Once things did turn sour between himself and Zooey, he mused, recapturing his train of thought, he’d be out one perfect nanny. And right back where he’d been in January, when he’d first asked Zooey to watch the kids.
No, whatever was going on inside of him would have to remain there, swirling and twisting, and he was just going to have to deal with it.
Heaven knew, he thought, driving away from his house and Danbury Way, dealing with “it” was a lot easier than sitting and interviewing another endless parade of less than perfect nannies.
Out of the blue, the realization hit him right between the eyes.
My God, he’d almost kissed her back there.
What the hell was the matter with him? Jack upbraided himself.
Sex, that was what was the matter with him, he decided. Sex. Or, more accurately, lack thereof.
Jack swerved to avoid a car that was drifting into his lane, coming from the opposite direction. He swore roundly under his breath, feeling as if someone was pushing him onto a very thin tightrope.
Or maybe that was just the pent-up hormones doing the talking.
He hadn’t been with a woman since Patricia was killed. And hadn’t been with her in a while, either, except for that one time that resulted in Jackie.
No wonder he felt so tense, Jack realized. He was an average male who had hormones roaming through his body like midnight looters. He needed an outlet.
For a second, as he approached the end of the long cul-de-sac, he all but came to a stop. It occurred to him just what he needed. It was, God help him, a date. He needed to spend time with a woman who would take his mind off Zooey.
Glancing into his rearview mirror, he saw Rebecca Peters standing outside her house. And she, as she turned around, saw him. Or at least his car.
The wide smile was unmistakable.
And it was also, he thought, a sign.
But one, he told himself, he was going to have to deal with later. Right now, he had a case to pull together.
“My stomach aches,” Emily complained half an hour later as she sat at the breakfast table, staring into her bowl of cereal. The little girl pressed her lips together as if to keep from crying. “Can I stay home from school today?”
This was not the first time Emily had complained of a stomachache. There had been a number of other ailments cited as well, deployed as valid reasons for not going to school.
Zooey felt a slight tug on her heart. It brought back memories of early school days and those harsh feelings of not quite fitting in.
Glancing toward Jackie to make sure the boy was still securely belted into his high chair, she drew her chair closer to Emily’s and sat down. “Do you have a test today?”
Avoiding her eyes, Emily continued to stare into her bowl and shook her head. “No.”
Zooey took another stab, although she had a feeling she knew what lay at the bottom of Emily’s sudden maladies. “A book report due?”
“Did it,” Emily told the sinking golden balls of cereal in her bowl. “Miss Nelson says it’s due next Friday.”
Zooey looked at her closer. “Somebody picking on you in school?”
Emily’s frown grew deeper. Sadder. She raised the spoon, only to tilt it and watch the milk and little golden balls go cascading back into the bowl.
“No.”
There was too much hesitation, Zooey thought. She was on the right trail. “Are you sure nobody’s teasing you?” she coaxed gently. “Emily, you can tell me. I want to help.”
The little girl raised her head, and Zooey saw the glimmer of tears as she fought them back. “Nobody’s teasing me, Zooey. They don’t even see me. They’re like Daddy. I’m not even there.”
Wow, and wasn’t that a mouthful? But at least they’d reached the heart of it. Big time. Emily was suffering from a case of loneliness—on all fronts, it appeared. She thought her dad was ignoring her, and nobody had time for a shy little girl at school.
Time for a change, Zooey decided.
She put her arm around the girl. Emily laid her head against her shoulder. Moved, Zooey stroked the child’s silky hair with her free hand. If she had a little girl, she thought, she’d look like this. Like Emily. Small and delicate. And vulnerable.
She was going to change the last part, Zooey promised herself. “Sure they see you, honey. And I bet they’re wondering why you won’t talk to them.”
Emily raised her head, her eyes frightened. “Talk to them? What’ll I say?”
“Well, ‘hi’ for openers.” Zooey thought for a moment, trying to remember what it was like being seven. “If they’re playing a game, you could ask to join in.”
