My Life Next Door

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  I’d expected to see more of Clay Tucker, but not like this.

  “What is it, Samantha?” Nan asks, pulling at my arm.

  What’s going on? It wasn’t a French kiss, but it was definitely not a she’s-my-sister kiss.

  “That’s my mom’s new boyfriend.” Now Clay squeezes the woman’s shoulder and winks, still smiling.

  “Your mom has a boyfriend? You’re kidding. When did that happen?”

  The woman laughs and brushes Clay’s sleeve.

  Nan glances at me, wincing.

  “I don’t know when they met. It seems sort of serious. I mean, it looked like it. On my mom’s end.”

  Now the brunette, whom I notice is at least a decade younger than Mom, opens up a briefcase and hands Clay a manila folder. He tilts his head at her in a you’re-the-best way.

  “Is he married, do you know?” Nan asks in a hushed voice. It suddenly occurs to me that we’re standing still on the sidewalk, quite obviously staring. Just then, Clay looks over and sights us. He waves at me, seemingly unabashed. If you cheat on my mother, I think, then let the thought trail off, because, in all honesty, what’ll I do?

  “She’s probably just a friend,” Nan offers, unconvincingly. “C’mon, let’s get that ice cream.” I give Clay one last look, hopefully conveying imminent harm to treasured body parts if he’s cheating on my mom. Then I follow Nan. What else can I do?

  I try to erase Clay from my mind, at least until I can get home and think. Nan doesn’t bring it up again, thank God.

  I’m relieved when we get to Doane’s. It’s in this little salt box building near the pier, which divides the mouth of the river from the ocean. Doane’s was the penny candy store back when there was such a thing as penny candy. Now its big draw is Vargas, the candy-corn-pecking chicken—a moth-eaten fake chicken with real feathers for which you have to pay a quarter to activate his frantic OCD pecking of ancient candy corn. For some reason, this is a big tourist draw, along with Doane’s soft ice cream, taffy, and good view of the lighthouse.

  Nan scrounges through her wallet. “Samantha! I had twenty dollars. Now I’ve got nothing! I’m going to kill my brother.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I tell her, leafing a few bills from my pocket.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Nan tells me, taking the cash.

  “It’s no problem, Nanny. So, you want the ice cream?”

  “Eventually. So anyway, Daniel took me to New Haven to see a movie last night. I thought we had a great time, but he’s only texted once today and all he said was ‘LVYA’ instead of spelling it all the way out. What do you think that means?”

  Daniel’s always been inscrutable to me. He’s the kind of smart that makes you feel stupid.

  “Maybe he was in a hurry?”

  “With me? If you’re going to take time, shouldn’t it be with your girlfriend?” Nan’s filling her plastic bag with root beer barrels and gummy bears and chocolate-covered malt balls. Sugar rush retail therapy.

  I don’t know quite what to say. Finally, without looking at her, I just blurt out what I’ve thought for a while. “Daniel seems like he always makes you nervous. Is that okay?”

  Nan’s now contemplating Vargas, who seems to be in the midst of an epileptic fit. He’s no longer pecking the candy corn, just kind of throbbing back and forth. “I wouldn’t know,” she says finally. “Daniel’s my first real boyfriend. You had Charley and Michael. And even Taylor Oliveira back in eighth grade.”

  “Taylor doesn’t count. We kissed once.”

  “And he told everyone you’d gone all the way!” Nan says, as if this proves her point.

  “Right, I’d forgotten that. What a prince. He was the love of my life, it’s true. How was the movie with Daniel?”

  Vargas twitches more and more slowly, then shudders to a stop. “The movie?” Nan says vaguely. “Oh, right—The Sorrow and the Pity. Well, it was fine—for a three-hour black-and-white movie about Nazis, but then afterward we went to this coffeehouse and there were some Yale grad students there. Daniel suddenly got completely pretentious and started using words like ‘tautological’ and ‘subtext.’”

  I laugh. Although it was Daniel’s brains that drew Nan, his pompous streak is a recurring theme.

  “I finally had to haul him out to the car and get him kissing me so he’d stop talking.”

