by Kit Frick
Now that I’m here, I barely miss Bay Ridge. I dig my nails into my palms and try not to think about the unopened bottle of Roca Patrón in the Bellamys’ kitchen. I am going to be the best nanny—au pair—Paisley’s ever had. The old skin I couldn’t shed fast enough is as good as gone, cast off in a dirty heap outside the Atlantic Terminal back in Brooklyn. That girl can’t touch me here; I’m different already.
3 THEN
June
Herron Mills, NY
WE SPREAD OUT our blanket on the white sand, and immediately Paisley vaults into the water. “She’s a strong swimmer,” Emilia assured me over breakfast, before dropping us off for the day. Her arms were impressively toned in a sleeveless silk V-neck, and her skin had a dewy, well-moisturized glow. I wondered if she always looked this polished at 8:00 a.m. “You have to keep an eye on her, but you don’t have to get in.”
Which is a good thing, because even lathered up with SPF 50, the sun will burn me to a crisp in no time. Like her father, Paisley is already tan, something my skin just doesn’t do. I position myself on my stomach in full shade beneath the Bellamys’ red-and-white-striped beach umbrella, chin propped on my hands to get a clear view of Paisley splashing around in the surf. The beach is small—another surprise—long, but narrow, and it’s easy to keep her in sight. In under five minutes, Paisley’s found a friend, a tall, red-haired girl. They seem to know each other, presumably from school. I catch snippets of their conversation, something about sand crabs and Moana.
I take a deep breath in, and my lungs fill with the salt air I’ve been craving since I was offered the position last month. Here, finally, is my fine sea mist. My thin gull cries. Blue water lapping at white sand. It’s crowded, but in an exclusive, permit-only kind of way, nothing like the busy city beaches Kaylee and I used to haunt on long summer afternoons.
Under the umbrella, I free my hair from its elastic and let it blow free, then plop an oversize sun hat on my head. Can’t be too careful. I accepted Emilia’s offer of a couple magazines to bring along, but I’m too nervous to take my eyes off Paisley. What if she runs off when I’m reading about this summer’s hostessing trends? I’m reassured to see lifeguards stationed every few yards, but it’s my first day nannying. I’m not taking any risks.
I keep my eyes trained on Paisley but can’t stop my mind from wandering. The Bellamys’ lives seem so effortless. Tom does whatever makes him his millions in the city while Emilia runs her graphic design business from her home studio. They’re both pursuing their passions; they have this beautiful kid and a beautiful house minutes from the beach. It’s everything I never had growing up in Bay Ridge with Mom. She’s a tech at a medical lab part time, but they can’t give her enough hours, so she cleans apartments too. The work hurts her back, so she takes too much Oxy, Demerol, Vicodin … the stream of pills is endless. I used to be thankful she was too out of it to care when the school complained about my spotty attendance record. When the cops brought me home for partying, again. When I’d pocket a few pills for Kaylee and Starr and me. Until I kind of started wanting her to care.
At least she stuck around, kept me fed, got me through high school. I have to give her that. But I think if I had as much money as the Bellamys, I’d move somewhere new to settle down. Herron Mills is beautiful, but I’d go somewhere far away from NYC, where no one would have to spend four nights a week in an apartment in the city, where the whole family could stay together.
I fantasize about Nashville, San Diego, Seattle. Any of the cities that might house my father, who got as far away as possible as soon as I started kindergarten. Guess he didn’t want to raise a child in the city either. Or at all.
My gaze skates across the shoreline in front of me, and for a moment, I can’t find Paisley. In my mind’s eye, I see her floating facedown too far out, where the water is dark and choppy, blond hair framing her small head like a halo. The sun is beating down on the umbrella overhead, but I’m suddenly cold. I’d had my eyes locked on her, but then … somewhere around Vicodin and cop cars I must have lost my focus. I’m about to scramble to my feet and start shouting her name when, a few yards to the left, Paisley and her friend burst out of the ocean and onto the beach, holding hands and shrieking. In a minute, they’re kneeling on the sand, sifting for shells. I let out a slow, shaky breath.
