by Kevin Wilson
“The door was open,” he said. “I was just checking it out.”
“This is where I’m going to live,” I said.
“Yes, for now,” he said. “And Mrs. Roberts has informed you of the situation?”
I stared at him because it felt good to make him work for it.
“The children?” he finally said. “Their . . . situation?”
“They catch on fire,” I said. “I know.”
“May I ask you something, Ms. Breaker?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Do you have any experience with childcare? Do you have medical training? Do you have a degree in child psychology?”
“I can take care of two kids,” I told him.
“I’m not trying to be rude. For instance, do you know CPR?”
“Jesus, Carl, yes, I know CPR,” I said. “I have a certificate, even. I’m certified. I can bring the kids back to life.” Two years ago, an old lady had died in the produce section while I knelt over her, waiting for the ambulance. After that, the owner of the store made everyone get trained in CPR and first aid.
“Okay, that’s good,” he said, smiling.
“I took a class in fire safety, too,” I said. “I know how to use a fire extinguisher.”
“On a child?” he asked.
“If they’re on fire,” I told him.
He walked over to the kitchen and opened the door to what I thought was a pantry. Instead, it was filled top to bottom with gleaming red fire extinguishers. “Well, then I guess you’ll be fine.”
“Carl?” I said.
“Yes?” he replied.
“Do you think I came up with this idea? Do you think I scammed Madison into giving me a job taking care of these weird fucking kids?”
“No, not at all. I think Senator Roberts and Mrs. Roberts have been placed in an unusual situation. I think they are doing the best that they can; they are trying to be responsible and empathetic, considering the circumstances. And I think you are simply a part of that larger desire to help these children. But I do not think this is the correct response. I think this is going to be a disaster.”
“They’re just kids,” I said.
“I’m here to assist in any way that I can,” he told me. “Think of me as someone who can help you when you run into unforeseen problems.”
Just then, Madison appeared in the doorway. “Don’t you love it?” she asked me. “The polka dots?”
Carl somehow found a way to stand even straighter than he had been, like his bones locked into some unknown posture that not even soldiers could achieve.
I nodded, looking around the house. “Carl,” I said, “what do you think of the polka dots? Do you love it?”
He smiled. “It’s very appropriate for children,” he finally said. “Very . . . festive.”
“Carl likes it,” I said to Madison.
“We need to get you some clothes,” Madison said to me. “Let’s go shopping.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and she linked arms with me and we left Carl standing there, like it was his birthday and not one person had dreamed of coming to his party.
“He creeps me out a little, Madison,” I told her as we walked to the garage.
“I guess that’s kind of his job?” she replied. “Like, he makes people uncomfortable or super comfortable, based on the situation.”
“I don’t think he likes me,” I said.
“Well, I’m not sure that he even likes me,” she told me. “Who cares?”
We drove in Madison’s BMW to Nashville, to a mall where one of the anchors was a Billings Department Store, the B on the building all huge and fancy, the letters golden. She reached into her purse and produced a gold credit card from the store, something her father must have given her. “Everything is free here,” she said, “so get whatever you want.”
There wasn’t much that I wanted. Everything was so delicate and sparkly; I tried on a pair of satin pants and wanted to kill myself. “Madison,” I said, “I’m taking care of kids. I’m a nanny. I don’t need stuff for dinner parties.”
“You never know what you might need,” she said. She picked out a bright green dress, strapless, and held it up to me like I was a doll that she was dressing.
“I don’t have enough boobs to hold that dress up,” I said. I had no boobs at all, which I’d appreciated when I was growing up, and then in high school I got sad about it, and then I stopped caring again.
“I’m buying it for you,” she said. “One fancy thing. That’s it. Now you can get whatever you want.”
