Have to Have It (5 page)

“Okay” Kiley saw him say. “Do it.”

Whap.

Weston struck the ball. It rolled thirty feet past the cup.

“Tiger Woods she isn't,” Esme surmised.

“Who's Tiger—” Lydia started to ask, but was interrupted by someone at the base of the bleachers calling Kiley's name.

“Kiley! Yoo-hoo! Kiley!”

Kiley peered down into the crowd at the base of the bleachers. A tall, bone-thin woman with short dark hair, expensive-looking khakis, and a fitted oxford was practically jumping up and down, waving her hands as she shouted Kiley's name.

Lydia recognized her before Kiley did.

“Run for your lives, girls,” she warned her friends. “Or call out the National Guard. It's the one and only Evelyn Bowers.”

It was indeed Evelyn Bowers, who was supposed to be Lydia's inaugural client in her nascent nanny-placement business— Lydia's big make-scads-of-money scheme.

Lydia had, in fact, found Evelyn a nanny, but the nanny had turned out to be … strange. Still, from what Kiley knew, Evelyn Bowers was even stranger. Not only had she fired that nanny after less than a day on the job, she'd also gone off on Lydia, promising to bad-mouth her to every other mother in Los Angeles (a bit of an exaggeration since obviously she didn't know every mother in Los Angeles; but Evelyn was a publicist, and Kiley had quickly learned that the L.A. show business world was sort of like its own small town). This threat had pretty much killed Lydia's business before it had even gotten started.

So Kiley's question was, why did Evelyn want to talk to her? They'd met exactly one time, here at the country club. Evelyn had been wowed that Esme was working for the Goldhagens,
and that Kiley was a nanny too. Lydia had done everything she could to underscore the impression that it had been she who'd gotten the girls their jobs.

“I suggest you go down there,” Lydia advised. “Otherwise, she'll come up here, and that puts my life in danger.”

“Fine. I'll talk to her.” Kiley stood and edged her way to the bleacher stairs, then took them two at a time. As she did, Evelyn broke into a wide grin and pushed through the crowd to meet her.

“Kiley, it's great to see you again!” the woman said, taking both of Kiley's hands in hers as if they were long-lost friends. “How are you? How's every little thing?”

Kiley tugged her hands back. “Fine, Mrs. Bowers.”

“Evelyn, please!” she insisted. “You're Platinum's nanny, right? Your friend-who-shall-go-nameless told me.” Evelyn shot a look of pure loathing up the bleachers toward Lydia, who Kiley saw was looking everywhere but down at the two of them. But when Evelyn refocused on Kiley, she was as perky as ever.

Kiley cleared her throat. “Actually, I
was
working for Platinum but—”

Evelyn smacked an open palm against her own forehead. “Of course. How could I be so stupid! Platinum had that…
incident
last night. I read about it in the
Times
this morning.” Evelyn's voice dropped at least fifty decibels. “A shame. Really. How terrible for those children. Did the arrest affect you personally in any way? I sincerely hope it didn't.”

Kiley tried to hold back the bitterness she felt. “You could say it did, Mrs.—I mean, Evelyn. Her house is a crime scene. I'm not her nanny anymore. I'm going home to Wisconsin. Tomorrow. My mom already bought me a nonrefundable plane ticket.
So I would say so. Thanks for asking, though.” She tilted her head toward the bleachers. “I should get back to my friends.”

Kiley went to turn away but Evelyn's lightning-fast hand clamped onto her forearm. “Kiley wait. This … change in your circumstances. That means that you're …
available.”

“In what sense?” Kiley asked warily.

Evelyn released Kiley's arm. “Well, it occurred to me when I read what had happened with Platinum—I really never thought the woman was stable—that if you were offered the right position as a nanny, you would be prepared to accept it immediately. More importantly, there would be no delay. You could start immediately.” She grinned hugely. “In
that
sense.”

Whoa.
Was Evelyn offering her a job?

Kiley's mind raced. It was one thing to be living in Echo Park in a stranger's house and working as a waitress; it was quite another to be able to tell her mom that she'd secured an actual nanny position with someone who was far more stable than Platinum. She couldn't be certain, but her mother might actually be persuaded to let her stay in California under those circumstances.

Maybe. Please, God.

Evelyn was getting her Louis Vuitton checkbook out of her Kate Spade bag. “How much was the plane ticket, did you say?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, let's just say five hundred dollars and we'll work it out later.” Evelyn scribbled the amount on her check and handed it to Kiley, curling Kiley's fingers around it. “There! I've left the payee blank for the moment. Why don't we take a walk up to the restaurant so I can interview you? If the interview works out—and I'm getting a
fantastic
vibe here—we'll call your mother together. You can either send this to her—we'll fill in her
name—or I can wire the money to her account in … where did you say she lives?”

Kiley was in a daze. “Wisconsin. La Crosse, Wisconsin.”

“La Crosse,” Evelyn repeated. “Well, I'm sure it's a fantastic place, and you were raised with all those salt-of-the-earth ethics that I would value so much in a nanny.”

