The Woman in Our House

by Andrew Hart

  “You OK?” asked Josh. “We can still cancel if you want. Pay her the part salary and punt.”

  “No,” I said, not even considering it. “We said we’d try, so let’s try.”

  “OK,” he said. “But if at any point you decide it was a bad idea, for any reason at all, we call it quits and do whatever we have to do to put things back the way they were, whether the nanny likes it or not. It’s our call, Anna. Me, you, and the girls. Mostly you. The nanny is an employee. If it’s not working out, we stop. Yeah?”

  I nodded but couldn’t stop myself from adding, “Oaklynn. Don’t call her the nanny.”

  “Oaklynn, then,” said Josh, rolling his eyes.

  “I mean it, Josh. She has to feel welcome. Her name is Oaklynn.”

  “Fine. Though we may need to repaint her bedroom.”

  “What?” I said, genuinely shocked.

  “I mean, not sure the blue will go with the red carpet we’re rolling out . . .”

  I slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

  “Not funny,” I said.

  “OK,” he said. “Just remember: she . . . Oaklynn is welcome, but it’s still our house. Our lives.”

  I nodded.

  Oaklynn arrived two days later. Josh offered to go to the airport with me, but I said I wanted to be the one to greet her. I didn’t take the girls in case the flight was delayed or Oaklynn needed more luggage space than I had anticipated, so it was just me at Charlotte Douglas baggage claim, holding a hand-lettered sign with her name on it. I didn’t think I really needed that—I already felt like Oaklynn was someone I knew—but I thought it made me look more professional.

  The flight from Salt Lake City was nonstop, but one of those typically southern “popcorn” thunderstorms so common in late summer had moved along I-85, bringing driving rain and the kind of lightning that stabbed down in sudden flickering branches. For an hour and ten minutes, the airport was effectively closed, nothing landing or taking off, and I had to sit on a plastic chair, my anxiety building. I asked someone in the blue uniform of American Airlines about her flight, but he shrugged.

  “They can’t circle forever,” he said. “Fuel gets low. If the storm doesn’t clear soon, they may have to reroute.”

  “Where to?”

  Again, the shrug.

  “Raleigh,” he said. “Atlanta.”

  “Then how will they get here?” I said, worry making me stupid.

  “Lady, I’m in baggage, not air traffic control. When they get here, you can come to me if they can’t find their suitcases. Till then, chill a bit. They’ll announce soon enough.”

  I did not chill. I paced, then went up the escalator to the check-in area and explored every area I could without showing a boarding pass, asking the same idiotic questions and getting the same noncommittal answers. At last, the storm slid northeast, and the airport came back to life, sending me scurrying back to baggage claim, convinced I would now miss her entirely. I was still studying the monitor in the arrivals hall, trying to figure out which carousel Oaklynn’s luggage would come in on, when a voice beside me made me turn.

  “Mrs. Klein? Anna?”

  It was she. She looked exactly like her picture: late thirties, pink, a bit frumpy in a shapeless flower-print dress and a faintly absurd floppy felt hat, but a smile that was runway wide. Overcome with relief, I muttered, “Oh, thank God,” and threw my arms around her. To her credit, she did not freak out, and as I started coming back to sanity and babbling my apologies and explanations, she smiled and said that it was fine and that she was so glad to finally meet me in person.

  As if the hug hadn’t happened, she extended her hand to shake but offered me only her top two fingers to hold. I took them and shook anyway, feeling the oddness of the gesture, and it was only then that I looked down and saw that, in addition to a plaid backpack at her feet, she had a blue plastic carrier. For a second, I wondered if she had somehow already recovered her suitcase from the carousel but then realized that the carrier had a heavy metal mesh gate on the front and a similar grill on the top. As I looked, something inside moved. Something with fur.

  “Yes,” said Oaklynn, abashed. “This is Mr. Quietly. My cat.”

  I dragged my eyes back to her face, but no words came.

  “I say my cat, but he belonged to my friend Nadine,” said Oaklynn, reading the bafflement in my face.

  “Right,” I said vaguely. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall you saying . . . I mean, in the application . . .”

