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From my pocket, my phone begins to ring. I consider not answering it. I don't want to talk to anyone.
But it might be Mom. You don’t ignore calls from people with multiple sclerosis. Any one of them could be the last.
I fish my phone out of my pocket. There's relief, disappointment, and anxiety when I see that the person calling me isn't my mother, but rather Judy Miles, the woman who runs the nannying agency I work out of.
“Hey, Judy," I answer, putting on my fakest, sunniest voice. Judy isn't a cruel or unreasonable employer, but that doesn't mean I can be lax with her. I need to stay in her good graces if I’m gonna get another half-decent nannying job before my savings run out.
"Hello, Olivia," she says. Her voice is tense. "I just received an unpleasant email regarding you. Mrs. Harrison has some… colorful things to say about your performance."
I swallow. “Did she now?”
“She said that on numerous occasions, you were wildly unprofessional with regards to personal boundaries—in particular how familiar you became with Mr. Harrison."
“Judy—"
“Let me finish. She said you would even leave the children unattended for, as she put it, ‘frivolous fraternization.’” She sighs. “Olivia, what am I to make of this? You're one of our best, but this is deeply unlike you. I'm incredibly disappointed. This doesn't just reflect poorly on you; this reflects poorly on the agency and all the other girls that work here.”
My brain buzzes in my skull. I know I need to say something, but my tongue is thick in my mouth and all I want to do is cry into a chocolate cake.
“Judy, it's nothing like that," I insist. "Mr. Harrison has been hitting on me for… well, a while now. Since before the start of the year. It never went anywhere, I swear. Mrs. Harrison caught him coming on to me in her music room and thought we were about to have sex. I tried to explain to her, but she didn't believe me. Please, Judy: you know me. You know I would never jeopardize my job like that. Especially not when children are involved.”
Judy sighs again. She’s quiet for a moment before she speaks. “Why is this the first time that I’m hearing about this?”
“I didn’t want to ruffle anyone’s feathers. I’ve been around since his son was a baby. I was there when his daughter was born! I didn’t… I couldn’t bear the thought of getting moved, Judy.”
I can hear Judy clacking her nails on her desk. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. “You should have come to me sooner. Now, you’ve been fired, with some serious allegations that we have no paper trail to refute, Olivia. This is bad. We let nannies go over accusations like this.”
My heart goes ice-cold. It only takes one mark on your record to get you black-balled from every nannying agency in the city. It’s a small industry; people talk.
And Mom needs me too much to let that happen.
“Judy… Judy, are you firing me?”
The silence builds, thick and horrifying. Finally, she breaks it. “No, I’m not. But this puts you on thin ice, Olivia. As far as records are concerned, what Mrs. Harrison has reported to us is the final truth. And because you said nothing about Mr. Harrison, you ignored protocol that’s in place to stop things like this from happening. You’re not fired?—”
“Oh, thank God. I swear I’ll?—”
“But Olivia, this shows a serious lack of critical thinking that I would not expect from you. You have one more chance. Only one. Mess up again, and I’ll do what I have to do.”
2
REESE
I hate crying.
I can hear it, high-pitched and headache-inducing, tearing my beer-soaked sleep to shreds. It’s kind of muffled, but whoever is doing the crying is trying their damnedest to be heard.
Rolling over, I groan and pat the space in bed beside me. “Where’d you go?” I yawn without opening my eyes.
There’s no response. After another few pats, I realize that’s because there’s no one beside me. There should be. I brought home—wait, shit, what was her name? Candy? Brandy? It was something to put in your mouth, I remember that much, and she’d certainly delivered on that front. Tight little puck bunny with enough fire to melt the rink ice and a real can-do attitude.
So yeah, last night was fun.
But today? Today, thus far, sucks ass.
My head feels like someone’s stuck a skate through it. My mouth tastes like stale booze. And now, Sandy—or something similar—is sobbing hysterically from some hidden corner in my house. I’m gonna have to track her down, then ask Paula, my assistant, to have the girl sign an NDA before sending her on her merry way.
But surely all that can wait a few minutes, right?
