The Summer Nanny

by Holly Chamberlin

  The bare lightbulb that illuminated the kitchen suddenly blew out. Yes, Hayley thought. There was a limit.

  * * *

  “My father didn’t come home last night.”

  It was a little after one, and Hayley had come into downtown Yorktide on an errand for Marisa, who was grading papers at the house. She had run into Amy, in town on an errand for Cressida. Marisa had asked Hayley to pick up two lobsters for their lunch. Cressida had asked Amy to pick up a prescription for a diuretic.

  “Again?” Amy said with a frown.

  Hayley nodded. “Again. My mother was upset, but I think it’s wonderful when he disappears. For minutes at a time I can forget he even exists. But then I see the broken toaster he swore he’d fix and the crack in the bathroom door where he kicked it and I remember that he’s not gone for good.”

  “It really stinks that he’s the way he is,” Amy said feelingly. “I wish I could wave a magic wand and transform him into a—”

  “A decent, hardworking human being?” Hayley sighed. “It’s always puzzled me why my father doesn’t seem to want the respect of his children, but he’s never even tried to earn our respect. And why doesn’t he want to be proud of us in return? He never supported Brandon or me in anything. He actually seems to enjoy dragging Brandon down to his level, and whenever he catches a glimpse of something about me that hints at my intelligence he belittles it. It’s like he wants us to be as useless and as hopeless as he is.”

  Amy shrugged. “Misery loves company?”

  “Whatever the reason,” Hayley replied, “the whole thing is driving me mad. I’ve told my mother a million times to ditch my father, but she never listens. She keeps claiming he’s a good person at heart and that he’ll change, and then when he does something stupid again she’s disappointed like she really expected anything different.”

  “Maybe she won’t divorce him because she takes her marriage vows seriously,” Amy said. “Didn’t you tell me she’s a Catholic?”

  “Yeah,” Hayley admitted. “But she hasn’t been to church in years. I don’t even know if she believes in God anymore.”

  Amy shrugged. “Maybe she really does love your dad. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Love triumphs over all the bad stuff.”

  Hayley didn’t answer. She didn’t want to admit the possibility that love triumphed over “all the bad stuff,” as Amy put it. Because if that were true, then everybody was likely doomed to spend the rest of their days with someone totally unworthy of the love bestowed upon them. That scenario sounded way too close to martyrdom for Hayley, and she had never been able to see the point in martyrdom, not that she criticized those for whom it was a divinely ordered necessity, like Edmund Campion, the sixteenth-century Jesuit priest. That was what reading so much about times past did for you. It brought you into intimate contact with people who, while so like you in some ways, were so different in others. It made you more broadminded. It—

  “Hayley?” Amy said. “You in there?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’d better get going,” Amy said, already beginning to back away in the direction of her car. “Bye.”

  Hayley walked to her own car, bag of lobsters in tow. And she wondered if a marriage contracted between two people, one of whom did not love the other but who was marrying for material gain alone, would be any better than the marriage that existed between her parents? Would such a marriage be inherently worse because it was based on a lie? She recalled what she had been thinking about the night before, how a person’s environment could depress or elevate certain elements of character and intellect . . .

  It was all so complicated. Hayley’s stomach growled. One thing was not complicated. She was hungry. And it was very generous of Marisa to include Hayley in her craving for lobster.

  Chapter 46

  “Let me get this straight,” Vera said. She was sitting across from Amy in the Latimers’ kitchen. Amy’s mother was in the living room talking on the phone with a client. “She wants you to drive all the way to Connecticut and back to hand-deliver a document to one of her lawyers?”

  “That’s right,” Amy said. “It’s an important document.”

  “No doubt. Still, she could safely send it via Federal Express or some other reputable shipping concern. She could probably just e-mail it for that matter.”

  “I guess,” Amy said, “but she wants me to deliver it by hand.”

  “Does she expect you to take your own car?” Vera asked.

