Читать книгу The Babysitter - Nancy Bush - Страница 10

Chapter Four

Jamie went downstairs to find Emma watching a cooking show and Harley checking out YouTube on the laptop she and Jamie shared.

“What’s that?” Jamie asked Harley softly, nodding her head toward the television. Emma was seated on the couch directly in front of it, rapt.

“Emma’s favorite show. They’re making risotto. She watches it every day, along with a whole bunch of other episodes on the DVR.”

“Did you set it up for her?” They were both whispering.

“Uh-uh. She’s good at it. She told me not to DVR anything because it takes up her space. She said Grandma was terrible at it.”

“My mom thought TV was a brain drain. She never watched anything but the news.”

Harley made a disgruntled sound. “She was wrong.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

Into the pause that followed, Harley said, “Should we tell her that Grandma contacted us?”

“She didn’t contact us,” Jamie denied.

Harley didn’t say anything, just looked at her, silently calling her a liar.

Jamie turned away and opened the refrigerator door. “Looks like we’re going to have to go out to dinner.”

“I already ate,” said Emma, never turning from the television set.

Had she heard them? Jamie wasn’t sure. “Harley and I need to get something. Is Deno’s Pizzeria still at the end of the street?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you stay here alone while we go eat . . . ?”

“Uh-huh. But I want to go with you.”

“Oh, okay.”

They all found their coats and climbed in the Camry with Emma in the back seat. “It’s safer,” Emma told them, which tickled Harley, who claimed shotgun with no qualms about usurping her aunt’s position.

* * *

Friday morning dawned dark and gray, and before Jamie could get to the school, huge raindrops fell, turning into a rattling storm of hail.

“Whoa,” Emma said from the back seat, staring out at the white balls of hail bouncing on the rain-drenched street all around them.

Harley said, “Holy hell.”

Jamie and Emma said together, “Don’t swear,” and Emma added, “Mom said it costs a quarter every time you swear.”

“My mom’d be broke if we lived here,” said Harley. “She swears all the time.”

“That’s not true,” Jamie said, but thought, Okay, maybe it is. But she’d starve for a month rather than admit it. “We won’t be long,” she added as they pulled into one of the few spots and waited while hail continued to pelt them.

“Mom should be in the garden. She would like this,” said Emma, peering through the fogged windows.

“You mean her ashes,” Jamie said carefully.

“‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .’” Emma quoted flatly. “She should be in the garden.”

“I was thinking about a memorial service, small,” Jamie said. “A few people over to the house and then we could spread Mom’s ashes.”

“I am not doing that.” Harley slid a glance into the back seat to Emma, who was still trying to peer past the steamy window.

“She will haunt you,” said Emma, which drew a gasp from Harley.

“Grandma liked me. Loved me,” she shot back. “She would never do anything to hurt me!”

“Now, wait, let’s keep it real. She’s not going to—” Jamie began.

“She wants you to be with her when she’s put to rest.” Emma was adamant. “In the garden.”

“We’ll spread her ashes this afternoon,” Jamie said quickly. “After Harley’s back from school and you’re home from the Thrift Shop. We’ll have people over later.” Harley said nothing, just stared through the windshield. Emma looked perturbed, her expression darkening. “Mom wants to be in the garden,” Jamie riffed. “I get that. We want her to be happy. We’ll make sure she’s happy today, okay? Okay, Emma?”

“Harley needs to be there, too,” she said stubbornly.

At the school Jamie slid a look toward her daughter, whose face was tight and white. Feeling the weight of her gaze, Harley flicked her a look back.

“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Emma, we’ll be right back,” Jamie said. She’d wanted to leave Emma at home to drive her to work after she saw Harley off, but Emma refused to be alone.

“I’m coming,” Emma said.

“Would you mind waiting?” asked Jamie. “I’d like to take Harley by myself. It’s her first day and all.”

Emma scowled and looked as if she were about to argue. “Don’t be long,” she said.

“I won’t.”

Though the hail had abated, the rain continued, and Harley flipped up the hood of her coat and ran ahead of Jamie into the school. The office was the first door on the left and it was open. There was a din of voices and scuffling footsteps and slamming lockers as Jamie opened the door. She tried to get Harley to go in ahead of her, but she stayed right behind her.