  Before the word “kissing” is out of her mouth, I’m picturing Jase Garrett’s lips. Nice lips. Full lower lip, but not pouty or sulky. I turn to look at Nan. She’s bent over the jelly beans, her fine strawberry hair tucked behind one ear, a ragged fingernail in her mouth. Her nose is a little sunburned, peeling, her freckles darker than they were last week. I open my mouth to tell her I met this boy but can’t quite say the words. Even Nan never knew I watched the Garretts. It isn’t exactly that I kept it from her. I just never brought it up. Besides…I met this boy? That story could go anywhere. Or nowhere at all. I turn back to the candy.

  “What do you think?” Nan asks. “Do we get Tim his jelly beans? You’re the one with the cash.”

  “Yes, let’s get ’em. But only the scary green ones.”

  Nan closes the top of her bag with a loud crumple. “Samantha? What are we going to do about him?”

  I scoop a clattering cascade of green apple Jelly Bellys into the white paper bag and remember when we were seven. I got stung by a jellyfish. Tim cried because his mother, and mine, wouldn’t let him pee on my leg, which he’d heard was an antidote to the sting. “But Ma, I have the power to save her!” he’d sobbed. That was a joke between us for years: Don’t forget I have the power to save you! Now he can’t even seem to save himself.

  “Beyond hoping these are magic beans,” I say, “I have no idea.”

  Chapter Eight

  The next afternoon, I’m kicking off my work shoes on our porch, preparing to go in to change, when I hear Mrs. Garrett. “Samantha! Samantha, could you come here for a second?”

  She’s standing at the end of our driveway, holding Patsy. George is next to her, in only boxers. Farther up the driveway, Harry’s lurking behind a wagon with one of those nozzles that attach to a garden hose in his hand, evidently playing sniper.

  As I get up close, I see that she’s again breast-feeding Patsy. She gives me her wide-open smile, and says, “Oh Samantha…I was just wondering. Jase was telling me how great you were with George…and I wondered if you ever—” She stops suddenly, looking more closely at me, her eyes widening.

  I look down. Oh. The uniform. “It’s my work outfit. My boss designed it.” I don’t know why I always add this, except to establish that otherwise there’s no way in hell I’d be caught dead in a blue miniskirt and a middy shirt.

  “A man, I assume,” Mrs. Garrett says dryly.

  I nod.

  “Naturally. Anyway…” She begins talking in a rush. “I wondered if you might ever be interested in doing some babysitting? Jase didn’t want me to ask you. He was afraid you’d think that he lured unsuspecting girls into our house so that I could exploit them for my own needs. Like some desperate mom version of white slavery.”

  I laugh. “I didn’t think that.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” She grins at me again. “I know everyone must believe I do that, ask every girl I see if they baby sit, but I don’t. Very few people are good with George straight off, and Jase said you got him right away. I can use the older children, of course, but I hate making them feel as though I expect it. Alice, for example, always acts as though it’s a huge burden.” She’s talking fast, as though she’s nervous. “Jase never minds, but his job at the hardware store and his training take most of his time, so he’s gone a lot, except one afternoon a week, and of course part of the weekend. Anyway, I only need a few hours here and there.”

  “It would be fine,” I say. “I don’t have much experience, but I learn fast, and I’d be happy to babysit.” As long as you don’t tell my mother.

  Mrs. Garrett gives me a grateful look, then pulls Patsy off one bre
ast and, after reaching up to unsnap something, moves her to the other. Patsy wails in protest. Mrs. Garrett rolls her eyes. “She only likes one side,” she confides. “Very uncomfortable.”

  I nod again, though I have no idea why that would be. Thanks to my mother’s comprehensive “your body is changing” talk, I’m clear on sex and pregnancy, but still hazy on the nursing end. Thank God.

  At this point, George interjects. “Did you know that if you drop a penny off the top of the Empire State Building, you could kill someone?”

  “I did know. But that never happens,” I say quickly. “Because people on the observation deck are really, really careful. And there’s a big plastic wall.”

  Mrs. Garrett shakes her head. “Jase is right. You’re a natural.”

  I feel a glow of pleasure that Jase thought I did anything well.

  “Anyway,” she continues. “Could you do one or maybe two times a week—in the afternoon, if that works with your summer job?”

