by Jessica Ashe
“Carly, this is Olivia. Olivia, this is Carly.”
“Hello, Olivia,” Carly says kindly, but without putting on the baby voice that most sitters use. That’s a good start. “What have you got there?” Carly points at a book in Olivia’s hand.
“Moo cow book,” Olivia replies, passing the book to Carly. “It’s about a moo cow who is friends with a pig and they escape the farm and go to the shops where they meet a girl who takes them to her home and they have lots of fun and then go back to the farm.”
“She’s awful for spoilers,” I say.
Carly smiles at me and then looks back to Olivia. “This book sounds like fun. Can I read it?”
“Okay,” Olivia says, passing the book to Carly. Olivia tries to climb up onto the sofa. Carly watches her carefully, but she lets Olivia do it herself even though it takes some time.
“Shall we read it together?” Carly asks. Olivia nods and sits close to Carly who holds the book between them.
Olivia listens intently as Carly reads the story and I mouth along subconsciously. Carly manages to maintain her enthusiasm throughout which is more than I can usually manage. She even puts on different voices for all the characters, and her ‘moo cow’ is particularly amusing to Olivia judging by the giggling.
They look cute together. Is there much more I need to worry about? She’s been vetted, albeit that was a few years ago, and she has a letter of recommendation from her last client.
“Read it again,” Olivia says once the story is finished.
“Do you like the adventures of pig and moo cow?” Carly asks.
“Yeah. They have fun and do silly things.”
“Well how about we make up some stories of our own?”
“Okay.”
“Do you have any coloring pens and some paper?”
Olivia looks up at me. “You have some in your play box, sweetie,” I tell her. “Why don’t you show Carly to your room?”
Carly picks Olivia up and heads up the stairs following Olivia’s vague directions. Carly’s perfect for the job, but she might not want it when I tell her. I have to tell her. She clearly doesn’t know. I thought everyone did a google search on potential employers these days. Carly didn’t. She has no idea what happened here, or what I did.
I head up the stairs a few minutes later and find Olivia drawing what I think is a pig, although it’s just a big circle at the moment.
“Job’s yours if you want it,” I say.
“Wow, really?” Carly replies, momentarily distracted from story time with Olivia. “Thank you so much.”
No, thank you.
“When can you start?”
“I’ll finish off my shifts at New River this week, so I can start on Monday.”
“That would be great.” Please don’t google my name in the meantime. “Olivia, let’s give Carly a tour of the house. She’s going to be looking after you.”
I hold Olivia as we walk around the top floor. There’s not much to show up here other than Olivia’s room, but there is one important point I need to mention.
“This room is out of bounds,” I say near the locked door. “Sorry to sound weird, but you’re not to go in this one.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Carly sounds suspicious, but not enough to make a big deal out of it. Mind you, that’s how the last one sounded and she ended up snooping through my stuff and going into the room anyway. Fingers crossed, Carly is more obedient. She looks like she can follow orders, but maybe I’m still thinking about the girl I met at the party. She’s been on my mind way too much later. Those perfect breasts, that sweet pussy, the timid little moans of pleasure. God damn, she was a fucking delight. She bailed, but that just means she needs more training. I’m a good teacher.
“What’s the scope of my responsibilities?” Carly asks. “Other than keeping an eye on this little bundle of joy, of course.”
“I’m busy at work right now, so I’ll need you to keep on top of chores like laundry and keeping the place clean.”
“What about cooking?”
“Can you cook?”
“Uh, I can learn.”
She’s eager to please. I like that. “I’ll leave money for food, but I can cook if need be. And I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary. The second I’m home, you’re more than welcome to leave. If you stay, I’ll pay you extra.”
“Thank you. What do you do for a living?”
“I run a company that manufactures camera equipment. The expensive stuff that only major movie studios can afford. It’s not exactly glamorous, but it does mean I get to meet famous actors once in a while.”
“You must be busy.”
“Yeah, busier than I’d like. I’d love to spend more time with this little one, but it’s good that she interacts with strangers. Speaking of which, I’d like you to take her to the park once in a while to mix with other kids.”
“Will do.”
Whenever I take Olivia to the park I spend the entire time fending off horny moms. Or avoiding stares from women who know who I am. It gets tiresome after a while. Olivia will have more fun with Carly—she doesn’t have baggage. People don’t look at her and see a murderer.
Chapter Five
Carly
I still have one credit card that hasn’t been maxed out yet, so after leaving Parker’s I head to a mall and treat myself to some new clothes. I’m used to wearing my uniform five or six days a week and getting by with a modest selection of clothes for the rare occasions I go out and have fun.
I’m sure Olivia doesn’t care what I’m wearing, but I want to look nice for Parker. He’s rich and handsome; he’s probably used to women who dress exquisitely and look like a million dollars. My credit cards don’t have that kind of spending power, but I can still try to look presentable for him.