I bought six pairs of pretty amazing Calvin Klein jeans in various states of distress and a bunch of T-shirts, stuff that looked comfortable without being trashy. Stuff that, if it caught on fire, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I bought some tracksuits that were meant for either much older or much younger people, but I loved them, green and silver rayon like I was an assassin. I bought four pairs of Chuck Taylors and a really expensive pair of Nike basketball shoes. I got some underwear and bras, a bathing suit like Olympic athletes wore, and a cool bucket hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. I felt like some mermaid who had suddenly grown legs and was now living among the humans.
Madison found some dude with slicked-back hair who was wearing a crummy suit to follow us around and we weighed him down with stuff. When he couldn’t hold it any longer, he took it back to a register and added it to the total. When I wasn’t looking, Madison picked out some heels and a pantsuit and even some pretty sexy lingerie. I didn’t stop her. I’d take everything. She bought me some perfume called Sense and Sensibility that was in a bottle that looked so much like a dick that I thought it was a joke.
When we were done, she sent me into the mall, to the food court, because I think she didn’t want me to see how much it all cost. Not that I would have cared. Or maybe I would have, Madison so tall and perfect, handing him that gold card, me in my dirty clothes like some orphan. I guess I’d never know how it felt, because not too long after, Madison was standing there, all the clothes already stuffed into the trunk of her BMW, ready to take me back to my new home.
“Tell me about Jasper,” I asked her, turning off the Emmylou Harris CD that was making me crazy, her voice too good to concentrate.
“What do you want me to tell you about him?” she replied. She was barely touching the steering wheel, the car just doing whatever she wanted based solely on her desire.
“What’s he like?” I asked. “No, I mean, I guess I want to know if you love him.”
“You think I don’t love my husband?” she said, smiling.
“Well, do you?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I guess I love him,” she finally said. “He’s the perfect man for me because he’s very responsible and he treats me like an equal and he’s got his own interests and he lets me do whatever I want.”
“But what’s he like? What do you like about him on a personal level?” I asked, not willing to give up. I thought about my mom’s boyfriends, thousands of them, and how each one had been a mystery to me, why my mom thought he added anything to her life. I thought about my own boyfriends, the way I mostly wanted them to just be in the same room with me, the way I didn’t expect anything from them. I thought about Senator Roberts. The pictures of him that I’d seen made him look handsome enough, silver hair and ice-blue eyes, but old enough that I would have left him for dead.
“He’s intense. He’s not Southern in the way that makes you embarrassed. You know, at Vanderbilt, there was a kind of boy who wore pastel shorts and boat shoes. They wore seersucker, like they were racist lawyers from the forties. I hated them. They seemed like children but they already looked like middle-aged men. I called them Mint Julep Boys, like they missed the Old South because, even if there was horrible racism, it was worth it if it meant that they could be important by default.”
“It sounds like you’re describing your brothers,” I said. Madison sometimes wrote about them, all of them bankers or CEOs. She always said that nothing she d
id was ever treated by her parents with the same enthusiasm as her brothers’ accomplishments, even though the brothers were functioning alcoholics, all divorced and remarried.
“Yeah, like my brothers. Mint Julep Boys, like they would drink a mint julep on a regular day and they wouldn’t think it was weird. I don’t know. I’m rambling. I’m not talking about Jasper. I don’t know how to describe him. He’s quiet and principled and he’s intense. He understands people and that makes him slightly impatient with them, like they’re too stupid to protect themselves, so he has to do it for them. He’s not funny, but he has a good sense of humor.”
“Why did you marry him?” I asked.
“Because he wanted to marry me,” she said. “He wanted me, and he was older and experienced, and I liked that he’d already fucked up with the heiress and leaving his family. I liked that he was flawed but still principled. I guess that was important to me.”
“I’m scared to meet him,” I admitted.
“I’m a little scared for you to meet him,” she said. “I hope you don’t hate him.”
I didn’t say anything because I was pretty sure that, just on principle, I was going to hate him. I didn’t like men all that much, found them tiring. But I was willing to give him a chance. I was open to new things, I guessed. If it meant living in that house, I could handle talking to the senator every once in a while. I mean, his job required him to serve my interests, since I was a resident of his state. I didn’t vote, but he didn’t have to know that.