“I don’t know any games,” Emily murmured. “The nannies Daddy hired kept us in the house. They said it was easier than following Daddy’s rules.”
Ah, yes, Zooey thought. Daddy’s rules. The very same rules she completely disregarded. For an absent parent, the man had a myriad of rules to take the edge off his guilt. He was going to have to learn that it didn’t work that way.
And, when it came to going out, she had noticed a certain reluctance, at least on Emily’s part. The little girl seemed to be happiest sitting in front of the television set, a video game control pad in her hand. Since she’d heard that playing video games helped improve dexterity and hand-eye coordination, Zooey hadn’t protested too much.
But it was definitely time to make a few changes.
Zooey thought of the kids in the house directly across the street. There were two boys and a girl living there—Anthony, who was nine, Michael, five, and Olivia, age seven—Emily’s age. They belonged to Angela Schumacher, a single mom who worked as an office manager. The woman was a regular supermom, to the extent that when her younger sister, Megan, needed a place to stay, she’d taken her in as well.
But it was Olivia Zooey was interested in at the moment.
“Emily,” she began slowly, “aren’t you in the same class as Olivia—?”
Emily abandoned her cereal and looked up at Zooey, puzzled. “Yes.”
“Do you like Olivia?” Zooey asked her innocently.
Emily nodded, her blond hair bobbing. “Everyone likes Olivia.” There was a wistful note in the little girl’s voice.
All systems are go, Zooey thought. Now they just had to wait for liftoff. She nodded at the bowl of cereal. “You about done with that?”
“Uh-huh.” Emily pushed the bowl of soggy golden balls to the center of the table. “My stomach hurts,” she repeated.
“We’re going to fix that stomach,” Zooey promised. Getting up, she crossed to Jackie and un-strapped him from the high chair. He all but bounced up, pivoting on the footrest and straining for freedom.
This boy has too much energy, Zooey thought. Lifting him out of the chair, she felt his legs immediately begin to wave back and forth as if he was attempting to propel himself upward.
All things considered, Zooey decided that it was more prudent to hang on to the boy than to set him down. She tucked him against her hip.
“You’re riding in style right now, fella.” She turned toward his sister. “Emily, go get your backpack.”
“Now?” she asked, even as she hurried to the corner by the counter where she had deposited her backpack on the way into the kitchen.
“Yes, now.” Zooey grabbed her purse and slung the strap over her shoulder as she led the way to the front door.
“But we’re early,” Emily cried. This was definitely not what she had in mind. She wanted to avoid school, not get there early.
“We’re not going to school just yet,” Zooey told her. She held the door open, then locked it behind them. Pocketing her key, she bypassed the car in the driveway and continued walking. “First we have to make a stop at the house across the street.”
Emily scrunched up her face, completely confused as she hurried to keep up with her nanny and her brother. “Why?”
“We’re going to ask Olivia’s mom if she’d like us to take Olivia to school with us.”
“Olivia?” Emily repeated the name with hushed reverence. “In our car?”
“Why not?” Zooey stopped just shy of the neighbor’s front door and looked at Emily, a whimsical smile playing on her lips. “Does she have cooties?”
Emily’s face scrunched up again as she desperately tried to follow the conversation. “What’s that?”
Zooey merely shook her head. Boy, things certainly changed a lot. Fast.
“Sorry, wrong generation, I guess.” And then, because Emily was still looking up at her with a quizzical expression on her face, she explained, “Cooties are something that boys say girls have so they don’t have to play with them.”
Emily frowned, looking at her little brother. Jackie made a face at her, then laughed, secure in the sanctuary provided by Zooey’s arms. “Boys are stupid.”
Zooey laughed. “I’m sure your father will appreciate you holding that thought until you’re at least thirty. Maybe older.”
Standing in front of Angela Schumacher’s door, Zooey shifted Jackie to her other hip and rang the doorbell. A minute or so later, she was about to ring a second time when the door finally opened.