  I spoke hesitantly, caught between real confusion and the awkwardness of asking what she was thinking. A cat? She hadn’t mentioned a cat. She couldn’t bring a cat into our house! And as the thought settled, all my previous panic and anxiety roared in my head. It was all going to go wrong because I hadn’t noticed, or she hadn’t mentioned, that she had a fucking cat. After all the preparation and worry, she was going to get back on the next plane and leave . . .

  “I didn’t mention it,” said Oaklynn. Her smile was gone, and she looked miserable. “The agency doesn’t like us to say we have pets. Employers don’t want them. But this just happened, and I didn’t know what to do and . . .”

  We stood in the grayness of the airport, surrounded by distracted and irritated passengers and the equally distracted and irritable people who had come to collect them. I realized with a thrill of horror that there were tears in the woman’s eyes.

  “What do you mean this just happened?” I asked.

  “Nadine, my friend. Mr. Quietly was hers, and she was driving across a railroad track near Park City, and the signal was out. It was dark, and I think she had some kind of engine problem, and . . .” She faltered, her eyes down, then looked suddenly up into my face. “She was hit by a train.”

  “Oh my God!” I gasped.

  “She lived for a few hours, but the damage was just . . .” She shook her head. “And there was no one else, so Mr. Quietly was going to have to go into a shelter and probably . . . well, you know what happens to abandoned animals in those places. So I said I’d take him, but if it’s a problem, I can take him to a shelter here or try to find a new owner. I’m really sorry. I should have said. I just didn’t know what to do and . . .”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Really. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, if it doesn’t work out, I won’t keep him. He’s super quiet. That’s why he’s called . . . you know. That’s how he got his name. You probably won’t know he’s there. And if he’s a nuisance, I can totally find him a home or take him to the Humane Society or . . .”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “The girls will be delighted.”

  “She has a cat?” whispered Josh, wide-eyed. “When did she say anything about having a cat?”

  “It was her friend’s,” I hissed back. Oaklynn was unloading her things from the car. “She was killed when her car was hit by a train.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Right,” I agreed. “So for now, Mr. Quietly stays with us. And if it doesn’t work out . . .”

  “Mr. Quietly?”

  “The cat.”

  “Oh,” said Josh. “Right.” He stared at me, then opened his hands in bewildered resignation. “She was hit by a train? OK. OK. I guess we have a cat.”

  On cue, Oaklynn appeared in the front doorway, overwhelmed with luggage but beaming as she set down two huge pink suitcases. She looked bigger in the house, broad shouldered and not as much heavy as strong, centered. As she pushed past the cases, I had a fleeting image of her as a farmhand, shoving her way through unruly pigs.

  “Let me help you with that,” said Josh, quickly. “Hi, by the way. I’m Josh.”

  “Oaklynn,” said Oaklynn, offering him the same two-fingered handshake she had given me.

  I kicked myself for not warning him about it, but he shrugged and said, “OK” and shook.

  She said, “Oaklynn Durst. So nice to meet you.”

  She sounded so genuinely pleased to be here that Josh hesitated, then nodded, re
turning the smile, the bizarre handshake and unwanted cat momentarily forgotten.

  “Let me show you to your room,” said Josh, picking up one of the piggy-pink suitcases and adjusting to its unexpected weight.

  “Actually,” said Oaklynn, making a face that was half apology and half delighted expectation, “before I do anything else, can I meet the girls?”

  “Of course!” I said, charmed by her enthusiasm. “Veronica!” I called. “Oh, there you are!”

  Veronica sidled out of the kitchen, looking wary and watchful, slightly uncomfortable in her new black skirt and patent leather shoes. She was holding Lamby, a plush sheep that was her constant companion.

  “Well, hi there,” said Oaklynn, dropping into a squat so she could meet my daughter’s eyes on her level. “My name is Oaklynn, and we are going to be the best of friends. And who is this?”

  Veronica, still cautious, uncertain, her eyes still lowered, spoke softly. “Lamby,” she said. “She’s a lamb.”

  “She is adorable!” said Oaklynn, apparently oblivious to Josh and me watching in careful silence, like this was a play or an interview. “What does she like to eat?”

  The question seemed to catch Veronica off guard, and she looked up, her expression complicated, as if she thought she was being tested but found the process amusing.

  “Grass,” she said. “And gummy bears.”

  “Veronica!” I said, fractionally embarrassed. “You know she doesn’t eat candy.”

  “Lambs love gummy bears,” Oaklynn agreed, not looking at me. “Especially when they are really fresh, straight from the ground.”

  “From the ground?” echoed Veronica, intrigued.

  “Oh yes,” said Oaklynn with absolute certainty. “Gummy bears are best when they are just picked, before they get all wrapped up in the factory. Luckily, I know a place under a waterfall where they grow best. Would you like that, Lamby?”

  Veronica’s eyes widened, and she held the plush toy up and made it nod enthusiastically.

  “Would Lamby like to make a friend?” cooed Oaklynn. “This is Mr. Quietly.”

  Veronica stared, eyes like saucers, as the cat—a long-haired tabby with calculating yellow eyes—was presented to her, turning in delighted disbelief to Josh and me, hardly daring to believe it was true.

  We had denied her a pet several times over the last year. Josh shrugged noncommittally, and I managed to nod, so that Veronica squealed and hugged the cat, oblivious to the way it fought to get away, and declared this the “greatest day ever.”

  And that was that. Veronica shrugged off her cautious apprehension and insisted on showing Oaklynn around, talking her through the mundane features of the house and its various workings. Josh and I trailed after, pleased, relieved, proud, and—for my part—very slightly jealous. Oaklynn gushed at her little suite downstairs, calling it gorgeous and—confidingly to Veronica—“just like a palace.”

  Then we showed her Grace, fussy after her nap, and Oaklynn begged to hold her. She sat in the rocker in which I used to nurse her and hummed vaguely. Grace stirred and considered her, eyes unfocused, then fell miraculously quiet in her arms. Josh and I glanced at each other, feeling once more like the audience at a special theatrical performance, the kind where the stage is bright and the audience sits in deep shadows, irrelevant and unnoticed. Oaklynn seemed to forget we were there, curling into and around the baby in her lap, her face a mask of contentment, Veronica settling at her feet and stroking Lamby with a dreamy abstraction I had never seen before. Josh and I might not have been there at all, and as he looked on admiringly and gave me the facial equivalent of a thumbs-up, I had to fight down the urge to say that this had all been a terrible mistake.

  Chapter Six

  Despite polite protestations from Josh and Anna, the woman they called Oaklynn made dinner. One of her suitcases had been partially stuffed with ingredients so they wouldn’t have to go to the store and she could start cooking the moment she had settled in. Anna was nonplussed, since they had never discussed Oaklynn cooking for the family, but Josh pronounced it thoughtful of her, generous, in a way that asked Anna not to make a fuss or to take offense.

  Nadine read the exchange perfectly but kept her bland smile in place.

  “What are we having?” asked Anna, trying to enter into the spirit of the thing.

  “Surprise,” Nadine said with a grin. “But don’t worry: no shrimp.”

  Anna wasn’t great with seafood generally and shrimp in particular, her Japanese heritage notwithstanding. It was the texture. Still, she made a puzzled face.

  “How did you know I didn’t eat shrimp?” she asked.

  “You said so,” said Nadine. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” said Anna, whose smile was a little fixed.

  “When we were talking about the area,” said Nadine, gesturing vaguely around her to indicate the city beyond the house, “you were telling me about all the restaurants close by, and you mentioned Napa, which had really good hanger steak, but you said you hadn’t tried the shrimp because you didn’t eat them.”

  Anna blinked.

  “That was weeks ago,” she said.

  Nadine tapped the side of her head knowingly. I remember things, said the gesture. I take notice. Anna looked unnerved, so Nadine adjusted.

  “Oh cripes. I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly downcast. “I’ve overreached a bit, haven’t I? I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity and . . . oh dear. Cripes. You’re upset. Jiminy Christmas, I’m such a dunderhead. I don’t have to cook. Really. I’m so sorry. It was just my way of . . . but I really don’t . . .”

