Safe Harbor (53 page)

The child broke into a fit of giggles as Peaches reached down and wrapped her arms around he
r, half-tickling, half-
turning her to face Helen.
"
Do you know who this is?
"
said Peaches to the child.

Without looking up, Katie giggled again and said,
"
Yes. Mrs. Evett. She teaches preschool,
"
the child added, in case there was any doubt.

Helen crouched to the little girl
'
s level and said,
"
Hi, Katie. I
'
m glad to meet you. Your mommy said that you
'
re a very smart little girl.
"

Katie fixed her bright blue eyes on Helen
'
s gray ones.
"
I know my ABCs, and I can count to twenty,
"
she said. This she proceeded to do on the spot, except for seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen.

When she was done, Peaches tucked one of her curls back and said,
"
We
'
ve been practicing a lot, haven
'
t we, honey?
"

"
Uh-huh. And I know how to draw. Want me to show you?
"

Helen said yes and Katie ran to the other end of the room where she
'
d been coloring at a low table, then fell to her knees and began sorting through her pile in search of her best pieces.

"
She
'
s determined to make a good impression on you,
"
Peaches whispered to Helen.
"
I
'
m not sure what Linda told her, but Katie seems to think she may not get into the class.
"

"Oh ...
no, I wouldn
'
t say that,
"
Helen said vaguely. It was awkward to be put on the spot that way, which is why Helen preferred to do the interviews at school.

The reference to
"
Linda
"
rather than to
"
Mrs. Byrne
"
did not escape Helen. Over the years she
'
d met hundreds of nannies picking up their charges at the end of the day. Very few of them referred to their employers by their first names. Maybe Peaches was a relation after all.

To fill the void while they waited for the child to make up her mind, Helen said softly,
"
Does Katie have many friends to play with?
"

Peaches pursed her lips thoughtfully, cocked her head in the little girl
'
s direction, and sighed.
"
I wish I could say yes. But all the children in the neighborhood are in preschools, getting ready for Harvard and Yale. Linda was determined to hold out, but the pressure got to be too much.

"
Oh, good, Katie,
"
said Peaches to the girl as she came skipping back with a crayon-drawing in her hand,
"
that was
my
favorite, too.
"

Without a word the child handed the sheet to Helen, apparently preferring to let her work speak for itself.

Helen didn
'
t have a clue what the brown and red scribbles were supposed to be. Nonetheless, she was impressed with the little girl
'
s command of shapes.
"
Oh my,
"
she said enthusiastically.
"
You must come sit next to me and tell me everything that
'
s in it.
"

Helen took the girl by the hand and led her to a small camelback sofa opposite the piano, glancing at the entrance to the room as they passed it.

The nanny took the hint.
"
I
'
m sorry for the delay,
"
she said at once.
"
I
'
ll just go see—
"

She never got to finish the sentence. A man
'
s voice— loud and urgent and somehow ghastly—cried out from a floor above them,
"
Peaches! For God
'
s sake, up here!
"

Buy 
Beyond
Midnigh
t
or turn the page for Chapter 2.

The
nanny threw down the words
"
Excuse me
"
like a discarded tissue and rushed from the music room, leaving Helen alone with the child.

Whatever had happened wasn
'
t good, but Helen knew better than to let a child see that she was upset. In her calmest, friendliest voice she said,
"
Now. I was wondering what
...
hmmm
...
this is,
"
she said, pointing to one of several brown cigars. She was surprised to see that her hand was shaking as she did it.

Katherine, unhooking her forefinger from her lower lip, gestured in a squiggly circle that took in all the cigars at once and said,
"
That
'
s Daddy
'
s plane. And this is his other plane,
"
she said, pointing to a blue scribble in one corner.
"
Only I coulddent fit it.
"

"
And this?
"

"
This is fog. Daddy doesn
'
t like fog because he can
'
t fly his plane. But I like it,
"
she added in a hushed voice.
"
Because, well, I like it.
"
It seemed reason enough.

"
And this?
"

The child
'
s blue eyes crinkled above a smile.
"
That
'
s Polly Panda,
"
she said, slapping the heels of her hands on the edge of the sofa cushion.
"
Daddy bringed Polly Panda on the plane. She sat in a seat. Mommy was mad.
"

Helen decided not to follow up on that one, so she asked Katie to show her some more of her work.

