“Well, of course.” His voice was still gruff, but his features were less steely. “I’m not going to make you walk twenty miles to the train station, am I? And what about money?”
“I have some in the bank.”
“You mean the money you were saving up to go back to school? You’re not going to give any of it to your brother or sister, are you? You’d better not. You’re too softhearted.”
“I’m not. They’ve both got plenty of money.”
“Well, you shouldn’t waste any of your savings to get back and forth. I’ll give you some cash.” Waving off my protestations, he dug in his pockets and came up with nothing. “Bloody hell. I never carry money. I’ll tell Lucia to give you something from petty cash.”
“You will not. My family is my problem. I’ll use my own money.”
“You really are unbelievable, you know that?” he said with a grudging smile.
“Yes, you keep telling me that. And there’s one more thing, Mr. Rathburn.” I braced myself and continued. “You know how you told me you might be getting married?”
“What about it?” The crease between his brows reappeared.
“Is it true?”
“What if it is?”
“If you’re getting married, I’ll need to find another position. Your fiancée doesn’t like me very much.”
“And who would take care of Maddy? You’ve probably noticed that Bianca isn’t the motherly type.”
“Maybe Ms. Ingram would like to help choose the new nanny,” I said. “That way you can hire someone she likes… or at least approves of.”
“You have a point. But what would you do then?”
“I’d go back to the agency — if you’ll give me a good reference.”
“A good reference! Go back to the agency! I can see you’ve given this some thought. What if I refuse to give you a good reference? What if I tell them you’re a little brat who left me high and dry when I needed you most?”
“You wouldn’t do that,” I told him. “It’s not true.”
“Screw the agency. I’ll find you a new position myself. I have friends, you know. Someone always needs a good nanny. Promise me you won’t go back to the agency.”
I gave him my word.
“When are you leaving?” he asked.
“I was hoping to leave this afternoon. I know that doesn’t give Lucia much notice.”
“Lucia will bust a gasket, but she’ll survive. Me, on the other hand… Well, I guess this is good-bye, then. I’m terrible at good-bye.”
“Good-bye, but not for long,” I said.
“It had better not be. Do I get a handshake?”
I shook his hand, but he stood there as if unsatisfied. “That’s
not it,” he said. “That feels so phony and formal. What about a hug?”
I stepped forward, and he threw his arms around me and held me there awhile. For a moment, I could feel his heart beating. I knew that if I was going to walk away, I’d better do it right then. The thought of leaving him with Bianca Ingram was getting more painful by the moment. “Mr. Rathburn?” My voice was muffled by his shirt.
“Yes?”
“I’d better go pack my suitcase and check the train schedule.” He released me and without another word disappeared into the barn. For a moment, the landscape — with its flitting moths, acres of trees, songbirds, and cicadas — seemed empty and unbearably quiet.
I had never been to Jenna’s apartment before. She buzzed me in from the lobby, and as I rode the elevator up to the twenty-first floor, I wondered if she had changed, if she might seem at all happy to see me. Jenna met me at the door. Her auburn hair had been straightened and cut into a sleek bob, and she wore olive-green capri pants, a matching blouse with a snakeskin print, and a charm bracelet that jingled as she walked. She didn’t smile, throw her arms around me, or offer to take my suitcase.
“Took you long enough.” She swept back a lock of hair from her eyes. On her left hand, an enormous diamond caught my eye. “You can set your suitcase down in the back room for now. You do realize I can’t put you up here, right? Mark’s already taking up every spare inch of space we have, which as you can see isn’t much.”
To my eye, the apartment looked large by Manhattan standards; it was austerely modernist, done up in metal and more shades of white than I had dreamed existed. The white leather sofa looked singularly uninviting, barely meant for sitting, much less sleeping. I tucked my suitcase into a corner of the small back room beside what I took to be my brother’s belongings — a large duffel bag, a pile of thick books, and a rolled-up sleeping bag. A smaller, less-expensive-looking couch took up a third of that room.
“Where’s Mark?” I asked.
“I kicked him out for the afternoon,” she said. “I told him to start looking for an apartment of his own. I can’t stand to have him here all day, moping around, breathing up all my oxygen. Let’s sit out in the living room; this place makes me claustrophobic.”
