“Listen,” I began.
“Don’t worry about it.” Trista’s voice was wooden. “You’d better go inside.”
“Don’t you want to wait inside for the cab?”
“I’m fine out here,” Trista said from where she’d perched on the brick steps that led to the front stoop.
“Then why don’t I wait with you?”
“Annie,” Trista’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp. “You heard her. She wants you to work right now.”
“Yeah.” I stood there awkwardly for a few seconds before Trista spoke up again.
“You know it’s going to cost me at least thirty bucks to get back to campus,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I’ll give you the money.”
“Don’t bother.”
And so I turned and walked inside with Zoe at my heels, shutting Trista—and my embarrassment—out of the house.
“Why would you do that?” Libby hissed her words as I entered the kitchen. She was busy pulling foil-covered platters from two large paper bags with a “Vic’s Catering” logo on them. She unwrapped each carefully and placed as many in the oven as the oven could hold. But there was a certain rigidity to her shoulders, a stiffness in the way she carried herself.
“I just thought . . . you’re always encouraging me to make friends,” I stammered.
“Let me be clear about something,” Libby said. “This is not your house. You may not invite people here without first checking, particularly not to a dinner I’m preparing. Maybe I’ve blurred the lines a little too much, Nanny. You’re our staff. I don’t know what you were thinking.”
I took a deep breath, fighting back tears. Apparently the relationship I’d seen developing between me and Libby—what I’d thought was a sort of mentor-friend type of thing—had only existed for me. My heart pulsed in my ears.
“Another thing,” Libby said, her voice getting louder. “I do not want strangers poking around this house. Not now, not ever.” Walker poked his head in the room as she was finishing her sentence. He approached Libby, adjusting his tie as he entered. His eyes darted from me to her, taking us both in.
“Sweetheart?” he said to her. “Annie. What’s wrong?”
“Annie invited a stranger over—to dinner—without having asked.”
“I asked,” I protested.
“You brought her here without my permission!” Libby’s voice was cold and furious. Her normally porcelain skin was even paler than usual, almost as if, in her anger, it had been drained of pigment.
“Where’s the girl now?” Walk wanted to know.
“Outside,” I said. “Waiting for a cab.”
“A cab? That’s ridiculous. I’ll drive her. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“Walker! You most certainly will not,” said Libby, aghast. “I’m sure the girl will be perfectly fine in a cab.”
“But the money, Libby. Why make her pay for a cab when we can easily drive her?”
“I need you here,” she told him. “I need your help preparing for our guests.”
“All right,” he sighed, throwing his hands in the air. “Fine. What do you need me to do?”
“First off, I’d love for you to talk with Annie,” she said, as though I wasn’t standing right there. “I’m tired of having to lay down all the rules around here, like she’s another child.” I winced. Her words cut me deep.
“We can’t have strangers in the house, Annie,” Walker said, turning to me. “At least not without asking us first. Even if you were our child, that’s a courtesy we’d expect. We want to include you in our daily lives—in dinners like this and days at the beach—but you really need to ask about other things. You can’t just assume that you can treat this like it’s your home.”
I nodded, trying hard not to cry. “I’m really sorry,” I told him. “I won’t do it again.”
“It’s fine,” he said, while Libby glared from the corner by the stove. “It’s all fine. It’s over, so let’s just move on and enjoy the night.” He looked extremely stressed out, as if conflict wasn’t at all his strong suit. “I’m going to go get cleaned up, splash some water on my face, do a shooter . . .” He paused. “Not funny? Yeah. Okay. I’ll just be upstairs. Libby, holler if you need me.”
“Please get cleaned up for dinner, Annie, and put Zoe in something nice, too,” Libby said stiffly. I nodded and retreated to my room. I wasn’t sure what had happened; I only knew that I’d done something to profoundly upset Libby. And now I was shaking all over, as if my body had experienced an intense shock. I gripped my hands together, trying to make them stop trembling. But I couldn’t. I was sweating, too. And now Owen was coming over, and I had to act normal. I didn’t know how I could pull it off. I hadn’t heard a word from him in days, not even a move on Words with Friends. He had disappeared. And now with Libby’s anger, I’d never felt more alone. I needed to cry, to scream, something . . . but I didn’t even have a door to slam or hide behind. The thought of acting normal, saving face—it was inconceivable. But I would have to find some way to hold myself together.