  “I don’t know,” Amy admitted. “She didn’t say.”

  “You mean she didn’t suggest you take her car?” Vera frowned. “Then I advise you to ask for compensation on top of your salary for gas and tolls and whatever other incidental expenses you might incur.”

  “You’re as bad as my mother and Hayley,” Amy said with a laugh. “Cressida is my friend. I’m doing her a favor. You don’t get paid for doing favors.”

  “No,” Vera said, “but there’s usually a degree of reciprocity involved in the doing of favors. Will this Prior person be willing to do a favor for you in return?”

  “Of course she would!” Amy replied, but she knew that she would never ask Cressida for anything. She didn’t have the right to ask a person like Cressida Prior, her mentor, for anything more than what Cressida already gave her. And really, she was a very generous person. Only the other day Cressida had taught her so much about the importance of organizing your life down to the tiniest detail.

  “Well,” Vera said, “enough about Ms. Prior. How are those nice young women you’ll be sharing an apartment with this fall? Have you gotten together to talk about housework and meals and all the other potentially problematic issues that arise when people live together for the first time?”

  Amy hesitated. The truth was she hadn’t thought of Tracy and Stella and Megan in weeks. And she hadn’t spoken to them since her graduation party. Stella had sent her a text a week or so ago but . . . Amy realized she had never responded. She couldn’t even remember what the text had said.

  “They’re fine,” she said. “We have plenty of time to talk about stuff.”

  “How is Hayley doing?” Leda asked when she returned to the kitchen. “I haven’t heard you mention her in a few days.”

  “She’s fine,” Amy said. “But her father is still being a jerk. He didn’t come home the other night.”

  Vera sighed. “That poor girl. She takes so much upon herself. I’d like to give that Nora Franklin a stern talking to. She’s never been a proper mother to Hayley or to Brandon.”

  “Nora does what she’s capable of doing,” Leda said.

  “Cressida says that people use that argument as an excuse for failure,” Amy pronounced. “She says people who allow themselves to be taken advantage of like Mrs. Franklin does deserve what they get. Not that she knows Mrs. Franklin personally. She was just talking about people who allow themselves to be victims.”

  Suddenly Amy was aware of both Vera and her mother looking at her strangely. “What?” she asked defensively.

  “That’s a cruel attitude to take,” her mother said forcefully. “Until you walk a mile in someone’s shoes you simply cannot judge her behavior.”

  “Your mother is right,” Vera seconded. “Above all, be kind. It’s not rocket science.”

  “I need something in my room,” Amy announced suddenly. She got up from the table and left the kitchen. She was annoyed with her mother for expressing what Amy used to think was a valid point of view but that she now saw as naïve. The thing was, she was changing and change was always difficult both for the person doing the changing and for those who liked her just fine the way she had been. People wanted to hold you down so you would remain the same person they had known and loved—or the same person they had been taking advantage of. Not that her mother or Vera had ever been anything but nice to her, but like Cressida had said one afternoon, the people closest to you could easily become your worst enemies. Family was a liability, whether they believed in you or not.


  When Amy reached her bedroom, she paused at the threshold and looked at the hastily made bed, the dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, the empty juice bottle on her dresser. And then she strode inside, determined to start the curating of her life. Determined to change.

  Chapter 47

  When Amy had left the kitchen, Vera turned to Leda. “When you were on the phone I tried to talk to Amy about this crazy errand Cressida wants her to run. And I got nowhere.”

  “I didn’t even try to question it,” Leda admitted. “I don’t think I’ve heard an original word come out of her mouth since she started working for Cressida Prior. It’s all, Cressida said this and Cressida thinks that.”

  “Amy’s never exactly been a critical thinker,” Vera pointed out. “She’s always been too easily swayed by other people’s opinions. Sadly, Ms. Prior’s opinions seem to be of the seriously odious sort.”