At the counter, Jamie was conscious of the water dripping from the hem of her raincoat onto the tile floor. She explained who she was, and the administrative receptionist clicked some keys on her computer and pulled up Harley’s paperwork. There was some question over her address. They wanted proof that Harley lived in the school district and Jamie had nothing in her name to support that fact. With a dark look, she handed Harley a packet and said there was a map of the school in there, among other helpful items. After promising her that she would get the school all the pieces of information needed ASAP, Jamie turned to Harley, who looked aghast when she offered to walk with her to her first class.

“Don’t worry. I can find it,” Harley told her. “They all know I’m coming, right?” She glanced at the administrator.

“Your teachers, yes. If you would like another student to show you around, I can—”

“Nope. Got it. I’m good.” Harley hitched her backpack onto her shoulder. She wore a denim jacket over a cream-colored T-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, and sneakers that looked as if someone had tumbled them through the dryer with rocks.

“See you this afternoon.”

“Yeah, for the ashes. Great. Can’t wait.”

And she pushed through the door and disappeared into the hall, heading in the general direction of the noisy students.

Jamie made sure her name and correct phone number were on the list for substitutes. She was impressed by Harley’s fortitude, yet fully aware it was because her daughter would rather face a pool of sharks than be seen being escorted by her mother.

She headed back outside. The hail and rain had stopped and there was a watery sun playing tag with some fast-moving clouds. A woman in a blue suit and white blouse, her blond hair swept into a chignon, was hurrying up the walk. She and Jamie made eye contact at the same moment and the woman stumbled a bit.

“It’s . . . Jamie, right?” she said on a surprised intake of breath. “Jamie Whelan?”

Jamie took a half beat before saying, “Yes. Uh . . .”

“Victoria Stapleton. Victoria Barnes Stapleton. It’s good to see you! What a surprise. Do you have a student in high school? My son’s a junior.”

Icky Vicky.

“Um, my daughter. Harley. She’s starting today, actually. She’s a sophomore.”

“Harley. Huh. My, my, you got going about as fast as I did on the parent track.” She laughed. “Did you just get into town?”

“Last night.”

“Are you staying?”

There was a navy Kate Spade purse slung over her shoulder and her blue pumps were the same shade. The ring on her left hand was big and sparkly and ornate, a ribbon of diamonds sweeping across her finger.

“For the time being. My mother just died.”

“Oh. I heard that. I’m so sorry. How’s Emma doing?”

Though Icky Vicky and Emma had been friends and classmates, Jamie felt a swelling of protective instinct and anger . . . anger that Icky Vicky had clearly prospered since high school, whereas every day was, in its way, a struggle for Emma. The anger melted almost as soon as it formed, however, and guilt took its place. Guilt. Her old friend.

“She’s doing all right.”

“Are you . . . well, I know your mom was taking care of her . . . so are you now . . . ?”

“That’s the current plan.”

She brightened. “Well, your daughter will love it at River Glen High. My son’s on the football team, and River Glen has a real chance of winning district this year, maybe even taking state!”

“Wonderful.”

She shot Jamie a quick look, clearly uncertain if there was sarcasm behind the word. There was, but Jamie had carefully kept it from being heard.

“Well, I’m kind of in a rush. I’m in real estate, you know,” she said, slipping a hand into the purse and magically producing a red card with gold lettering. “If you need anything, anything at all, just call. I would love to personally reacquaint you with the town and all our friends.”

In her peripheral vision, Jamie saw Emma getting out of her car. “Thanks, Vicky,” Jamie said, accepting the card. If there was room in Harley’s shark tank, Jamie would plunge right in rather than be trotted out in front of anyone she’d known from her River Glen days.

“It’s Victoria. And that’s my cell phone,” she said, pointing a navy-blue lacquered nail at the number on the card. Do you have a number, or email?”

Jamie had no interest in handing out her cell number yet. Emma was standing outside the car, looking at both women. Jamie worried that she would come over and prolong the conversation with Vicky, so she rattled off her email and Vicky whipped her hand back inside her purse to grab a small notepad with a pen attached to write it down.

“Your phone?” she asked.

“Not set up yet,” Jamie lied.

“There’s a new Verizon store where Barnaby’s used to be,” she said helpfully.

“Oh. No more Barnaby’s, huh?” Barnaby’s had been a kind of tired-looking diner that Mom had long felt should be shuttered.

“Nope. But the Waystation is still in business, if you can believe it.”

The Waystation was a dive bar where, once upon a time, kids from high school had been able to pay some of the regulars a little extra cash for them to buy them beer.

“Okay. I’ll see you later, then, huh?” she said with a brilliant smile. Icky Vicky had had some dental work done over the years, it appeared.

