Shotgun Nanny

by Nancy Warren

  He found Annie in the family room with a steaming cup of coffee at her side and Walkman headphones stuffed in her ears, maniacally spewing out Japanese phrases in the most execrable accent he’d ever heard.

  With a frown of fierce concentration, she barked at the towels she was folding. He translated as best he could, lounging in the doorway, watching. The monologue went,

  “How are you?” Pause while she listened to the tape, a frown of complete concentration on her face, eyes almost shut. “I am fine. Where are the violets?” That couldn’t be right. He watched her do some complicated jaw exercise and rewind the tape. “Where are the toilets.”

  Aah.

  “How much…? Too much.”

  She was really getting into it, he noted. Once more she reversed the tape. “How much?” she asked the blue towel.

  Her lips pinched in horrified disapproval. She shook her finger at the red towel.

  “Too much! Can you please tell me where is the telephone?” The laundry basket didn’t seem to know, so she moved to the next conversational gem. “My name is…Annie.”

  He crept across the room and slipped behind her. Based on what he’d heard so far, he could make an educated guess at what was coming next.

  “What is your name?” she asked slowly, her accent improving marginally.

  He pulled the earphones from her head.

  She jumped, and her head swiveled to look at him.

  “My name is Mark,” he whispered in her ear.

  She

  shivered.

  If she hadn’t shivered, he would have left it at that. But she had, in a full-body quiver that told him everything he wanted to know about how very aware of him she was. That shiver wasn’t about being cold, it was about being hot. About sex. He nibbled her ear. Made a few suggestions in Japanese that had nothing to do with the price of sushi in Tokyo.

  She tipped her head back, regarding him suspiciously. “I understood almost nothing. I think I caught the word ‘bed’ and something that sounded edible.”

  He grinned wickedly. “I have a big appetite.”

  Green eyes assessed him, as sexy upside down as they were every other way. Suspicion on the surface, with a sparkling interest deeper down. “Why do I think you’re not inviting me out for dinner?”

  “I am.” He was surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth. Duh. What an idiot! He’d never even invited her out for a real date.

  They’d gone from a working relationship to sex to him asking her on summer holidays. He’d completely screwed up the dating road map. Instead of traveling in some orderly sequence he’d taken them on a wild detour. He’d forgotten to ask her for a simple date. No wonder they were so far apart. “I’m asking you out for a date. Dinner and a movie.”

  “A date?” A tiny frown formed between her eyes. “Why?”

  How the hell did he know why? The offer had popped out of his mouth before he’d thought it through. Very uncharacteristic behavior. Mildly disturbing. Why? Lots of vague ideas swirled around in his head, but he couldn’t grasp anything concrete. He went with something innocuous. “I want to spend some more time with you.”

  She lifted her head, picked up another towel from the basket and started folding it. Not very precisely. You could take an entire geometry lesson based on the shapes she’d managed to create in folded towels. “We eat dinner together every night.”

  He walked round her and grabbed another towel out of the basket. “Not in Japanese.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’ll go to a Japanese restaurant. You can order our meal.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.” He gestured to the tape machine. “Then you can ask where the bathroom is, tell them your name and complain that it costs too much.”

  She shot him a tiny smile, then concentrated on the current parallelogram she was folding. “I just booked my ticket. For Asia.”

  He felt as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus. Too winded to speak, he nodded stupidly.

  “I leave in two weeks. Your conference will be over by then, and Bea will be better.” She wouldn’t even glance at him. Her words came, low and quickly, while she fiddled with the towel. “I’ve just got one big commitment—a show at the Vancouver Beach Festival next week—then I’ll be off.”

  It wasn’t easy to assume a casual tone when he wanted to throw her down on the towels and prove to her just how right they were together, how she should at least give this thing a chance instead of running away. But he managed it. “Then this can be a thank-you dinner, for all you’ve done for us. Next Saturday, after your show.”

  “What about Emily?” She glanced up then, and he had the impression she was disappointed he hadn’t tried to argue her out of going.

  “Bea can look after her.” He was winging it, but it seemed like a good idea for Emily and Bea to spend some time together. Em had a few things she needed to clear up.

  And speaking of Bea, he had her letter still in his hand. He handed the letter to Annie and watched her face crumple when she finished it.

  She didn’t say a word, just bolted off the couch and ran up the stairs.

  “EMILY?”

  Silence.

  “Emily?” She knocked on the child’s door, knowing full well she was being ignored. She counted to five then walked in to find Emily curled on her pink and white frilly bed, the ragged lion clutched in her hand. A book was stuck in front of her face, but given that it was upside down, Annie made an educated guess Emily hadn’t been reading it.

