The Simple Life

by Tara Sivec

  “I don’t need a babysitter. Especially one like her. Who dresses like that to come to a farm?”

  Since Mia is the one getting her germs all over me and is still waving her tongue at me through the hole in her teeth, the charming angel glaring at me with her arms folded across her chest must be Grace.

  “This dress is a Donna Karan,” I scoff.

  “Well, Donna sucks and it’s ugly,” she fires back.

  Oh, no she did not!

  I wonder if she’s the one responsible for Mia’s missing tooth. She looks like she has a great right hook and wouldn’t hesitate to punch her sister in the face.

  Maybe she could teach me how to dodge a punch. I let out a hysterical giggle at just how much my life has fallen apart.

  “Grace, behave,” Mrs. Sherwood admonishes, giving her a stern look that just makes the girl roll her eyes and huff.

  Mrs. Sherwood holds out the pan of monkey balls to Grace, and when the girl turns her nose up at them, Mrs. Sherwood just sighs and puts the pan back on the counter. What kind of a person turns down freshly made monkey balls? Does she not understand the deliciousness that is dough covered in melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar? This kid definitely isn’t human.

  I can’t be a nanny. I don’t even like kids. How in the hell am I supposed to nanny them? What does nannying even entail? Don’t they like, change diapers and feed them bottles and put them down for naps? Grace looks like she’d slit my throat if I even suggested a nap. I could probably take her. I’m twice her size. But putting a kid in a choke hold would do nothing for my reputation. I don’t need to be known as the hussy, home wrecking, kid wrestler.

  All of a sudden, it occurs to me that these are probably Ember’s daughters. I knew she got married and had a kid or seven, but I’m Facebook friends with pretty much everyone from high school. They all have kids. Kids all look the same. They’re always dirty and usually have a finger in their nose. I scroll past those pictures faster than the random dick pics that creepers send me.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  I can’t just say no to being a nanny to Ember’s kids. Not only do I need the money, I can’t exactly rekindle an old friendship by telling her that her kids gross me out.

  “Are they housetrained?” I ask Mrs. Sherwood.

  She just shakes her head and laughs at me.

  Seriously, answer the question! Why is that funny?

  “We’re not puppies. God, you’re an idiot,” Grace mutters.

  The sound of the front door opening and slamming closed saves me from telling Grace to suck it.

  I should probably google how to behave around kids when I get back to Dad’s house later.

  “Daddy!” Mia screams, finally taking her sticky hands off of me and racing out of the kitchen.

  A few seconds later, the man I saw riding the horse out front walks into the room with his cowboy hat-covered head tipped down low so I can’t see his face, carrying Mia in his arms.

  Oh, screw you, ovaries!

  No, I still don’t like children, but come on! Seeing a hot, manly cowboy wearing tight jeans, with his cowboy boots thumping across the floor, and carrying a kid in his arms would make anyone weak. Too bad he’s Ember’s husband. Damn. I should have paid better attention to her Facebook photos. Lucky, lucky girl.

  And then he lifts his head and our eyes meet.

  Wait just one damn minute. This isn’t possible. There’s no fucking way.

  “You!” I shout, my eyes bugging out of my head.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” he growls, setting Mia down on the ground.

  My only source of happiness right now is that Mia presses her face to his jean clad leg and wipes her nose back and forth against the material, leaving a trail of snot behind.

  Clint Hastings. Ember’s older brother and my arch nemesis growing up.

  Whatever. I know I’m not a superhero in a comic book, but this guy has been the bane of my existence since the day I met him when I was in kindergarten, he was in second grade, and he threw a rock at my head. I kicked him in his tiny nuggets first, since he told me I couldn’t play baseball with him and his friends because I was a girl, but that’s not the point. If this were a comic book and we were meeting in a dark alley, I’d be holding my fists above my head next to a talk bubble that says So, we meet again. Tonight I will get my revenge and you will die by my iron fists! WHAM! BAM! KAPOW!