It was a hard slog. Katie, true to the artist
'
s temperament, had no desire to explain every last smudge, especially in the more abstract pieces. She began to fidget and demanded to know where Peaches was.

Good question,
thought Helen. Really, it was shaping up to be an extraordinary interview, with one odd surprise after another. From the owl to the real Peaches to the elusive Linda Byrne, Helen had been kept continuously off balance. She didn
'
t like it at all.

She
'
d managed to get Katie working on another creation—though it was clear that the muse had flown—when Peaches suddenly reappeared.

The woman
'
s face was as white as a new porcelain sink. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her nose still runny; clearly she
'
d been crying. She forced a pale echo of her earlier smile and said,
"
I really am sorry
...
but something
'
s come up. I
'
m afraid we
'
ll have to end the interview here. I
'
m—
"

She looked around the room blankly.
"
Did you bring a coat?
"
she asked in a dazed voice.

It was Helen
'
s turn to sound blank.
"
I left it in my car,
"
she said automatically
.

"
Oh
...
of course. Well.
I—someone will be in touch, then. Thank you so much for coming.
"

And that was it. Helen was given the bum
'
s rush out the door.

She stood beside her car, keys in hand, staring at the imposing brick house with its shuttered air of disdain, and thought,
What the
hell
was going on in there?

A car or two passed on the street. Bankers and lawyers were coming home to their suppers. Helen roused herself and stuck the key in the lock of her door, all too aware that her kids would be clamoring for their own meal. A light snow was beginning to fall. More snow, more March, more waiting.

Somehow the int
erview seemed to fit right in.

****

By the time Peaches hurried back from seeing Helen to the door, Katie had climbed halfway up the unbarred stairs. The nanny raced to intercept her.

"
I wanna go by Mommy,
"
the child said, trying to wriggle out of her nanny
'
s grasp.

"
You can
'
t right now, honey,
"
said Peaches, carrying her quickly up the rest of the stairs. The stairs wound another flight to the nurse
ry around the massive center hal
l, itself highlighted by a large crystal chandelier that hung from the third floor ceiling. Peaches made sure the child
'
s face was to the wall, away from the open hall—the heart of the house onto which all the rooms opened.
"
You know how it is when Mommy has a headache.
"

"
I
don
'
t
know,
"
Katherine said, frustrated and impatient.
"
I don
'
t I don
'
t I don
'
t. I want to see her now.
"

In the distance Peaches heard the sound of sirens. Her heart lurched in her breast; by sheer force of her will, she made it return to a steady, untroubled beat.

"
You can
'
t see her now, Katie,
"
she said evenly.
Not now. Not ever.

****

Helen ended up waiting a week for the call. More than once, she
'
d considered calling Linda Byrne herself; but after all her assurances that there was no urgency, she couldn
'
t quite justify picking up the phone.

Besides, it had been a godawful week: A nasty strain of flu was making the rounds, and kids and staff were dropping like flies. Helen had been one of the few left standing, despite a brutal week-long sinus headache.

But Friday had come at last, and Helen was able, finally, to collapse on the sofa with an ice pack on her head. She was dressed in comforting sweat clothes, gazing listlessly through the wood blinds at the last of a bloodred sky and wondering whether she should close the school for a few days, when the phone rang.

"
Russ, answer that, would you?
"
she begged.

She heard his grudging
"
H
'
lo
" on the hal
l phone, followed by an assortment of monosyllables:
"Yeah ... no ... 'k
ay
...
no
...
I
'
ll tell her
...
bye.
"

Russ hung up and came into the family room, which was identical in size to the sitting room on the opposite side of the hall but upholstered in more rugged fabrics. He was buried under fourteen layers of plaid, dressed to go out.

"
So? Who was it?
"

"
Some woman with a weird name,
"
he answered.
"
She said some kid won
'
t be signing up for preschool that you thought was going to.
"

"
I don
'
t suppose you
'
d happen to remember the child
'
s name either,
"
Helen said dryly.

"
Yeah
...
that one wasn
'
t weird
. 
Katherine, that
'
s it!
"
Russ said, lighting up in the kind of endearing grin that Helen so rarely saw anymore.