Have to Have It (9 page)

After three full days, Esme could have filed a very specific report on what was good about Northern Look: The food was amazing, beyond abundant, and available twenty-four hours a day. The grounds were lushly wild with thick hibiscus bushes and fragrant papaya and banana trees. Esme had taken several long walks along the fine sand on the beach and circumnavigated the premises a couple of times.

There was a walk-in aviary at the southeast corner of the property with several woven hammocks hidden among the palm trees, and that very morning—the kids were out on a glass-bottom boat voyage with their parents—Esme had impetuously borrowed a sketch pad and colored pencils from the arts and crafts center, settled into one of the secluded hammocks, and sketched several of the vivid green black-billed parrots that swooped through the guango tree branches. It was the
first time in a long time that she'd been inspired to draw something other than tattoos, and it felt absolutely wonderful.

The Northern Look resort staff was extraordinarily professional, anticipating the needs of the clientele even before their customers thought of it. Guests who ventured into the ocean found not only thick, nine-hundred-thread-count sky blue towels waiting for them on their beach chairs, but also luxuriously fleecy terry cloth robes in the same color.

If they got hungry and didn't feel like venturing up to the restaurants, there were two snack huts at either end of the five hundred yards of private beach. One of them specialized in continental fare that could be grilled on the spot, like lamb chops and sirloin kebabs threaded with sizzling meats and verdant veggies; the other one was a genuine Jamaican jerk chicken pit that served the most succulent and spicy chicken Esme had ever tasted, along with a seemingly endless supply of Red Stripe beer. At both huts, you ate not on plastic beach tables, but on wrought-iron-and-glass tables covered with white tablecloths, and the finest Wedgwood china.

The resort's entertainment was outstanding. A house reggae band played at lunch and dinner, and there was always an after-dinner show. That night, illusionist Criss Angel was to dazzle the crowd by setting himself on fire and then disappearing. The night before, Sting, who was vacationing at Northern Look with his family, had strapped on a guitar and entertained the crowd with an impromptu acoustic set.

The legendary rocker wasn't the only celebrity at the resort. Esme recognized the senior senator from the state of California, the largest shareholder in a company that dominated the
software industry (with his wife and children), and the host of a very popular television reality show that involved out-surviving the other contestants on some remote, rat-infested island or another.

There was more. Samuel the butler made sure that all the dirty capri pants, sandy Rosa Chá bikinis, and sweat-stained cargo shorts were washed overnight and delivered in a tissue-paper bundle on the home's front steps the next morning. She didn't have to fight to get the twins to sleep, since they were so tired by the day's activities that they drifted right off. She didn't even have to worry about Jonathan and Junior, because they were 2,500 miles away.

Her time at Northern Look should have been a real vacation— the operative word being “should.” Only two things stood between Esme and semiparadise, and they were named Miles and Ham Silverstein. The boys had been right; their parents had zero interest in availing themselves of the services of the resort nannies, whom they didn't know, didn't trust, and pronounced “foreign.” Esme found that last comment deeply ironic, because in fact,
they
were the foreigners.

Instead, the Silversteins expected that Esme would take care of their boys while they were off doing whatever they felt like doing. The Goldhagens tacitly acceded to this expectation. After the difficulties that she'd had with Diane just before they'd come to Jamaica, Esme didn't feel as though she was in a position to protest.

Ham and Miles were never still, and they pronounced everything at an ear-pounding volume—Esme couldn't imagine why. What was worse was that the twins had overcome their initial
feelings and glommed on to the Silverstein boys as if they were junior role models. Whatever the boys wanted to do, the girls now wanted to do. Ham and Miles turned out to be the worst kind of influence.

Just outside the main breakfast buffet area—a magnificent open-air pavilion that faced the azure sea—the staff of Northern Look would post on a blackboard that day's planned activities, for both the adults and the kids. Listed at 10:30 a.m. was “Kids' Wacked-Up Relay.” Esme had no idea what that meant, but when Ham and Miles got back from the boat ride they decided it would be their morning's prime activity—in the same shouted voices they always seemed to use. Esme was trapped. “Wacked-Up Relay” it would be, come hell or high water.

Now she stood near the shallow children's pool (which featured a mini pirate ship, complete with spraying water cannons) in a knot with seven or eight of the resort nannies, all of them young Jamaican women with accents so melodiously thick Esme could barely understand what they were saying. Meanwhile, the kids' activity director, a tall, chocolate-skinned, dreadlocked guy named Winston, was explaining the rules of the relay to the dozen or so kids between the ages of six and fourteen who were going to participate.

“Yah mon. This is how we do the wacky, wacky, wacked-up relay!” Winston announced, using a megaphone to amplify his words. Esme noticed that his muscles rippled nicely underneath his ensemble of white tennis shorts and creamy polo emblazoned with the navy Northern Look logo. “We have eight events you will have to do, visitors to Northern Look. First, I will throw coins to the bottom of the pool, and all of you must
gather at least three. You do this one at a time. Then you run to the soda-bottle filling station and fill a soda bottle with a teaspoon. No Red Stripe bottles here! Then there's the you-and-your-nanny sack race, the you-and-your-nanny three-legged race, the you-and-your-nanny egg toss, and then finally, the last three events, which are a surprise until you begin them.”