  I cannot believe I was checking out his ass when I got here. There’s got to be a bottle of bleach somewhere in this kitchen I can pour into my eyes.

  “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be off in Silicon Valley becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg?” I ask, making sure my eyes stay above his neck and aren’t tempted to head south and see if those tiny nuggets hugged in his tight jeans grew in size since the last time I threw my foot into them.

  Which would have been his senior year of high school, right here in this very kitchen, at his graduation party when he asked me if I bought the dress I was wearing in the toddler section.

  It was a LBD! It was supposed to be tight and tiny, goddammit!

  And seriously, what is he doing here? Last I heard through the high school grapevine, after he graduated from UCLA, he became a hotshot software developer at some huge company in Los Angeles and hadn’t been back home in years. Not that I ever asked. Or cared. You know, just idle chitchat after one too many glasses of wine and a friend request on Facebook from someone we went to high school with.

  “Awww, have you been keeping tabs on me all these years, fancy pants? I knew you always had a thing for me.” Clint smirks.

  “In your dreams. You smell like horse shit.”

  “You look like horse shit,” he fires back, that stupid grin never leaving his face.

  “Horse shit!” Mia shouts with a smile, throwing her tiny, sticky fists in the air.

  “Girls, why don’t you go up to your rooms and find something to do,” Mrs. Sherwood wisely suggests.

  I’m guessing you aren’t supposed to swear in front of kids. Maybe Clint needs a few Google lessons on child rearing as well.

  Surprisingly, Mia and Grace turn without a word and march out of the room. When they’re out of earshot, Mrs. Sherwood puts her hands on her hips and gives us each a reproaching look.

  “You two haven’t seen each other in twelve years. Isn’t it about time you bury the hatchet and end this ridiculous hatred for each other?” she questions.

  “She told the entire high school I lost my virginity to my computer and set it on fire,” Clint complains.

  “Oh, come on! It was a joke. Like anyone believed that. Besides, your penis was entirely too tiny to start any fires by thrusting it in the USB port.” I snicker, remembering the day I started that rumor and the beauty of Clint’s face when he heard it after lunch.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be living the high life in New York? I thought you swore you’d never come back to this one-horse town. Have a nice trip? See you next fall.” He grins.

  “I knew it!” I shout, pointing my finger at him. “I knew you tripped me during that homecoming game my freshman year, you rat bastard!”

  That trumpet player in the band who pointed and laughed at me? That was Clint.

  Yes, I’m still holding a grudge about that shit. Grudges and I are old friends. We have wine together every Thursday and talk about old times and all the people we hate. It’s a very therapeutic relationship.

  “All right, that’s enough!” Mrs. Sherwood scolds. “My goodness, you two are worse than the girls.”

  Your honor, I object!

  “Clint,” she continues. “Brooklyn is going to be the girl’s nanny this summer, so stop acting like a toddler and use your manners.”

  I stick my tongue out at him behind Mrs. Sherwood’s back, pulling it in quickly when she turns to face me, which gives Clint the opportunity to give me the finger when she’s no longer looking at him.

  “Brooklyn, we really need you. I’m ge
tting too old to handle the girls full-time now that they’re out of school for the summer.”

  She looks me up and down and gives me a sheepish smile.

  “You might want to wear something… a little less fancy when you come over tomorrow. You look wonderful,” she quickly adds. “But, you know. The girls can be a little messy.”

  I notice Clint is now staring down at my legs right along with Mrs. Sherwood, and he has a gleam in his eyes that I don’t like one bit.

  “See you tomorrow, fancy pants. Make sure you wash the shit off your legs before you go to bed tonight.” He winks, touching the brim of his cowboy hat before sauntering out of the room.

  I quickly look down at my legs, and my eyes widen in horror when I see something brown and gooey dripping down the left one, clearly the mysterious sticky substance Mia wiped all over me when she came in the room.

  “It’s not shit! It’s chocolate from your messy, sticky kid!” I shout after him.