  I agree, tell her my schedule, even before she offers me more than I make at Breakfast Ahoy. Then she asks, again looking a little self-conscious, if I would mind starting today.

  “Of course not. Just let me change.”

  “Don’t change.” George reaches out to touch my skirt with a grubby finger. “I like that. You look like Sailor Supergirl.”

  “More like Sailor Barbie, I’m afraid, George. I have to change because I worked in this all morning and it smells like eggs and bacon.”

  “I like eggs and bacon,” George tells me. “But”—his face clouds—“do you know that bacon is”—tears leap to his eyes—“Wilbur?”

  Mrs. Garrett sits down next to him immediately. “George, we’ve been through this. Remember? Wilbur did not get made into bacon.”

  “That’s right.” I bend down too as wetness overflows George’s lashes. “Charlotte the spider saved him. He lived a long and happy life—with Charlotte’s daughters, um, Nelly and Urania and—”

  “Joy,” Mrs. Garrett concludes. “You, Samantha, are a keeper. I hope you don’t shoplift.”

  I start to cough. “No. Never.”

  “Then is bacon Babe, Mom? Is it Babe?”

  “No, no, Babe’s still herding sheep. Bacon is not Babe. Bacon is only made from really mean pigs, George.” Mrs. Garrett strokes his hair, then brushes his tears away.

  “Bad pigs,” I clarify.

  “There are bad pigs?” George looks nervous. Oops.

  “Well, pigs with, um, no soul.” That doesn’t sound good either. I cast around for a good explanation. “Like the animals that don’t talk in Narnia.” Dumb. George is four. Would he know Narnia yet? He’s still at Curious George. Edited.

  But understanding lights his face. “Oh. That’s okay then. ’Cause I really like bacon.”

  When I return, George is already standing in the inflatable pool while Harry sprays water into it. Mrs. Garrett efficiently removes Patsy’s diaper, pulling on some sort of puffy plastic pants with little suns all over them.

  “You haven’t really met Harry. Harry, this is Jase’s friend Samantha, who’s going to be watching you for a while.”

  How did I get to be Jase’s friend? I’ve talked to him twice. Wow, is Mrs. Garrett ever different from my mother.

  Harry, who’s got green eyes but fairly straight dark brown hair and lots of freckles, looks at me challengingly. “Can you do a back dive?”

  “Um. Yes.”

  “Will you teach me? Right now?”

  Mrs. Garrett interrupts. “Harry, we discussed this. Samantha can’t take you in the big pool because she has to keep her eye on the little ones.”

  Harry’s lower lip juts out. “She could put Patsy in the BabyBjörn like you do and go in the water. She could hold George’s hand. He can swim pretty good with his swimmies.”

  Mrs. Garrett glances at me apologetically. “My children expect everyone to multitask to an extreme degree. Harry, no. It’s this pool or nothing.”

  “But I can swim now. I can swim really good. And she knows how to back dive. She could teach me to back dive.” While wearing the baby and holding George’s hand? I’d need to be Sailor Supergirl.

  “No,” Mrs. Garrett repeats firmly. Then, to me: “A will of iron. Just keep saying no. Eventually he’ll move on.” She takes me back into the house, shows me where the diapers are, tells me to help myself to anything in the refrigerator, gives me her cell phone number, points out the list of emergency numbers, cautions me not to bring up the subject of tornadoes in front of George, hops into her van, and drives off.

  Leaving me with Patsy, who’s trying to pull up my shirt, George, who wants me to know that you should never touch a blue-ringed octopus, and Harry, who looks like he wants to kill me.

  Actually, it doesn’t go that badly.

  I’ve mostly avoided babysitting. It’s not that I don’t like kids, but I hate the uncertain hours of it. I’ve never wanted to deal with parents arriving late and apologetic, or that awkward drive home with some dad trying to make small talk. But the Garrett kids are pretty easy. I take them over to our house so I can get our garden sprinkler, which is this complicated standing copper twirling thing. Harry, fortunately, thinks it’s amazing, and he and George spend an hour and a half playing in it, then jumping back into the baby pool while Patsy sits in my lap, gnawing my thumb with her gums and drooling on my hand.