One thing had become clear: I knew that I wouldn’t be able to have a normal life here, or at least not the kind of life other college kids considered normal. I went into the bathroom that adjoined my room and closed that door. It was the only place I could go to have privacy: my bathroom, my sanctuary. I laughed miserably at that. Everything had turned into a nightmare, and it seemed like Libby hated me, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
But then something occurred to me: it said something that Libby hated the thought of strangers in the house, but she’d embraced me. Me, whom she’d known for less than a month. She trusted me. She cared about me. She had to. All of this anger, it was because she knew I was better than I was behaving. I was letting her down.
I couldn’t let her down.
I blew my nose and wet my face with a cold cloth. Then I walked up to Zoe’s room calmly and began rifling through her closet. I was flooded with conflicting emotions. Anger, confusion—but predominantly guilt. I didn’t want to be a troublemaker. All my life, I’d screwed things up. Not this time.
• • •
“THE PINK ONE,” announced Zoe.
“Don’t be a goof. There are at least seven pink ones,” I informed her. “Come on, narrow it down for me.” After a few minutes of arguing with Zoe about something as banal as what dress she’d wear to the dinner party, I felt much calmer. Zoe brought me back to earth.
“That one!” she shouted, pointing at an outfit I was all too familiar with—I’d seen the frilly pink number in her Halloween pictures from last year. It had blue and purple sashes woven through and silver sparkles scattered across.
“Zoe, that’s a costume,” I said. “You need to pick a nice dress for Mommy and Daddy’s visitors.”
“THAT ONE,” Zoe said stubbornly. I weighed my options. The Oswalds were due to arrive any minute, and I still hadn’t changed. I could stay here and duke it out with Zoe, or I could put her in a costume everyone would probably think was cute anyway, and I could go down and get myself ready. I chose the latter.
But I also didn’t really get what the big deal was. I knew the Cohens were from a different world—a world in which there were social rules and dress codes I’d never dealt with in real life—but it all seemed a little excessive for a friendly dinner with the neighbors. Libby had been obsessing over the menu all week, and she’d wound up ordering a bunch of food from their favorite Italian restaurant. That morning before I’d gone to school, she’d made me help her polish the good silverware and rinse their wedding china. She’d bought new candles for the candlesticks, which she scrubbed to a shine. She’d thought about hiring someone to help serve, but changed her mind when I assured her I’d be there to help out with whatever she needed. It seemed so elaborate. It seemed really weird.
Then again, what did I know about it? I grew up in Detroit. Maybe this was totally normal for Belvedere Island. And anyway, I admired her desire for perfection. When L
ibby did something, she did it 110 percent right. And maybe that was the way to achieve what she had. I rooted through my chest of drawers in a quest for an outfit that would please her. Finally I settled on a simple black pencil skirt, a red silk blouse, and ballet flats. I pulled my hair up in a ponytail, added lip gloss, and turned to Zoe for approval. She’d been sitting on the edge of my bed playing with my lipsticks while I chose an outfit.
“What do you think? Pretty?”
“Pwetty,” she confirmed, her mouth covered in RahRah Raspberry. I hastily wiped off her lipstick, and we hurried downstairs just as the doorbell rang.
“Daddy!” shouted Zoe, running down the stairs to hug Walker, who wore a suit jacket with his khakis.
“Bean!” he greeted her back, scooping her up in his arms. Libby glanced at Zoe and me, and her face hardened into a disapproving line.
“You couldn’t be bothered to get her properly dressed?” she wanted to know. I didn’t have time to answer, because she was already opening the door. A feeling of dread—and a little resentment—overwhelmed me.
