Have to Have It (8 page)

“Very good, sir,” Samuel told them, in a more refined accent than Desmond's. “Have a good game. If you need new balls or anything else, we have a well-equipped pro shop.”

“So, shall we?” Steven asked his friends. He held the door open. “We can get changed up at the clubhouse.”

“Perfect,” Erin said with a grin. “Esme, it was great meeting you. We'll see you for dinner.”

“My pleasure.” Esme flushed. She wasn't used to being treated with such respect.

After the couples departed, Esme found herself alone in the living room. It was blessedly quiet, save for the rolling in-and-out of the breakers. The windows had been partially opened— there was fine-mesh screening to keep out any insect life—and a breeze out of the north brought in not just the sound of the Caribbean Sea, but the smell of the salt air as well. It was absolutely intoxicating—more mind-altering than the drinks Samuel the butler had proffered.

Her home for the next several days wasn't bad, either. There were two different sleeping wings—one for the grown-ups, one for the kids. There were three spacious rooms in the kids' wing, all of them with oceanfront views, king-sized beds, TVs hooked up with PlayStations, and private bathrooms with shower, jetted tub, and bidet. As for the adult wing, Esme hadn't been invited down to take a look, but she could just imagine. The common areas included an eat-in kitchen (though Esme couldn't imagine why—who cooked when they went to a resort with five restaurants?), a playroom for the kids, and a fantastic living room, with its twin white love seats and big-screen Hitachi television. The living room also featured a full bar stocked with Bombay Blue Sapphire gin, Grey Goose vodka, and plenty of Jamaican Red Stripe beer, and a cabinet that held every game and puzzle known to mankind, an extensive DVD/CD collection, and a multilingual library.

The rug was handwoven Berber, and the art on the walls all Jamaican folk art. Esme had never been in as comfortable and welcoming a room in her life.

If only Mama and Papa could see this. They would love it. They work so hard, they deserve it as much as the Goldhagens do, and definitely more than I do. If only the three of us could be here together, for just one day—

Esme's reverie was interrupted by pounding on the front door of the house. “Hey!” a young voice was shouting. “Let us in!”

“Yeah, dude, let us in!”

Esme reached the front door a few moments after Samuel the butler, who'd already swung it open. Two scruffy-looking
boys—approximately ages eight and six—came barreling through. One of them held a basketball in one hand and a football in the other, both of which he unceremoniously dumped on the floor at Esme's feet. The other boy turned to accost Samuel.

“Something to eat!” he bellowed. “We got something to eat?”

“Yeah,” the younger boy chimed in, pushing past Esme into the living room. “We're hungry! Something to eat!”

As Samuel gave them a cockeyed look and then scurried away toward the kitchen, Esme frowned.

“Who are you boys?” she demanded.

“We're Ham and Miles!” the older one reported, at ear-splitting volume. “You're Esme, right? Our parents told us all about you! You're going to take care of us! Where's something to eat? I want something to eat!”

“No, I'm not.” Esme was indignant. “There are nannies from the resort for that.”

“No resort nanny!” the older boy shouted. His brother was already pawing through the DVDs. “We were at a resort with its own nannies before. Resort nannies are evil!”

“Yeah, listen to what Ham says,” the smaller boy told Esme. At least he wasn't shouting. “Resort nannies suck!”

Maybe I thought too soon about the quiet. Anyway, just because
—

“¡Hola, Esme! Hay demasiado ruido.
Too much sound!” Weston stood in the entrance to the living room, rubbing her eyes. “Am tired. Want sleep.”

“Me sleep too,” added Easton, coming up behind her.

“Who are the girls?” Ham demanded. “I hate girls!”

“I hate girls too!” Miles said. “We're the He-Man Girl Haters Club! The only thing worse than resort nannies is girls!”

“¿El no se gustan las chicas?”
Easton asked.
“¡El es un jopo!”

“Easton!” Esme chided the girl automatically, trying to stifle a laugh. At the moment, she was in agreement. The boy
was
a
jopo
—an ass in Colombian Spanish slang.