  “I’m quite busy.” The little twerp could sound as formal and distancing as her uncle Mark when she wanted to. Annie wanted to sigh. Didn’t they have a clue that this was hard for her, too? She caught a glimpse of the woebegone face behind the book, and her throat started to ache. She was no good for them. Why couldn’t they see that? She was a clown, a wanderer, a free spirit. She wasn’t cut out for the domestic scene.

  She knew Mark had talked to Emily earlier in the day, and ever since Annie had suffered the silent treatment.

  She wasn’t walking out of Emily’s life forever. She needed to make sure Em understood that. She sighed, a big noisy dramatic sigh that finally got the girl’s attention.

  Emily’s eyes widened when she saw the object in Annie’s hand.

  “Emily, I want to ask you a big favor. I can’t take Guinevere Get-Out-of-Here with me. She’s feeling really sad right now.” She nudged the wig so it drooped over the hanger and onto the chest piece of the child-size clown costume Emily had worn at her birthday party.

  Emily stared at her.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, and Emily immediately scuttled back against the headboard and pulled her knees to her chest. “You see, Guinevere hates it when I leave her. She thinks I’m never coming back. I thought maybe if I left her with you, maybe hanging in your closet, you could comfort her when she gets sad and remind her that I’m coming back in just a couple of months.”

  “But you won’t be staying.”

  12

  OF COURSE, it had to be the hottest day of the year.

  But then it always seemed like the hottest day of the year when Annie donned her complete clown getup. It might not have been so bad if she hadn’t spent the past couple of weeks living in tank-tops and shorts, her feet either bare or in nothing heavier than strappy sandals.

  Out in English Bay a boat tooted its horn in a long, loud wail. There were crowds of them out there, but nothing compared to the crowds of people squatting on grass patches, ambling the paved sea walk and lounging on blankets. The well-prepared had brought along picnic baskets and coolers. Those who hadn’t brought food and drink were tempted by the sizzle of grilling hot dogs, the odor of popcorn and the tinkling music of the ice-cream vendors.

  It was summer, it was a festival and it was crowded.

  In spite of the carnival atmosphere and the enormous smile painted on her face, Annie’s heart was leaden.

  In two days she’d be on her way.

  Sh
e should wow some of the many Asians in the crowd with her phrasebook knowledge of Japanese, Cantonese and Mandarin. But she couldn’t work up the enthusiasm. She’d be using it for real in a couple of days anyhow. What was the point?

  She flipped back the orange and purple double frill of her cuff and glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes till she was on.

  Fifteen short minutes to turn one grumpy, depressed and sorry-for-herself clown into a laugh-a-minute magical trickster clown.

  She wasn’t sure she had that much magic in stock.

  She schlepped through the crowd, her ginormous shoes slapping the ground and occasionally getting nailed to the pavement by somebody’s foot as she made her sorry way to the big tent. The Celtic fiddling group was hitting the home stretch, and the toetapping music had drawn a huge hooting and yahooing crowd. A few flamboyant souls were doing what looked like their own private version of Riverdance.

  Silently she cursed whoever put the schedule together. She couldn’t possibly follow the fiddlers. She’d fall flat on her greasepainted face. Where was her edge? The combination of stage fright and in-your-face challenge that usually propelled her on stage no matter the odds?

  Her heart was breaking. How could she be funny and magical when the very heart that pumped the blood to her vital organs—including wherever her magic was stored—

  was cracked?

  If only she hadn’t left Mark and Emily hurting. If only she could leave them laughing, not in tears and painful silences. If only…

  Fiddles, flutes, guitars, drums built to a Gaelic frenzy that lifted even Annie’s depressed spirits. A few people had caught sight of her at the edge of the crowd and stared. Once in costume, she was supposed to be a clown, and clown she did. Beginning to stomp her feet to the rhythm, bobbing her head so the rose banged her nose, then rubbing her red proboscis and starting the whole thing over. It wasn’t a bad segue, and when she was introduced, most of the crowd, having seen her antics and accepted her as part of the crowd, stayed on to watch.

  She scrambled onto the stage lugging her suitcase with her.

  Behind her, the musicians were packing up. Knowing that would happen, she’d decided to begin her routine with some stand-up comedy and move into her magic act when she had the stage to herself and room for volunteers.

  She stared out at the sea of faces waiting to be entertained. Some of the faces sported zinc stripes over the nose, some had baseball caps, some had a lot of red, burnedlooking skin on shoulders and cheekbones. All gazed at her expectantly.

  She gave them a huge clown grin and moved to the microphone. In her Gertrude voice she shrieked, “Is it hot in here or is it me?”

  A few titters while they waited for her to start making some jokes about the heat. And she had some. She had lots of them. She just couldn’t, for the moment, remember a single damn one of them.

  Her mind was as blank as the map of China. As empty as her future, stretching endlessly before her while she ran from what frightened her. And yet what she craved most.

