Been Here All Along

by Sandy Hall

  As long as it was within walking distance.

  Jane’s parents had given her a hand-me-down car for her seventeenth birthday, but of course Margo was using it to drive to Princeton every day. Margo’s internship was far more important than Jane’s technical ownership of the vehicle. Maybe if Margo had actually made some money in that pyramid scheme, she would have money to buy her own car.

  What made the situation even more frustrating was that Jane could never even complain about it. Her parents would point out that Jane wasn’t paying for the car herself, and therefore it was still theirs. But if Jane mentioned something along the lines of the fact that Margo had her own car in high school that she didn’t have to share with anyone, she would be met with stony-faced silence. To Jane, it was the principle of the thing. It was a double standard.

  She sighed and went back to reading the ad.

  Three girls—a set of five-year-old twins, and a seven-year-old …

  Sounded exhausting but also doable.

  Fifteen dollars an hour …

  It might not be the easiest job on earth, but that was decent money. Even Jane’s allergic-to-math brain told her it was close to five hundred dollars a week. Five hundred dollars a week was always better than zero dollars a week. And she wouldn’t have to spend extra time with her mother.

  There was no name with the advertisement, so Jane composed the e-mail “To whom it may concern.” She stated her name, phone number, and babysitting experience—which was limited to watching her cousins during family events, but she could probably get her aunt to fudge their relationship if she needed references.

  She held her breath, crossed her fingers, rubbed her lucky rabbit’s foot, and hit Send.

  Jane checked the clock and knew she needed to talk to her mother. If she didn’t go downstairs to talk to her mother, then she definitely needed to study for her finals. Her last two finals were the next day, and Jane needed to show her teachers the old razzle-dazzle if she wanted a grade higher than C in either of those classes.

  She weighed her options, then decided on a third: none of the above.

  Instead, she went back to reading the Doctor Who/Little Women fan fiction she’d started the previous evening.

  The blossoming love between the Eleventh Doctor and Jo March was some of the most fascinating reading she’d ever done. Particularly because she could never deal with Jo marrying the German guy. How could she do that with Laurie right next door?

  Jane was about to get to the good stuff when her cell phone rang. She considered ignoring it in favor of the good stuff, but it was an unknown number and her curiosity was piqued.

  “Hello?”

  “Jane!” an unfamiliar voice said in a very familiar way.

  “Hi?”

  “It’s Connie Garcia-Buchanan.” Once she said her name, Jane realized that she should have immediately recognized the voice, with its slight Spanish accent and permanent smile.

  “Hello,” she said, still confused that Connie was calling on Jane’s cell phone. “Do you want to talk to my mom?”

  “No, sweetheart! I got your message about the babysitting job. I was very surprised to hear from you, but so happy.”

  “Oh,” Jane said, still not quite catching on.

  “The girls just adore you, and I think you would be great with them this summer.”

  “Oh! Oh my God,” Jane said, slapping her forehead in shock. “I didn’t realize. I just thought … Well, I didn’t think. I didn’t put it together. It’s an anonymous ad.…” She stumbled and stammered, trying to grasp what was happening.

  “I understand. I thought for sure you had put it together, what with the girls and their ages. And the job being here in town.”

  Jane laughed because she was uncomfortable, and that was what she did when she was uncomfortable. She also felt incredibly stupid. But that wasn’t new for her.

  “It would be nice to have someone so close by,” Connie continued while Jane sat on her bed and chewed her nails down to the quick.

  “Yes, that makes sense,” she said.

  “I’m getting my master’s degree in social work—I don’t know if your mom mentioned that to you. I decided to take three classes this summer, trying to get ahead of the game. Two of them are offered online, but I didn’t realize what a beast it would be trying to entertain the girls while I did homework and studied for exams. Not fun.”

  “Not fun,” Jane said, slightly dazed.

  “When are you done with finals?”

  “Tomorrow,” Jane said. She tried to keep a smile in her voice even as the reality of the situation sank in.

  “Can you come over around four o’clock? For an interview?”

  “Um, yes. I guess so.” Jane tried to ignore the thought gnawing at the edge of her brain.

  “Good. I promised the girls they could help choose their babysitter. So while I don’t feel like I need to interview you, they’re still going to want to.”

  Connie laughed, so Jane did, too, but it sounded like “ha ha ha” rather than actual laughter sounds a normal person would make. She loved Connie and the three little girls. She even thought Connie’s husband, Buck, wasn’t too bad a guy.

  “And I would only need you until the beginning of August. Classes end after that, so you would still have a few weeks off before school starts.”

  “That would be great,” Jane said. She tried not to think about the real problem. But the more she tried not to think about it, the less she could ignore it.

  “I’m so happy you’re one of the applicants. The other ones were a little less than desirable. A few were downright creepy.”

  “I guess you never can tell who might crop up from an online ad.”

  “That’s for sure,” Connie said. “Well, this is great. So great. Thank you so much for applying, even if you didn’t know it was me you were applying to.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at four, then.”

  “See you then.”

  “Excellent. Say hi to your parents for me.”

  “I will.”

  Connie paused before saying good-bye.