  Oh, God. Please let it be chocolate and not actual shit.

  My hair damn well better appreciate the hell I’m going to endure in the name of good conditioning.

  Chapter 4

  Pouting Life

  For at least nine months, I’ve been having this same dream almost every night. I’m driving my car down a road, listening to music and perfectly happy, and then all of a sudden, my car swerves off the road and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I hit mailboxes, I run over garbage cans, I frighten small children who run screaming out of my way, and I turf every lawn I drive through. I always wake up right before I crash into something, like a house or a brick wall. I had that damn dream again last night after I finally managed to fall asleep, and decided to google it. All this time, I thought maybe that dream meant I should start obeying speed limit signs, and stop joking that those numbers are just a suggestion. It turns out, that dream means I’m being irresponsible with my choices. Which makes sense now, considering those stupid dreams started right around the time I met Stephen. And of course I had another one on the day I saw Clint Hastings again for the first time in years and took a job being a nanny to his kids.

  Clint fucking Hastings.

  I still can’t believe I was ogling his ass yesterday. I had to take two scalding hot showers when I got home just to try and scrub the ickyness from my skin. I will never admit this out loud to anyone, but I always thought Clint was cute, in a nerdy, boy next door kind of way. When I spread the rumor that he lost his virginity to his computer, it really wasn’t that outlandish of a lie. He’d converted the entire basement of the farmhouse into a computer workshop, with computer pieces and parts sitting on every available surface, which he tinkered with whenever he was home. At school, he spent every free period in the computer lab. When most teenage boys were stealing their dad’s Playboy and Penthouse magazines and hiding out in a barn to drool over the pictures of naked women, Clint would be locked in his bedroom orgasming over the newest edition of PC World.

  Great. Now I’m thinking about Clint and his orgasm face.

  I don’t even understand the Clint Hastings I saw yesterday. He was wearing jeans. Well-worn jeans that hugged his thighs and ass. I could actually see the muscle definition in his thighs when he bent to set Mia down. In high school, Clint wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of jeans. He always looked like he was heading off to an IT meeting, in his freshly pressed khakis and crisp button down that never failed to be neatly tucked into his dress pants.

  And the fact that he was on a horse, clearly doing work around the farm, just blows my mind. Old Man Hastings used to yell at Clint on a daily basis to stop tinkering with his stupid electronics and help out in the fields. I also started a rumor back then that he was a vampire since he rarely left that dark basement, and I assumed it was because the sunlight would burn his skin. His pale, teenage face has been replaced with a five o’clock shadow of scruff, and the bronzed color of his skin from working outside makes his green eyes even brighter.

  It’s not fair that he got hotter with age, has two beautiful—albeit satanic—daughters, and probably has the perfect life, when I’m standing at the threshold of hell and my life is in shambles. The only bright spot is that I’m sure his kids will be in prison before they turn eighteen.

  “If you keep pouting like that, a bird is gonna come along and shit on your lip.”

  I angrily shovel another mouthful of yogurt and granola into my mouth and glare at my dad. “I’m not pouting. I don’t pout.”

  “You’re pouting. You’re two seconds away from throwing yourself on the floor and having yourself a good, old-fashioned temper tantrum.” He chuckles with a shake of his head, picking up a piece of turkey bacon, curling his lip at it, and then tossing it back on his plate. “This shit tastes like the bottom of my shoe.”

  Pushing my chair away from the table, I grab his plate and stomp over to the sink, dumping everything down the drain.

  “Hey, I wasn’t finished,” he complains as I turn on the garbage disposal to drown out the sound of his voice for a few seconds.

  Flipping the switch to shut it off, I turn around and cross my arms as I lean back against the counter.

  “You’re not getting real bacon, so get used to it.”

  “Just because you’re in a pissy mood doesn’t mean you need to take it out on bacon. What did bacon ever do to you?” he questions.

  “It gave you three ninety-percent blockages in your arteries, that’s what it did to me,” I remind him.