  Commitment. Love. Everything Mark and Emily represented.

  The silence rang in her ears. She dropped her gaze and in a flash of desperation made a performance of lifting her foot and trying to fan herself with her big shoe. She dragged that out for a minute or so, hopping around the stage and trying to flex her foot back and forth rapidly.

  A helpless gesture to the audience. She let them know that wasn’t working, then tried nodding her head really, really fast. As an improv it wasn’t bad, but it was definitely limited.

  As the laughter started to peter out, she spoke again into the microphone. “It sure is hot today, it’s so hot…”

  Come on, come on. This had never happened before.

  She was getting really and truly hot as embarrassment snuck up on her. She was going to humiliate herself if she didn’t grab that elusive routine that was floating around in her head, that word just on the tip of her tongue.

  In desperation, she started throwing a few insults at the audience. “How’s the diaper rash, sir?” she called to a man who’d gone to town with the zinc on his nose.

  The mike screeched, and she jumped in pretend alarm and did another panto routine pretending fear of the thing. Behind her a violin string caught on something and gave a faint whine.

  She was close to tears.

  Then, glancing up, she saw a very familiar trio hurrying across the grass to join the crowd watching her show. Her gaze caught Mark’s, and her blood began to sing. Beside him, Emily gave her a thumbs-up, and even Kitsu had his ears tuned to her.

  She could humiliate herself in front of a bunch of strangers, but no way she was going to let those three down. Yanking the mike off its stand, she dug deep into herself. If she had to do an entire improv routine, she’d do it. And have them rolling around on the ground in helpless mirth.

  “Who wants to talk about the heat, anyway?”

  Then, with an exaggerated wink in Em’s direction, she shrilled, “Knock, knock…”

  SHE WAS so full of life, Mark thought, watching Annie cavorting on stage. And talented, he decided, watching her get the crowd laughing with her body movement, her magic tricks and even her corny jokes. There’d been a moment, when he and Em had arrived, when he’d sworn an expression of panic had flashed in her eyes as she glanced their way. But maybe she was panicking because they’d shown up. Maybe she thought they’d try and beg her to stay… Again.

  The smile her antics had painted on his face disappeared along with the carefree mood she’d put him in. There were probably fifty or sixty men, women and kids crowded around the tent, and she charmed every darned one of them. In front of him, a little kid clapped so hard, a wad of his cotton candy took flight and coasted to the ground where it was promptly stepped on.

  Mark watched a couple of gulls fight over a half-eaten hot dog. There were streams of people in summer gear. Over the bay a Cessna flew a trailing banner advertising a fitness place. You could hardly fit a toothpick between all the people.

  Next week it would be a lot quieter. The festival would be over, and life would return to some kind of semi-normal summertime routine.

  And Annie would be gone.

  He didn’t want his life to return to normal. As he gazed at Annie he knew his life would never be the same. She had changed him in some subtle way he hadn’t even noticed. Made him relax more. Made him believe in happy endings.

  Then decided to take a perfectly good happy ending and turn it into a tragedy of unrequited love. Not even Romeo himself could have ached as much for his Juliet on her balcony as Mark did for the clown above him on stage. More clapping. She bowed, then reached for the mike.

  “And now, I’ll need a very special volunteer from the audience.” Young hands, and even a few mature ones, shot up instantly.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, children. The job I have in mind is very important. I’ll need a big, strong man.” A few hands remained raised. The clown put a hand above her eyes as though to shade them and scanned the crowd. Once her gaze skimmed him, twice.

  Heads started to turn his way.

  Oh,

  no.

  Emily giggled, and before he knew what was happening, she’d clasped his hand in her small one and raised it as high as she could.

  “Why, thank you. You, sir, in the back. The one in the blue T-shirt.”

  Giggling with delight, Emily yanked on Kitsu’s leash. “Come on, Uncle Mark. You gotta go.”

  She was so eager and thrilled that he didn’t have a choice.

  He was going to kill Annie.

  Feeling like the biggest idiot on two legs, he reluctantly made his way through the crowd and stalked up the stairs to the stage.

  He trudged across it, deliberately taking one step more than necessary so he crowded her. Then he glared with all his might into her painted face.

  Her eyes were laughing at him, full of good-natured teasing. When he’d crowded so close to her that he could smell the greasepaint, identify her la
shes beneath the absurd huge plastic ones, her eyes stopped laughing, and his breath caught.

  For an eternal instant, they gazed at each other, and in that moment he knew he loved Annie, with everything in him.

  And it occurred to him, like a lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky, that she loved him, too.

  He couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been. Everything she’d told him about her past had broadcast a lively fear of commitment, and instead of easing her into a relationship, he’d tried to force her.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late to get her to change her mind. Maybe he still had a chance, if he could just explain…

  “Annie,” he whispered, his voice husky.