Jamie hurried over to where Emma was still just standing by the car.

“I saw him,” Emma said.

“Who?”

“The guy who did this to me.”

“What?” Jamie froze in the act of pulling out her keys. “Who did what?”

“Why I have trouble.”

“Who are you talking about?”

She pointed up the street. “He just drove by. Going to the police station. That’s where he works.”

Jamie’s mouth formed the word, “Who?” but she never said it. She only knew one guy from high school who’d gone into the police force.

“Cooper.” Emma’s mouth quirked. Maybe a smile. “You had a big crush on him.”

Jamie fleetingly felt surprise that Emma had known, but there was too much else to unpack in her statement right now. “What do you mean, he did this to you?”

“He was there. You know he was there.”

“The night you babysat for the Ryerson twins?”

Emma nodded.

“A bunch of the guys from your class were there, trying to scare you,” Jamie pointed out. That had been established long ago, though none of the boys had been at the scene when Emma was attacked.

Emma cocked her head, frowning.

“They all came forward to the police,” Jamie reminded her. “You saw them. They admitted to it, and you said so, too. But that was before you were . . . hurt.”

“But he came back?” She asked it as a question, clearly confused.

“I never heard that. You never said that before. He’s a police officer now.”

“They came back,” she said, looking past Jamie as if to the long-ago past.

Jamie waited. She realized her heart was pounding triple time, like she’d just run a blisteringly fast race. Emma had never said as much about the night she was attacked, at least not to Jamie’s knowledge.

And there was no way Cooper Haynes had attacked her. No way. As she’d said, the man was a police officer now, and he’d been a decent guy in high school, too. After Emma’s attack, a group of her male classmates had come forward and told the authorities that they knew she was babysitting and had decided to scare her. Emma was a popular girl they all liked. Halloween had been less than a month away that night, so they’d decided to spook Emma and therefore tapped on the Ryersons’ windows, rattled the garbage cans, found one unlatched window that would creeaaakkkk when they seesawed it back and forth. It was teenage high jinks; nothing sinister. According to them, Emma had come out on the porch and good-naturedly told them all to go back to fourth grade where they belonged. Two of the guys, Race Stillwell and Dug, who was really Patrick “Dug” Douglas, had been on their way to “haunt” Emma when Jamie ran into them leaving the Stillwell party just as she was arriving to it that night. In fact, they were the two boys Emma had yelled to as she stood on the porch, but there had been a number of others there, too, Cooper Haynes among them.

Jamie, like almost everyone else, had learned this information when it was reported in the paper. She could still recall Mom swearing softly beneath her breath after reading it, crumpling up that newspaper into a myriad of tight, little balls, her face a cold, stone mask. Jamie had gathered the pieces of newspaper surreptitiously from the trash and unwrapped all the little balls till she found the offending piece of print about Emma’s classmates. She, too, had felt a wave of fury at them. How could they? How could they? And yet, it was clear that whatever had happened to Emma was after they’d all left.

Now she looked at her sister and asked cautiously, “Who came back?”

Emma, who’d been gazing in the direction she’d said she’d seen Cooper go, jerked as if goosed. “Who?”

“The night you were hurt at the Ryersons’? You just said ‘they came back.’ You mean the guys from your class.” She swallowed and added, “Cooper.”

“Cooper Haynes. You had a crush on him. That’s why you wanted to go to the party.”

“Yes,” Jamie admitted. Clearly, Emma had that information, so it was no good denying it. “But was he one who came back?”

“He liked me.” She sounded wistful. “They all did.”

“They did,” Jamie agreed. “You said they came back,” she reminded her, opening her driver’s door. Emma remained outside, staring down the road, almost as if she were waiting for something. “You’d better get in before it starts raining again.”

“It won’t rain.” She turned her face to the sky.

“Or hailing.”

Emma took a few more minutes and then finally climbed into the back seat again.

Jamie drove away from the school and in the direction of the Thrift Shop, a route that took her past the police station.

“No one ever said they came back,” Jamie said, hoping for even the slightest bit of further information.

“No one ever said they didn’t,” said Emma wisely.

“Who came back?” Jamie was tired of this pussyfooting game.

Emma’s eyes were glued to the police station as they went by. Jamie flicked a look at the unimposing, one-story, tan brick building, but her gaze came right back to Emma in the rearview mirror.

“We should tell Dad that Mom died,” Emma said, meeting Jamie’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “That’s the right thing to do. You always need to do the right thing.”

