by Tara Sivec
“Jesus. Okay, okay, I get the picture,” I tell him with a shake of my head, as I turn and walk toward the hallway that will take me to my old bedroom so I can shower and change, yelling over my shoulder as I go. “You’re a big boy and you can take care of yourself. Just remember that next time you’re screaming in pain for me to take you to the emergency room because it burns when you pee!”
“Nobody likes a smartass, Brooklyn Marie Manning!”
Said the king of the smartasses.
Chapter 2
WTF Life
Pulling down the long gravel driveway for Hastings Farm reminds me just how beautiful Montana is. Even though my dad’s house is only seven miles away, Hastings Farm is seven miles closer to the mountains. As I drive past acres and acres of corn and pumpkin fields lined with a white picket fence, the giant white farmhouse comes into sight, along with a sprawling view of the mountains behind it.
I’ve been back to White Timber a handful of times over the years to visit my dad at Christmas and a few other holidays, but I’ve never gone anywhere except from the airport to his house, and then scrambled right back to the airport as soon as humanly possible. I’d break all the speed limits so I could get back to civilization and the nirvana of twenty-four-hour taco trucks.
As I pull my dad’s red, beat up Chevy truck that he’s had since Eisenhower was president up to the front of the farmhouse, I’m more than a little surprised at the sight before me. The Hastings’ farmhouse was always huge and beautiful in its own way, but it was your typical Montana farmhouse that had been in the family for generations. The white paint was chipped all over the place until so much of the original wood was showing that the house looked more dark gray than white. The small front porch always had a few boards missing from the railing and seemed one footstep away from collapsing in on itself, and the roof would lose at least twenty new shingles every year that never got replaced. Since Old Man Hastings was always so busy with the farm, he never really cared much about landscaping or window treatments. Whenever Mrs. Hastings would complain about the state of the house, he would tell her “fancy curtains didn’t pay the bills.”
Still, I loved that house and the memories I made there with my friend. Growing up in a small, three-bedroom ranch home, being at the Hastings’ farmhouse was like going to a mansion, no matter how dilapidated it looked on the outside. I had this weird idea that people who lived in houses with stairs were rich and cool and amazing. I was fascinated by houses with staircases, and this farmhouse had the most amazing set of stairs with a landing right in the middle of it.
As I get out of the truck and the rusty door creaks loudly behind me when I slam it closed, I stare up at the house in front of me with my mouth dropped open. The house was originally an old barn, and it was converted into a home sometime in the early 1900s. The magnificent structure in front of me no longer looks dilapidated and run down. It has brand new, sparkly white siding, one of those new, fancy, red metal roofs, and the small rundown front porch has been removed. In its place is a huge, wraparound porch lined with red Adirondack chairs that takes up the entire front of the house and wraps around both sides all the way back to the end of it. Professional landscaping with black mulch lines the base of the porch and it’s filled with beautiful flowers and neatly trimmed hedges.
I knew Hastings Farm had grown by leaps and bounds over the years, but I wasn’t expecting this. Old Man Hastings must have finally pulled that stick out of his ass and decided to spruce up the place now that they get thousands and thousands of customers each year traipsing all over the farm.
Smoothing my hands down the sides of my emerald green, sleeveless, Donna Karan wrap dress, I make my way across the gravel driveway to the brick walkway that leads up to the porch. My matching green Louboutin heels click against the surface, and I glance nervously around the yard at a bunch of workers milling about, carrying bales of hay out of the big red barn an acre away and working on a few tractors parked next to the barn. They’re all dirty and sweaty and wearing jeans and T-shirts, and I feel extremely overdressed for this interview, even though I’ll be working in the house and not out in the fields. I know my dad said the job was basically mine, but I still need to make a good impression.
I pause on the top step when my eyes travel over to the horse pasture. A tingle races up my spine when I see a man on a horse, clutching the reins and bent low over the beautiful, black Arabian’s neck as he races along the fence line. He’s wearing a blue-checkered flannel and a white cowboy hat, and I feel like I just stepped onto a movie set for a western.