“Don’t worry,” Walker whispered with a tense smile, patting me on the shoulder. Zoe smiled down from his other arm. “She just gets a little stressed out when she entertains.” The Oswalds were all wearing jeans. I watched as Mrs. Oswald took in Libby’s pristine white pants, her black off-the shoulder top, and her strand of pearls.
“Oh my,” said Mrs. Oswald carefully after we’d exchanged greetings. “I feel terrible that we’re so underdressed! We were expecting a patio grill-out.”
“I changed my mind,” Libby said with a bright smile. “I wanted to make up for my self-imposed solitary confinement of the past couple months.” The adults all chuckled politely. “Anyway, you couldn’t help but look fabulous,” Libby added. It wasn’t much of an exaggeration: for fifty or so, Mrs. Oswald looked healthy and fit, and her naturally pretty face was tanned and smooth. She and her husband seemed to share their son’s interest in the outdoors. The family looked like a poster for the active Californian lifestyle.
“What can I get you to drink?” Walker asked. “Scotch? Wine?”
“I’ll have some red, if you have it,” said Mrs. Oswald. “And scotch for Terry, neat.”
“I believe you kids already know each other, is that right?” Mr. Oswald was asking with a friendly smile.
“Annie,” Libby interrupted, before I had a chance to respond, “why don’t you show Owen the entertainment room. Maybe you kids can shoot some pool while we wait for dinner to heat?” I nodded, stinging from it. Libby had sounded so patronizing; but then, apparently we weren’t really friends. Her tone was, I supposed, appropriate for an employer.
“Annie!” Libby said sharply as we headed off. “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied. “Zoe, come on, hon. Let’s go downstairs.”
“Zoe just takes to Annie so well,” Libby said as we moved from the room. For my part, I tried to act composed with Owen walking behind me. Wasn’t I technically off-duty right now? Why was she insisting I watch Zoe? I’d thought I was attending this dinner not as a babysitter, but as a guest.
“She always make you work all evening?” Owen asked, giving voice to my fears.
“No, not usually. Hey, what about air hockey?” I asked quickly, eager to change the subject. I couldn’t defend something I didn’t understand myself. And I didn’t really want to get into touchy territory with him again. For some reason, being with Owen triggered this feeling I sometimes got, when someone challenged me about something I believed without being able to articulate why. It had happened only a few times in the past, and when it did, I wound up feeling cornered, like there was no way out. Sometimes it made me uncharacteristically bumbling and inarticulate. I hated that feeling of stammering, searching for words. I desperately wanted to avoid feeling flustered like that again.
“Or foosball?” he suggested.
“Sure.” I was historically terrible at foosball, but I had vowed to be agreeable. To show Owen a different side of me. “Zoe, you and me on a team, okay? I’ll work one handle, you work the other.” I moved a chair over to the table so Zoe could stand on it. She turned out to have a pretty intense competitive streak for a three-year-old, judging by how excited she got when Owen let her score. But he wasn’t one to let anyone win, not even a toddler. After losing four games in a row, games in which the high scorer for our team was Zoe, I knew I couldn’t avoid it anymore.
“What’s up, Phillips?” he teased. “Can’t handle it?”
“There’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” I said, unable to meet his eyes.
“Oh, sure.” He suddenly looked uncomfortable, and I was willing to bet anything he’d been hoping we could just skate right past the elephant in the room.
“Zo, how about some cartoons?”
“Dora?” she asked hopefully.
“Sure thing.” I set her up on the sofa, wrapping her in an afghan, and popped in her favorite Dora DVD. Within seconds, she was transfixed. “She never gets tired of it,” I told Owen. “It’s kind of amazing.” There was only one sofa in the basement, an anomaly in an otherwise immaculately furnished house. Thankfully, it was a large one. Our thighs would not be brushing anytime soon. Zoe was curled up on one end, and I settled in the middle next to her. She wormed her feet under my legs absentmindedly. Owen was seated in the opposite corner with an expression of unmasked dread.