While Madison went to pick up Timothy from day care, I showered and then changed into new clothes, leaving my old ratty stuff in a hamper that I knew would be spirited away when I wasn’t looking, my clothes laundered and folded and then returned with maybe even a ribbon tied around them. I put on some of the perfume Madison had picked out for me, which smelled like old silver and honeysuckle. When I finally went downstairs, I saw Timothy standing there, no sign of any adults. “Where’s your mom?” I asked, and he simply turned away and started walking down the hallway. I followed him, and we ended up in his room, which I hadn’t seen earlier that day. His bed was bigger than any bed I’d ever owned, so fluffy that I wondered how he didn’t suffocate instantly when he got into it. “So this is your room?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you want to see my stuffed animals?”
“I mean, I guess,” I said. “Sure.”
There was a big chest and, with some effort, he lifted the lid. And then, like clowns from a VW Bug, out came so many stuffed animals that I felt like I’d dropped acid. Timothy pulled out a red fox with a bow tie. “This is Geoffrey,” he said, no emotion on his face.
“Hello, Geoffrey,” I said.
He pulled out an elephant with a thick pair of black eyeglasses. “This is Bartholomew.”
“Oh, okay; hi, Bartholomew.”
He pulled out a frog with a crown on its head. “This is Calvin,” he said, presenting him to me.
“Are you sure his name’s not Froggy?” I asked.
“It’s Calvin,” he said.
“Well, jeez; hey, Calvin.”
There was a teddy bear with a pink dress on. “This is Emily,” he said.
“Are these from some TV show or something?” I asked, trying desperately to understand this boy.
“No. They’re just for me.”
“What do you do with them?” I asked.
“I line them up.”
“Is that it? You just line them up?”
“Then I pick the best one,” he said.
When I was six years old, I used my birthday money to buy this giant box filled with action figures for boys at a yard sale. Barbies were too expensive, and so I played with these guys, all decked out in camo, interesting facial hair. I just made them stand-ins for the people in my town, and I worked my way through imaginary scenes about the life I wished I had. My figure was a doll of the Fonz from Happy Days, his plastic hands formed into thumbs-up signs. And my mom was this bearded dude with muscles and a denim vest and shorts.
One time, I was playing in my room and the mom doll said, “Lil, the mayor’s cat is missing,” and then my doll said, “C’mon, Mom, the Breaker Detective Agency is ON IT!” and I heard my mom’s actual voice say, “What are you doing?”
I looked up and my mom was standing in the doorway, staring at me.
“The mayor’s cat is missing?” I said, confused.
“Is that supposed to be you?” she asked, pointing to the Fonz. I nodded.
“And that’s me?” she asked, pointing to the Big Josh doll. I nodded again, but now I felt like maybe I’d done something wrong.
My mom looked at me with this strange expression, and now, thinking back, I feel like this was the exact moment when she realized that I wasn’t her, that I was a mystery to her and maybe always would be. I could see this flash in her eyes. And she said, kind of dumbfounded, “God, Lil, what’s in that head?” And she walked off. And I felt like a freak, even though what I was doing, pretending, was what all kids did. But my mom had no use for pretending. I think she thought it was stupid, was a kind of weakness. From that point on, I guess I sort of realized that my imagination, which made life tolerable, needed to be kept a secret from the rest of the world. But if you keep something hidden away, all tied up, it’s hard to summon it when you really need it.
And, so, maybe I understood Timothy a little. Or maybe I was jealous of him. “Can I play, too?” I asked him. He nodded and produced twelve more stuffed animals, lining them up along the floor.
“Okay, so I just pick the best one?” I asked.
“It has to be the best one,” he said.
There was a panda bear with a little guitar stitched to his paw. “I think this one.”