The local nannies smiled and nodded at their charges; evidently the relay was routine for them. It made sense—they worked here full-time. But for Esme, the idea of participating in a sack race, egg toss, or anything else with the human hurricanes, Ham and Miles, was not exactly appealing.

“What are the last three events?” Ham bellowed. “I wanna know!”

“Yeah, what?” Miles added.

“Yeah, what?” Weston echoed, her eyes shining in Miles's direction.

Winston smiled, his pearly teeth gleaming in the island sun. “You'll just have to see.”

“I wanna know now!” Ham shouted, jumping up and down. “Esme, tell him to tell me now! Tell him to tell me!”

“Me too! Me too!” Weston and Easton screamed, stamping their magenta D&G sequined sneakers.

“You two need to behave,” she told them in Spanish. “Don't copy these rude boys.”

Suddenly, Ham, a whirl of blue jeans and a Dodgers baseball jersey, was at her side. “What did you say to them?” he demanded.

“I told them they needed to behave and that they shouldn't copy you and your brother when you are rude,” Esme spit, even though she knew that it was an emotional response.

Miles's eyes grew wide. “I'm telling my parents what you said.”

Go ahead, you little brat
, Esme thought.

“I don't even want to play this stupid race, I quit!” Ham yelled.

“Yeah, me too!” Miles joined.

The twins immediately began screaming: “Me too! Me too!”

“If you would stop yelling we can continue with the fun,” Winston explained in his musical lilt, keeping a pleasant smile on his face.

“So, who cares?” Ham yelled. “I think us kids should get to do what we want to do. Who wants to do cannonballs?”

Winston and the rest of the nannies were helpless to stop what happened next. Ham took a running start and did a monster cannonball jump into the children's pool. So did Miles, drenching his Kitson army fatigue shorts. After that, there was a virtual stampede to the children's pool, with each of the kids assembled for the relay doing a variation on a cannonball. Water splashed everywhere. Winston shrilly blew again and again on a silvered whistle that hung around his neck, but to no avail. Children were climbing out of the pool to cannonball again; Esme was glad that the pool was deep enough to handle their jumps, and was especially grateful for the swimming lessons that the twins had taken at the country club. Still, the other nannies and Winston were glaring at her as if
she
was the reason the planned activity had devolved to chaos.

“Those boys aren't even my kids!” Esme exclaimed. “I take care of the two girls!”

Winston shook his head and looked at the other nannies. “Dey not belongin' to any of us, girl,” he said sourly, allowing
his Jamaican patois to color his speech when the kids weren't listening.

Esme couldn't believe that this guy was dumping all the responsibility on her. She hadn't even met Miles and Ham until yesterday. “Don't blame me. Talk to their parents.”

“You wanna get us fired from here, girl?” another nanny asked. “What if the boss man come along?”

“N-no, no, of c-course not,” Esme stammered.

“Den I'm trustin' you ta find a way to control de boys.” Winston shot an evil look at the pool, where Ham and Miles were engaged in an intense water fight aboard the pirate ship. In a fit of inspiration, Ham abandoned his post on the ship's deck, splashed back into the water, and began dunking one of the other boys. This started a dunking contest that the lifeguards had to break up with shrill whistles and threats to close the pool.

Esme strode to the water's edge. “Miles! Ham!” she yelled. “Get back here this instant. Weston and Easton,
vosotros tam-bién!”

But Ham and Miles, in their matching soaked and squishing Nikes, ignored her completely and jumped back into the pool. The girls looked at them, looked at each other, and then followed the boys' lead.

“This is the worst day of my life!” Martina moaned, burying her face against Lydia's shoulder.

“I understand, sweet pea,” Lydia told her, as soothingly as she could. “Just try to get through it as best you can.”

“I liked things better before.”

Lydia bit her lower lip in frustration. “Me too, sweetie. Me too.”

Martina was right. It was only eleven o'clock in the morning, and it was the worst day of her life.

The day had started earlier than usual, with a five-thirty wake-up call for Lydia from Anya. Once again, Anya was the only mom in the house, since Kat had returned to New York for more tennis preparation. Anya had been curt on the phone. Skipping any niceties, she said that there was the usual list on the kitchen table of activities for the children, that she was going over to the Beverly Hills Hotel to hit some balls with some legendary Russian ballet dancer, and that she would be home for lunch. At lunchtime, she would question Jimmy and Martina about what they'd done that morning. If there was any deviation from the schedule at all…

Anya didn't finish that sentence, but Lydia knew exactly what she meant. She would have to play it by the book. Anya's no-nonsense, life-stifling book.

“Just two more sets,” Lydia pleaded. “Then we can go home.”

“I can't do any more sets,” Martina moaned. “My legs hurt.”

“Okay well, a little break won't hurt. Then do one more.”

Martina shook her head. “I can't even do one!”

The two of them were at the football stadium at Beverly Hills High School, on a day that was bright, cloudless, and very hot. The temperature when they'd left the house was 85° F, and the
Los Angeles Times
had warned of possible record-breaking heat that afternoon.

Notwithstanding the scorching weather, Anya's list for the day had been very specific: