The Sweet Life

by Francine Pascal

  “I’ll do it,” Robin said after a minute, shocking Elizabeth. “I’ll give you the interview.”

  “You will?”

  “No, I think it’s the best thing. It’s about time my story got out there,” Robin said. “And I’ve already told you so much already. It might as well be you. As long as my name is kept out of it, I’ll do it.”

  “I promise you it will be. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I’m sure,” Robin said, and her voice sounded a little bit too hard. Elizabeth clicked “record” on her tape recorder to start the official interview before Robin changed her mind. She knew that even after the interview, she wasn’t done with this story yet. Something felt wrong, and Elizabeth was going to find out what it was. No matter how long it took.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In a bungalow not too far away, Steven Wakefield stood in his kitchen, squared his shoulders, and met Baby Emma’s stubborn gaze.

  “Come on, Emma, it’s time to sit in your high chair,” he told her as she squirmed against him, violently kicking her legs out as he tried to put her in the chair. He put her in and she promptly began screaming her head off.

  “What are you putting her in that thing for?” Aaron declared as he walked briskly into the kitchen and plucked Emma out of her designer high chair. “You know she prefers to sit in my lap.”

  “She’s almost six months old,” Steven said. “She needs to learn how to survive one second without being held.”

  This was an old argument. Aaron was in the parent camp that said you never put your child down, even if that meant wearing them strapped to your body at all times. Steven felt like Aaron was just spoiling Emma. If it were up to Aaron and Emma, she’d be held 24/7.

  But Aaron would do anything to avoid Emma’s dreaded five-alarm wail, which was actually so ear-piercing it could make dogs a street over howl. Admittedly, Steven hated the five-alarm wail, too, but sometimes, he thought, they needed to risk it.

  “Besides,” Steven continued, “how else are we supposed to feed her this?” Steven held up a bowl of freshly made rice cereal, which held all the watery appeal of gruel. But it was what the pediatrician had said they should start feeding her, and Steven was going to do it, high chair or not.

  “I can feed her while I hold her,” Aaron said, overconfident as usual.

  “It’s not a bottle,” warned Steven, but a beat too late. Aaron spooned a mouthful of the watery gruel into Emma’s mouth, only to have her spit the whole thing out down the front of Aaron’s newly ironed Oxford.

  “Great,” Aaron said, and stood, handing a pouting Emma over to Steven so he could go change. Steven was about to set Emma back in her high chair when the doorbell rang.

  “Our savior,” Steven whispered to Emma, and he took her to the door. He opened it and Emma’s new nanny, Agneta, came in. Emma smiled instantly when she saw Agneta, who had started only a couple of weeks ago, and reached her pudgy little arms out to be held.

  Agneta, a petite, young woman with dark hair and warm brown eyes, scooped up Emma and immediately started cooing at her.

  “There’s my beautiful baby girl,” Agneta said. “All the other babies must be jealous of you—you’ve taken all the adorable just for yourself.”

  Emma broke out her single-toothed smile as if she understood the compliment word for word.

  “We were in the middle of breakfast, but she hasn’t eaten much,” Steven explained to Agneta, nodding to the small baby bowl on the counter.

  “No problem, Mr. Wakefield,” she said. “We’ll fix that, won’t we, my perfect little rose?”

  Emma giggled and clapped her hands in approval. Steven breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Agneta glide into the kitchen with Emma. She had been the only nanny candidate—out of twenty they’d interviewed—that Emma actually liked. Most of the women—and the two men who had interviewed for the job—couldn’t even hold Emma without her screaming bloody murder.

  And what Emma didn’t want, nobody was going to force on her. Steven could try, but he was almost always undercut by Aaron, who felt like whatever Emma wanted, Emma should get. And Emma demanded a lot. Somewhere in the back of his head, she reminded Steven of one of his sisters. And it wasn’t Elizabeth.

  Sometimes, he suspected she really had the Jessica Wakefield gene. It even kept him up nights, worrying if Emma might be as spoiled as his younger sister. Despite that unpleasant thought, he couldn’t help a secret smile—he liked the idea that she might be a true Wakefield.

