Barefoot: A Novel

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “You want to go out? ” Brenda said. “Are you sure you feel . . .”

  “I want to go out,” Vicki said. “You, me, and Mel. I want to go into town and have a glass of wine. I want dinner. I want to go to the Club Car.”

  “You want to go to the Club Car?”

  “Cal the sitter. Cal the taxi. Cal the restaurant.” Vicki took a breath. She was spewing out orders, but her desires were singular. Go out with the girls. Feel like a person again.

  Josh pul ed up in front of the house at seven o’clock. The gate was latched, the door was shut, there was a paper cup ful of rocks sitting in the middle of the flagstone walk. Josh got out of the Jeep. He had showered and put on aftershave, but then, because he felt like he was going to too much trouble for a simple babysitting job, he put on jeans and a Red Sox jersey.

  He’d had to cal his father at work. “I’l leave dinner in the fridge,” he’d said.

  “You’re going to Zach’s party?” his father said.

  “No,” Josh said. “I’m babysitting.”

  Predictably, there was silence. Just as there had been silence on Tuesday night when, over fried chicken and deli potato salad, Josh announced that he had quit his job at the airport.

  That night, after a longer-than-usual swil of Sam Adams, Tom Flynn had asked, “What wil you do for money?”

  “Babysit,” Josh had said. He watched his father for a show of surprise or disbelief, but this was a man who had found his wife of fifteen years dangling from the attic rafters. His face registered nothing. “For these two boys out in ’Sconset,” Josh continued. “It pays more than the airport. I’l get to spend time outside. There are these three women . . .” He shook his head; it was too complicated to explain. “The mother has cancer.”

  Tom Flynn cut through a wedge of iceberg. “You’l finish out the week?” he said.

  Josh had finished out the week and that made today, Friday, his last day. Carlo treated him to a beer at the airport restaurant, then another, and then another, at which point Josh entertained thoughts of going to Zach’s party despite Didi’s inevitable and annoying presence. Then his cel phone rang with a New York number. It was Brenda. She sounded as desperate as she had when she cal ed about her missing book. Could he be at their house to babysit in an hour?

  Josh, not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with his new employer, felt compel ed to tel the truth. “It’s my last day of work. I just drank three beers.”

  This was met with silence. Then Brenda said, “Have a cup of coffee. And come at seven. We’l get the kids al ready for bed. This wil be the easiest money you’ve ever made.”

  When Josh knocked on the door, it swung open, taking him by surprise. He had never set foot inside of one of these little ’Sconset cottages, and he thought it might smel like a library book or a museum—ancient, dusty, preserved. But instead the air was redolent of clean hair and perfumed shoulders, toenail polish and swinging skirts. This was the house of the three . . . the three what? The Three Bears? The three beers? Three women step off of a plane. Wasn’t there some ancient tale about three sirens who led sailors astray? Josh knew what Chas Gorda would say: Listen.

  Observe. Absorb. Because Josh had final y found his story. The story of his summer. Vicki, the mother, was the happiest-looking of the Three. She was wearing a sleeveless black sundress and a scarf in her hair. He tried to think cancer, chemotherapy, but the words didn’t stick. She padded around in bare feet, a pair of black high heels in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

  “Normal y I leave a list for the babysitter,” she said. “But not this summer. There wil be no lists this summer. Brenda assures me you’re competent, you have lots of experience with kids, you can change a diaper.”

  Josh had had two cups of coffee, a Coke, and a bracing shower, but stil his mind was hangover-fuzzy, either from the beers or from the oddness of this situation. He felt something grab the back of his ankle—it was the baby, who had crawled up behind him. Josh felt like a total charlatan as he bent down to pick up the baby. If any one of the hundred people at Zach’s party could see him now . . .

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Great. Stories are on the nightstand. Eight-o’clock bed. Porter’s bottle is warming up on the counter. Give it to him before you lay him down.”

  She paused. “Did that sound like a list?”

  “No,” he said. Yes?

  “Good,” she said. “My sister’s cel phone number is on the table. We’l be at the Club Car.”

  “Okay,” Josh said. The baby was chewing on his shirt, and a tiny moist hand grabbed his ear.