“Z?” My head jerks up. A couple feet in front of me, a boy is leaning over, hands propped on knees, head tilted to the side to peer under my umbrella rim. He’s a year or two older than me, scrawny but muscular, wearing red lifeguard trunks with the Herron Mills Guard insignia sewn on in white. He’s blocking my view of Paisley. I roll off my stomach and shove myself up to a sitting position. With Paisley back squarely in my sight, I tug my shades down to the tip of my nose and squint at him.
“Do I know you?” I ask. He’s another redhead, hair buzzed short and freckles dusting his nose. I’m pretty sure I don’t know him.
“Oh.” He takes a step back, then sinks into a squat, one freckled hand pressed to his chest. After a minute, he scrubs it across his face and blows a long stream of air through his lips. “Christ, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” He looks like he’s seen a ghost.
I slip my sunglasses back on and gather my hair in my hands, taming it again with an elastic. “That’s okay. I’m Anna. I’m nannying for the Bellamys this summer?”
“Oh sure,” he says. “That’s my little sister Paisley’s playing with. I’m Kyle.” He extends his hand toward me, and I have to reach out to grasp it. “Welcome to Herron Mills.”
“You’re a guard?” I ask, for lack of anything better to say.
“On my break. I was just raiding the cooler.” He grins, then motions toward Paisley and his family with his chin. “Come on over, I’ll introduce you.”
I grab a gauzy swimsuit cover from my bag and slip it over my shoulders. Paisley has joined Kyle’s family on their recliners a few feet over, and it hits me that I probably should have made a point to introduce myself to her friend’s parents on my own. What if they turned out to be creeps? What if Emilia asked me who Paisley met up with at the beach today, and I didn’t even know her friend’s name? My stomach clenches with the queasy certainty that I got this job by mistake, that despite my best intentions, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m going to mess this up just like I mess everything up. New, improved scenery, same old Anna.
But before I can shrivel into a puddle of shame, Kyle is introducing me. “Everyone, this is Anna …”
“Cicconi,” I supply. “Paisley’s nanny.”
I smile wide and shake the hands of the Paulson-Gosses, who introduce themselves as Hilary and Elizabeth. Raychel, Paisley’s friend, raises her fist for me to bump.
“Want some?” Paisley extends a bag of sweet potato chips toward me.
“I think those are probably Raychel’s chips,” I say because it sounds like something a responsible nanny would say. “Shouldn’t you ask her?”
“It’s fine,” Raychel says. “We’re all about sharing.”
I’m still full from Emilia’s breakfast spread, which involved about four more components than I’m used to at home, but I take a few chips to be polite.
Kyle swoops in for a fistful, then checks his chunky waterproof wristwatch. “I’d better get back. It was nice meeting you, Anna.” He grabs a can of soda from the cooler at his moms’ feet, and then he’s gone.
“How are you finding Herron Mills, Anna?” Hilary asks. She’s tall and willowy like her kids and shares their red hair and freckled complexion.
“I just got into town last night, so I haven’t had much of a chance to explore. But it’s lovely so far.”
Elizabeth, petite and curvy in a navy blue one-piece, explains that they’re taking a few days of “family stay-cation,” which I guess is what you do when you live at the beach. I look out, eyes skating across the water, and I’m struck suddenly by an intense wave of nostalgia. The fine white froth of the surf against the shore. The ocean’s wide maw. Th
e narrow ribbon of sand.
Mom and I aren’t exactly travelers; I’ve never been on a beach vacation. And the beaches in Brooklyn don’t look anything like this. Still, there’s something about this specific stretch of sand that’s so familiar, I could swear I’ve been here before. For a moment, it’s like I’m standing inside a past version of myself, scanning the water through her eyes, reliving a day I’ve already experienced. I can almost remember. It’s at the edge of my vision, just outside the frame.
