Читать книгу Adding Up To Family - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 13

Chapter Three

If it wasn’t for the fact that he had known Celia for the last five years and trusted her implicitly, Steve might have had some doubts about leaving his daughter with this brand-new housekeeper. But Celia was obviously completely sold on the young woman’s capabilities, and he knew for a fact that she carefully vetted everyone who worked for her. So if this young woman was good enough for Celia, well then, she was definitely good enough for him.

Besides, it was either that or send his daughter away to a boarding school. He’d already looked into the matter briefly, reviewing several schools and even selecting the top two that seemed to have a great deal going for them. They were exceptional facilities and each would do well in furthering his daughter’s education, but her attending them would mean he wouldn’t see Stevi for long periods of time.

So far, the longest he had ever gone without interacting with his daughter was a day and a half, and that was only because she was asleep when he had gotten home that one time and still asleep when he left for work early the next morning.

Stevi hadn’t been thrilled to be left in the care of a housekeeper, and he knew she wouldn’t be happy about it now. But that was still a lot better than having to send her away altogether.

“So,” Steve said to his new employee, as he walked back into the room, “did Mrs. Parnell explain to you that this was a live-in position?”

That surprised Becky, but she managed to recover quickly. “Actually, she didn’t. What she did tell me was that she thought this would be a good position for me, and that she wanted you to be the one to explain everything that you require.”

Steve took a breath. “So I guess I’d better do so,” he muttered. He glanced at his watch. “You’ll forgive me if I talk fast, but I have to be at a meeting in less than an hour and traffic at this time of day is usually abysmal.”

Becky nodded. “It is that,” she agreed. “Just give me the highlights and we can discuss the finer points when you come home tonight.”

“The biggest highlight is that I need you to look after Stevi—”

“Stephanie, Dad,” his daughter said impatiently. “My name’s Stephanie.”

“Right.” Steve tried again. “I need you to look after Stephanie—”

“No, you don’t,” Stevi corrected once again, clearly pained by the declaration.

For the sake of maintaining the peace, Becky intervened. She smiled, nodding her head. “I understand, Mr. Holder.”

A sense of relief washed over Steve. There was a lot being left unsaid, but he needed to go, and this woman he was hiring to run his household seemed to understand that. “Bless you,” he murmured to Becky.

“Get to your meeting, Mr. Holder. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about the rest of this later.”

That was the moment when he knew.

She was perfect, he thought. Absolutely perfect.

But the true test would be if she could last the day with Stevi and not want to run screaming for the hills by nightfall—if not sooner.

Mentally, he crossed his fingers.

“Thank you.” Steve fished a business card out of his pocket. “If you need to call me for any reason, any reason at all,” he emphasized, “these are the numbers where I can be reached.”

Taking the card from him, Becky glanced at it, then raised her eyes to his. “You move around a lot, don’t you?” she asked, amused.

It took him a minute to realize she was kidding. “Try the top number first,” he said. “It’s my cell phone. Okay,” he added, already walking toward the door. “Any questions?”

“Just one,” Becky told him. Pausing, whether for effect or to gather her thoughts together, she said, “You are coming back tonight, right?”

He seemed taken by surprise that she’d even ask something like that. “Of course.”

She met his response with a broad smile. “Then I’m fine.”

Before he had time to rethink at least part of this situation, Stevi spoke up. “But I’m not.”

“We’ll talk about it tonight,” her father promised, and the next minute, he was gone.

Stevi stood there, her back to Becky, staring at the door even after it had closed and her father had left the house.

Left her stranded.

Judging by the way her shoulders slumped, Becky thought, the girl clearly thought she had just been abandoned. She needed to find a way to reassure Stephanie that she was going to be all right. That they were going to be all right.

“I’m going to need a lot of help, you know,” Becky began, still addressing Stevi’s back.

“If you feel that way, you shouldn’t have taken the job,” she answered, in a dismissive voice that belonged to someone older than a girl who was almost turning eleven.

But Becky was determined to make an ally out of her. “No, I meant help from you.”

This time Stevi did turn to face her, but she didn’t look friendly.