“Cut! Let’s do that scene again, but this time, jump the fence, race over to the stunning woman in the green dress, grab her arm, and pull her up on the horse behind you.”
That’s one thing you never see in New York—a real, live cowboy. It’s nice to know Stephen didn’t kill everything inside of me, and I try not to pant when the man pulls the horse to a stop, expertly swings his leg over the saddle, and dismounts. Even from this distance, I can see how well he fills out that worn pair of jeans, and I have to force myself to stop staring at his ass as he bends over to check one of the horse’s hooves.
I curse myself under my breath and force my eyes away from that great ass to move the rest of the way up the steps to the front door. No more men for me. Ever. Maybe when I move back to New York I’ll become a nun. I’m not Catholic, but I’m sure they’ll make an exception for me. I look great in black. And I know a few prayers that my dad taught me when I was younger. “Here’s to you. Here’s to me. Friends for life, we’ll always be. But if we find that we disagree, fuck you, here’s to me!”
Actually, I think that’s a toast, but whatever. Catholics drink wine at church, right? It’s fine.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm my nerves, I run my fingers through my long, dark brown hair, wishing I was able to wash it in something other than White Rain shampoo from the White Timber drug store. I really hope my theory is right and Old Man Hastings isn’t a crotchety bastard anymore and hires me. I should probably stop calling him Old Man Hastings, but for the life of me, I can’t remember his first name. Even Ember would call her dad Old Man Hastings when he wasn’t around. I’ll just go with Mr. Hastings. It’s professional, and I am nothing if not professional.
As I lift my hand to knock on the door, it flies open before my fist can connect with the wood.
“Mrs. Sherwood?” I ask in surprise when I see the older woman standing in front of me.
Her short salt-and-pepper hair is all askew, and what looks like a mixture of flour and red paint is splattered all over the front of her white blouse. At least I hope it’s paint. If it’s blood, I will continue ruining my hair with White Rain shampoo and asking my dad for money to buy tampons until the day I leave.
“Brooklyn Manning! My, oh my, didn’t you grow up into a beautiful young woman!” she exclaims, making me smile brightly at her compliment.
Arlene Sherwood has been the Hastings’ housekeeper for as long as I can remember. She always had some kind of delicious baked good waiting for Ember and me after school, and she made doing homework and studying for tests fun by doling out Skittles to us every time we got an answer right. We never bitched and moaned when she forced us to go outside and play instead of staying inside, because she always put together exciting little treasure hunts for us around the farm, complete with hand-drawn maps and a pot of gold (box of penny candy from the White Timber drug store) for us to find at the end.
I’m surprised to see she still works here. She’s got to be around the same age as my dad, and I figured she would have left years ago. Not just because of her age, but because I assumed she would have been in prison for killing Old Man Hastings. Er, Mr. Hastings.
“Come in, come in! You just look so gorgeous, and here I am looking like something the cat dragged in,” she complains with a laugh as she holds the door open for me.
I preen like a peacock walking through the door, considering I haven’t been able to have my hair
colored in three months. My hair is no longer a silky, shiny shade of Dark Chocolate Mahogany from the expensive salon I went to in Manhattan. It’s more like “I’m Too Poor to Dye It, Gross Brown.”
As soon as Mrs. Sherwood closes the door behind me, I feel like I’ve walked into a time warp. The outside of the farmhouse got a makeover, but the inside is exactly how I last saw it twelve years ago, complete with the smell of Pine Sol she uses on every wood surface in the place. I take a deep breath, and I’m instantly transported back to warm summer nights catching lightning bugs in mason jars, when all of New York City didn’t know what color underwear I wore, or accuse me of being a homewrecker. There’s no sixty-year-old man emptying his catheter in front of me, or pouting because I won’t let him eat bacon wrapped in bacon, deep fried in bacon fat, stuffed inside a Twinkie.