  I’ve finished doing the snack thing and am herding the kids back out to the pool when the motorcycle pulls in.

  I turn with a tingle of anticipation, but it’s not Jase. It’s Joel who gets off the motorcycle, leans against it, and does that whole slow-appreciative-scan-of-your-entire-body thing. Which I get quite enough of at Breakfast Ahoy. “George. Harry. Who’ve you brought home?” Joel says. He is good-looking, but a little too much on the and-well-he-knows-it end of the scale.

  “This is Sailor Supergirl,” George says. “She knows all about black holes.”

  “And back dives,” Harry adds.

  “But you can’t have her because she’s going to marry Jase,” George concludes.

  Wonderful.

  Joel looks surprised, as well he might. “You’re a friend of Jase’s?”

  “Well, not really, I mean, we just met. I’m here to babysit.”

  “But she went to his room,” George adds.

  Joel raises an eyebrow at me.

  Again with the full-body blush. All too apparent in a bikini. “I’m just the babysitter.”

  George grabs me around the waist, kissing my belly button. “No. You’re Sailor Supergirl.”

  “So where did you come from?” Joel folds his arms, slanting back against the motorcycle.

  George and Harry run back into the copper sprinkler. I’m holding Patsy on one hip, but she keeps trying to pull off my bikini top.

  “Move her to the other side,” Joel suggests, without batting an eyelash.

  “Oh. Right.” Patsy, the baby with the one-breast preference.

  “You were saying?” Joel’s still leaning lazily back against the motorcycle.

  “Next door. I came from next door.”

  “You’re Tracy Reed’s sister?

  Of course. Naturally he would not have overlooked Tracy. While I’m blond, Tracy is A Blonde. That is, I’m straw and sort of honey-colored with freckles from Dad, while Tracy’s tow-headed with pale skin. She, unfairly, looks like she’s never seen the sun, although she spends most of her summers on the beach.

  “Yup.” Then, suddenly, I wonder if my sister too has secretly interacted with the Garretts. But Joel isn’t blond, Tracy’s chief boyfriend requirement, right up there with a good backhand, so probably not. Just to be sure, I ask, “Do you play tennis?”

  Joel looks unfazed by this non sequitur, no doubt used to flustered girls making no sense.

  “Badly.” He reaches out for Patsy, who’s apparently decided at this point that any breast will do. Her little fingers keep returning determinedly to my top.

  “Yeah, the leather jack
et probably slows down your return volley.” I hand him the baby.

  He gives a mock salute. “Sailor Supergirl and smartass. Nice.”

  Just then a Jeep pulls into the driveway, very fast. Alice slams out, reaching back to disentangle her purse strap from the gearshift and yank the purse to her. Her hair at the moment is electric blue, pulled into a side ponytail. She’s wearing a black halter top and very short shorts.

  “You knew the score, Cleve,” she snaps at the driver of the car. “You knew where you stood.” She straightens, stalking over to the kitchen door and slamming it behind her. Unlike her brothers, she’s small, but that does nothing to deflect from her unmistakable air of authority.

  Cleve, a mild-looking guy in a Hawaiian-print bathing suit and a PacSun shirt, does not look as though he’d known the score. He slumps behind the wheel.

  Joel hands Patsy back to me and goes over to the car. “Bummer, man,” he says to Cleve, who tips his head in acknowledgment but says nothing.

  I return to the sprinkler and sit down. George plunks down next to me. “Did you know that a bird-eating tarantula is as big as your hand?”

  “Jase doesn’t have one of those, does he?”

  George gives me his sunniest smile. “No. He useta have a reg’lar tarantula named Agnes, but she”—his voice drops mournfully—“died.”

  “I’m sure she’s in tarantula heaven now,” I assure him hastily, shuddering to think what that might look like.

  Mrs. Garrett’s van pulls in behind the motorcycle, disgorging what I assume are Duff and Andy, both red-faced and windblown. Judging by their life jackets, they’ve been at sailing camp.

  George and Harry, my loyal fans, rave to their mother about my accomplishments, while Patsy immediately bursts into tears, points an accusing finger at her mother, and wails, “Boob.”