“Again,” the girl repeated, clearly hostile, “if you feel that way, you shouldn’t have taken the job.”

Rather than argue the point, Becky said gently, “I’m not your enemy, Stephanie.”

In response, Stevi just glared at her, the look on her face loudly proclaiming that she thought differently.

“You know who I feel sorry for?” Becky continued. When Stevi made no response, she went on as if the girl actually had answered, asking who that person was. “Your dad.”

Stevi’s eyes narrowed, all but shooting daggers at this stranger who had invaded her space. The woman had no business talking about her father, even if he had just deserted her, leaving her at the mercy of this intruder.

“Why?” she practically growled.

“Well, for one thing, because your dad feels totally out of his element, trying to raise an almost-teenage girl,” Becky answered.

Loyalty had Stevi coming to her father’s defense, even though this woman had voiced something that she’d felt herself more than once, if not exactly in those words. “My dad’s not out of his element!”

Becky looked at the young girl closely, as if she was actually able to see beneath the layers of anger and bravado. The whole thing made Stevi nervous, though she did her best to cover that up.

“Truth?” Becky asked her kindly.

Stevi shifted from foot to foot, searching for a comfortable stance. “Well,” she finally said, backtracking slightly, “maybe just a little.”

And then she straightened her shoulders, as if she suddenly felt that she’d admitted far too much. “How would you know anything about that?” Stevi asked, her very tone challenging this unwanted person traipsing through her home.

“Because I was just like you once,” Becky replied knowingly.

Stevi’s eyes darkened as she frowned. “Yeah, sure. Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you were anything like me,” she retorted angrily.

Becky merely smiled. Stevi’s response just confirmed that she was right. “Don’t be so sure about that,” she murmured.

Stevi fisted her hands on her hips. “Okay, prove it,” she challenged. “How were you like me?”

“Well, aside from the fact that I had all sorts of questions about what was happening to my body, questions I couldn’t put into words, and even if I could, I think my mother was too embarrassed to answer—”

She could see by the light that came into Stevi’s eyes that although she was resisting, Becky had guessed correctly. She continued, confident that there was more to the girl’s dilemma than what she had just stated. “—I was also smarter than all the other kids who were my age.”

Stevi’s eyes widened. She hadn’t been expecting that.

Bingo, Becky thought.

“How much smarter?” Stevi asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Well, for one thing, I skipped a lot of grades,” Becky told her, observing the little girl’s face as she made each response.

Stevi cocked her head, as if that would help her judge whether or not this woman was telling her the truth. “How many grades?” she challenged.

This was definitely not a trusting child, Becky thought. But that was all right. Neither had she been at Stevi’s age, she recalled. That was because she had endured being teased and ridiculed by kids who were ultimately older than she was and who, scholastically, she had left behind. She remembered being ashamed of how smart she was, thinking of it as a burden and a curse instead of a blessing. She found herself wanting to save Stevi from that.

Becky debated saying anything further to Steve’s daughter. When Celia had told her about this job and had mentioned that Stevi was precocious and exceptionally bright, Becky had decided not to mention graduating college at a young age until she’d had a few days to get the girl acclimated to her. But already she was beginning to change her mind.

She wasn’t ashamed of the fact that she’d been so young when she’d achieved so many milestones, and she didn’t want Stevi to feel ashamed of that, either.

“Most people graduate college when they’re twenty-two or twenty-three—” Becky began.

“I know that,” Stevi said, cutting in. And then, pressing her lips together, she eyed her with curiosity more than suspicion. “How old were you when you graduated?”

The girl had realized where she was heading with this, Becky thought. Most ten-year-olds wouldn’t have. She was right; they had more in common with each other than the little girl thought.

“I was eighteen,” Becky stated.

For the first time, Stevi’s bravado slipped just a little, allowing the young, vulnerable girl beneath to show through. She looked at this new housekeeper, clearly impressed. “Really?”

“Really,” Becky responded.

Stevi fell silent for a moment and Becky thought that maybe she didn’t believe her. The look on her face was nothing if not suspicious.

But then, after a moment’s hesitation, the girl asked, “Um, did the other kids—the older kids,” she clarified. “Did they make fun of you?”

