“Damn,” Hayley muttered, as she tossed the sheet from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. Uneven footsteps, a stumble, a curse far more colorful than the one Hayley had just uttered, and spoken in an all-too-familiar growl. Hayley yanked the cord on the secondhand lamp on the secondhand night table and a dim yellowish light filled the small room. She heard a door open softly and envisioned her mother scurrying through the apartment, eager to let her husband inside as soon as he reached the third floor.
“For God’s sake, not again,” Hayley said, more loudly than she had spoken before. She got up from the bed and hurried into the living room. Her mother was standing a few feet from the apartment door, clutching the neck of her threadbare cotton robe around her thin, stooped shoulders, her feet in the ratty old slippers she had been wearing for more years than Hayley could count.
“Mom,” Hayley said.
Nora Franklin turned with a start, her eyes wide. “He’s . . .”
“I know what he is,” Hayley said sharply. Eddie Franklin had reached the third-floor landing. Hayley could hear him grumbling and guessed that once again he could not find his keys. A sudden pounding against the wooden door confirmed her suspicions.
“Let me in!” he shouted.
Nora Franklin darted forward, but Hayley grabbed her mother’s arm and held her back.
The pounding continued. “What the hell is wrong with you two? Let me in!”
“Hayley,” her mother begged. “Please open the door.”
“Why?” Hayley hissed. “So he can come in here and slap you around and call me foul names?”
“He’ll fall asleep soon enough,” her mother argued. “Please!”
The pounding had now become kicking. Hayley wondered how long it would be before her father lost his footing and fell over backward, hitting his head on the floor of the hall or maybe even tumbling down the stairs....
“Let him sleep in the hallway,” she said. “He’s got to learn that he can’t treat us like this.”
Nora began to cry. “Please, Hayley! Please open the door and let him in!”
“Franklin!” The voice came from the floor below. It was one of the two young men who shared an apartment. “If you don’t stop that racket right now, I’m calling the police.”
“Not the police,” Nora whispered harshly. “Not again.”
Hayley sighed. She released her mother’s arm and unlocked the door. Eddie Franklin lurched forward and stumbled into the apartment.
“You go to bed, Mom,” Hayley directed. “Now. I’ll get him onto the couch.”
With a nervous backward glance, Nora Franklin hurried off in the direction of her bedroom. Luck was with Hayley that night. Her father seemed to have worn himself out trying to knock down the door. It was relatively easy for her to guide him to the battered old couch they had found discarded on someone’s front yard two years earlier. He went unprotestingly to his makeshift bed. Within moments he was snoring harshly. He had not thanked his daughter for letting him in or for covering him with the quilt Mrs. Latimer had made for Hayley’s sixteenth birthday.
Hayley went back to her room and, leaving the yellowish light on, lay down on her bed and drew the thin sheet over her. Though she was exhausted, her mind was too fraught for sleep. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered to the four walls. “I’ll lose my mind if I don’t.”
Self-pity was not an emotion Hayley liked to indulge, but no one who knew the Franklin family even a little bit could deny that all of Hayley’s life she had been behind the eight ball, working long hours at menial jobs to pay her parents’ bills, suffering through the foreclosure on the family’s house and then the subsequent evictions from various cramped apartments, forced at one point to sleep in a homeless shelter, several times having to endure the embarrassment of her father’s and brother’s incarcerations. Yet all the while Hayley had made it a point to be scrupulously honest, never taking unfair advantage of a person or a situation even when it might have benefited her. For Hayley Franklin, honesty was a point of honor.
But where has that good behavior gotten me? she thought, looking across the room to the narrow closet that had no door, to the desk that was only a piece of plywood laid across two stacks of old wooden crates. Nowhere.
Hayley shifted on the pillow. In the faint amber light she could make out the titles of a few of the books on her small makeshift bookcase. At the far end of the top shelf there was a battered paperback she had bought at a yard sale. The Call of Duty was a stirring, well-written novel about a near-destitute mid-eighteenth-century widow who married a wealthy man she didn’t love or even like very much in order to lift her children and her aged father out of poverty. Though Abigail Trenton had forsaken love and even affection, she had achieved the salvation of those she held dear. She had died knowing that she had suffered for the best of causes.
