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Julie
What was that noise?
I felt the grip of fear embracing me as a shiver ran over my body. I’d heard something… it probably might have just been the wind. It had been really blowing like crazy this evening. I didn’t want to admit that I was afraid of being alone at night in a big and a quiet house, but I was spooking myself out now. I just wished the Normans would come home soon. I hated waiting for people, but I supposed that the longer they were out, the more I got paid. It paid to think positively.
The Normans had tapped me to babysit for them that evening on super short notice. Luckily, I had nothing else going on and I was able to accept the job, but this was not my ideal scenario. I’ve always loved kids, and their kids were both as sweet as could be, but I needed something full time. Picking up a few hours here and there babysitting wasn’t going to cut it.
So, I was thrilled earlier when Becky told me their friend Ricky needed a full-time nanny for his daughter. I was so excited. I had been advertising everywhere and not really getting much response since my previous employer had abruptly moved out of the city two weeks ago. It had been rough, but luckily my roommate and best friend Tessa was sweet enough to pick up the slack on food and bills until I was fully employed again.
I was sitting at the table doing some sketches when I heard the scratching noise again. The house was dead quiet since I put the kids to bed about an hour and a half earlier. I thought maybe I might turn the television on to distract me, but I stopped myself as I wanted to be aware of if the kids were up wandering around or fighting sleep as four-year-old’s often did. I couldn’t remember a time when I had ever fought the idea of having ten straight hours of sleep at the end of every day with no other responsibilities. One day they would miss this period in their lives, too.
I stopped sketching and glanced around. I waited a moment and held my breath to hear nothing but deafening silence. Then I heard the scratching again. My overactive artistic imagination started to go into overdrive and I was picturing some maniac trying to break in.
I knew that I would not rest easy until I went to investigate. The noise was coming from upstairs. I glanced up at the ceiling for a few seconds, just listening. I heard nothing. Then I stood up slowly and I continued to listen intently. There it was again. What was that I was hearing?
The sounds of the house settling interspersed with the slight bit of scratches that I continued to hear. I was feeling a bit uneasy, but I forced myself to walk through the living room to the staircase. Then I made my feet march up the steps, moving slowly, step by step, one at a time. I was trying to be quiet because I didn’t want to wake the kids up, and because I did not want to face what might be something terribly frightening making that awful sound.
I felt silly. I was being scared over what would probably turn out to be nothing. Really, as I thought about it, I had just been feeling very uneasy. I was uneasy with life. Losing my stable source of income which I’d held for almost two years had really shaken my confidence and made me re-evaluate where I was in my life. What was I doing? I loved being a nanny. I loved working with kids and taking care of them, but was it really what I wanted to do professionally forever? I wasn’t sure. Well, actually I knew the answer to that question. It was no.
I wanted to be an artist. Ever since I was a kid, it was all I’d wanted to do. After high school, I applied to several art schools, but they had all rejected me. This hurt my confidence so badly that I hadn’t touched a brush or even sketched anything for almost a year afterwards. Gradually, I came to it again and I just did the art for myself. I desperately wanted to be a real, professional artist. That was the dream. And one day I wanted a family with several kids.
And of course, I needed the perfect man to make that happen. I was becoming increasingly aware that this perfect man did not exist and was only a figment of my imagination. My dating record was less than stellar. My last relationship had lasted only three months and then I’d been dumped out of the blue. I wasn’t really given an explanation at all. “It just isn’t working out”. That was all Jeremy had said, but without any real explanation at all. It was unbelievable. But I had the worst track record with men.
It was no wonder I was saving myself for the right guy. I was proud to be a virgin. I always told myself that I would give my V-card away to the right man, not necessarily the guy I wanted to marry, but the right man. It was going to be a very special thing and he would have to be the perfect man to make that happen. I wasn’t exactly sure what criteria that man would have to meet but I was sure I would know it when I met him. That I was certain of. All of my girlfriends thought I was crazy.
I made it upstairs and paused a moment to listen again. I heard nothing. Making my way over to the kids’ room, I opened the door quietly to peer inside. They were both deeply asleep. I closed the door gently and stood there for a moment. What in the hell was I hearing? It was gone now? Was it downstairs after all?
I headed towards the stairs, but stopped dead in my tracks when the sound grazed the air. The scratching sounds once again. Where was it coming from? I paused a moment to listen to it and then I realized that it sounded like it was coming from the master bedroom.
I entered the master bedroom and flicked on the light. I felt weird being in the Normans’ bedroom (where the magic happened, I presumed). I giggled at my own joke. I wondered how often the Normans got it on. They had been married for years and they had two young kids. Did they ever have the time or the opportunity anymore? I did want a family one day, but I swore that my husband and I would make the time to be intimate with each other no matter what. I knew it was important in a marriage.
Looking around the room, I was impressed to see a king-sized bed, a large chair in the corner, and a small library of books in a glass case. I moved over to take a closer look. Most of the books appeared to be fairly ordinary mystery/suspense thrillers. I wondered why they were treated so well. It was weird.
After finding nothing, I started to leave. Then I heard the scratching noises right behind me. They were very loud. I almost jumped out of my skin and I couldn’t help but yell a bit out of fear. It was so close. What was about to happen to me?
But after a moment of coming to the realization that I was in fact, perfectly fine, I turned around and saw the culprit that had been making so much racket and scaring me to death. There was a small branch scraping back and forth against the window in the wind.
“Really? Wow, girl. You’ve got to get ahold of yourself. This is nuts.”
I laughed at my delusion, turned off the light, and left the room. I felt very silly, but at least I’d had myself a little bit of an adventure for the evening. I went back downstairs and resumed my drawing.
The scratching did not seem so loud anymore. I wondered how the Normans slept with that racket going on though.
It wasn’t my business, but I wondered if they were too busy making love and loud noises that they didn’t notice. Wow, my head had really been in the gutter lately. I wasn’t sure why, but lately I’d been so worked up that I’d been thinking about sex almost nonstop. I really needed to find that man, I thought. But no matter how curious and hot I was, I did not want to give in and break my principles. I would only get one shot at the first time, and I wanted it to be very special. That’s the way I’d always been and that was the way I would stay. I wasn’t going to give in on this.
After sketching for about another ten minutes I heard the Normans come in. I greeted them warmly and decided not to tell them about my little adventure to their room. That would stay my little secret, as well as my musings about their sex life. I’d wanted to snoop in their room and see what type of paraphernalia I would find. I wasn’t having any sex of my own, so I was more than happy to snoop about in the sex lives of others.
But I would never actually go through someone else’s stuff. I knew that. There was nothing that would make me compromise my morals. But it was still a lot of fun to think about.
“So, how were the little monsters?” Ben asked. “Did they give you any trouble?”
“No,” I said. “Not at all. They both sacked out pretty easy.”
“Awesome,” Ben said. I noticed he liked to say the word ‘awesome’ a lot. It was kind of funny given the fact that he looked like an accountant, which he was. He was tall, a bit podgy, with glasses and a very mild-mannered vibe. His wife was much spunkier and more interesting. Becky was fun to talk to and a lot of times I found myself wondering why she settled with a man like Ben. They were such opposites, a mismatch, but what they had seemed to work very well.
“Glad to hear it,” Becky said. She pulled fifty dollars out of her purse and handed it to me. “Thank you so much for coming on such short notice. You are a lifesaver.”
I smiled. “No problem. Thanks for thinking of me.”