“Some of them did,” Becky admitted. “A lot of them, in fact. When I got older, I realized that was because they didn’t know what to make of me. Later on, some of them admitted that they felt bad that they couldn’t keep up to me, but you know, everyone’s different and everyone has a different talent inside of them, a different gift.

“They just needed to concentrate on that instead of being angry at me because I got better grades than they did and I could finish tests faster.” Becky paused for a moment, letting the words sink in. When she saw the furrows on Stevi’s brow, she decided to delve a little into her life. “Do other kids make fun of you?”

“No!” Stevi answered quickly.

And then, because it was a lie, she relented a little. “Maybe.”

Not feeling comfortable with that answer, either, she finally sighed deeply and then grudgingly admitted, “Yes.”

Becky nodded. “You realize that they’re acting angry at you because that’s a lot easier to do than finding fault with themselves.”

Stevi regarded her doubtfully. And then, because Becky wasn’t backing off, she asked uncertainly, “Really?”

“Really,” Becky told her with solemn conviction. “Trust me. Years from now, if any of those kids have a brain in their heads, they’re going to realize that they were being very unfair to you, when what they should have been doing was studying harder so that they could get those grades they were so envious of. Or better yet, studying with you and trying to find out just how you were able to manage doing so much better than they did.

“Right now,” she continued, “you probably feel like you’re all alone, but that’s going to change, I promise. And most of all, you’re going to be the girl who makes it, who becomes somebody, while they, if they don’t start changing and actually applying themselves to their schoolwork, are just going to wind up fading into the background, while you do great things.”

She could see by Stevi’s expression that the girl wanted to believe her, but still wasn’t sure if she could, or if this was just a lot of talk this new housekeeper was trying to sell her.

“You think so?”

Without a single shred of hesitation, Becky stated, “I know so.”

Stevi still wasn’t 100 percent sold on what she was saying. “But if you were so smart, how come you’re a housekeeper? How come you’re not doing something...bigger?” she finally said, for lack of a better word to describe what she was trying to get across.

“Well, I wasn’t always one,” Becky confided. “You know what I was before I decided to take a break and become a housekeeper?”

Confusion and curiosity furrowed the girl’s brow again. “No—what?”

Becky smiled. Her past life seemed like a million miles away now. “I was an engineer.”

“Really?” Stevi questioned, a little unclear on how the woman she was talking to could have been one and then the other. The two professions seemed light-years apart.

“Really,” Becky assured her.

“Can you do that?” Stevi asked. She was thinking about her father. “Can you just stop being an engineer and become a housekeeper?”

“I did,” Becky responded.

“But why would you do that?” Stevi demanded. Her father was totally dedicated to doing what he did, sometimes to the point of staying at work for long hours and coming home after she’d gone to bed. “Didn’t you like being an engineer?”

“In the beginning, I did. Very much so,” she told Stevi. “But after a while I decided that maybe the pressure was too much. I found I was always working and that it wasn’t fun anymore, not like it used to be. So I decided to take a break for a bit and just smell the roses.”

“So is that what you did?” Stevi asked, doing her best to understand what this adult was telling her.

She liked the fact that Becky was talking to her as if she were another grown-up rather than just a little kid. Too many adults treated her as if she couldn’t understand things. Her father wasn’t like that, but lately, communication between them hadn’t been going very well. Like an old train with a faulty wheel, it kept breaking down.

“Did you go smell roses?” she pressed.

“Yes,” Becky answered. “I took time to enjoy the things around me.”

“And being a housekeeper lets you do that?” Stevi was still somewhat unclear about the concept.

“Well, until now, I’d come to different houses, race around cleaning them up and then go home. This will be my first live-in position. So, like I said earlier, I’m counting on you to help me navigate this whole new career change. I’d like to be the best housekeeper that I can be,” she confided. She looked at Stevi. “So, can I count on your help?” she asked, holding out her hand.

Stevi looked at it, and after a moment, she grinned broadly and put her hand into Becky’s, shaking it.

“Yes!” she declared, doing her best to sound grown-up. “You can.”