When we were side by side on the couch, she held out her hand for inspection. “You haven’t seen my ring yet. Isn’t it beautiful?” The pear-shaped diamond on her finger sparkled in the light. “We’re going to have a small, tasteful wedding, just David’s family. And his colleagues. And a few of our friends.”
“It’s a gorgeous ring,” I told her. “Are you happy?”
“I was thrilled, until Mark dropped on our doorstep. I can’t even think about planning the wedding with him breathing down my neck, sneering at me. Calling me superficial and image obsessed. He’s such an asshole. I don’t even know how he could possibly be related to me.” She caught my eye. “To us. He’s nothing like either of us.”
I had to agree. “Tell me again why he’s here.” Over the phone, her explanation hadn’t done much to satisfy my curiosity. “What’s
he been doing all these months? Why did he disappear after Mom and Dad’s funeral?”
Jenna wrinkled her nose. “He went on a bender, I imagine. He drinks too much, that’s clear. Anyway, I think he just wanted to get as far away from us as possible and take Mom and Dad’s money with him.”
“You got some of Mom and Dad’s money,” I reminded her.
“Well, yeah. But I’ve been spending it responsibly. Look at this place.”
“Isn’t it David’s?”
“But you should have seen it when I moved in. Very bachelor pad. He’s got to make a good impression. Now we can see people socially and not be ashamed. This couch we’re sitting on? It’s Italian — from Milan. I hired Sheila Antoine; have you heard of her? She’s one of the most sought-after interior decorators in Manhattan. What she cost, you wouldn’t believe. But worth it, don’t you think?”
“Anyway,” I said. “Mark. Why is he here now?”
“Well, he landed in Massachusetts. I guess he met a girl. Someone he worked with at a software company where he’s been geeking around since February.”
“What sort of work is he doing?”
Jenna shrugged. “Something boring with computers. His girlfriend’s name is Debbie. She’s a braniac just like him, I guess. The two of them used Mom and Dad’s money to put a down payment on a McMansion out in the suburbs. Can you just imagine how tacky it probably is?”
“What happened?”
“You know how Mark is. He says Debbie kicked him out because she’s a selfish bitch who only wants his money. But I knew there had to be more to it than that, so when he was sleeping off a hangover in the back room, I went through his cell phone and got her number.”
“You called her?”
Jenna broke into a naughty smile. “And she says she kicked him out because he drinks too much and gets really nasty. Calls her names, tells her she’s ugly and stupid. And then he started knocking her around. Gave her a black eye. Can you believe it?”
I thought of how he had hit me when we were children and of how he threatened to hurt me if I told Mom or Dad. “Didn’t he ever hit you when we were kids?”
“Not once,” Jenna said. “He probably knew I could take his skinny ass if he tried.”
“I don’t have any trouble believing he beat up his girlfriend,” I said. “He used to hit me when nobody was looking.”
“Huh. Well, she got herself a restraining order, and he had to go sleep on a friend’s couch. He started drinking even harder and lost his job. At least that’s what I imagine happened. Mark, of course, says his boss was a total asshole and canned him for no reason.”
“Why isn’t he still staying with his friend?”
“Who knows. Mark’s such a liar. I can’t believe anything he tells me anyway, so I don’t bother asking. He probably pissed off the friend too. And of course he put all his money into the McMansion, so while his lawyer thrashes it out with Debbie’s lawyer, he’s
almost penniless. Stinking up my apartment with his beer breath.” She rose. “I need a Bellini. You want one?”
“Could I have some ice water instead?” While she was gone, I looked around the room for signs that my sister actually lived in it. There were no photographs, no mementos, no pieces of furniture or knickknacks from our family home. She returned, handed me my glass, and sat down again, legs daintily crossed, holding her cocktail up toward the window to admire its peach color. Then she took a delicate sip. “I wait all day for this.”
“What is it you need me to do?” I asked her.
“Can you take Mark to live with you? Wherever it is that you’re living now?”
Maybe I should have expected that request, but it came as a total surprise. “No, Jenna. I can’t,” I replied when I had found my tongue. “I’m a nanny. I live in someone else’s home.”
“I don’t suppose you have any money to loan him?”
