The Babysitter. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” Harley finally spoke up.

      “Scary, though, huh? If the kids hadn’t caught you, I would have grabbed Troy by the hair before I let him push me off!”

      “Troy Stillwell?” Cooper asked.

      “Yeah. He’s a senior.”

      “I know who he is.” Cooper was short. “That was dangerous,” he added.

      “Yeah, but the administration is so overprotective. They had to do something.” Marissa frowned. “Maybe they’ll be expelled,” she said in dawning horror.

      “They’d have to expel half the senior class,” Cooper remarked, looking around at the remaining kids standing beneath the glaring overhead lights. They stood in defiant groups, shooting angry glances toward the adults, especially the ones who were the most righteously offended, Caroline being one of them, who swore the boys in the masks should all be arrested.

      “They’re little short of terrorists!” he heard her declare from across the room. Her daughter looked like a freshman. She was caught in her mother’s arms. Two other mothers were hovering nearby, gripping their own daughters tightly. All three girls’ expressions were long-suffering as the moms chattered over their heads in collective outrage.

      “You sure you’re all right?” Cooper asked Harley again. “I can call your mother.”

      “Don’t call her. Don’t tell her, okay? I don’t want her to know.”

      Marissa shot a quick look at Harley and said, in a non sequitur, “Maybe he likes you.”

      Harley didn’t respond to that.

      Cooper said, “Your mom’s going to find out about what happened, and—”

      “Just don’t tell her tonight. Please?” Harley cut him off.

      Cooper had no wish to tell Jamie about what had transpired, especially regarding the Michael Myers mask. In Race Stillwell’s account to the police after Emma’s attack, he’d copped to the fact that he’d worn that mask, and that detail had made it into the paper. Jamie would likely remember.

      “I don’t want my mom to know about the Halloween mask,” Harley said, which pretty well explained that she knew about it, too.

      It deeply embarrassed Cooper that he’d been part of the group who’d played those tricks on Emma. Robbie Padilla came up at the end of their conversation with his son, Marcus, in tow, one of Marissa and Harley’s classmates. He gave Cooper a look that said he was feeling much the same way. Marcus had been named for Mark Norquist, their horndog friend, who’d died serving in the army in Afghanistan.

      “What a way to start the school year, huh?” Robbie said when Harley, Marissa, and Marcus had wandered back to the punch bowl.

      “Yeah.”

      “I keep thinking about that night. You?”

      Cooper nodded slowly.

      “And that new girl is Emma’s . . . niece?”

      “Jamie’s daughter. Yes.”

      “Right.” Robbie nodded. “I remember Jamie.”

      “I saw her today.”

      “Yeah?”

      “She looks a lot like Emma.”

      Robbie exhaled heavily. “What a way to start the school year,” he repeated.

      * * *

      “Well, thank you, all. It was great fun,” Jamie said, grabbing her purse and getting up. She’d barely touched her second glass of wine, and when the women had protested, she’d said, “I’ve got driving in my future. Can’t drink anymore.”

      “You can’t leave yet.” This was from Bette, who’d decided not only to include Jamie, but to make her her new best friend. Bette, however, was half-sloshed.

      “I’ve really got to go. My daughter’s been texting me. She’s ready to leave.”

      “The kids are all going out afterward,” said Vicky. “I’ll text Tyler to make sure he takes care of Harley.”

      “No.” All four women’s heads turned at Jamie’s emphatic response. “Please. It’ll only embarrass her. Again, thank you. Really. It was so much fun. Another time . . .”

      She sketched them all a bright wave, then hurried out the door. She felt weird. Exhausted. Like she’d just escaped some dire fate by the skin of her teeth. Gulping air, she emitted a half-hysterical laugh. She’d been without friends for so long, it was like learning a foreign language to be accepted by a tight group. It was damn hard work.

      She drove back to the house, knowing Harley would never want to come home even a minute early. Sitting outside in her car, she rolled down a window and let the cool, almost cold, October air inside. A smashed pumpkin on the sidewalk and the earthy scent of a pile of red and gold and brown leaves slipped inside as well. A faint breeze sent leaves on the trees whispering.

      Jamie lay her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go in yet. Emma would likely be in bed. She’d told Jamie she liked to be in bed by eight-thirty, no later. Mom’s shift was from seven to seven. She’d generally worked three-and-a-half, twelve-hour days a week, and she was back in the morning to take Emma to work. There was also just enough time to pick her up in the evening before starting another shift. It had worked well for both of them, and Mom and Theo scheduled it so that if Mom had to work a Saturday, Emma would be at the Thrift Shop that day as well, so that she wasn’t alone for hour upon hour. Even so, there were those times that Mom was sleeping and Emma was home, but Emma, understanding, was notably scrupulous about keeping the house quiet.

      Jamie knew all this from the brief communications she’d received from her mother over the years, along with the somewhat rambling accounts Emma would sometimes relate.

      Now, though, she didn’t want to go inside. She didn’t want to go to her bed in the storage closet. Instead she switched on her cell and scrolled through her contact list. Before she could chicken out, she phoned her old friend, Camryn. She hadn’t talked to her in a couple of years, maybe more. The last time Jamie had come home had been two Christmases ago. She and Harley had driven up, but it had been so tense with Mom that Jamie had cut the trip short, and they’d driven home with snow drifting down in the Siskiyous. They’d just gotten out ahead of a major snowstorm.

      “Jamie?” Camryn answered warmly. “I heard you were in town! I’ve been meaning to call you, but it’s crazy with work. You’ve got your daughter with you, right? What is she, a freshman? Oh, God. Is she at River Glen High?”

      “Sophomore. Yes,” Jamie said. She started to say something more, but was stopped by a thickness in her throat and a sudden sting of tears.

      Luckily, Camryn didn’t notice. “Wow. I should’ve had kids. I never found the right guy, though, and the thought of a sperm bank . . . I don’t know. Not for me.”

      Jamie, recovered enough to respond, said, “Harley started at River Glen today, and she’s at the СКАЧАТЬ