Not that he’s going to be interested in me. He mingles with actors and other high-fliers. He’s not going to fall for the babysitter.
I get home just as Tami is getting dressed for her shift. “What’s this big news you texted me about?” Tami shouts out from her bedroom.
A wave of relief washes over me when she steps out in her uniform. It’s a reminder that I only have to see out this week and then I’m done waiting tables for the time being.
“I got a job,” I reply. “A good one.”
“I didn’t even know you were looking. Wait, you’re not going to be a security guard, are you? I don’t want to worry about you every night.”
“Nope. I’m a babysitter.”
“I thought you hated looking after kids.”
“I hated the money, not the job. This job pays well.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll miss you at work. The shifts we had together always went so much faster.”
“Me too.” It’s true those shifts always went faster, although it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that I’ll miss them.
“What’s the family like?” Tami asks.
“Olivia is an absolute sweetheart,” I reply. “There’s not much of a family to speak of. It’s just him and the kid.”
“Him? Single dad, eh? I like single dads.”
I roll my eyes. “You won’t like this one. Parker doesn’t have a dad bod. It’s all hard and firm.”
“Oh. Well, you can’t win them all. Where is the job?”
I give her the name and address. Tami frowns. “His name is Parker Kaye and he lives in Rancho Park?”
I nod. “Why?”
Tami opens her laptop and googles something. She clicks on an image and passes the laptop over. “Is that him?”
I look at a picture of a man walking out of his house surrounded by reporters holding microphones in front of him. He looks rough, like he hasn’t slept in days. His face is thinner and his clothing is disheveled, but it’s definitely him. It’s Parker.
“That’s him,” I reply. “Where did you get that picture?” It doesn’t look like one he’d have picked for his Facebook profile.
“It’s part of a news
story. There’s plenty more like that one.”
As if to prove the point, Tami clicks through lots of pictures from the same morning, plus a few where he is outside a police station. An unsettling feeling creeps up in my stomach; a feeling that becomes harder and harder to ignore with each photo.
“What happened?” I ask, when I’ve seen enough.
“He killed his wife,” Tami replies.
“Very funny. What really happened?”
“I’m being serious.”
I stare at the deadpan expression on Tami’s face for a few seconds. She can never keep a straight face when she’s joking. She’s deadly serious.
“He didn’t murder his wife,” I reply. “I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly sure you get thrown in prison for that.”
“They found her dead in his house. There was no break in, and no sign of anyone else being there.”
This room is out of bounds.
That was a slightly creepy thing to say, but it hardly makes him a murderer.
“There’s no way he killed anyone,” I insist. “He’s a nice guy.”
Tami flicks through a few articles that discuss the case. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of him. This case was all over the news three years ago.”
“I didn’t live in LA three years ago.”
“Here we go: ‘Parker Kaye was released from police custody on January 23rd after the District Attorney concluded that there was not enough evidence to secure a prosecution.’ That’s as good as saying ‘he’s guilty, but we can’t prove it.’”
“No, it’s not,” I reply firmly. “There’s a reason you have to have a trial before you’re considered guilty of a crime.”
I don’t know why I’m getting so defensive. Is it because I desperately need this job? Or is it because I like Parker and don’t want to see him as a killer? Both, I suppose.
Tami keeps reading the article. “It says here that the police suspected Parker never wanted a child, and that he killed his wife when she refused to get rid of it. Fuck, that’s brutal.”
Despite the gory and gruesome nature of what Tami just said, I somehow let out a short laugh. “Now I know that’s all nonsense. Parker loves Olivia. You only have to see them together to know that. And clearly she’d already been born when the wife died, so that’s not much of a theory.”
Tami shakes her head. “She was just shy of eight month’s pregnant when she died. They managed to save the baby, which by all accounts was a minor miracle.”
“This is silly. Parker didn’t kill his wife, and he loves his kid. There’s no reason I wouldn’t work for him.”
That does explain the lack of other applicants, though. He provided his full name and address. If I hadn’t been so tired when I applied for the job, I would have googled his name like every other potential applicant clearly did. Then I’d never have applied. If I hadn’t met Parker—if I hadn’t seen him with Olivia—I’d have been spooked by the stories as well.
“You’re going to text me every few hours,” Tami says. “I want to know you’re safe all the time.”
“Olivia is hardly going to stab me to death with a crayon, is she?”
“You know full well it’s not the child I’m worried about. He could be a killer, Carly, and you’re going to be in his home where his wife died.”
This room is out of bounds.
Is that where she died? No wonder he doesn’t want anyone going in there.
“I’m not texting you every few hours,” I insist. “If I stay late then I’ll let you know, okay?”
I’m slightly surprised by my own bravery. Tami is normally the tough one, and I’m the one urging caution. Something inside me changed that night at the party. I still can’t wrap my head around what I did with a complete stranger. I let him talk to me like I was his slave. He did things to me that still make my skin tingle when I think about them. We watched another couple go at it.
Now I’m taking risks and working for a potential killer.