Timothy’s eyes kind of flashed with recognition, as if the seventeenth-century ghost who lived inside him had suddenly awakened.
“That’s Bruce,” he said, and I laughed a little at the name, so ridiculous for a stuffed animal.
“Is he the best one?” I asked.
He looked at the others, took his time. Finally, he said, “Today, Bruce is the best one.” He handed the panda over to me and I hugged it. It smelled so good, so clean.
While I held Bruce, Timothy gathered up the other stuffed animals and then put them away. He seemed pleased. I felt like I’d passed a test. Timothy touched my head, and I resisted the urge to swat his hand away.
“You’re good,” he said, and he smiled a little. Just then, Madison showed up. “Oh, are you two playing?” she asked.
“Kind of,” I said.
“Did you pick Bruce?” she asked.
“I did. He’s the best one,” I told her.
“The best one today,” Timothy clarified.
“Daddy’s home!” Madison suddenly said, and Timothy started to vibrate with, what, happiness? Excitement? Fear? “Daddy,” he said, now smiling, and he stumbled out of the room.
“Jasper’s here,” Madison said to me.
“Yikes,” I said. “Okay.”
I walked as close to Madison as I could without it being a three-legged race, and we found Timothy lifted into the air by Senator Roberts. There was genuine happiness on the man’s face, and this softened me temporarily, which was exactly what I needed to get through this moment.
“Daddy’s here!” Timothy said, and I could see the pride radiating off of his tiny body.
“I’m here,” Jasper said, not smiling, but not frowning.
Senator Roberts was tall, just enough to make him seem important. His hair was silver, not gray, like he was the emperor of some distant, icy planet. And his eyes were so blue, just beautiful. He was a handsome man. He wore a beige suit that fit him perfectly, a light blue tie with a silver donkey tie clip. He looked a little weary, like being important was a Herculean task. If any aspect of his appearance had been off by even a few degrees, he would have seemed evil. But he had the ratio perfect. I wouldn’t have married him, even with his money, but I understood why Madison would
.
“Honey,” Madison said once Timothy had received his father’s full attention, “this is Lillian.”
He kept holding on to Timothy, who had hidden his face against Jasper’s chest. “Hello, Lillian,” he said.
“Senator Roberts,” I said.
“Oh, Jasper, please,” he said, though he looked pleased at the formality.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jasper,” I then said.
“You are almost mythical in this house,” he said, his voice so measured, so hypnotic, the right amount of Southern accent. It wasn’t Foghorn Leghorn and it wasn’t a newscaster in Atlanta. It was lyrical and honeyed and entirely natural. It sounded nice. “Madison thinks the world of you,” he continued.
“Oh, okay,” I said, embarrassed. What would Madison have told him? Did he know about the fact that I’d kept Madison from being kicked out of a fancy boarding school? Was it better or worse if she’d told him?
“We are so happy to have you here,” he said; he didn’t blink. I didn’t know if this was something necessary for a politician, if blinking was a sign of weakness or something. As a result, I began blinking so much that I almost started crying.
“I’m happy to be here,” I finally said, like I was in a play and I’d finally remembered my next line.
“Dinner?” Jasper then said, not to anyone in particular, like a magic spell. I knew that when we walked into the dining room, there would be food that had not been there before Jasper said that single word.
“Yes!” Madison said. “Are you hungry?”
“I am,” he said, still not smiling. Maybe he was thinking about his fire children. Maybe he was thinking about me, this strange woman, taking up space in his house. Or maybe he was just thinking about the steps necessary for him to become the president. The point was, I didn’t know what he was thinking, and that made me nervous.
“Are you hungry, Lillian?” Madison asked, and I wondered what would happen if I said no. Sometimes I didn’t eat dinner until one or two in the morning. It was six o’clock in the evening. If I said no, would everyone go to their room and wait until I was ready? It wasn’t worth finding out. I was actually pretty damn hungry.