“Something to eat!” Ham was shouting again. “Where's the food?”

Esme shook her head. Thank God there were nannies here, nannies that came along with the vacation whether Ham and Miles wanted them or not.

Of course, if there were nannies that came with the vacation, where were they? They ought to hurry up and arrive. The notion of being responsible for Ham and Miles Silverstein, in addition to the Goldhagen twins, was far too awful even to contemplate.

A black limo picked Kiley up at Jorge's house at eight-thirty in the morning. Before that, she'd profusely thanked her host for his kindness. His response had been bemused—if Kiley ever needed assistance, she should certainly count on him. Then he helped her load her bags, and she was on her way.

It took an hour and a half in the morning rush hour traffic to get to Evelyn Bowers's house on Rockingham in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Kiley had a tenth-grade teacher who had done a presentation on the O. J. Simpson murder trial of the early nineties, and she vaguely remembered that the former star football player had lived somewhere on this very street.

The Bowers home was exquisite from the outside. Two stories, with a white stucco exterior and brick front patio. There were two verdant orange trees whose leaves drooped over the patio; some of last season's oranges gave the air a pungent but pleasant aroma. Evelyn was not nearly as rich as Platinum, and
you could definitely see neighbors' homes from the front of hers, but there was still no doubt from the locale that Evelyn was doing very nicely indeed.

The door swung open before Kiley could even press the doorbell.

“Welcome, Kiley welcome!” Evelyn exclaimed. She was dressed casually, in jeans and a blue UCLA T-shirt, with Dansko Lana leather sandals on her feet. “Welcome to your new home! Let me help you with your things. No, drop everything inside, and I'll give you the tour. I can already tell this is going to be super.”

Within seconds, Evelyn was leading Kiley through the interior of her impeccable home. The front hallway led into a sunken family room that had the biggest plasma television Kiley had ever seen, plus two southwestern-style couches and a Navajo rug on the floor. The artwork was also Native American themed, and ranged from sand paintings to feathered spears to actual Indian headdresses.

“Wow,” Kiley breathed. She'd never seen anything like it. “Are you a collector?”

Evelyn shook her head. “Not really, but my ex-husband was. I got this stuff in the divorce settlement and I won't sell it because I want him to have the pain of seeing it on my goddamn walls when he comes to get the children for his visitation. I'll tell you, it's worth waiting all week for that moment. Come on, I'll show you the rest of the place.”

Kiley followed as Evelyn continued the tour. As unassuming as the front of the house was, the interior was quite innovative. The place was U-shaped, built around an interior open courtyard that had soaring palm trees and a comfortable sitting area with stone benches and a large stone grill. Beyond it in the back
were a paddle tennis court and a constant-flow lap pool, which Evelyn told Kiley she was welcome to use whenever she wanted.

The far end of one leg of the U belonged to Kiley. She had a cozy bedroom decorated in a Hawaiian theme, her own bathroom, plus a tiny refrigerator, microwave, and table built for two.

“Be discreet with whom you bring here, Kiley,” Evelyn admonished her. “And keep clear boundaries between your personal life and my time. But our bedrooms are clear around the other side of the place. So … well, you know what I mean.”

Kiley did know what she meant. Honestly, it was a little embarrassing. She couldn't imagine her own mother ever talking to one of her friends like that.

The rest of the tour went quickly. There were four other bedrooms—one for Evelyn, one each for her two children, and one for guests. The kitchen was forest green and opened onto the living room at the far end. Each of the bedrooms had its own bathroom, plus there was a simple half bath off the family room.

“Downstairs is fully finished,” Evelyn reported. “Moon spends a lot of time down there, it's like his fortress of solitude. So, that's it. Would you like to go to your room and get unpacked, or what? We can call your mother later, if you'd like.”

“When do I get to meet the kids?” Kiley asked her.

Evelyn ignored her question. “How about driving? Do you drive a stick?”

“Umm … no.”

