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“You can manage to do all of that and sleep with my son at the same time?”
My smile slips.
“When your references said you were a ‘do it all’ kind of girl, I didn’t realize you really do it all.”
I blink, my head tilting to the side.
“You asked me about the nannying, so I told you about the nannying,” I say, holding my mug between both hands like a shield. “If you’d asked me what was going on with me and your son, I would have been honest about that as well.”
“Alright, what’s going on with you and my son?”
“We’re spending time together outside of my job.”
“So you’re sleeping with him while Teddy is down for a nap.”
“I’m fairly certain most mothers don’t want the intimate details of whether or not their son is sleeping with somebody. Speaking for myself, I can very surely tell you that who I am or am not sleeping with is nobody’s business, including you.”
She smiles at me, but it feels unfriendly on every level.
“You’re awfully confident for a girl who would be homeless by the end of the day if she was fired from this job.”
“Well, thankfully, I don’t have to worry about my job because I’m very good at it.”
“My son certainly thinks so, though I’m not sure which job of yours he’s most interested in. I’m sure I could name one.”
I shake my head. “Colton talks about you and Roger as if you’re the most standup, classy people he knows, and yet from the moment you began speaking to me earlier, I’d have to say I quite strongly disagree with him.”
“Well, thankfully, I don’t have to worry about your opinion when it comes to my class.”
We stare at each other for a long moment, Sharon dipping her teabag into the water before lifting it out with a spoon and setting it gracefully on a tiny plate next to her teacup.
“I know all about you, Emily Burns, much more than I’m sure you’d like anybody to know.”
I grit my teeth but stay silent, letting her have her moment before I take mine.
“And the long and short of it is that you have absolutely nothing. You come from nowhere, are connected to nobody, and have not a damn thing to your name. Your mother finally sank her teeth into a man and she’s bleeding him dry on the east coast in a trailer park no better than the one you were raised in, and your sister is ‘waitressing’ her way through Hollywood,” she says, using air quotes, “though we both know what she’s really doing. So tell me: why on earth should I let you anywhere near my son?”
Licking my lips, I twist my mug between my hands, her comments about my mother and sister hitting on the two most painful topics in my life.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “I do come from nowhere, from nobody—but you’re wrong to assume I’m nothing. Maybe where you come from, you can’t be anything without a certain kind of pedigree or a certain amount of money, but that’s not the world I grew up in. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail for every single thing I’ve ever gotten. In your world of connections and handshakes, that might not mean a lot, but from where I’m sitting, only mattering to someone because of who you know and how much money you have sounds like a sad, sad life to live.”
Sharon’s hackles are raised by that comment; I can see it in the way her shoulders move and her chin tilts up.
“Your experiences and hard work might be commendable, but in my world, nobody actually ends up with the nanny,” she tells me. “Sure, the dalliances happen, and sometimes people even know about it, but it doesn’t actually result in anything. So if you have your sights set on winning my son as someone to take care of you…well, you’ll be disappointed on many levels.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I don’t look at your son as a prize to win,” I return, shifting my weight and gripping the edge of the countertop. “Is he an incredible man? Absolutely. A thoughtful, caring, and loving father? Yes. 100%. But I’m not looking at him as…some kind of lottery I can win that will solve all of my problems. You’re looking at my mother and sister as examples of what it is I want from life, and all I can tell you is that what they want and what I want—from life and from men—are vastly different things. I look to Colton for advice, for conversation, for laughter. I look to him for friendship. Those are the only things I’m looking for when I look at your son.”
Sharon’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t pipe up.
“I will stay in this house as long as Colton needs me to help with Teddy, because Teddy is…” I pause, the sudden sense of overwhelm I felt the other day as I read to him hitting me square in the chest. “Teddy is a beautiful, precious, perfect little boy. And as long as I have a chance to be in his life, I will continue to do so. With or without this job. With or without your approval.”
And then, without looking at her again, I take my rapidly cooling tea and the magazine that was sitting in front of her, and I head out on the back patio to pretend to read.
chapter twenty-three
colton
“Alright Teddy, can you open your mouth for me?”