  “Listen, it took me sixty years to do that much damage. Now that they’ve fixed me, I have at least another sixty years of good eating left in me.” He shrugs.

  “That’s not how this works.”

  I shake my head at him, turning back around to rinse off the dishes in the sink from breakfast, and the ones I left here last night after dinner. I was too grumpy to do anything after I made dinner, other than make sure my dad was comfortable in his chair and lock myself in my bedroom to think about what happened out at the Hastings’ Farm. My mood didn’t get any better when Stephen sent me a text, begging me to call him for the hundredth time, which I ignored, just like the other text messages he’s sent and voice mails he’s left since I fled from New York. Even lying on my bed, staring up at a poster of Joshua Jackson from his days on Dawson’s Creek still taped to my ceiling didn’t help my mood.

  Oh, Pacey, why hath you forsaken me?

  “I can’t believe you lied to me about what the job was at Hastings Farm, or clue me in on the fact that Clint works there,” I mutter over my shoulder, as I load the dishes into the dishwasher.

  “I didn’t lie. I fudged the truth a little bit. And Clint doesn’t just work there, he runs the place. His dad got the cancer right after Clint graduated from college and couldn’t handle running the place anymore. He told Clint he could either have the farm or they were gonna sell it. Clint already had Grace at that point and decided he’d like to raise her here instead of in California, and he didn’t want the farm leaving the family,” my dad replies, meeting me at the sink with our coffee cups.

  Interesting.

  I knew Old Man Hastings got cancer. I saw a Facebook post about it and sent Ember my condolences via Facebook Messenger. She never said a word about Clint moving back home, though.

  I snatch the coffee cups out of my dad’s hand and rinse them out.

  “You know I’m not a fan of kids. Especially kids that belong to Clint. No wonder Mrs. Sherwood can’t handle them. He passed his sparkling personality on to them,” I mutter, thinking about the death stare Grace aimed at me the entire time I was in the kitchen, and her insult of Donna Karan.

  “Those girls haven’t had an easy go of it, and neither has Clint. He’s a good, hardworking man. He gave up everything to come back home and take over the family business. You two might actually get along and realize you have more in common than you think if you’d take that stick out of your ass and give him a chance,” my dad chastises.

  “I’ve grown fond of the s
tick up my ass. It’s a built-in jerk repellant.”

  My dad shakes his head at me and walks away from the sink.

  “Hey!” I shout, drying my hands on a towel and turning around as he pauses in the doorway. “What about the girls’ mother? Why isn’t she around to watch her own kids? Does he have her chained up in the basement or something? Oooh, she was a mail order bride, wasn’t she? Did her visa expire and she got shipped back to whatever country he bought her from?”

  My dad sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose.

  “There’s this thing we do here in Montana that you might not be familiar with after living in New York for so long. It’s called polite conversation, otherwise known as talking. You should try it with Clint, instead of always throwing insults at him. You catch more flies with honey,” he reminds me before turning and walking out of the room.

  “Yeah, well, flies are annoying and pesky, and I don’t really want to catch them!” I yell after him.

  Polite conversation with Clint Hastings? Nope. Never gonna happen. It’s fine. I’m a resourceful woman. I’m sure I can find out everything I want to know about the guy just by spending five minutes in town and asking the right questions. Not that I really care about Clint, or feel bad that he hasn’t had an easy go of it. Just simple curiosity. I’m going to be taking care of the guy’s kids for the summer. It’ll be like doing research on a new employer, which is always the most important part of any job.

  Unfortunately, my research will have to wait. With a look at the clock hanging on the wall next to the kitchen doorway, I realize I have less than an hour to get ready for my first day of being a nanny. I wonder if my dad still has all his old hockey gear from when I was younger and he used to play on a league with some of his friends from work. I’m thinking a face mask, heavy duty padding, and a nice, hard stick will help me handle those two little spawns of Clint Satan.

  Chapter 5

  Bullshit Life

  “Brooklyn! Oh my God, you’re really here!”