“That's good. I hate them. You'll take the Pontiac Vibe.” Evelyn dug into her pocketbook, extracted an envelope, and handed it to Kiley.

“What's that?”

“Your pay,” Evelyn announced. “A check for six fifty as we discussed at the club. Dated for Friday. You can either deposit it or I'll cash it for you.”

“You didn't have to do—”

Her boss smiled. “I wanted us to get off to the best possible start. The kids will be here soon, and then we won't have as much chance to—”

A car beeped three times in the driveway. “Ah!” Evelyn exclaimed. “They're here!”

She went to the front door and opened it; Kiley saw two children burst out of the backseat of a white Mercedes and come running toward them. Meanwhile, an older woman—a carbon copy of Evelyn except with thirty years on her (or it would have been thirty years, except for outstanding plastic surgery)—got out of the driver's side of the car.

“Get ready,” Evelyn advised. “You're going to meet my kids and my mother.”

Kiley got ready. But instead of stopping to say hello to their new nanny, the children ran right by her toward the house. There were a girl and a boy. Lydia had spoken to Kiley by phone and told her what she knew about the kids. They were Kiley's only reservation about taking this gig.

“We're going swimming!” the girl announced. She had curly dark hair and a sturdy figure.

“Swimming,” the boy echoed. He was exceptionally thin, with an exceptionally long neck, and was obviously the younger of the kids. Then the two of them disappeared into their wing of the house.

“It's fine,” Evelyn assured Kiley. “They're both excellent swimmers.” She put her arms out to the older woman, who was
now approaching her and Kiley. “Mom, hello. I want you to meet our new nanny, Kiley McClain. Kiley McClain, meet Carole-Ann Wolfenbarger.”

Evelyn and her mother hugged while Kiley quickly decided not to correct her last name in front of Evelyn's mom.

“Please call me Carole-Ann,” Evelyn's mom instructed. “I also answer to C.A. God, what a morning. Up at six for zazen, AA meeting at seven-thirty, pick up the kids at eight-thirty for art class … I'm already exhausted. Do you have any iced tea, Evelyn?”

“In the fridge, Mom,” Evelyn said. “Kiley, will you excuse us for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Kiley told them. “I'll unpack and then keep an eye on the kids, okay?”

“Okay. Star and Moon will introduce themselves to you. They always do,” Evelyn told her, then headed off with her mother. “If you get hungry, just come on to the kitchen. We've got a lot of everything.”

Well
, Kiley thought.
Not a bad start.

As she started back to her bedroom, she mentally reviewed what Lydia had told her about Evelyn's children. Star was ten years old, in fifth grade, interested in ballet and singing, and by all reports reasonably normal. Moon, on the other hand, was supposed to be a lot more challenging. He was seven years old and suffered from a litany of alphabet disorders, including ADP (Auditory Processing Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), and ABD (Antisocial Behavior Disorder) … at least according to his mother.

Kiley had mentioned this in her interview at the country club, but Evelyn had been extremely positive, after taking a few
more verbal shots at Kiley's “friend-who-shall-go-nameless.” Moon was on a BIP (Behavior Intervention Plan) and was under the care of the best child psychiatrists and neurologists at UCLA. He was monitored twice weekly in the office and once in the home. Kiley would have more support than she'd ever want.

That was good enough for her. She needed this job, big-time. Whatever the Bowers kids threw at her, she'd find a way to deal with it. She had dealt with her mother and father for seventeen years, which meant she had an awful lot of experience to fall back on.

She finished her long walk down the hallway and opened the door to her room. Then she gasped.

The room looked as if a tornado had blown through it. The bed was wrecked, clothes were strewn on the floor, and toilet paper was draped from the top of one window to the dresser and nightstands. The Bose Wave radio was blaring the news in some obscure Asian language, the water in the shower was running at the highest possible heat, and an unpleasant and thoroughly scatological odor emanated from the trash can near the desk.

“Crap,” Kiley said aloud. “Thanks, guys. Nice welcome to the family. Really, really nice.”