How Nancy Drew Saved My Life (16 page)

“
You
were the Gubber Snack Foods Kid?” said Britta.

“You?”
echoed Gina.

A less strong woman might have taken offense at their surprise.

But a smart one would have been incredulous that they'd even seen the commercials.

“How…?” I wondered.

“American TV gets exported everywhere eventually,” said Britta.

“And don't you remember,” said Gina, “you did a guest spot on that show about the boarding school,
The Fats of Life
?”

“The Facts of Life,”
I automatically corrected.

“You played yourself as the Gubber Snack Foods Kid, at six years old,” said Gina, “falling in love with George Clooney's character.”

“My tastes have changed since then,” I said.

“You said your famous line from your commercials,” said Britta.

And both at once, they said, “‘It's
Gubber
licious!'”

“Of course, we never saw the actual commercials,” said Gina.

“And we've never eaten Gubber Snack Foods, either,” said Britta. “They never made it here. Are they as good as they sound?”

“They suck,” I said.

“Ah,” said Gina, looking embarrassed for me, “capitalism at work. Well, I at least did like the way George Clooney gently let you down when he had to explain that he was looking for a girlfriend closer to his age.”

“Yeah,” said Britta. “That man can really wear a tool belt.”

What do you say to that?

I went on.

I told them about Ambassador Buster Keating's house and everything that happened to me there.

“You have had your heart broken,” Britta sniffed.

“You have had your heart ripped out and stomped in the mud,” Gina sniffed so hard she had to blow her nose.

Just then, a trio of men who'd been seated at the end of the bar made their way over to us. They were a weird combination of bluff arrogance and high-school awkwardness, like they thought we should be grateful for their attentions but were insecure that we might not be.

“Buy you fine ladies a drink?” offered the tallest of the three. They were all tall, of course, but he was the tallest.

Gina whirled on him.

“What is
wrong
with you?” she demanded.

“I, um, thought you might be thirsty,” he stuttered.

“God,”
said Britta. “Can't you see there's an emotional crisis going on? We're bonding here!”

“Shoo,” said Gina, as though he were the family cat.

Was she the one who lived with her family or was that Britta? I looked into my drink for inspiration, found none, shrugged, took a sip. I could no longer remember.

“Scat!” Gina said more vehemently, when her “shoo!” failed to elicit the desired response.

“I
hate
that,” said Gina.

“What?” I asked.

“Every time you go to a bar, some guy thinks you're going to a bar to meet a guy.”

Suddenly, the idea of meeting a guy sounded appealing.

“Hey!” I called after the retreating trio. But they'd already moved on to other girls.

“You have had your heart crushed.” Britta covered my hand with hers.

She was right, I realized glumly. I was a pathetic loser.

“The last thing you need,” said Gina, covering my other hand, “is to get into another situation where you are subordinate to some dominating…
man.
”

She was right, too.

“Then what do I need?” I sighed morosely.

Gina's eyes lit up like two bright blue moons. “You need to become a devo!”

“A
what?
” I snatched my hands back.

“A devo!” she went on excitedly. “You know, like one of those women, Cher or Madonna but definitely not Britney Spears, who get the world to lie at their feet while they insist on getting perfect lighting and an endless supply of tiny pitted olives, imported from some country no one has ever heard of.”

“Oh,” I said, the dawn breaking, “you mean a diva.”

“Yes! Yes!” she said. “One of those!”

“I'm afraid it would never work,” I sighed again.

“Whyever not?” she asked.

“I'm just not diva material. Even if I were a character in a Nancy Drew book, I'd never be Nancy. I'd be the maid. Or the family dog. Did they even have a dog?”

Gina no longer cared about dogs.

“
You
are a fan of Nancy Drew, too?” she asked, at which point Britta opened her handbag and exultantly extracted a copy of #41,
The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes.

“What is it with you people, you Icelanders, and Nancy Drew?” I asked.

They looked hurt, stunned.

“Why,” said Britta, “she is the greatest heroine of all time.”

“So plucky,” said Gina, “so sure of herself.”

“And she has great hair,” said Britta.

“You must admire her, too,” said Gina, recovering from her hurt. “After all, you brought her up, so she must be important to you.”

I explained how, in the wake of my bust-up with Buster, I'd read all the Nancy Drew books before coming to Iceland.

“…hoping to mend your broken heart,” Britta finished up for me. “So, how long are you planning on vacationing here?”

I couldn't believe we had been talking for so long, had covered so much ground, that I knew what they did for a living and yet they had still to learn what I was doing in their country.

“I'm not on vacation,” I said.

“You're not?” Gina looked wounded again. “But I thought you were here to mend what had become of your brokenheartedness.”

“That, too,” I said, “but I'm also working.”

“Doing what?” asked Britta.

I explained about the governess job I had.

“Oh my goodness!” said Gina. “
You
work for Ambassador Rawlings?”