  “Make sure Blaine pees twice before bed and brushes his teeth. Don’t let him eat the toothpaste, which is what he likes to do. And put Porter in a clean diaper. It’s too hot for pajamas tonight. The mattress on the floor is theirs, but normal y I let them fal asleep in the big bed and then move them later. Feel free to do the same.” She smiled at Josh. She was pretty, he thought. A real y pretty mom. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I just made a list.

  A verbal list with no less than ten items. I’m sorry. I’m getting out of here.” She walked out the front door, then turned around. “You look darling holding the baby like that, by the way.”

  “Oh,” Josh said. Thanks?

  “Darling,” a voice said in his ear. He turned to see Brenda, who had changed into a green strapless dress. Green again. She was a mermaid.

  She went swishing out the door after her sister. The taxi pul ed up.

  “Hi, Josh.” Melanie stood before him in white pants and a blue flowered halter top that left an inch of her midsection bare. Her hair was curly around her face, and she peered at him both shyly and hopeful y.

  “Stil no word from my husband,” she said.

  “Huh?” he said. He wondered if they’d had a conversation that he’d forgotten about.

  “He’s such a jerk,” she said. Her eyes shone. What was going on here? “Blaine’s in the bedroom watching Scooby-Doo, by the way.”

  “Oh-kay,” Josh said. Melanie walked out the door, and Josh watched her climb into the taxi. He tried to make the baby wave good-bye, but the baby started to whimper and Josh thought it best to close the door.

  Time to get to work, he thought.

  Josh poked his head into the bedroom. Blaine was splayed across the bed watching Scooby-Doo on a portable DVD player with a four-inch screen.

  “Hey,” Josh said.

  Blaine glanced up, startled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Babysitting.”

  “No!” Blaine said, and he started to cry. The baby, who had been content to slobber al over Josh’s Varitek jersey, began to fuss.

  “Hey, man, calm down. Your mom just went to dinner. She’l be back.”

  “What about my dad?” Blaine said. He kicked the DVD player off the bed. The machine landed upside down and a piece broke off and skidded across the floor, but Josh could stil hear Velma’s tinny voice talking about tracking down a phantom. Josh considered tending to the injured machine, then thought better of it. He remembered Blaine hurtling himself off the plane’s steps and knocking over Melanie. The kid was a loose cannon.

  “Do you want to finish watching? Or we could . . . play a game? I saw a cup of rocks outside. Want to throw rocks?”

  “What about my dad?” Blaine screamed.

  Porter was official y wailing now. A baby crying was, Josh decided, the world’s worst noise.

  “I don’t know anything about your dad,” Josh said.

  “He’s supposed to come tonight!” Blaine said. Blaine’s face turned red right to the edge of his scalp, then the color crept through the part of his white-blond hair.

  “Okay, wel ,” Josh said. He’d wondered why the Three had left so quickly, why they tiptoed down the walk like cat burglars. Vicki had left something off the list, something crucial. Blaine was expecting his father to show up. “Do you want to eat some toothpaste?”

  “No!” Blaine screamed. He ran to t
he front door, which was closed. He ran to the back door and bul dozed through the screen.

  “Whoa!” Josh said. Ouch. Blaine bounced back onto his rear end, but not before leaving a Blaine-shaped-and-sized bulge in the screen. Blaine howled and put his hand to his face, then showed Josh blood. The Three had been gone less than ten minutes and already there was damaged property and blood. The kids cried in stereo. Josh shut the back door. If the neighbors heard, they would cal the police. He set the crying baby down on the floor and went to the bathroom for a wet washcloth. Easiest money ever made? Hardly.

  This was more like it, Vicki thought. The cab was approaching town, bouncing over the cobblestone streets, which were crowded with loaded-down SUVs, many of which, Vicki guessed, had just come off the ferry that Ted was supposed to be on. The sidewalks were teeming with activity—

  couples headed for dinner or the art gal eries on Old South Wharf, col ege kids aiming for drinks at the Gazebo, crew members coming off yachts, looking to stock up on provisions at the Grand Union—it was Nantucket on a summer night and Vicki loved it. She had been stranded on Planet Cancer for too long.

  Muffled strains of Beethoven wafted up from Brenda’s purse.