  Leda sighed. “I know Amy is legally an adult, but the fact is she’s living under my roof. I just don’t know to what extent I can advise or interfere in her life without crossing a line and alienating her. Do you know what she said to me the other night? That I never believed in her. The almighty Cressida Prior believes in her, though.”

  “Kids can be cruel to their parents,” Vera pointed out.

  “And there’s another thing that worries me,” Leda said. “I suspect Amy hasn’t been saving as much money as she should be. I came across the most impractical of fur hats in her room, and then she showed me a black sequined evening bag she bought at that totally overpriced store with the creepy mannequin in the window. Why does she need a black sequined evening bag?”

  “You know, Abraham Lincoln supposedly said something like, ‘I’d rather be a little nobody than an evil somebody.’”

  Leda laughed. “Are you saying I’m a little nobody?”

  “Not at all. I am saying that Cressida Prior is an evil somebody. At least, she’s a very unpleasant somebody. You know Annie Lehrmitt, the woman who owns the toy shop on Clove Street? She was in the restaurant the other day and she told me that Cressida Prior literally ran into her on the sidewalk, smashed into her shoulder as she passed and didn’t say a word of apology, just kept barreling on. The episode really shook Annie up.”

  “Poor woman.” Leda sighed. “Even if I told Amy about what happened with Annie she wouldn’t believe me, just like she wouldn’t believe those former employers of Prior Ascendancy had a legitimate cause for suing. It’s not like I can force Amy to quit. I could hope for Cressida to fire her, though that would cause some distress, too. And Amy would probably find a way to blame me.”

  “Well, let’s see how Amy feels when she gets home from a round trip to Connecticut,” Vera advised. “The experience of Hartford traffic might open her eyes to the reality of her situation as a so-called protégé.”

  Vera said her good-byes and Leda went to her studio, by far her favorite room in the house. Because she had lived at 22 Hawthorne Lane all of her life, she had no first memory of the studio. It seemed as much a part of her as her hands or her feet. You could say the same for the rest of the house, too, but the studio reigned supreme in Leda’s heart. It was where she had discovered her artistic passion and absorbed her first lessons at her mother’s knee.

  Suddenly, standing in the middle of the room, Leda knew what she had to do. Though she was pretty sure—no, she was certain—she wouldn’t win in her category, she would enter the competition sponsored by the FAF. She was not unaware that one of the reasons for her decision was rooted in her jealousy of the relationship between her daughter and Cressida Prior. Jealousy wasn’t the best of motives for taking action, but it was a motive all the same. If she should by some crazy chance win the prize for Best Emerging Talent, maybe Amy would remember that her mother was as worthy as her amazing new employer, a person who believed that victims got what they deserved.

  And then Leda realized that there was another, far more surprising reason for her decision to submit her work in the competition. She wanted to win the prize for Best Emerging Talent. She wanted to win for herself. That was a difficult thing to admit, that she believed she was worthy of recognition and acclaim. But she was worthy of recognition and acclaim. And she wanted both. She did.

  Chapter 48

  Hayley pulled open the door of the building and stepped onto the cracked pavement that led to the sidewalk. At the best of times it was hard to ignore the signs of neglect on the property, but now they seemed to leap at her and cause her almost physical distress. The paint on the building was peeling in long strips. What grass there was in the minuscule front yard hadn’t been cut in weeks. Lying in the tall grass was a dented soda can, an empty pack of cigarettes, and a crumpled bag that had once contained potato chips. Cigarette butts littered the broken front steps.

  The whole thing was just so grim. Hayley frowned. How could people have such little respect for their home? There was an answer for that. The people living in this building had no investment in it. They didn’t own their apartments. They didn’t plan on staying for long. Some of them had probably lost hope of ever living in a nicer place. Not all people who rented their homes had such lack of respect, only the sort of people with whom the Franklins seemed to wind up living in close proximity.