I might have been surprised at their recognizing his name so readily. Back in the United States, people never knew who any ambassadors were unless there was some kind of sex scandal. But then I remembered where I was: underpopulated Iceland, where a chauffeur could call up his cousin the president to do lunch.

“Why?” I asked, referring to Gina's apparent surprise that I worked for who I worked for. “Is that shocking somehow?”

“Why,” said Britta, “he is the sexiest man alive!”

What?

“What?” I shouted. “No, he's not.”

“Oh, but he is,” said Gina. “He is so…all man, plus he is such an American.”

“No, he's not,” I said again. I thought of his formal speech patterns that had seemed so European to me, so stilted when compared to the casualness of most Americans. “He sounds more like…
you
than me.”

“Oh, but he is so arrogant,” said Britta. “You know, that's really sexy in a man.”

“What's he like to work for?” Gina asked eagerly.

I told them a bit about the household and how in most of my dealings with him, he was so, well, arrogant.

“See? See?” Gina said. “He is just as I imagined he would be.”

“You are the luckiest of women among women,” sighed Britta.

“But, oh no!” Obviously, something else had occurred to Gina, only this time it wasn't anything good.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“I just realized,” she said, clearly horrified, “you have gone from the fire right into the frying pan.”

I didn't feel like it was my place to correct her metaphor, certainly not when I needed to react by saying
“What?”
again.

“You have gone from working for one ambassador to working for another,” she said. “Your history is repeating itself!”

That same thought had occurred, just as uneasily, to me, as well.

“Aren't you scared?” Britta asked.

“Of what?” I countered.

“Why, of making the same mistakes twice, of course,” said Britta.

“Fool you once, and he's a cruel bastard,” said Gina. “Fool you twice—” she wagged her finger at me “—and you're a big fat idiot.”

Ouch!

“Well,” I defended myself, “that's not going to happen this time.”

“How can you be so sure of yourself?” demanded Gina.

“Of course she can be sure of herself,” Britta surprised me by defending me. But then she ruined it by adding, “She's an American.”

“Oh, right,” said Gina. “You're probably arrogant, just like Ambassador Rawlings.”

“No,” I defended myself, since there was no one left to defend me, “I'm not. It's just that things are different now.”

“How are they different?” Gina asked.

I explained how I was older, wiser.

“Right,” scoffed Gina, calling the bartender for another round, “like that ever helped anybody.”

“Plus,” I said, “I'm much more focused on my work now. I'm not as easily distracted as I was before. Not to mention that, unlike you two, I don't find Edgar Rawlings to be at all attractive.”

“Oh?” said Gina. “So it's Edgar now, is it?”

“Methinks you doth protest way too much,” said Britta. “Everyone finds Ambassador Rawlings attractive.”

“Well, I'm not one of that everyone,” I insisted.

Hey, wait a minute. What had happened here? A while back, they had been my champions, ready to stand between me and the cruel “other side,” that other side consisting of men who might hurt me. Now it was as though I had to defend my every word, as though I had to fight to win back their support.

“Look,” I said patiently, “part of the problem with my previous posting, with Buster, was that I felt like a subordinate.”

“Well?” said Gina. “He was the ambassador, you were the nanny. So, weren't you?”

“Yes,” I said, “but what I mean is that, not only was I in a subordinate position in terms of the whole employer/employee thing, but I also
felt
like one…”

“What are you saying?” said Gina. “That he forced you, that he made you do it?”

“Not physically, no,” I said. This was getting all twisted. “I'm talking about emotional feelings of subordination. It's why it's considered to be unethical for lawyers to date their secretaries or for politicians to pursue interns. The person in the subordinate position feels almost compelled to comply. It's like a form of brainwashing with the deck stacked unequally.”

“That sounds like something I would say,” Gina observed.

“Then you were never really in love with this…
Buster?
” Britta queried.

“Of course I was in love with him,” I sighed. “But maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't perceived him as being my superior in every way, I wouldn't have been.”

“Ah,” she said. “It is sort of beginning to make sense now.”

“And that unfortunate piece of my history will never repeat itself,” I said. “I'm positive of that.”

“But really,” Gina said pityingly, “how can you be so sure of that?”

“Because I don't even feel like a subordinate this time,” I said.

“No,” Britta said, as though I was deluding myself, “of course you don't, dear.”

“I
don't!
” I said, growing exasperated. “How can I feel like his subordinate, when
I
saved
his
life?”

“What?” they both said.

And suddenly, as I told them about the whole thing—the waking in the night to the smell of smoke, the fire, the running back and forth with the tiny toothbrush glass, the ruined blue blazer and all the banter in between—I saw myself being elevated in their eyes again.

“You are a heroine!” said Gina.

“You are just like Nancy Drew!” said Britta.

“Well, not exactly,” said Gina. “Nancy Drew would have admitted right away to destroying his favorite blue blazer.”

“She would have found a way to return it as new,” said Britta. “And, failing that, she would have replaced it. Or, perhaps, she would have even hand-sewn him a new one.”

“Oh,” I said, “what does Nancy Drew know?”