Like the heroine of the novel, Hayley Franklin knew an awful lot about duty and responsibility and self-sacrifice. Some in Yorktide would say she knew too much for a person so young, though....
Hayley sprang up and pushed aside the thin sheet. It was an outrageous idea, but . . . why not? Like Abigail Trenton had done, why not marry a rich man as a way out of the dismal life she and her mother had been leading for so very long?
And thanks to Amy, who had been the one to suggest they take jobs as summer nannies, Hayley knew a wealthy man, didn’t she? Ethan Whitby. Ethan was intelligent and good looking and nice, even funny, and they both loved history, which gave them something to talk about. And Hayley had met Ethan’s father, a successful man who genuinely loved his wife and children. To have such a man as a father-in-law might go far toward helping Hayley forget she had ever lived under the same roof as Eddie Franklin, that poor specimen of a husband and father.
A sudden and slightly hysterical laugh escaped Hayley’s lips. What an outlandish idea! Since she had been old enough to realize what sort of man her father was, she had been determined to prove herself the total opposite of the scheming, self-serving Eddie Franklin. To undertake such a reprehensible, immoral measure as to manipulate a good man into marriage would require some serious self-convincing, not to mention a radical change in character. And did she really want to change for the worse, even if it was for the sake of her mother’s happiness?
No, Hayley thought. Definitely not. But . . . Hayley lay down again and pulled the sheet over her bare legs. It couldn’t hurt to play devil’s advocate for a moment, could it? After all, there was plenty of precedence in the real world for a poor or disadvantaged girl marrying a rich man for practical reasons; such a situation didn’t exactly make the news. And she reminded herself that even in the twenty-first century women often had to be crafty and deceptive in order to get what they wanted, and if that meant making a marriage of convenience, so be it. There was a valid argument that real feminism was about a woman being able to make her own choices, conventional or unconventional. And, Hayley thought, it wasn’t as if she would prove an abusive wife to a wealthy man, especially one as decent as Ethan Whitby seemed to be. No, she would be good to him; she would treat him with care and respect in return for the tangible benefits marriage to him would afford her and her mother.
And even if a marriage to Ethan Whitby didn’t last long—and Hayley suspected that it might not; lies always outed, and the union would have been based on a lie—a divorce settlement would likely be hefty, and by that point Hayley would already have been introduced to a world of power and influence. Maybe she would even find another wealthy man and sell herself to him. There was no point in denying the fact that selling herself was what she would be doing, but at least she wouldn’t be spending the rest of her life protecting her mother from the blows of her drunken father and trying to clean up after the stupid antics of her delinquent brother. No, she and her mother would be safe and secure somewhere far from Yorktide, and they would never, ever come back.
Hayley laughed again, but this time without the note of hysteria. What strange thoughts came to a person in the mid
dle of the night! Was it three a.m. already, the witching hour? Had she just experienced a version of the infamous dark night of the soul, a time when all hope and consolation seemed gone and despair could take hold of even the most sensible person, causing her to think desperate thoughts?
Whatever the case, Hayley was having none of it. She knew from long experience that everything appeared different in the light of day. A grim situation didn’t look quite so grim once the sun was high in the sky and a drastic decision appeared for what it really was, a wrong decision. A bizarre and crazy idea.
Hayley looked toward the door of her room and listened hard for any sound from her parents’ bedroom or from the living room. She could hear nothing. All was well, at least for the moment. She yawned and turned off the light. Before long, she slept.
Chapter 40
The White Hart had opened less than a year earlier but had quickly become one of Yorktide’s most popular nightspots. It was done up to resemble a classic British pub, from the painted wooden sign hanging out front depicting a crudely drawn white hart against a dark blue background, to the big stone fireplace from which hung copper pots in a variety of sizes, to the portraits of the queen at every stage of her long reign. The menu, however, paid little attention to popular British pub food; chips were called French fries, and there wasn’t a bottle of malt vinegar to be found. The beer selection was composed largely of local brews, from pale ales to hearty stouts.
This evening a group of young women working locally as summer nannies were gathered at The White Hart; Amy had heard about the get-together from her former neighbor Michelle, also a nanny, who was tuned in to the friendly and informal network. It had taken some doing, but Amy had convinced Hayley to join her.
The group had been at the pub for only fifteen minutes but already the large, round oak table was crowded with a half-empty pitcher of beer, glasses of wine, a plate of nachos, and a basket of onion rings. Amy hungrily eyed the nachos and the onion rings. Cressida Prior would definitely not approve of bar food. Just that morning Amy had caught Cressida observing her closely as if trying to determine if Amy had lost any of the weight she had suggested Amy lose. So far, Amy had not lost any weight, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
The others at the table were making short work of the food. Hayley, on Amy’s right, was devouring the nachos. Cathi—about thirty years old, Amy guessed—was busily munching onion rings, as was Michelle. Madeleine Huppert, French-born nanny to the children of Colin McNabb and Frank Luther, had ordered a Cobb salad, which came with a crusty roll upon which she had spread a good deal of butter. Amy frowned. Cressida refused to allow butter in the house. Sarah, who had told Amy she was spending her second summer in Ogunquit with the Frey family from rural New Jersey, had just been served a bacon cheeseburger. Elizabeth, the only career nanny of the group and thirty-six years of age, claiming she had eaten dinner, was enjoying a piece of The White Hart’s famous blueberry pie.
Amy glanced again at the food on the table. She hadn’t been able to find one thing on the menu that Cressida would find acceptable other than an undressed garden salad. The problem was that Amy was seriously hungry, and the thought of ordering what was essentially a small bowl of lettuce just did not appeal. Amy took a gulp of her water. Water, Cressida said, was the best thing for you. She drank a full gallon of water every day.
“So, what’s it like working for the Priors?” Cathi asked Amy, wiping her hands on her napkin.
“Fantastic,” Amy said promptly. “Cressida Prior is an amazing woman.”
“And the husband?” Sarah asked, taking a bite of her burger.
“He’s okay,” Amy told her. “I don’t have much contact with him.”
“What about the children?” Madeleine asked. “There are two, yes?”
Amy nodded. “Jordan is eight and Rhiannon is ten. They seem sweet.”
“What do you mean they ‘seem’ sweet?” Michelle asked. “Don’t you know for sure yet?”
Before Amy could answer, Michelle went on. “I heard there was some trouble last summer. Seems the Priors’ nanny, this super highly regarded woman from one of the best agencies around, walked out after only a few days. I read about it on ILoveBeingaNanny.com. This woman who quit said Cressida Prior was a complete whack job.”
Cathi nodded. “I saw that post, too. The Priors hired another nanny through a different employment agency, but they fired her almost immediately. I was never able to discover why. There was nothing on any of the websites. Maybe Cressida Prior intimidated her into silence! Anyway, I’m not sure what happened after that.”
“I am,” Sarah announced. “The Priors went back to Atlanta. They must have lost a ton of money abandoning the lease on the house, but from what I know they have plenty to waste.”
Madeleine frowned. “No amount of money is worth working for a bitch like Cressida Prior. My bosses know someone who got badly burned in a business deal with her. Colin and Frank told me if they ever found themselves under the same roof as Cressida Prior they would walk right out.”
“Cressida is not a bitch,” Amy said fiercely. What did these people know about a woman who had become the CEO or whatever of her own global company by the age of thirty? “She’s fabulous. And I should know, because I spend hours with her every day.”
“Doing what?” Cathi asked.
“Whatever she needs done. Like when she’s on a business call I sit on the other side of her desk in case she needs me to take notes or to look something up online.”
“Doesn’t she have a personal assistant?” Michelle asked.
“I’m sure she has one at her office,” Amy said, “but when she’s working from the house she has me.”