She expected to see Olivia’s mother in the doorway. Instead, it was Megan.
Even better, Zooey thought. She had gotten friendly with Olivia’s aunt.
“Oh, hi.” Megan’s gaze swept over Zooey, taking in Jackie and Emily. She seemed mildly surprised to see them at this hour. “Are you looking for Angela?” Even as she asked, Megan glanced over her shoulder into the house.
Zooey stopped her before she could call out to her sister. “No, actually, we’re looking for Olivia.”
Turning back, Megan glanced at the little girl who was all but hiding behind Zooey. She smiled at her. Painfully shy, Emily shifted even farther behind Zooey. “My niece?”
“Yes. I thought that since both Olivia and Emily here—” she nodded at the child, who was attempting to morph into her own shadow “—go to the same school—”
“The same class,” Emily told her in a stage whisper. “Miss Nelson’s, remember?”
“Sorry,” Zooey replied in the same stage whisper. “The same class,” she said in a normal voice to Megan, “we thought we’d ask if your sister would like us to take Olivia to school with us this morning.”
Megan looked a little taken aback by the unexpected offer. “Um, sure. I don’t see why not.” She held up her finger, as if to pause the action. “Just let me go and ask her. Come in, won’t you?”
Zooey nodded and stepped in the door, Jackie still in her arms. Emily was right there behind them, clinging to the hem of Zooey’s jacket.
Megan disappeared, calling out to Angela, loudly repeating the offer that had just been made.
It was a nice house, Zooey thought, looking around. But it felt a little lonely.
Both Megan and Angela appeared in less than two minutes. Olivia was between them, striding to keep up with the adults.
“Thank you,” Angela said warmly. “Your offer is much appreciated.” She flushed slightly. “I’m running behind this morning.”
Zooey smiled. “Isn’t everyone? Emily, why don’t you take Olivia to the car? I’ll be there in a second.”
As Emily shyly took Olivia’s hand and led her outside, Zooey turned toward Angela and quickly explained the sudden request for a carpool.
This morning was going to mark the beginning of the end of Emily’s painful shyness.
Chapter Five
It dawned on Zooey in the middle of a left turn fifteen minutes later that she was beginning to have definite parentlike feelings when it came to dealing with the Lever children. Especially Emily.
These last few months she’d become closer to the little girl, ached for her when she seemed to be so alone or when Emily longed for her father to pay some attention to her. Zooey had become acutely aware of just what her own mother must have gone through raising her.
Of how her mom must have felt. And what had been going through her mother’s mind when she’d wanted her to join the family firm.
Zooey had never thought of either of her parents as particularly bad people. She’d never felt rage, or gone through that I-hate-you period that some teenagers experienced, turning life into a living hell for themselves and their parents.
But she hadn’t exactly been the easiest person to get along with, either. Admittedly, the last few years she’d been perverse, saying “day” when her parents and Uncle Andrew had said “night” just because she didn’t want to be agreeable. Didn’t want to walk the same path they walked. The one they wanted her to take.
She still didn’t want to be part of the family business, but it suddenly dawned on her that her parents hadn’t pushed for it because they wanted to be mean or didn’t care about her dreams. They just wanted what they thought was the best for her.
Zooey’s epiphany inside the silver SUV brought with it a slash of guilt that came equipped with big, sharp teeth. Said teeth took a sizable chunk out of her. There were words she did regret saying, people she did regret hurting.
She supposed that part of the trouble was that she knew, despite her seemingly breezy attitude, that she’d never thought she would measure up to what was expected of her. And, coming from two parents who were as close to perfect as was possible, she hadn’t wanted to disappoint them. The best way to avoid certain disappointment was not to try in the first place. Not to get involved in what they wanted her to be involved in.
So she’d chucked it all—school, Connor, everything—in order to avoid presenting them with the ultimate disappointment: a daughter who was a failure on all fronts.