  “That’s probably Ted,” Vicki said. “Cal ing to apologize.”

  Brenda pul ed the phone out and checked the display. “Nope.” She shut the phone and tucked it back into her purse. Vicki and Melanie waited a beat.

  “Was it John Walsh?” Melanie asked.

  “It was not.”

  “Was it your lawyer again?” Vicki asked.

  “Please shut up,” Brenda said, casting a sideways look at Melanie.

  “I promised John Walsh you’d cal him back,” Melanie said. “You did cal him back, I hope. He cal ed, geez, last Sunday.”

  “I did not cal him back,” Brenda said. “And you had no right to promise him any such thing.”

  “Come on, now,” Vicki said. “We’re trying to have fun.” The cab unloaded them at the restaurant. Melanie paid the driver. “Thank you, Mel,” Vicki said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Brenda said, somewhat snidely.

  “I’l buy dinner,” Vicki said, as if there had been any doubt.

  “This was your idea,” Brenda said.

  It was her idea, Vicki thought, and once they were seated in the dining room among the white linen and wineglasses and plates of pecan-crusted swordfish and phyl o-wrapped salmon revealed from under silver domes, it seemed like a grand one. She had ordered a bottle of riotously expensive Château Margaux, because if Vicki was going to drink wine she wanted it to be good wine. Even Melanie accepted a glass; Vicki encouraged her along like a bad teenager who had taken lessons in peer pressure. One glass won’t hurt. But the wine went to Melanie’s head, perhaps because she was out of practice, and she just started talking.

  “I cal ed Frances Digitt’s apartment. Peter was there.”

  “Oh, Mel,” Vicki said. “You didn’t.”

  “I had to.”

  “You had to?” Brenda said.

  “I asked him if he wanted me to come home.”

  “And what did he say?” Vicki asked.

  “He didn’t answer.”

  Brenda took a breath like she was about to speak, but then she clamped her mouth shut.

  “What?” Melanie said.

  “Nothing,” Brenda said. “There are just a bunch of things I don’t understand.”

  “There are a bunch of things I don’t understand,” Melanie said. “Like first of al , why you need a lawyer, and second of al , why you won’t take his cal s.”

  “Mel . . . ,” Vicki said. She had told Melanie about Brenda’s predicament at Champion—fired for her involvement with John Walsh—but she had only al uded to Brenda’s legal trouble, primarily because al Vicki knew about it was what she had been told by their mother: Brenda was under investigation for vandalizing a piece of university-owned art. Brenda herself had said nothing about it to Vicki, probably because she figured Vicki had gotten the story from El en Lyndon. For years, information had been passed between the two girls via their mother, who had no understanding of confidentiality, at least not when it involved family.

  “What?” Melanie said, her cheeks flaring red now. “She knows my dirty laundry. What’s fair is fair.”

  “The only reason I know your dirty laundry is because you can’t stop talking about it,” Brenda said.

  “Enough!” Vicki said. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “Yes,” Melanie said.

  “Fine,” Brenda said. “What do you think of Josh?”

  “He’s gorgeous,” Melanie said. Her cheeks grew even rosier.

  “Wel !” Brenda said.

  “That’s why you hired him,” Melanie said. “Don’t pretend it isn’t. I’ve heard you have a penchant for younger men.”

  Vicki touched Melanie’s arm like a gentle referee. “How was your food?” Vicki asked. “Did you like it?”

  Melanie poked at her steak, which she had barely touched. “It was fine. But rich. I don’t want to make myself sick.”

  “You stil feel bad?”

  “Horrible,” Melanie said. She pushed her wine away. “I don’t want this.”

  “I’l drink it,” Vicki said.

  Brenda glared at Melanie. “Just so you know, John Walsh, my former student, was not a younger man. He’s a year older than I am.”

  “Real y?” Melanie said. “I thought Vicki said . . .”

  “You know, Ted is bringing a box of that ginger tea I told you about,” Vicki said. “It wil help settle your stomach.”

  “So please, no more references to younger men,” Brenda said. “It’s not only insulting, it’s inaccurate.”

  “Okay,” Melanie said. “Sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Vicki said.

  “Sure she does,” Brenda said.