  “And, Jane, I know you and Teo don’t talk much anymore, but this will be so good for the girls. Don’t let anything from the past stop you from making choices in the present.”

  There was a solid chance that Jane died of embarrassment right there on the phone. What were the odds that she accidentally, anonymously applied to babysit for Teo Garcia’s younger half sisters?

  Margo would know the odds, the little voice in the back of her brain said. She told it to shut up, but it never did.

  When Jane regained her composure and came back from the dead, she said, “Thanks, Connie. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Bye, Jane.”

  “Bye.” Jane tapped the End button on her phone and flung herself back onto her bed, rolling around, trying to figure out what she had gotten herself into.

  Connie had it wrong, though. Teo wasn’t the problem. Teo was a nice guy, if not slightly boring. The problem was his constant shadow and Jane’s eternal foe, Ravi Singh.

  What Jane could never understand was why a guy like Teo Garcia had a best friend like Ravi Singh.

  Only one thing would be able to soothe her at the moment. She picked up her trusty Magic 8 Ball and considered what question to ask.

  “Is it a bad idea to take this babysitting job?” Jane asked the Magic 8.

  Cannot predict now.

  Definitely not the answer she was looking for.

  Chapter 2

  Someone tapped on Teo’s bedroom door so lightly that he barely even heard it. This usually signaled that his sisters were playing in the hallway. They had all sorts of games that Teo didn’t know the rules for and they wouldn’t explain to him.

  A light tap on the door was always supposed to be met with him throwing the door open and yelling “boo” or growling or doing something to make them giggle.

  Today he pulled the door ope
n and yelled, “Gotcha.”

  Unfortunately, he found his stepfather, Buck, on the other side.

  “Sorry,” Teo said, straightening up. “I thought you were going to be Keegan.”

  “Oh, got it. Sure. Keegan’s always up to something.”

  Teo nodded.

  Buck nodded.

  They stood there for a moment.

  “Um, so did you need something?” Teo asked.

  “Oh. Yeah. I was wondering. Well, your mother and I were wondering, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe.”

  Teo bit his lip and fought the urge to close the door in Buck’s face. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he didn’t like Buck, because most of the time they got along okay. Things would be easier with Buck if he would just say things to Teo rather than beating around the bush so much.

  “Is this about the lawn?” Teo asked.

  “Yes,” Buck said, visibly relaxing.

  “Mom already talked to me. I’ll mow it. She said I could do it this weekend after I was done with school.” Teo gestured toward his bed, where all his AP chemistry notes were laid out. “My last final is tomorrow.”

  Buck looked into his room and let out a low whistle.

  “Gotcha,” he said. “Well, that’s a good boy, then.”

  Buck patted him awkwardly on the back, but he didn’t move to walk away.

  Teo smiled, tight-lipped, and closed the door, just to have Buck tap on it again.

  “I, uh, wanted you to know that I appreciate all your hard work, and I’ll give you twenty bucks for a good job.”

  Teo paused. He was saving every last dime he could so he wouldn’t have to live with his mom and Buck again after graduating from high school. But sometimes money from Buck felt tainted or as if he was bribing Teo. Still, money was money.

  “Thanks, Buck,” Teo said.

  “You’re welcome.” He continued to stand in the doorway.

  “I’m going to shut the door now, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, good luck with studying,” Buck said, and then he finally, finally, walked away and Teo could get back to the solitude of his room.

  Life would actually be easier if Buck lived up to some kind of evil-stepfather stereotype instead of being this squirming, wishy-washy people pleaser.

  When Teo was younger, he thought Buck’s issues were because Teo was Puerto Rican and Buck was white. But as the years passed, it became obvious to Teo that it had more to do with their age difference.

  Buck was uncomfortable having a stepson only fifteen years younger than he was, and it wasn’t Teo’s job to make him feel okay about it. So now there were these big, gaping silences and a deep crevasse of awkwardness between them. The older Teo got, the weirder things were.

  He shot his friend Ravi a whiny text about Buck, but Ravi didn’t answer immediately, so Teo was going to have to find some other way to amuse himself. He stared at the notebooks on his bed and sighed. He had too much work to do for Buck to distract him this way.

  Teo really had only one choice. In order to restore balance in his life, he did a quick Google search for Jose Rodriguez.

  It was his favorite fantasy, meeting his father and his father’s family. Anytime things got weird with Buck, Teo would start his search all over again. He had never met Jose, but that didn’t keep his imagination from running wild.

  The problem was, Teo didn’t know much about his father besides his name and that he was Puerto Rican. Teo tried searching a couple of different combinations of his parents’ names together and got tons of hits because their names were common, but nothing useful or concrete. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he ever found his father. Mostly Teo wanted to know where his father was. Knowing that he was out there somewhere would be enough.

  The doorbell rang downstairs, and Teo heard the murmur of voices filtering up through the air-conditioning vents. This must be another one of the potential babysitters, Teo thought. There had been a whole train of them in and out of the house all week.

  He listened for a few more minutes to the muffled voices coming up from the living room. The more his sisters giggled, the more curious he became.

  He checked his phone again—still nothing. Where the hell was Ravi? He almost always answered his texts within minutes.