It’s peaceful and it’s calming, and I want to stay here forever.
“Sorry I’m such a mess. It’s been a rough morning,” Mrs. Sherwood explains as she leads me into the kitchen right off the entryway, my eyes widening in shock when I step into the large room.
The kitchen definitely got an upgrade. No more stained and faded yellow linoleum tile. No more plastic, laminate countertops in the same awful yellow color. No more cheap oak cabinets. And no more appliances that dated back to the 70s.
My eyes take in the white subway tiles that line the walls, my heels clicking against dark gray wood flooring. I run my hand along the beautiful white and dark gray marble countertop as I move into the room, and I practically drool over all the white cabinets and shining, stainless steel appliances.
I smile when I see a pan of monkey balls sitting on the butcher block island in the middle of the room. It’s a funny name for a dessert, but it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted, and I’m immediately nostalgic. Mrs. Sherwood used to let us help her dip the little balls of dough in melted butter, roll them in cinnamon and sugar, and then stick them all together in a loaf pan. It was messy, but the end result was definitely worth it. My had quickly darts out to pull one of the dough balls away from the gooey pile in the pan.
“No!” Mrs. Sherwood shouts, causing me to snap my hand back in alarm. “Sorry, those are for—”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry! They’re probably for the employees, right? My dad said I’d be managing a few of them or something. It’s wonderful you have help inside the house. How many other employees are there?”
She looks at me funny, and as she starts to open her mouth, a loud screeching sound followed by a crash comes from another room on the far side of the house. There’s more screeching that almost sounds like a cat dying, followed by another crash and a loud thump, and then silence. The silence is almost worse than whatever the hell that was.
Shit. Maybe that really is blood on her shirt.
“Is everything—”
“Shhh! Don’t make a sound. If we’re really, really quiet, maybe they won’t know we’re here,” Mrs. Sherwood whispers, her eyes wide with fear as she nervously glances out the kitchen doorway.
What the fuck kind of people do they have employed here?
All of a sudden, the silence disappears and all hell breaks loose. The pounding of footsteps down the hall sounds like a herd of elephants is on its way toward us, and ear-piercing screams echo through the house, making me want to cover my ears before they start bleeding.
“Sweet, merciful Jesus, take me now,” Mrs. Sherwood mutters as I take a few steps back and hide behind the woman, bracing myself for whatever is about to crash into the room and devour our souls.
I know, I know! I shouldn’t be using the poor woman as a shield, but she’s in her sixties. She’s had a good, long life. I’m only thirty, for fuck’s sake! I still have a lot of living left to do. I have a reputation to fix, and for the love of all that is holy, I can’t die with hair like this! My tombstone would say Here lies Brooklyn Manning. Would you just look at her hair? Such a travesty. No wonder she was such a hussy.
As the thundering of footsteps and the screams get louder and closer, I slowly peek my head around Mrs. Sherwood’s shoulder, and my worst nightmare comes flying around the corner and into the room.
“She pulled my hair!”
“She took Rabbit Foo-Foo and put him in the toilet!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“You’re such a baby!”
“Stop calling me a baby!”
“Girls!” Mrs. Sherwood bellows at the top of her lungs, holding her hands up in the air to quiet the two demons standing in front of her. “That’s enough! If I hear one more word out of either of you, no monkey balls!”
The two monsters straight from the pits of hell immediately clamp their mouths closed.
To say I’m not much of a kid lover is putting it mildly. They’re loud, and messy, and you can’t take them in public without packing up your entire house with all the shit they need. And don’t even get me started on parents. I don’t need to know how many months old your little darling is. She’s two, Karen, not twenty-four months. When she goes to college, are you going to tell people your 216-month-old got accepted to Stanford?
Mrs. Sherwood turns around to face me and gives me an encouraging smile that makes my blood run cold.
“Brooklyn, meet your … employees, Mia and Grace. You’ll be their nanny this summer.”