  Vicki set her fork down. Al around them, people were having lovely dinners, pleasant conversation—was it too much to ask to be one of them, if only for tonight? “I want champagne with dessert,” she said.

  “Oh, Vick, are you sure?” Brenda said.

  As Vicki flagged their waiter, Brenda’s phone rang.

  “You should turn that off,” Vicki said.

  Brenda checked the display.

  “Ted?” Vicki said.

  “John Walsh?” Melanie said. And then in a heartbreakingly earnest voice, “Peter?”

  “Nope,” Brenda said. “It’s Mom.”

  “Oh, God,” Vicki said. “Turn it off.”

  Somehow, Josh got Blaine’s face cleaned up (the scratch was microscopic; Vicki might not even have noticed it had Blaine not insisted on the largest Band-Aid in the box). Blaine, patched up and abashed by his own antics, calmed down. Porter was stil wailing, however, and Josh was at a loss as to how to make him stop.

  “Give him a bottle,” Blaine said. “He won’t take it, but Mom says we have to keep trying.”

  Josh lifted the bottle out of the pan of hot water, tested the milk against the inside of his wrist like he’d seen it done in that movie where three grown men who don’t know anything about babies are left in charge of one, and then tried, with Porter nestled in the crook of his arm, to feed it to him. No such luck. The baby was too heavy to hold that way and he didn’t want the bottle. He threw it to the ground and shrieked with his lips curled back so that Josh could see al the way down his throat. Blaine looked on with mild interest.

  “Does he always do this?” Josh asked.

  “Yes,” Blaine said. “But Mom says we have to keep trying.”

  “Okay,” Josh said. He sensed Blaine warming up to him, although he dared not become too optimistic. He held Porter in one arm and the bottle in the opposite hand, just out of Porter’s reach, hoping to entice him. Blaine, meanwhile, trudged back to the bedroom, where he unplugged the DVD player, pul ed out the cord, wound it around his hand, shut the cover, retrieved the broken piece from under the bed, and set the whole thing on his mother’s dresser. H
e was like a little adult, Josh thought. Then Blaine grabbed a pil ow and a blanket and three storybooks and left the room without so much as a glance at Josh, though Josh understood he was supposed to fol ow.

  They moved into the bathroom, where Blaine brushed his teeth, took a leak (he was too short to reach the pul chain to flush, so Josh helped him out), and climbed, like it was second nature, with his pil ow, blanket, and the three books, into the bathtub. He made himself comfortable.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Sit,” Blaine said. He held up Horton Hatches the Egg. “Read to me, please.”

  Josh sat and the baby sat. The baby was just as baffled as Josh, perhaps, because he quieted. Josh set the bottle on the closed toilet seat. He opened the book, cleared his throat, and started to read.

  A few minutes later, Josh thought, Yes, that’s right. I am Horton the Elephant, sitting on an egg for lazy Mayzie bird who flew off to Palm Beach. If anyone at Zach’s party could see me now, they would taunt and tease and torture me as surely as the other animals in the jungle taunted Horton. I am that unlikely. That well-meaning but misplaced. I am not competent. This is not easy money. I was led here by lust for the mermaid and a crazy sense that the Three and I were somehow connected. I am a fool, an idiot. I quit the airport. How dumb I am. Horton.

  And yet, before Josh had finished the book, peace settled over the bathroom. Blaine, in the tub, had fal en asleep. Porter, lying on his side on the cool tiles, was sucking down his bottle. It was too good to be true. He drained the bottle, then crawled over to Josh. Josh picked him up and he burped.

  “Good boy,” Josh said. “Good baby.”

  Josh changed Porter’s diaper in the bedroom. The diaper was crooked, but it was on the right way and Porter seemed comfortable enough.

  Somewhere in the folds of the covers, Porter discovered his pacifier. He popped it in his mouth and kicked contentedly.

  “Do you want to go to sleep?” Josh asked. He could have sworn he saw the baby nod. It was barely dark out, but Josh was exhausted. Those beers. He took off his shoes and climbed onto the bed next to Porter. Porter grabbed his ear. Whose bed was this? Josh wondered, though he knew it was Vicki’s bed. The cancer bed. Josh thought about Brenda’s bed and Melanie’s bed. Then his cel phone rang.