Aside from Dad being a drunk and Mom having daily panic attacks, sure. I'm just salt of the earth through and through.

Evelyn moved closer. “Let me level with you here, Kiley I am desperate for a nanny.” She folded both bony arms over her chest. “Your friend up there whose name I won't speak broke my heart. Do you realize that?”

“Well, I know you weren't happy with the nanny she—”

Evelyn put a forefinger to her lips. “Shhh. We can't talk about it, and we definitely can't talk about
her.
It's just too upsetting. This will be strictly between us, if we can reach an understanding. Am I making myself clear?”

“Sure,” Kiley told her, thinking that she had nothing to lose.

As if the deal had already been struck, Evelyn stuck out her hand. Kiley had no choice but to shake it. “Okay,” Evelyn told her, grasping Kiley's hand as if they were suddenly superglued to each other. “I've got a great idea. Let's go up to the restaurant and have some iced tea. And caviar on melba toast points. Do you like Russian caviar? I adore Arabian myself. My treat. We've got a lot to talk about.”

“Come on, kid,” Oliver Sturman pleaded with Easton. “You can do it. Just do the same thing you did before. One more time. Just put the ball in the hole.”

He, Luis, and Esme were gathered around the little girl. Luis shook his head. “She doesn't speak English, she can't understand you.”

“Ball!” Easton yelled up at them, her face red.

“Good girl!” Oliver exclaimed, giving Easton a big thumbs-up. He turned back to Luis. “Evidently she does speak some English, Luis.”

“If you speak slowly, she'll understand a lot,” Esme put in. “She's a very fast learner.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Oliver agreed wryly. “Could you please tell her to just keep doing what's she doing?”

Luis traded a look with Esme. “I don't think this girl needs our advice, sir.”

Esme would have to agree with that assessment. In the twenty minutes since Kiley had departed with Evelyn, the putting competition had fallen apart completely as Easton had become the center of attention. It had taken no more than a dozen putts for everyone within sight to realize that the little girl from Colombia had a natural talent for golf. No, more than a talent. She was weirdly, freakily, and unaccountably great at it.

Word of her ability had spread around the club like a brush fire in Topanga Canyon fueled by raging Santa Ana winds. Not only had all the nannies come down off the bleachers to gather around the green, the other young putting contestants were standing in a ragged semicircle just to watch Easton do her thing. Meanwhile, once T-Mobile Sidekicks and BlackBerries had been activated, golfers had abandoned the course and sped back in their golf carts to watch the prodigy, while other club members had hustled down from the clubhouse and the pool area.

The upshot was, there were now upwards of three hundred people crowded around the green, while exactly four people stood on the putting surface—the head pro, his assistant Luis, Esme, and diminutive Easton. As for Weston, she was off to the side of the crowd, huddled in Lydia's arms, babbling away in Spanish that Lydia didn't understand.

“Tú estas lista por una otra?”
Esme asked Easton.

She nodded and pointed to the ground, indicating where she wanted the head pro to place a golf ball. Dutifully, he cleaned a ball on a towel monogrammed with the country club's crest and put it on the exact spot that Easton wanted.

“Adónde?”
Easton asked. “Where?”

“Número cinco,”
Luis suggested, motioning to a hole at the far
end of the green. There was a fearsome dip about five feet from the cup; the cup was cut into the side of that dip. “Number five.”

He leaned in toward the head pro. “That's basically an impossible putt, sir. Sixty-one feet from here, exactly. And she's got a heck of a break to the right in order to sink it.”

“O-kay,” Easton assured him in English.
“Yo estoy lista.”

“She's ready,” Esme and Luis translated simultaneously.

As the gallery hushed, Easton grasped the putter just as Luis had instructed her, and leaned over the golf ball. She aimed, took two careful practice strokes behind the ball, then confidently struck it, keeping her gaze fixed on the spot where the ball had been before it rolled away instead of lifting her head to follow the ball's progress.

Everyone else watched the ball as it rolled toward the cup like a slow-speed cylindrical cruise missile locked on its target.

It was uncanny. Somehow the little girl intuitively read the break in the green perfectly and aimed well to the left of the cup; she'd taken into account the downward dip as well, and putted softly enough that the ball was barely moving when it reached the hill. At that point, gravity took over … until the golf ball dropped into the hole with a satisfying
ka-pluck.

The crowd whooped and hollered in delight, and Luis smacked Esme on the back with excitement.

“Holy cow, this is amazing!” the head pro marveled as the cheering continued. Nannies with camera phones were snapping pictures of Easton, who didn't seem at all unmoored by the attention. “I've been keeping track. Inside of six feet, she hasn't missed. Six feet to twenty feet, she's hitting fifty percent. Over twenty feet, she's four out of sixteen, and all the ones she missed left easy tap-ins. I've never seen anything like it in my life.”

His eyes went to Esme. “Are you the mom or the big sister?”

“The nanny” Esme retorted, bristling a bit. Obviously this guy thought that because the children were Latina, and she was Latina, they had to be blood relatives. Wrong. “She's Steven and Diane Goldhagen's daughter. Remember? This is Nanny and Me.”

