hall?

“Uh . . . no drink for me right now. Thanks,” I said stiffly.

His eyes went dull.

“I’d better change and help out with the kids,” I said.

I brushed past him and started toward the stairs.

“Maybe later,” he called. It sounded more like a threat than an invitation.

Late that night, I was in bed, thumbing through a stack of magazines I had dragged out from my apartment—mostly dance magazines and ballet journals. Fantasy time for me.

Even after the humiliating incident at Miss Crumley’s recital when I was eight, I continued to dance. In fact, I took ballet lessons up till my senior year in high school—until the day the real world stopped the music for me.

It was hard work, and my leg muscles ached just about every day of my life. But I loved the feeling of floating in the air, turning and moving with such precision and beauty and grace.

Another reason I loved it: I was good at it, and Wendy was a klutz.

I wanted to be a ballet dancer in New York. I danced in my dreams and in my daydreams. I doodled dancing figures on all my notebooks instead of taking notes in class.

Then, after that night with Will, after I stopped dancing forever, the dreams ended. But I never gave up my subscriptions to all the dance magazines. I never stopped studying the wonderful photos of dancers frozen in beauty, defying gravity.

Yes, I guess that was my unconscious ambition—to defy gravity. To dance on air. To dance in the mirrors on the ceiling.

Ha.

A little after midnight, I shoved the magazines under my bed and called Teresa on my cell.

“I’m not calling too late, am I? I know you’re a working girl.”

Teresa sighed. “Don’t remind me. The computers were down today, so they told us to write everything down on paper. I mean, what is
that
about? I can’t wait to get to the beach this weekend. How’s it going, Ellie?”

“Not great.”

“Like, how not great?”

“Clay did the most disgusting thing yet,” I said. “He sent me a box of wilted flowers painted black.”

“No shit? What a creep.”

“I haven’t finished. They were crawling with cockroaches.”

“Oh, gross. I don’t believe it. The cockroaches were probably other members of his family.”

“Easy for you to make jokes,” I said. “The roaches got out of the box and were crawling all over me and all over Abby’s spotless kitchen.”

“Did she freak? Did she lose her tan when she saw them?”

“No. She was okay about it. She’s been really nice to me.”

“Well, that’s a good thing.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Teresa, I think I have the job from hell. I really do.”

“Ellie, give me a break. You’re living two steps from the ocean in a gorgeous summer house and—”

“The kid is a total psycho maniac,” I interrupted. “I mean, he’s like right out of
Bride of Chucky
or something. And his father keeps staring at my tits, telling me how great I look in a bathing suit, offering me drinks as soon as his wife is out of the room.”

“Dad is a slut?”

“Dad is a slut.”

“Jesus, Ellie. Is he hot? Are you going to sleep with him?”

“
Shut up,
Teresa. You are
so
not funny tonight!”

“Come on, El. Only trying to make you laugh. You just started this job, and you sound totally wrecked. Are you going to stay there?”

“I don’t know. I guess. I mean, do I have a choice?”

“Well—”

“I
have
to stay here,” I insisted. “Can you hear my mother if I tell her I’ve quit another job? Could I live through another lecture from her about what a quitter I am and how I’m aimless and juvenile, and it’s time for me to start my life for real, and how I should use my sister, Wendy, the saint, the soon-to-be-millionaire, as an example? I don’t think so.”

“Okay. So you’re definitely staying. Excellent. I’ll be out Friday night. Saturday night, we’ll hit some clubs.”

“You mean, have actual fun?”

“Actual fun. I promise, El.”

I said good night to Teresa and clicked off my phone. I placed it on the bed table and slid under the quilt. “Actual fun,” I murmured, yawning. I suddenly felt so weary, that aching kind of sleepy where your eyelids feel heavy and even your hair hurts.

I yawned again. Pressed my head into the pillow.

And heard footsteps downstairs.

Rapid, heavy footsteps in the room below mine.

Was it Chip? Yes, the heavy thuds sounded like Chip. Pacing back and forth, back and forth, pacing furiously. I glanced at the clock. After twelve-thirty.

What was his problem?