“Relax,” I told him. “It’s no big deal. I just wanted to apologize for the other day.”
“Oh,” he said, visibly relieved. “No need to apologize. Seriously. It wasn’t my place to say anything about the Cohens. And it looks like I was wrong, anyway—they seem great.”
“They are,” I agreed. “But I really want to say this. I assumed you were just some kind of lazy waste of space, like some of the guys I knew back where I’m from. They were like leeches. They’d just suck their parents’ money away until they’d drained them. And then they’d keep living in their parents’ houses, getting fat and collecting unemployment.”
“Wow,” he said. “So in your head, I’m a fat, lazy leech.”
“You weren’t there yet,” I laughed. “But you were well on your way.”
“Then I guess you do owe me an apology, for you are sorely mistaken.” When I found the courage to glance at his face, I realized he was more amused than anything else, thank god.
“I’m really sorry,” I told him. “I’m sorry for assuming I knew who you were without actually bothering to get to know you. And I’m sorry for judging you. God.” I shook my head. “I, of all people, am in no place to judge. And I’m not usually like that.”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“No, really. I’ve just been a little overwhelmed. But I feel terrible. You didn’t deserve any of it.”
“Apology accepted,” Owen said softly, holding my gaze. “And if you want to make it up to me, that’s fine too.”
“Ew,” I said.
“‘Ew’ wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. However, I was thinking you could repay your debt with brownies or other delicious edibles. I don’t know what you thought I meant. . . .”
I felt my face turning beet red for the millionth time since I’d moved there, and Owen burst out laughing. “I know,” I said. “I know. It would almost be better to have a permanent sunburn.”
“It’s cute,” he replied. “I wouldn’t change it.” I bit my lip and turned away from him, suddenly shy. I’d never been good at flirting . . . if that’s what he was doing.
“Zo, how’s Dora?” I asked, eager to fill the silence. But Zoe ignored me. She wasn’t listening to our conversation at all; she was watching Dora and Boots swing from a rope into a lagoon.
“Oh, to be three and blissfully unaware,” Owen remarked. I smiled at him. There was something about him that was just so open and honest. It put me at ease in a way no one had—not that I had a lot of experiences to hold it up against.
&nbs
p; “I don’t know how blissful. She had a doozy of a nightmare last night. It was sort of scary.”
“Monsters? Ghosts? What do toddlers dream about anyway? They can barely form full sentences.”
“Mommy went away,” Zoe said offhandedly, her attention still focused on the screen.
“What?” Owen started to say something else, but I shook my head sharply, and he clamped his mouth shut.
“Nothing, nothing,” I said, as the Dora credits started rolling. Zoe hummed along with the theme song, but soon her humming turned to “Rockabye Baby,” as it always seemed to.
“Cwadle and all,” she sang under her breath.
“That’s enough,” I said mock sternly, reaching over to tickle her armpits. She squealed, laughing so hard she rolled off the sofa.
“No, NO!” she shrieked happily as I pretended to chase after her. Finally I collapsed on the floor melodramatically, allowing her to tickle me back.
“I forfeit,” I laughed. “Forfeit, I say!” But she kept at it, laughing happily until Owen stepped in, grabbing her by the armpits and spinning her in the air.
“Unhand the lady,” he commanded her, tossing her finally onto the couch where she lay, giggling still but more quietly now, as though she were losing steam. While Zoe was sprawled out on the couch, I was sprawled out on the floor. Owen lay down next to me on the carpet, his body far enough from mine that we weren’t touching, but close enough for me to feel his heat.
“Zoes, how about a game of Simon Says?” I suggested once I caught my breath, again desperately trying to ignore the feeling of Owen’s body just inches from mine.
“Annie,” Owen cut in, “there’s something—” But then the familiar squeak of the basement door sounded from above us, and Walker shouted down, “Come ’n’ get your grub!” Zoe let out a happy shriek and dashed up the stairs. I stood up and ran after her, making sure she didn’t fall.
The Ruining Page 11