The head pro started to apologize, but was interrupted by the second twin, Weston, who squirmed out of Lydia's grip and started running toward her sister.

“Ball! Ball!” she called, as she clearly wanted to share the spotlight. But the bizarre thing was, even though the girls were identical in every apparent way, Weston's golf was pretty much what you'd expect from a reasonably coordinated kindergartner—that is to say, pretty dreadful—while Easton's skill with the putter was nothing short of phenomenal.

“Sorry, duty calls,” Lydia told the pro and Luis, hurrying after the little girl while Esme stayed with Easton.

“Me ball! Me ball!” Weston yelled. She picked the golf ball out of the cup and kept running. Finally, Lydia grabbed her and carried her back to her sister and Esme.

“En dos minutos serás tu vuelta
, sweetie,
”
Esme told Weston. “It will be your turn.”

“No!” Weston yelled, as red-faced and angry as Esme had ever seen her. In fact, she hauled off and smacked Esme across the face with her tiny palm, to the shock of the gallery.

“Eso era una cosa muy ala a hacer,”
Esme chided, struggling desperately to keep her cool, and reminding herself that the twins were under a lot of stress. “That was a very bad thing to do.”

“Te odio
, doodyhead!
”
she yelled at Esme, which made the nannies standing by the side of the green laugh uncomfortably. They might not know that “
Te odio”
meant “I hate you,” but the
“doodyhead” part came through loud and clear. It was funny, in a way which was why the nannies were chuckling. But they also knew that but for the grace of God, it could have been them out there, with their kid making the scene.

“Weston, no!” Lydia admonished. “Esme, how about I take her for a walk up to the pool, and you can come meet us? I have to meet Jimmy and Martina up there in ten minutes anyway.”

Before she responded, Esme couldn't help noticing the way Lydia kept looking back at Luis, the assistant golf pro. Her startling light green eyes gazed up at him from beneath her sooty lashes, and Luis seemed mesmerized. It was as if Lydia was advising Luis where he, as well as Esme, might be able to find her.

Fine. If Lydia wanted to flirt, that was her business.

Esme picked up Weston, walked away a few feet, and whispered in Spanish in the child's ear: “Go with Lydia to get Jimmy and Martina. Easton and I will come and meet you. Then you can pick whatever kind of ice cream you want at the snack bar. With whipped cream.”

Yes. It was a bribe, using the thing that Weston loved most in the world—ice cream. She didn't like to bribe the kids. Sometimes, though, extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

When she came back to Easton, Lydia was introducing herself to Luis. It seemed as though Luis took an extra-long time shaking Lydia's outstretched hand.

“I'm Esme's friend,” Lydia explained. “Lydia.”

“Luis,” he replied, still gazing into her eyes.

“Real nice,” she drawled to Luis, giving him another flirty look. “To meet you, I mean.”

Esme cleared her throat as loudly as possible, as a signal to Lydia to get going with Weston. Lydia got the hint. She took Weston's hand and they walked off together. Meanwhile, the head pro, Mr. Sturman, was placing another golf ball on the green for Easton to putt, seemingly oblivious to the embarrassing incident that had just taken place.

“I'd love to teach her myself,” Sturman told Esme, “but I think the language barrier would be a problem. Why don't you suggest to Steven and Diane that Luis teach their daughter. No charge, as long as I can be one of her sponsors when she grows up? What do you say?”

Do you have any idea how rich her parents are?
Esme thought. But it seemed impolite to say that.

“I don't think she'll need sponsors,” she responded coolly.

“Hell, I just want to witness the process,” Sturman marveled. “Can you imagine? It'll be like helping to make the next Michelle Wie.” He clapped Luis on the shoulder. “You ready to take this on, you lucky son of a gun?”

“Yes, sir,” Luis assured him with a broad grin. “Absolutely”

Sturman knelt by Easton's side and tried to give her a quick lesson on golf terminology—the green, the cup, the grip, the fairway, the course, and so on. As he did, Luis stood with Esme, and the crowd finally started to disperse.

“Which would you rather speak, Spanish or English?” he asked her.

“English. This is America.”

“Works for me,” the pro agreed. He barely had any accent at all. “You'll talk to her parents about lessons?”

“Definitely. But Easton won't be able to start right away.
We're going to Jamaica tomorrow. How about if they call you when we get back?”

“When will that be?”

“Friday. I think.”

Luis dug a card out of his pocket and handed it to Esme. “Luis Josemaria de Castro. And no, I'm not related to Fidel.”

Esme smiled again. This guy was not just very handsome, he was very, very charming.

“Esme? Yo soy casado de golf. Yo quisiera un helado, por favor.”
Easton tugged at Esme's sleeve.

“I'd suggest you get the girl an ice cream like she's asking for,” Luis joked. “And if I could make one more suggestion…”

“Yes?”

Luis leaned close. “Give my phone number to your friend Lydia,” he said, careful to keep his voice low.

“Are you planning to teach her golf, too?” Esme asked with an arched brow.

“Anything she wants to learn,” he replied.
“Anything.”