  Still, the fact was, he couldn’t fight Emma and Aaron at once. He’d tried and failed before, which was nearly every night, when Emma ended up in their bed instead of her crib.

  Plus, it wasn’t just Emma rejecting nanny candidates. Aaron didn’t seem to like any of them, either. He dismissed most of them in two-word judgments like “too mean” or “too hippie” or “too old-school” or “too ditzy.”

  Steven was starting to get the impression that Aaron might actually be sabotaging the whole process. Steven sometimes wondered if Aaron, not Emma, had the greater separation anxiety.

  But with Aaron’s extended paternity leave running out and Aaron having decided he would go back to work, they’d had to find someone. Aaron didn’t like the idea of day care, but it wasn’t like that was an option anyway, since all the best ones had six-month-long waiting lists. Aaron was on the verge of simply quitting his job and staying home when in walked Agneta, the last candidate they interviewed.

  Against all odds, both Aaron and Emma loved her. Steven offered to hire her on the spot, agreeing to whatever she asked in pay. As it turned out, she asked for a reasonable sum, and she was willing to start the next day.

  As Steven watched, Agneta masterfully balanced Emma on one hip while stirring a little bit of formula into the rice cereal to make it a tad bit sweeter. Why hadn’t Steven thought of that? As he watched, Agneta not only got Emma to open her mouth, she managed to get the baby to eat and swallow a full bite without spilling a drop.

  Steven shook his head. Agneta just had the magic touch and she got it right away—don’t put this baby down. As Aaron came bounding into the kitchen, clad in a fresh shirt, he broke into a grin when he saw the nanny. Agneta could do no wrong in Aaron’s eyes (not since she introduced them to a new organic line of baby ointment that cleared up Emma’s nagging diaper rash in a single day).

  “Time to run. Love you, pumpkin,” Aaron said, and gave Emma a kiss on the forehead.

  “Bye, bye, Ems,” Steven said, waving to little Emma, who gamely waved back, a big pink spoon clutched in one chubby fist.

  After the dads left, Agneta fed and changed Emma and then got her ready for their morning trip to the park. Agneta had babysat dozens of babies, and she knew that little Emma was a girl who wanted to be on the move, as long as she was carried there.

  Agneta had never met another baby who so stubbornly refused to sit in a stroller, a high chair or even be put down for one minute. Some would call this baby high-maintenance, but Agneta didn’t mind carrying little Emma. Most nannies would’ve insisted the baby sit strapped in a stroller, but Agneta was happiest when Emma was happy, which was probably why the two got along so well.

  Agneta just loved babies. One day, she wanted to have two or three babies of her own, but that was later, after she got married. For now, Agneta walked with Emma on her hip the block and a half to the park with the small playground.

  As she drew closer, she saw her friend Melissa, the pretty flaxen-haired woman who sometimes came to sit on the bench with her Starbucks cup in hand. Melissa had been at the park nearly every day for the last week or so, maybe longer, and the two had started to chat. Agneta felt sorry for Melissa, the woman with bright blue eyes who had told her the story of how she’d lost her baby girl recently—a stillborn, Melissa had said.

  Agneta couldn’t think of a more tragic story—to be pregnant and then go into labor, only to deliver a baby that wasn’t breathing and couldn’t be revived.

  Melis
sa saw Agneta—and little Emma—and her face brightened instantly.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning,” Agneta said, and smiled, glad to see her friend. She loved Emma, but she also wouldn’t pass up a bit of adult conversation. Agneta sat down next to Melissa on the bench and put Emma in her lap.

  “How’s little Emma this morning?” Melissa said, rubbing Emma’s rosy cheek. “Such a beautiful baby.”

  “Loving the compliments,” Agneta said. And it was true. There was nothing Emma loved more than being at the center of attention. Shades of her aunt Jessica.

  Emma cooed and gamely took in Melissa’s praise, but then, fickle in her ways, quickly tired of it and squirmed in Agneta’s lap as she reached out toward the park. Agneta knew what she wanted: a trip to the baby swings, her favorite. The swings were on the other side of the park, a little bit of a walk, but Agneta was happy to carry her over there.

  Melissa followed, coffee cup in hand.