What. In. The. Actual. Fuck?
Chapter 3
Sticky Life
When I was a teenager, my dad had this friend from his construction job named Rodney Johnson. Rodney was a single father, just like my dad. Unlike my dad, whose wife left him—and me—because she got tired of being a wife and a mother and living out in Bumfuck, Nowhere, Rodney’s wife died during childbirth. My dad would invite Rodney over once a week for dinner and a few hands of poker with some of his friends from the Rotary Club, to give him a break from his infant daughter. That break was courtesy of me.
At thirteen, while I was still trying to deal with the misery of having a mother who up and left without a backward glance, and a father who refused to even mention her name again and threw away any photo we had of her, I was stuck learning how to take care of a baby for a few hours every week in my bedroom, while the guys smoked cigars out in the kitchen and drank whiskey. They laughed and played cards and talked about “the good old days,” and I paced around my room, wondering how something so small could scream and puke so much.
Rodney would knock on the doorframe of my room at the end of the night, pull a few sweaty, wrinkled dollar bills out of his back pocket, and shove them in my hand as I practically tossed his baby at him, thanking me for taking care of his sweet girl before making a hasty exit. His “sweet girl” could practically spin her head all the way around on her neck while spewing puke all over my hair, and I swear if the light hit her face just right, her eyes glowed red. Three dollars covered in ass sweat was not worth that nightmare week after week, but I saved every penny for the next three years, as well as my allowance, and it gave me the ability to buy a piece of shit car on my sixteenth birthday and make sure I was never, ever home again on poker night.
This is most definitely where my abhorrence for all things children stems from. If the air blows just right, I can still smell the puke in my hair. I’m not like those women whose ovaries clench with longing whenever they hear a baby cry. My ovaries shrivel up and die if a baby so much as glances in my general direction.
As I stand here in the Hastings’ kitchen, still hiding behind Mrs. Sherwood while I stare at the two little heathens standing in front of me, covered in the same mixture of flour and what I’m just going to assume at this point is the blood of whatever animal or human they were sacrificing in their bedroom, I realize they aren’t babies. They can walk and talk and if stupid Karen were here right now, she’d probably tell me they were between the ages of sixty and eight-thousand months. Whatever. Math is stupid. I’m assuming Nosferatu is somewhere around that age, and since these are clearly his offspring, my math is probab
ly right.
I have to say, they are kind of adorable when they aren’t speaking. They each have a long mess of dirty blonde hair, bright green eyes that match the color of my dress, and the taller one has a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. That bigger one is also looking at me almost the same way as Felicity did that night of the bar opening—like she’s wondering what would be the easiest way to kill me and make it look like an accident. The younger one grabs a handful of her long hair and shoves in into her mouth, making me cringe in disgust.
Mrs. Sherwood moves away from me to grab the pan of monkey balls off the counter, and before I can scramble after her and cling to her body for protection, the shorter one spits the hair out of her mouth, races across the room, and plows into me, wrapping her tiny arms around my legs and squeezing the hell out of me.
“Oh, God. Why are you sticky?” I mutter, holding my hands up in the air like I’m at a 7-11 and some guy just pulled out a gun.
Take whatever you want! Just get this kid off me!
Her wet and mysteriously sticky hands cling to the backs of my knees as she stares up at me, and I have to swallow back the vomit that is creeping up my throat. Who knows what the hell is on her hands? She’s a kid. It could be any number of things. Gum, chocolate, the entrails of her former nanny….
“You’re pretty,” she tells me with a toothy smile, a giant gap in her bottom row of teeth where one of them is missing.
It’s almost adorable until she sticks the tip of her tongue through that hole and wiggles it at me, like some sort of creepy worm.
“Mia, let go of Miss Manning. You’ll get her pretty dress all dirty,” Mrs. Sherwood scolds.
Mia doesn’t listen. She just clings to me tighter, and a shiver of revulsion travels through my body when I feel stickiness dripping down the back of my leg.