  “It’s fine,” said Anna, rallying. “Sorry. I was just surprised. What a wonderful memory you must have! Of course you are welcome to cook. We’d be delighted.”

  “I thought you could spend some time with the girls,” said Nadine, back to her former perky self. “I mean, my being here isn’t just about your being able to work, right? It will get you some quality family time. If I get in the way, just say so. You won’t hurt my feelings. But till then, take a break. You must have been working like crazy getting everything ready. That bedroom is beautiful, but the painting must have taken it out of you.”

  Again, Anna caught herself.

  “It did a little,” she admitted. Then she added, “How did you know I’d painted it specially?”

  “You sent pictures of what would be my living quarters when we first connected online,” said Nadine breezily. “It was beige then. The blue is much cheerier, if you don’t mind my saying. It really is lovely. Thank you.”

  She didn’t say that she could smell that the paint was fresh or that Anna still had a faint smear of cornflower blue on the inside of her left elbow. Instead, she reached out and offered a kind of side-and-shoulder hug, not overly intimate but sisterly, something the real Oaklynn had been fond of doing.

  Anna softened at the half embrace, and her smile as they parted seemed real enough, but Nadine thought that her employer didn’t like physical intimacy, not between strangers, anyway. Maybe it was an Asian thing: a firmer sense of personal space than Oaklynn—the real Oaklynn—would have assumed.

  Good to know, thought Nadine, stirring her pot on the stove like a pro. She glanced up and gave Anna a look as if pleasantly surprised she was still there.

  “I’ll go check on the girls,” said Anna.

  “How about we eat in an hour?” asked Nadine.

  Anna nodded vaguely, then said, “Great. Though the girls usually . . .”

  “Eat at five,” Nadine completed for her. “I know. I have some treats for them, too.”

  “Excellent,” Anna managed, but Nadine could see that her employer, though she was doing her best to go along with it all, was a little stunned.

  It wasn’t a problem, though. This was exactly what Oaklynn would have done. Mrs. Klein would adjust soon enough. And if the truth were known, Nadine was a better cook than Oaklynn, whose tastes tended to the bland and starchy, more in keeping with the u
pper Midwest than the deserts of Utah. Nadine would have to at least occasionally dish out the mac and cheese with Spam, and the carrots in green Jell-O for a little Mormon verisimilitude, but she had more appetizing fare in her repertoire, and tonight would, as it were, set the table.

  Before she got to work, however, there was the formal introduction of Mr. Quietly to baby Grace—who cooed and babbled with predictable delight—while Anna hovered, just managing to restrain herself from ripping the child away before the tabby slashed the infant’s throat with his claws. Nadine hadn’t had room for a litter box in her overstuffed luggage, so the cat was then whisked away and confined to her quarters, where she could take care of whatever mess he made. There was no point pushing her luck on the first day.

  Then she cooked. Nadine preferred to work to music and plugged her iPhone into a portable speaker, which she kept turned low so as not to disturb the rest of the house. She had been afraid that her new identity would doom her to listening to nothing but the Osmonds and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but she had found some nice contemporary alternatives on a website dedicated to music with strong ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her playlists now featured the Killers and Imagine Dragons. She even had memorized a little speech about Gladys Knight, who had converted later in life. Playing the music now, albeit softly, helped complete the impression that she was absolutely not eavesdropping on whatever furtive conversations were going on elsewhere in the house. Oaklynn would never do that.

  Dinner was served exactly when she had promised and presented impeccably on the Kleins’ best china. As soon as Veronica had wolfed down spaghetti with broccoli—a favorite Nadine had discovered from careful scrutiny of Anna’s unselfconsciously public Facebook page—and Grace had been settled in her crib, the adults sat down to chicken breast, floured and fried till golden in olive oil, then braised till tender in marsala with mushroom caps and spinach, then tossed over angel-hair pasta. Tuscan chicken, she called it. Nadine had made the recipe exactly as she’d served it twice before, and it garnered the praise she had expected.