  Agneta sat Emma in the little bucket swing—which as far as Agneta knew was the only time Emma was happy outside of someone’s arms—and gave the baby a little push. Emma’s curly blond locks blew up in the wind, and she clapped her hands in glee.

  “She’s adorable,” Melissa said, a wistful look on her face.

  “She is the cutest,” Agneta agreed. “And her dads are just the nicest. They fawn over her, both of them.”

  “Sounds like they might be spoiling her.”

  “Spoil?” Agneta laughed. “You can’t spoil a baby. Whatever Emma wants, Emma gets! Isn’t that right?”

  Emma clapped her hands to show she agreed with the sentiment.

  “Dadas!” Emma cried suddenly.

  “Did you just say ‘Daddies’?” Agneta cried.

  “Dadas!” Emma said again.

  “Oh, wait. I’ve got to send Aaron and Steven a text. They won’t believe this.” Agneta reached into her pocket to grab her phone but found nothing but the house keys there. “My phone!” She glanced around the ground in dismay. “I know I had it.”

  “I think I saw one on the bench we were sitting on. Maybe that was yours?”

  Agneta squinted, trying to see the bench on the other side of the park, but the trees hid it. It was a brand-new phone and she couldn’t afford to replace it. Plus, Aaron and Steven had been adamant: She needed to carry her cell phone at all times, in case of emergency. She was just a couple of weeks into this new job and she still wanted to impress them.

  Agneta reached to pick Emma up, but Emma let out a cry of protest. Emma wasn’t done with the swing. Agneta sighed, defeated. She knew what was coming next: Emma’s patented five-alarm wail.

  “I’ll watch her,” Melissa offered. “You run and get the phone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It won’t take you but a minute.” Melissa gave Emma a little push in the swing. “We’ll be fine here.”

  Agneta took a quick look at Emma, and saw Emma coo and smile in the swing and thought: What’s the harm? Why upset her? It’s just across the park. Fleetingly, she thought, I don’t know Melissa that well, but then just as soon as the thought popped into her head, she dismissed it. Melissa was very nice, and all she would do was watch Emma in the swing for a couple of minutes. No big deal, right?

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.” Agneta hurried over to the bench. It was a longer walk than she’d remembered, and there were large trees between her and the baby swing. But when she got there, she saw her phone sitting right in the middle of the bench, as if it had slipped out of her pocket. As she stood there, her phone dinged, a message from her boyfriend. She read it and replied as she walked slowly back. She became engrossed for a few minutes in her phone, and looked up again only once she got closer to the swing.

  She stopped abruptly in her tracks.

  The swing was empty, swaying back and forth. No sign of Melissa or Emma anywhere.

  “Emma?” called Agneta. “Melissa?” She whirled, her eyes scanning the park. Cold, dreadful panic set in as she frantically searched the park.

  But all she saw was an empty playground. Even the jogging trail was deserted.

  “Emma!” she shouted, but it was too late. Emma and Melissa were gone. With trembling fingers, she dialed 911.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pandemonium reigned at Steven and Aaron’s home. Two police cruisers sat outside while inside, Agneta was beside herself with panic, barely able to speak to the police officers through her sobs. If Steven had any thoughts of being angry at the nanny, they all evaporated at seeing the pain and heartbreak on her face. Nothing he could say or do would be worse than what she was already saying to herself.

  “Oh, Mr. Wakefield, I-I-I am so sorry. It was only a second. It’s all my fault. Oh, I just won’t be able to live with this. I won’t be able to bear it. If…If…” and then she dissolved into more sobs. Steven met Aaron’s gaze over her head. They’d have to decide what to do about Agneta later. Right now, they needed to find Emma.

  “It’s okay, Agneta, we’ll find her.”

  “But beautiful Emma. Oh, God. It’s my fault…” Agneta couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “Ma’am, let’s sit down and go over what happened one more time.” One of the police officers led Agneta to the living room. Outside, police combed the nearby park for evidence. It had been just two hours since Melissa had left the park with Emma. Everyone working the case knew that every minute that ticked by lessened their chances of finding the baby. The officers were grim and silent, working quickly.

  The doorbell rang and Steven opened it to find his younger sister, Elizabeth, in obvious distress.