  Carefully, Teo cleared his search history and x-ed out the tabs. His nightmares often featured a scene where Keegan asked something along the lines of Who is Jose Rodriguez? during dinner. Teo was looking for him on the Internet, she would continue.

  Then his mom, Buck, and all three sisters would stare at Teo until their eyes popped out onto the dinner table and rolled around. Nightmare Teo could speak only Spanish, and not even Nightmare Mom understood him. Not being understood was a theme in a lot of his recent nightmares.

  Checking his phone one last time, Teo tiptoed out of his bedroom and sat at the top of the stairs to eavesdrop as his sisters interviewed the Potential Babysitter with a constant barrage of inane questions.

  “Do you like brownies?” Piper asked.

  “What kind of brownies?” Rory asked before the Potential Babysitter could even reply.

  “Will you make brownies with us?” Keegan asked.

  Their rapid-fire dessert questioning didn’t surprise Teo. They were passionate about baked goods.

  “We could make brownies,” the Potential Babysitter said.

  “Yay!” all three girls cheered.

  “See?” Rory said. “I told you she’d be nice.”

  “So what will you let us do?” Keegan asked.

  Teo knew that question was like the kiss of death. As the oldest of the three girls, Keegan tended to be the ringleader. She was the kind of kid who, if you turned your back to her long enough, would rally the rest of the kids and start a mutiny. He knew this for a fact, as she had already done it once when she was in kindergarten and twice in first grade. Teo’s mom spent a lot of time in parent-teacher conferences about Keegan.

  Teo checked his phone again.

  “What do you mean?” the Potential Babysitter asked.

  “Like, can we go to the pool, and the sprayground, and mini golfing?” Keegan clarified.

  “I guess?” the Potential Babysitter answered.

  “The mini golf at the boardwalk?” Piper asked. “Not the dumb one on the highway.”

  “Yeah, that one’s for babies,” Rory added.

  Teo had no idea how they came up with those kinds of rules, but they were forever evolving. Last time he checked, they loved the mini golf course on the highway because it was fairy-tale-themed.

  “We’ll have to ask your mom about that,” the Potential Babysitter said. Teo knew his mom would like that the girl was deferring to her in these matters.

  All three girls started talking at once. This would be a make-or-break moment for this poor girl.

  “Mom never lets us go to the boardwalk.”

  “Maybe you could tell her to take us.”

  “Or maybe Teo could take us.”

  Teo slid down a few steps and peeked through the slats of the handrail. He couldn’t see the face of the girl they were interviewing, but he really wanted to interject that he would not be taking anyone to the boardwalk.

  “I want to play the crane machine.”

  “I want to play Skee-Ball.”

  “I want to mini golf.”

  “I want to go on the log flume!”

  The storm of wants and requests kept raging. Teo felt legitimately sorry for the Potential Babysitter at this point. He was surprised that his mother hadn’t stepped in to help. She must have wanted to see how the older girl would handle all three kids when they got whipped into a simultaneous frenzy.

  “Do you guys like Slip ’N Slides?” the Potential Babysitter asked over the din.

  The three girls all grew quiet. “What’s that?” Rory asked.

  “It’s kind of like a log flume for your body.” Teo thought that was an excellent description of a Slip ’N Slide.

  “Really?” Keegan asked.

/>   Teo leaned over again to watch the proceedings.

  The Potential Babysitter nodded.

  “Do you have one of those?” Piper asked.

  “Yup. In my garage.”

  “What else?”

  “Um. Well. Okay.” She rubbed her palms on her shorts. “We could set up the sprinkler and one of those little wading pools and make a fountain. We could turn the lawn sprinklers on, and it would be like having our very own sprayground.”

  Teo smiled. He used to do stuff like that all the time at the Connellys’.

  And that was when he realized his sisters were interviewing Jane Connelly. The girls were all going wild about the setup that Jane had described, and Teo tried to back up the stairs, instead knocking his elbow hard and hissing in pain.

  “Teo?” Keegan asked, walking over to the steps.

  “Crap,” he said under his breath.

  He played it cool and walked down the stairs the rest of the way like a normal person.

  “Hey, guys,” he said. He turned to Jane and nodded at her casually.

  “Hey,” Jane said.

  “You remember Jane, right, honey?” his mom asked. She was sitting at the dining room table, observing the interview.

  He opened his mouth to say something snarky like How could I forget Jane? Then he thought better of it. Instead, he shot his mom a look as he passed that he hoped she would interpret as You could have warned me.

  Thankfully, his phone vibrated at that moment. Finally. Wait until Ravi heard what was going on.

  “Um, gotta take this,” he said to the room at large, not focusing on anyone, as he wandered into the kitchen and leaned against the counter.

  He tapped out a message to Ravi, telling him to come over for dinner, and continued to listen to his sisters interview Jane. He felt trapped and regretted that he hadn’t stayed in his room.

  The girls peppered her with questions.

  “We can go to the library and on picnics. We can take walks and ride bikes,” Jane said.

  The thing about Jane Connelly wasn’t so much that Teo didn’t like her. He was neutral about her. She was always nice enough to him. He had spent a lot of time with her while his mom was taking night-school classes.