“What else do you two do together?” Cathi asked, with what Amy thought was a bit of a sly look. She wasn’t sure she liked Cathi.
“All sorts of things,” Amy said. “She shows me her wardrobe—she has all this amazing designer stuff—and we shop online. Well, Cressida shops and I help. I mean, she asks my opinion sometimes. And we talk. She tells me how she started her business and how she built it to be such a success. And the other day we went to the spa on Main Street.”
“She treated you to a massage?” Sarah asked, eyes wide.
“No,” Amy admitted. “She had a massage. I waited for her in the lounge. And we have lunch together almost every day.”
Hayley, who had been silent until now, grinned. “I thought you said Cressida doesn’t eat.”
“I didn’t say she doesn’t eat,” Amy snapped, her eyes darting to the almost empty plate of nachos. “I said she’s very serious about her health. She says fat people don’t live long. The other day we made kale shakes for lunch.”
“I’d rather die happy eating a bacon sandwich than live to be one hundred by drinking kale shakes!” Michelle announced.
Elizabeth finally spoke. Her tone was mild and almost incurious. “You say you spend a lot of time with Cressida. What about the children? Weren’t you hired to take care of them?”
“Yes,” Amy admitted, “but their father is with them pretty much all the time, so . . .”
Elizabeth made no reply. She put her fork across her empty plate and neatly folded her napkin next to it.
“So,” Hayley asked, glancing around the group, “the question seems to be, why does the illustrious Cressida Prior need a nanny in the first place?”
Amy spoke angrily. “It’s Cressida’s right to hire a nanny if she wants one. She’s a very important person. She deserves to have whatever sort of help she wants.”
Madeleine raised an eyebrow. “It’s usually the husband the nanny falls in love with, not the wife. L’amour fou.”
“What does that mean?” Sarah asked.
“Crazy love.”
The group broke out into laughter, and Amy felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment. No one understood the relationship she had with Cressida Prior. Not one other person, not even her mother. Especially not her mother, going on about that stupid old lawsui
t. What had Cressida said about family being a liability? “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said fiercely. “I’m not in love with Cressida. It’s just that I’m grateful. She’s offering me opportunities I’ve never been offered before.”
“Like what?” Sarah asked. She had finished her burger as well as the fries that had come with it.
Amy wasn’t sure how to answer. In truth, she hadn’t really been asked to do anything particularly new or difficult or exciting. Not yet, anyway. “Like lots of things,” she said defiantly.
Hayley suddenly put her hand on Amy’s arm. “Come on, Amy, we’re just teasing.”
Amy pulled her arm from Hayley’s touch. There was one tortilla chip left on the plate in the middle of the table. There was a bit of cheese on the chip. To hell with it, Amy thought, but before she could reach for the chip it had made its way into Michelle’s mouth.
Chapter 41
Folding laundry was one of Leda’s favorite domestic chores. There was something very soothing about it, and it was one of those finite tasks. When it was done, it was done. Until the next time laundry needed to be folded. So much for finite.
Leda shook out one of Amy’s T-shirts and placed it in the laundry basket. Since she had mentioned the lawsuit against Cressida Prior, Amy had been even more vocal about her employer’s superpowers, mentioning several times in one evening the fact that Cressida ran five to seven miles a day and that when she had given birth to her children she had done so without any painkillers. “How nice for her,” Leda had commented over and over, but Amy hadn’t noticed the sarcasm in her mother’s tone. Leda felt bad that she had displayed her jealousy as she had but not bad enough to apologize. After all, Amy hadn’t apologized for accusing her mother of not believing in her.
It dawned on Leda then, as she smoothed and folded a pillowcase, that envy could be a catalyst for action. The desire to one-up another person, to show that you could possess what they possessed and more.... To date such motives had been entirely foreign to Leda. She had never been a competitive sort, and after that disastrous summer of being in thrall to Lance Stirling what tiny competitive spirit she might have possessed had been quashed.
The Summer Nanny Page 12