  Hayley got into her car and began the fifteen-minute drive to the Whitbys’ rental home. She parked in the space reserved for her, and before getting out of the car she gazed at the scene before her. Everything looked so calm and pretty. The grass was perfectly trimmed, and the flowers were laid out neatly in their beds. A Japanese maple was fully leafed out. The azalea bushes were full and healthy. Filmy white curtains hung neatly in each window. On the porch, a bright red milk can held a spray of dried Bells of Ireland.

  Hayley sighed. Why couldn’t her life be filled with beauty? Of course, in any life there were times of difficulty and strain as well as times of ease and joy. But at least if she were a part of this world, the world of people like the Whitbys, in the hard times she could take consolation in a clean and orderly home; in a personal library of books that no one would dare to tear to shreds; in clothes that hadn’t been worn by other people before finding their way to her closet; in bills that were paid in full and on time; in a backyard with a rose arbor, a stone birdbath, and a big oak tree where under the leafy branches she could find cool respite on hot summer days.

  Hayley’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She thought of the black circles under her mother’s eyes that morning, of the cardigan Nora Franklin had been patching for the last ten years, of the nervous cough her mother had developed.

  It was at that moment that Hayley really and truly decided. Yes, the situation was morally complicated, but she would do it, or at the very least she would try to entice Ethan Whitby into marrying her. And if she succeeded in becoming Mrs. Ethan Whitby she would be kind and grateful and maybe even one day she would come to truly care for her husband. It would be the least she owed Ethan for having rescued her from the sorry life she was currently living.

  Hayley felt a huge sense of excitement come over her as she looked out at the Whitbys’ perfect summer home. She felt a sense of power she had never felt before when she was just being a dutiful daughter who scrubbed floors for a living.

  Hayley checked her watch and saw that she would be late if she sat there any longer. She got out of the car and walked toward the house. Now that the decision had been made, all she had to do was convince Ethan that marrying her was what he wanted more than anything. Not that Hayley had any specific idea of how to go about this. She had never been a flirt, and she knew all too well that her nature was blunt rather than coy or seductive. Maybe if she simply toned down her manner a little bit she might come across to Ethan Whitby as charmingly without pretense rather than as obnoxiously uncouth.

  As Hayley climbed the stairs to the front porch she noted with pleasure the wicker rocking chairs in a neat row and the pretty hanging baskets overflowing with red and purple flowers. She was doing the right thing.
You had to take risks in life if you wanted to succeed. Hayley knew that from her reading. She thought about what Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, had risked in order to take back the crown from her usurping cousin Stephen. She had even managed to escape prison not once but twice, the first time disguised as a corpse. Matilda never actually got the crown, but it wasn’t for lack of trying, and after Stephen’s death her son became King Henry II, so in a way Matilda had won in the end.

  And Hayley could win, too. She opened the front door and went directly to the kitchen. Marisa had left a note saying she had taken the girls for a stroll and would be back shortly. There was a bouquet of flowers on the counter with a card propped up against the vase. The message read: I’m happier every day with you. J. Not once in the twenty-one years Hayley had known her father had he given his wife flowers. Not once.

  Standing alone in the well-appointed kitchen Hayley’s momentary high spirits fell. She would stand a chance with Ethan only if she kept most of the truth about her life a secret. Still, she would have to be careful not to tell outrageous lies that might trip her up in the end. She had been born and raised in Yorktide. People knew her. She would have to hope that Ethan would stay away from the locals who might inadvertently let slip a fact she would not want Ethan to know, like that for a few weeks many years ago the Franklins had been forced to stay at a shelter. The memory of those dreadful weeks still haunted Hayley, and she was sure they would continue to haunt her until she drew her final breath. Not that anything traumatic had happened—well, anything more traumatic than being homeless in the first place. The staff was kind and hardworking, and there were a few fellow residents who had comforted Nora Franklin when she couldn’t stop her tears from flowing. Still, Hayley had been scared. She had never been so scared.