  “Oh, God, poor Emma! I can’t believe this. Who is this Melissa person? How did she take Emma?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out,” Steven said, taking his trembling sister in his arms.

  Not two minutes later, Jessica, his youngest sister, was at the door.

  “I came as soon as I got your voice mail.” Steven gave Jessica a big hug, too, and found he was grateful she was here. They’d come a long way in their relationship since Jessica had first discovered he’d been living most of his life in the closet. Now they were closer than they’d ever been. And at a time like this, Steven was just glad to have both his sisters close to him.

  “Have the police sent out an Amber Alert?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yes,” Steven said, and nodded. “But we don’t know what car Melissa might have been driving, or if she was just on foot.”

  “Steven! I need you in here,” called Aaron from the kitchen.

  “Back in a minute,” Steven said to his sisters. The doorbell rang, and Steven paused.

  “I’ll get it,” Elizabeth said. “You go on.”

  She walked to the foyer and swung open the door. Bruce stood on the doorstep. He wore one of his best suits, looking handsome and in charge with his dark hair perfectly combed and his stark blue eyes clear and determined, reminding her of the Bruce she loved so well. For a second, she was so grateful to see him that her eyes lit up and she almost threw her arms around his neck. But as his eyes slid uneasily to the side, she remembered the painful truth: They weren’t a couple anymore.

  The reality hit Elizabeth hard as she awkwardly tucked her arms down by her sides. All she wanted during this awful time was to feel his strong, reassuring arms around her.

  But she knew that was not possible. Not now, not ever. Painfully, Bruce wouldn’t even meet her gaze.

  “Elizabeth,” said Annie Whitman, who appeared by Bruce’s elbow. “We came as soon as Jessica told us.” Annie wrapped her in a hug and Elizabeth felt hot tears prick her eyes, partly because of Emma, but also because Bruce had slunk past her without a word. Elizabeth swallowed a sob.

  “We’ll get through this,” Annie said, and squeezed.

  “Thanks for coming.” Elizabeth wiped her eyes. “I know you’re busy working on Bruce’s case.”

  “All that matters is we get Emma home safe,” Annie said. “Bru
ce was the first one to say we needed to come over here. We’re still waiting to hear about the D.A.’s decision, but he didn’t care. He said we needed to be here.”

  Elizabeth should have been grateful, but instead she just felt a searing pain. This was the Bruce she had fallen in love with, the man who would do anything for the people he cared about. Right in the middle of his own problems, he’d shown up to help. That only made her feel worse about the horrible doubts she harbored about him. How could she think he was capable of attempted rape when he was here, doing what he could for her family in a time of crisis?

  “I just can’t believe someone would do this,” exclaimed Aaron, walking into the foyer and breaking up the conversation. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Aaron, I’m so sorry,” Elizabeth said, and Aaron hugged her.

  “I’m sorry, too.” Annie said. “If there’s anything I can do, say the word.”

  “Thanks, Annie.” Aaron gave her a wan smile. The three of them moved into the kitchen, where Bruce and Jessica and Steven were talking in low tones.

  Elizabeth glanced at Bruce quickly, then away. To anyone paying attention, their heartbreak was obviously still new and raw.

  Steven’s phone rang. He glanced at it and said, “Oh, it’s Mom and Dad. They must’ve gotten my message on the cruise ship. They were docking on one of the Greek Isles today. Hello? Mom? Yeah, I’m here. Yes, it’s true…” He walked away, explaining the situation into the phone. Jessica trailed after him. Aaron’s shoulders slumped under the weight of worry. “Why don’t we go sit down?” Annie said to Aaron, moving him into the living room.

  For the briefest of moments, that left Bruce and Elizabeth alone in the kitchen. Stricken, Bruce looked at his shoes. For a man who had recently given a rousing speech to his board of directors, he could think of absolutely nothing to say to the one woman he once wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Bruce could never have imagined a time when seeing Elizabeth would be so painful. He had always thought, no matter what, they’d be friends. But he couldn’t be friends with her. Not now. Maybe not ever. That new revelation hit him hard. He didn’t know which was worse: losing the love of his life or losing his best friend.