Chapter Five
A couple of hours past dinner time at the Staff Childcare Center, the lights were dimmed throughout the large space, filled with toys and kid-sized furniture. There was a row of cots in the back of the center behind folding screens, where the young kids were sleeping until their parents came to pick them up.
The Staff Childcare Center was open until midnight, although TraceyAnn said that if parents were late, they couldn’t close until the child had been released to someone authorized to take them. The tone in her voice suggested that was a rare occurrence, because no parent wanted to deal with a pissed-off TraceyAnn.
“Katie, you’re an absolute angel to come help out.” TraceyAnn was sweetness and light, the complete opposite of what she had been in Rika’s office.
“It’s my pleasure,” Lily said, in a hushed voice.
When Lily had first come into the Staff Childcare Center a little earlier, TraceyAnn had her hands full with the infamous Terror Twins.
Brady, the boy twin, had been running around with TraceyAnn waddling after him in her Medieval garb, her headdress wobbling, trying to catch him. His sister Clover had made a game out of pulling at TraceyAnn’s corset laces from behind, and running away when the woman stopped to grab at her.
It had taken Lily only a few seconds to size up the situation: the so-called Terror Twins were acting out, just like her preschoolers back home who had one parent ghosted or in jail, the other working long hours to make ends meet, with little time or money for their kids. And just like she would do with her kids, she honed in on the most active one.
And smiled.
Clover had looked at her, and Lily gestured, while lowering herself to her haunches:Come over, I want to talk to you.The little girl tentatively came over, and Lily cupped a hand to the side of her mouth.
She whispered, “You should try going for her funny hat next time.” Clover giggled.
“I can’t reach that high, silly,” she said. But she smiled at Lily. “You’re pretty.”
“So are you. I’m Katie, what’s your name?”
“I’m not s’posed to tell strangers that.” Her brother came over, TraceyAnn sprawled on a kid size chair in the distance, clearly winded with her chest heaving.
“That is super smart advice. So tell you what, I’m going to go over and ask TraceyAnn for a job here. Would you like for me to work here?”
“Yes!” The little girl exclaimed, and her brother picked up the cue. “Yes!”
“If I work here, I’m going to need someone to be my assistant. Would you guys do that for me? Be my special helpers?”
“Yes!” they both said, puffed up with the responsibility.
“OK, your first task is to take me over to TraceyAnn so I can ask her for a job. Can you do that?”
Lily felt the little girl’s hand in hers, and the little boy’s in the other. Together they walked over to TraceyAnn, the twins now purposeful.
TraceyAnn’s eyes widened as Lily approached. And she was even more impressed when the twins “helped” Lily show them how to read a bedtime story so they would fall asleep in their cots.
“I’ll place you on the schedule as much as you want,” TraceyAnn said once they were settled in. “Take as many shifts as you can stand.”
“I’m happy for the work,” Lily said, truthfully. The center opened at 8AM, and TraceyAnn would allow her to set her own meal breaks —provided that someone was on duty in the Staff Childcare Center at the time. At this rate, she’d be outtie before the summer was over, maybe even in time to find a new teaching job in San Diego, or wherever she landed.
“Ideally, it would be wonderful if you were here every time the Terror Twins were dropped off, which is practically all the time we’re open.” TraceyAnn’s grumble underscored what she thought of that.
“It’s unfortunate that Brady and Clover need to be here so much,” Lily murmured diplomatically, “but it’s really a wonderful benefit that the Faire offers.”
“Oh, Simon is amazing,” TraceyAnn said, the positivity surprising Lily. But it was followed by a more characteristic malice, as TraceyAnn lowered her bellow into a conspiratorial shout-whisper. “Those demon-spawn, however, I have half a mind to say they have behavioral issues that we can’t accommodate. It would just figure, since their father’s in jail for dealing TheRage.”
Lily immediately felt for the two kids. And felt even more validated that she did the right thing. TheRagedidn’t just destroy the lives of the ones who used it. It ruined families and kids who became collateral damage.
“What does their mother do?”
TraceyAnn was more than willing to dish more judgmental gossip. “She’s part of the Staff Caff, and she seems to take on every shift, most likely to stay away from her kids. I also hear she lives in the trailer park a short drive away.” She said “trailer park” as if it was an outhouse with beds.
It only made Lily want to help the twins more. She decided to change the subject, before TraceyAnn spiraled into more venom about the kids or their parents.