This isn’t the real me, but I like it.
My writing has never felt so easy.
I haven’t even started my new job yet, but knowing that I don’t have to be a waitress anymore has lifted a ton of stress and I’m able to fly through my screenplay. By the time Tami gets home, the first ten pages are done and I’m still going strong.
I’m more excited about my screenplay now. I’ve made a few tweaks and changes to the main female character—Amber—and now she’s a lot more fun to write. She’s stepping out of her comfort zone and experimenting. She doesn’t go to a sex party, but she has a mind-blowing one-night stand that completely changes her view on relationships.
It wasn’t until I looked back at the outline earlier today that I realized just how much she was based on me. I don’t have much writing experience, so to create a believable character, I wrote about the person I knew best—me. Unfortunately, I’m also boring, so it was no wonder I couldn’t motivate myself to write the script.
It’s much more fun writing characters with a wild side. I even enjoyed writing the sex scene. I thought that was going to be pure cringe, but the words just flowed out of me. The man she sleeps with is a combination of the two men who are most dominant in my head right now—Parker and the guy I met at the party. I saw so little of ‘sex party man’ that I can’t visualize him, but Parker is crystal clear in my mind. The male character does things to her that are borderline abusive, and she loves every minute of it.
So do I. I stopped twice while writing the sex scene and have never gotten myself off so quickly with just my fingers.
After the one night stand, my female character wants to explore her sexuality further, so she goes back to the same bar looking for another one night stand. At this point, everything goes wrong and she ends up in the hospital. It’s okay, she gets back with the first guy and they live happily ever after. Eventually.
She’s not the only one who wants a second helping of fun. When I was ‘taking a break’ from writing, I imagined going to another sex party and it immediately got the juices flowing. It should stay a fantasy. The old me would never act on it. But I’m not like that anymore. I’m brave. I work for a man accused of murder.
I wait a few minutes after Tami gets home from work and then casually go into the kitchen on the pretense of needing a glass of water.
“Hey, how was work?” I ask.
“Ugh. Let’s just say I’m going to spend the night looking online for murderers who need help with the babysitting.”
“We should go out and let our hair down again.”
“I’m up for that,” Tami replies. “What about Vanish?”
I shrug. “We could. It’s a bit boring, though. It’s always half empty and the music is quiet.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you like about it?”
“It seems a bit tame after the other night.”
“How would you know? You bailed after a few minutes.”
“I’ll stay longer next time.”
“Wait a minute,” Tami says, excitedly. “Are you saying you want to go to another sex party?”
“I still prefer the term masquerade ball. But yes, I wouldn’t mind giving it another go. It could be fun.”
“I’m still in contact with the guy I met there. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.”
I disappear back into my room before Tami can ask any more questions about me going to a sex party or my job as Parker’s babysitter. I’ve spent my whole life overthinking things. It’s about time I lived in the moment and had some fun. The future starts now.
Chapter Six
Parker
It’s weird having a woman around in the mornings again. Since Shannon died, I’ve had a fair few women stay the night, but I’ve ushered them out the door the second the sun came up.
Carly asked to start work at seven-thirty each morning and stay until I get home in the evening which is no earlier than seven. I told her Marie can help with Olivia for a few hours each day,
but she insisted that the long days were fine with her. She probably needs the money.
It’s no bother to me, especially not when she keeps Olivia occupied in the morning and frees me up to fry some eggs and bacon. I don’t function well on an empty stomach, and shoving a protein bar in my mouth during the drive to work doesn’t cut it. Grady is constantly getting on my case for being a miserable bastard at work, and he’s right. I’m on edge and quick to let the stress show in front of my staff. Carly’s going to help more than she realizes.
“I brought your mail in,” Carly says, placing a stack of letters on the counter. “Most of it looks like junk.”
Most, but not all.
“Do you get that much every day?” she asks.
“No, I guess I haven’t been to collect it in a few days.”
A letter with a handwritten address stands out immediately. I know who it’s from and I know what it’s about.
“Everything okay?” Carly asks.
“Oh, yeah. Fine,” I reply, and go back to cooking the eggs. The letter taunts me. I can hear it calling out, reminding me about my dead wife and the man who knows what happened to her. That man and his letters have ruined enough mornings. He’s the reason I dread collecting my mail. I’m not going to let him ruin this breakfast.
“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” I ask Carly.
“No, I had breakfast before coming over.”
“If you’re going to start this early, then the least you can do is let me cook you breakfast.”
“Actually, I’d rather eat Olivia’s cereal. There’s no way I can stomach fried eggs first thing in the morning.”
Olivia grabs her box of cereal and clings it to her protectively. “My cereal,” she insists.
“I thought you didn’t like it,” I say.
“My cereal,” she repeats.
“You might have to teach her about sharing,” I say to Carly. “Do you have any plans for today?”
“We’re going to do some shopping because you’re low on food, and then we’re going to the park.”