“Paisley will have to take you to Jenkins’.” Elizabeth’s voice punches through my reverie, yanking me back to the present. To a place where the logical part of my brain says I’ve never set foot before today. “That’s the ice-cream shop on Main, family-owned for two generations now.”
“If you’ll have access to a car, there’s the aquarium in Riverhead,” Hilary adds.
“And the Big Duck!” Paisley squeals.
I shake off the last gritty silt of my almost-memory, tell myself it was a trick of the light against water. Then I tuck my hands into my armpits and flap them up and down like wings until Paisley and Raychel explode in a fit of giggles. Goofing off I can do. Adventures I can do. It’s responsibility that doesn’t come so easy. I make a promise to myself to work harder.
* * *
That evening, after grilled lamb chops and pea-greens salad on the back porch with Emilia and Paisley, I stretch out on a recliner by the pool and listen to the soft lap of the water spilling over the infinity edge in an endless black cascade. Hush, hush. It’s just begging me to draw it. My sketchbook is still packed, but I’ll dig it out tonight when the darkness prods me inside. There’s so much beauty out here. Both the natural kind and the kind that comes with scads and scads of money. I want to capture it all.
My days officially end after dinner, which is served at six thirty. Emilia and Paisley have mother-daughter time after the plates are cleared, and she takes care of the nighttime routine. I know it’s a pretty good arrangement; I should be grateful for so much time off. But tonight, staring down the end of my first full day in Herron Mills, I could use something to keep me busy. Someone to talk to. I can’t remember the last time I was totally on my own so early in the evening—no Mom, no Kaylee or whatever guy I was hooking up with at the time. Their chatter filling my ears, filling the hours before school would start up again, and I’d drag myself through another day.
The sticky summer air makes me miss Kaylee, in spite of myself. Sometimes, if we had money, we’d go to a movie or grab a slice of pizza. But most summer nights we’d fill our water bottles with vodka and grapefruit juice and lots of crushed ice and sit out on her fire escape, painting our toenails and surfing YouTube for funny videos until we got bored. Then we’d go to a bar, get older guys to buy us drinks. Go to Starr’s, go dancing where we could get in for the pretty girl discount, no ID, no questions asked. Last July was the first time the cops brought me home. It happened two more times over winter break. That I remember.
The back of my mouth waters, and I can’t tell if the idea of holding a cold drink in my hand is making me thirsty or ill. I want it and I don’t want it all at once. I don’t even like drinking that much, not past the first few sips when the booze still tastes like possibility and the promise of escape. New night, new faces, new Anna. It’s always a letdown. The next morning, I’m always the same. I kept it together enough to keep my grades up. Get into a decent college. But those last few months of senior year … I tell myself that’s why I’m here. I have something better to do this summer, someone better to become. Still, the night’s damp heat and the empty hours yawning before me make my palms itch at my sides, my lips turn dry.
I rummage in my bag for my phone, something to keep my hands busy. Mistake. I have three new messages from Kaylee since we got back from the beach, and I still haven’t responded to her texts from yesterday. I sigh and type out a quick reply, something about how busy my job is keeping me and how much I miss her. I promise to call soon, then sign off with a beach umbrella emoji.
I know she’s going to be pissed; it’s a bullshit reply. But I can’t get sucked into Kaylee’s drama right now, no matter how much I miss her. I need to learn how to be by myself, give this new, better Anna a shot. A girl who can spend a quiet summer evening by the pool with a paperback or sketchbook for company. A girl who doesn’t need guys to buy her drinks, doesn’t need to drink at all.
My phone rings, and I brace myself for Kaylee’s rancor. But it’s not Kaylee.
“Hi, Mom.”
“So you are alive.”
“I just got here yesterday. I was going to call this weekend.” It’s distinctly unlike my mom to act, well, this maternal. She’s never been the “call me when you get there” type.
“I got you that new phone for a reason.”
“I know.”
“You can come home. If you change your mind.”
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “It’s really nice here. Paisley’s cute, the Bellamys are nice. I’ve got this.” My voice is filled with conviction. Fake it till you make it.
