But if I’d been talking pure nonthenth, then Connie wouldn’t have reacted so strongly. Instead, she was attacking the dishes as if they needed to be purged of their sins. As if she could scrub off our conversation with her bristles and detergent.
“It would be better if we were together on all this,” I said. “You sense it, too, Connie. It’s not fair to me to pretend that you don’t.”
But now she’d morphed into full-on madwoman, muttering and shaking her head at her soap bubbles. Evidently, she wasn’t speaking to me anymore. Not about this, anyhow. Yet I’d flustered her because I’d hit a nerve. Her reaction was her confession. Maybe she couldn’t detect Peter and Jessie like I could, but she knew. Meantime, I was faced with her thorny mood and the slap of the dishwater.
So I left her, scooting downstairs to my refuge: the family room, where the babble of the television always seemed to temporarily banish whatever else was trapped inside these walls.
TWELVE
Awful as it would have been to admit it to him, I heeded Milo’s advice. I took care of Isa, and tried to forget his and my harsh exchange. And Isa by herself—as in, Isa not working to impress her big brother—could be a delight. Soon I’d stopped worrying about whether or not I was sinking too deep into her world of corny “what if” games. They all seemed pretty harmless to me.
But Dr. Hugh probably would have invoiced a different diagnosis, so we made a point to duck Connie’s watch. I was sure Mags would have died laughing to see me paddling around in the pool or ocean pretending to be an Olympic swimmer, or instructing a “studio audience” how to make honeydew-melon sorbet. But Mags wasn’t here. Just Isa and me and an endless radiance of sunny days—and it wasn’t all that bad.
Except that even Isa had friends her own age. And as the drift and spin of days made weeks, I was getting downright desperate for some of my own. Blyers had proven to be way less “kick-back” than Miles McRae’s email suggested. Most other au pairs were swanky summer kids, like Jessie. The more I looked around, the more apparent it became that I was a rare breed here: the unknown import.
One of the Green Hill Beach Club lifeguards that everyone called Noogie had been nicest to me. Since Isa had signed up for advanced diving lessons, I saw Noogie every day. We’d say hello, and then I’d study her from behind my book. There was something about her. She was pretty in an athletic way, like Mags, and she was unsuckuppy with parents. Everyone, myself included, liked to be around Noogie, just listening to her laugh and joke and banter with the kids. She reminded me a lot of Tess and Teddy, themselves both extroverts. Watching Noogie, I missed the twins, and dreaded thinking of next year: the empty rooms, the quiet threesome of me and my parents. I’d already experienced a taste of it this past spring since Tess and Teddy had never been home, wrapped up in senior week and prom and graduation.
And then, just like that, it happened. One afternoon, Noogie, on break and ambling back from the Mud Hut, dropped down to the empty lounge chair beside me.
“Why are you always staring at me?”
Humiliated, I blinked down at my book. “I’m not.”
“Is it payback because we always stare at you?”
When I looked up, she was smiling ruefully. “I’m sure you know by now how much you look like her.”
“And that is so not my fault.”
Noogie’s laugh was more like a bark. Arf, arf. Her trademark, husky laugh that was part of her coolness. “Fair enough. But did Miles hold a contest and you won it? The ‘who looks the most like Jessie Feathering to scare the bejesus out of everyone at Green Hill’ contest?”
I straightened. “Listen, this whole situation was news to me, too. Until a month ago, I didn’t know Little Bly existed. And I was totally ignorant that certain beaches in the USA came equipped with valet parking and personal cabanas.”
Which made Noogie bark-laugh rough, rough, rough all over again. “Green Hill’s not bad, if you don’t happen to resemble the girl who had your job last year. If Jessie were here today, she’d have thought it was hysterical.”
“Except it’s not.”
“True.” Noogie grew instantly sober. “And Miles McRae is no father of the year.” Then she lowered her voice, though Isa was all the way on the other side of the pool, practicing her jackknife. “He’s so checked out, he probably thought he was doing something nice, finding a … doppelganger—to take Jessie’s place. Uh-oh—hang on.”
I looked around. Out of the corner of her eye, Noogie’d caught a splash fight. Her lifeguard’s whistle pierced the air. “Molly! Jonas! Out of the pool.”
As they climbed out, culpable and defiant, Noogie returned her attention to me. “So, tell me. How’s it been so far?”
“The job? It’s okay. I get to sleep in. And Isa’s a snap.”
“Yeah, but Isa’s also, like, eleven. Why don’t you come party with us tonight?”
“Sure.” I said it too quickly. Loserishly.
Noogie didn’t seem to mind or care. “Sweet. My brother, Aidan, will get you when he picks up his girlfriend, Emory—she lives close by you. Say, sevenish. Mrs. Hubbard can babysit. Connie,” she clarified, seeing my puzzlement. “But to all us lifers, she’s Mrs. Hubbard.”
“What’s a lifer?”
“Someone who’s been coming here every summer since forever. But don’t confuse us with the locals who live at Bly year round. Or tourists, who are just trying on the island for size. Not that a pureblood local like Mrs. Hubbard splits hairs between lifers and tourists.”
“Now that I think about it, asking Connie, I don’t know …”
“Oh, come on, that’s what she’s there for. Jessie only worked days—and it’s not like you’re interfering with Mrs. Hubbard’s nightly tango practice down at the dance hall. She’s just sitting around; she can keep one eye on Isa and the other on her wine—no problem.”
Which made me smile, since one glass of wine was Connie’s drink of choice. I could never get over how Little Blyers all knew one another’s business. But still I held out, imagining Connie’s miffed reaction as I asked her to babysit Isa while I went off to have fun at a party.
Noogie gave my arm a small pinch. “What are you supposed to do? Keep a little girl and an old lady company every single night? Watching sitcoms and helping out with the newspaper word jumble?”