“Dad knows,” Jamie told her.

Emma nodded gravely. “He’s an asshole, but Mom still loved him. He should be with us, too.”

Jamie clamped down her frustration. It felt like there was something very important in Emma’s revelations about “they all came back,” but maybe it was blither-blather. A lot of what Emma said was. Sometimes she repeated things she’d heard on television . . . even from commercials . . . that she incorporated into her own reality.

But still . . .

“We’re going to spread Mom’s ashes today, and I doubt our father can make it,” said Jamie.

“All you can do is ask,” Emma said in an eerily on-point mimicry of their mother’s words and tone.

“You’re right about that.”

Ten minutes later, Jamie watched her sister mount the rear steps to Theo’s Thrift Shop’s back door and disappear inside. She drove home slowly, reviewing their conversation. Talking to Emma was like starting ten different conversations and never finishing even one. Was her comment about her guy classmates even true? The boys’ statements had been vetted by the police, and Cooper had even gone on to become part of law enforcement himself.

You really, really don’t want him to have any part of it.

“Let it be Race, or Dug, or any of the others,” she said aloud.

If it was even true.

Which was unlikely.

Most people had initially believed it was the Babysitter Stalker who’d attacked Emma that night. Jamie had wanted to be in that camp. But further information on those other attacks had poked holes in that theory, and it didn’t appear to be so. Jamie had wanted that version to be the truth so she wouldn’t have to look at anyone close to Emma: her friends, her boyfriends, anyone.

How did she know how you felt about Cooper?

Was it more obvious than you believed?

The thought made Jamie cringe inside even now, decades . . . a lifetime . . . later.

She spent the rest of the day on her laptop, researching her next moves. She could get an Oregon Reciprocal Teaching License, which was good for a year, while finalizing other requirements. The school year had already started, so it was unlikely she would get a full-time job somewhere, but currently, substitute teaching was all she could probably handle anyway.

She drove back to the school at three to pick up Harley, who was standing outside the front doors with a group of girls, huddled under the front overhang, though the rain and hail had been replaced by fretted clouds. This was promising, Jamie thought. Harley made friends fairly easily when she wanted to. It was the wanting to that was hard to define.

She got out of the car and started heading Harley’s way. Maybe the fact that school had only been going a few weeks was working in her daughter’s favor. Relationships hadn’t gotten cemented in concrete yet.

It didn’t bode well, however, when she realized Harley was a few steps away from the group of about six girls, with others coming outside and joining in, their voices growing louder as more kids exited the school. Jamie felt oddly exposed as she walked across the parking lot and toward the steps, wondering if she’d be heard over all the excited voices if she yelled to get Harley’s attention.

“Hey! There you are!” a voice cried above the rest. “Jamie!”

It was coming from behind her. Reluctantly, she turned around, recognizing Icky Vicky’s voice. In her navy suit and shoes, she was hurrying toward Jamie. Her blond hair had fallen out, or been taken out, of its chignon and fell around her shoulders. Jamie remembered her at the Stillwell party, riding a guy’s leg while his hands groped her familiarly with a lot of moaning and hard breathing. Jamie had enjoyed sex with Paul . . . for a while . . . but it had never been so eager and overt. She’d always been a little embarrassed and would have died a thousand deaths to have people walking by when she was with someone. Yet Vicky hadn’t seemed to mind, and clearly didn’t think much of it anymore.

“I want to meet your daughter. Tyler would be heading right to football practice, but we have a dental appointment. Is she out here yet?” Vicky looked toward the front steps.

Harley was actually engaged in talking to another girl and was smiling. Jamie marveled a bit. How long had it been since she’d actually enjoyed something?

“She’s the tall one with brown hair talking to the dark-haired girl in the blue sweater,” Jamie said, the weight on her heart lifting a bit. She hadn’t even known it was there until now. If Harley could make this work, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad in River Glen.

“Oh, with Marissa Haynes, well, Dalworth. Marissa’s a really nice girl. I keep hoping Tyler picks someone like her instead of Dara Volker.” She barked out a short laugh. “Dara’s a slut, unfortunately, and Tyler thinks she’s a hottie, which she is. I should know, right?”

This was an unexpected nod to her high school reputation and there was no right way to answer it. Besides, she’d said something that had definitely caught Jamie’s attention.

“Marissa Haynes?” Jamie asked carefully.

“Oh, I know. She’s Cooper Haynes’s stepdaughter. Her real last name is Dalworth, but she took Cooper’s. You remember him from high school?”