In its own circular way, that made sense to her. But probably not to anyone else.
“Sorry, Mom,” she murmured under her breath, just as she glanced in the rearview mirror.
Emily was sitting in the middle of the backseat, with Jackie strapped into his car seat on one side and Olivia belted in on her other, directly behind the driver’s seat.
Emily, Zooey noted, no longer had that distant-because-I’m-scared expression on her face. Good. She’d even heard Emily say a few words to Olivia. What was more important, Olivia had said a few words back. And they hadn’t sounded as if they’d been squeezed out of the clogged end of a used tube of toothpaste. They had flowed freely. So freely that within a few minutes, Olivia began to chatter. And soon there was an actual conversation going on back there.
Zooey smiled to herself.
They were making progress. And it was probably a toss-up as to who was happier about it—her or Emily. Maybe it was a tie, Zooey thought, her smile spreading into a wide grin.
“Hey, Olivia?” Zooey raised her voice in order to be heard above the din. Politely, Olivia immediately stopped talking to listen. She’d chosen a good playmate for Emily, Zooey thought, congratulating herself. “Emily and I are thinking of going shopping this weekend.”
“Shopping?” Olivia uttered the word with reverence and wistfulness.
“You know, for some new clothes for the fall.” Not risking turning around, Zooey raised her eyes to the mirror again. Emily appeared surprised, but Olivia was fairly beaming. “Think you and your mom or your aunt Megan might be interested in joining us?”
As of yet, Emily hadn’t developed any particular interest in acquiring new clothing. Zooey had a strong hunch that Olivia, even at this young, tender age, was a shopper.
The sparkle in the child’s eyes told her she’d guessed correctly. “Sure,” Olivia cried enthusiastically. “I’ll ask my mom,” she promised, then turned to Emily. “But she’ll say yes. I know she will.”
Emily nodded. Things were happening a little too fast for her to assimilate. She’d never had a friend before, other than her brother. But slowly, a smile slipped across her lips.
Zooey saw it and felt a surge of triumph. “Okay, then we’ll consider it a date,” she said to Olivia.
Now all she had to do, Zooey thought as she approached the school, was get Jack to sign off on th
is.
For once, Jack was getting home earlier than he’d expected. Or at least he’d left the office earlier than he’d been doing for the last few weeks.
He felt drained and yet wired. Wired because the morning’s near-miss with Zooey hadn’t quite faded from his mind, despite all the effort he’d put into forgetting it since he’d driven away from his house. Something seemed to be stirring inside of him. Something he didn’t want stirring.
But he couldn’t exactly go into hiding, either. He lived here, for God’s sake. A man shouldn’t feel uneasy coming home at night. Uneasy not because of what was waiting for him, but because of what he might be tempted to do.
As he turned the corner onto his street, he saw Bo Conway working on the car that stood in the driveway of Carly Anderson’s house.
Bo’s house pretty soon, Jack thought.
The house had been dubbed the McMansion by the other residents of Danbury Way because, for one thing, it was almost twice the size of the other homes on the block.
When Carly and her ex-husband moved in, the house had been like all the others along the cul-de-sac. And then they had bought the house next door as well because Carly wanted to merge the two houses together to create one great big one.
Bo Conway had been the last contractor on the scene, coming in to augment and tinker with the McMansion at the tail end of Carly’s crumbling marriage. He’d stayed on to offer a shoulder to cry on. And that turned into an offer to love, honor and cherish. Or words to that effect.
The words themselves would be uttered soon, Jack knew, because what Bo had ultimately repaired was Carly’s broken heart and very damaged self-esteem. When her husband suddenly declared that he was leaving because he was no longer in love with her, Carly Anderson’s entire world had crashed and burned. She had, according to rumor, lost all hope, all faith that life held anything for her but emptiness. Amid all the wealth she had surrounded herself with, she was very poor.
But Bo had fixed all that, Jack thought as he pulled his BMW into the driveway and set the hand brake.
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