“I’m sure you do. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Anna.”
“What is it then?” But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I get it. This is my first time away from home. The first time she’s had to worry. She probably should have done some worrying when I was still in Brooklyn, but at the end of the night, I always came home. She’s known about New Paltz for a while now, but I kind of sprang this job on her. I didn’t give her much time to mentally prepare.
“I’m sorry,” I say before she has a chance to respond. “I’ll try to call more.”
“You really like it there? In Herron Mills?”
“Yeah, it’s great. I’m going to save a lot for the fall. Me being here, this is a good thing, Mom.”
She sighs. “I’m sure it is, doll. I just miss you.”
I listen to a story about one of her coworkers at the lab, then promise to text her pictures from Clovelly Cottage and the beach. When we hang up, I lean my head back against the recliner and let the fading light wash over my skin. The back of the house faces west, and the sun is the same brilliant orange orb behind the tree line it was at this time yesterday. It’s beautiful. I tell myself to relax, focus on the girl I want to be. Just breathe.
4 NOW
August
Pathways Juvenile Center, East New York, Brooklyn
“GIRL, YOU ARE DAMN LUCKY.”
“Um, hi?”
“I cannot believe they’ve got you at Pathways. When Ryan Denny’s grow house got busted sophomore year, they held him at fucking Rikers.”
On the other end of the line, Anna lets Kaylee’s words sink in. She adjusts the phone’s sticky plastic receiver against her ear and glances at the guard stationed down the hall. Watching. Over the past two weeks, she’s rarely considered herself lucky. She’s back in Brooklyn, but this place could be anywhere. She’s never felt so far from home.
“Yeah, lucky me.” Anna shifts her weight, left foot, then right, and her Pathways-assigned sneakers squish against the concrete floor.
That night with Detective Holloway and AD Massey feels like another lifetime. In the fourteen days following her arrest, she’s been charged; processed; admitted; screened for medical, dental, and mental health; assessed for trauma; and assigned a case worker named Aubrey, a flighty woman only a few years older than Anna who doesn’t seem cut out for the juvenile justice system. Anna should be home, packing for SUNY New Paltz. The semester will start next week, without her. A trial date hasn’t even been set.
“But you’re also totally delusional. You know that, right?”
This isn’t the first time Anna has considered the possibility that something may be off-balance with her “mental health and wellness,” as the counselors here like to say. At night, in her cot, she closes her eyes and sends a mental searchlight around the inside of her head, scanning for a sign, a clue, a patch of rot. But her mind stays inscrutable. And she passed her intake
screening. No one has said a peep about mental illness, at least not to her face. Either she has everyone fooled, including herself, or her memories of that night are real.
“Maybe,” she concedes to Kaylee. “But I know what I remember. What I did.”
“Murder, Anna?” Kaylee squeaks. “You seriously think you killed some girl out in the Hamptons?”
Anna holds the receiver away from her ear until silence settles on the other end. She shifts her weight back and forth, back and forth, listening to the squish-squish of her sneakers. “Not murder, manslaughter,” she says softly.
“And the difference is?”
In the past two weeks, Anna has become an expert. “They’re charging me with manslaughter in the second degree. It means I recklessly caused her death.” And then concealed her body, a second felony. The two charges combined carry eight to twenty years in prison. Anna turns eighteen in December. If convicted, they probably will send her to Rikers Island. There’s been talk of shuttering the notorious jail complex for years, but it won’t be fast enough for Anna.
“Your memories are shit,” Kaylee says, shattering Anna’s thoughts, a rock into a sheet of glass. “You told them I was with you that night. Are you trying to punish me for what happened on the beach? Is that what this is about?”
It takes a minute for Anna to register what Kaylee’s asking. Her mind travels back a month and a half, to the Fourth of July, on the beach on Montauk. The last time she and Kaylee were together. “It was just a party. And I was never mad; I thought you were.” This isn’t about that, not even close. Isn’t really about Kaylee at all.