I thought of my savings account in the First Bank of Old Lyme, a small but steadily growing sum. Then I thought of how I might soon need to leave Thornfield Park to take another job among strangers. “Isn’t there some other way I can help?”
Jenna thought a moment. “You can talk to him. Convince him to go back to Debbie. Coach him. Tell him how to win her over.”
“I won’t do that,” I said. “He hits Debbie. You just said so yourself. She’s better off without him.”
“What do you care about Debbie? She’s just some stranger. And she was stupid enough to move in with Mark in the first place.” She took a deep swig from her glass. “I’d almost forgotten how prissy you are,” she said.
I hesitated, then spoke my mind. “Well, I haven’t forgotten how self-absorbed and demanding you are.” I’d never said anything as direct or honest to my sister before. Adrenaline flooded my body, and I waited for her to react — to look shocked or maybe hurt. But nothing happened. It was as though she hadn’t even heard me.
A moment passed before she spoke. “If you can’t do anything to help me, you’re not much of a sister.”
“Why don’t you lend him some money to get him into a new place?”
“I need the money I’ve got left for the wedding,” Jenna said in a pinched voice. “I know I said it was going to be small, but it’s got to be perfect. David’s got a reputation to maintain.”
“Can’t David lend him some money?”
“David
hates
him. Loathes him. He refuses to live here anymore until I get Mark out of here. Last night he checked into a hotel. The Envoy. It was featured in
Travel and Leisure
magazine a few months ago — maybe you’ve heard of it?” She gazed down at her ring. “I’m afraid he’s going to call the wedding off if I can’t figure out some way to unload Mark soon.”
I had met David only once, at the funeral, not long after he and Jenna had first started dating. Trim and well dressed, he had driven Jenna, Mark, and me to the cemetery and had fussed over the heating controls of his car for half the drive and complained about the cold for the rest. Something told me he hadn’t been all that pleased with the prospect of having me at his apartment either, even though I was there at Jenna’s request.
“Why don’t I talk to Mark?” I offered.
“And tell him to do what?”
“I’m still working on that part,” I said. “When will he get back?”
“I have absolutely no control over when he comes and goes. Lately he’s been rolling in here at three in the morning, waking me up. Why don’t you go get yourself a hotel room? I’ll call you when his sorry ass turns up.”
The first reasonably affordable hotel room I could find was fifty blocks downtown. Once I’d settled in, I walked around town, window-shopping and people watching, waiting for Jenna to call me on my cell phone. At dinnertime, I had a pleasant, solitary meal — just me and a novel I’d brought along — at an Indian restaurant across from the hotel. The food was fragrant and delicious, and I could enjoy it as long as I managed not to think too hard about my dwindling savings account. I went to bed early, but the buzz of traffic from the street twenty stories below acted like caffeine on my nervous system. All I could think about was Mr. Rathburn at Thornfield Park with Bianca Ingram. I stayed up for hours, longer than I’d intended to, forehead pressed to the window, watching a string of tiny cars glide below me, headlights and taillights pretty as a string of beads. At 1 a.m., I went back to bed.
Jenna hadn’t called me by ten the next morning, so I phoned her.
“I’m not sure when he got in.” She sounded sleepy and crabby. “He’s snoring now in the back room. I’m not going to wake him up and get my head bitten off. You come here and do it.”
“No,” I said. “When he wakes up, see if you can get him to go
out to a coffee shop. Then call me with the address.” I’d thought it over and realized I’d be better off meeting my brother in a neutral public place, where he couldn’t get too angry or violent.
Jenna sighed and hung up. I didn’t hear from her again until midafternoon. Once she’d given me the address, I hurried to the nearest subway stop. I found Mark hunched over his laptop computer at the Greek coffee shop up the street from Jenna’s place. A cold half cup of coffee sat before him. The table was littered with crumpled sugar packets and emptied creamers. I slid into the seat opposite him, and he looked up, apparently surprised to see me. He was thinner than I remembered. His light brown hair had begun to recede.
“I’ll take a coffee,” I told the bored-looking waitress. “Hey,” I said to Mark.
“Hey yourself.” He typed for a few more minutes as if I wasn’t there. His T-shirt was wrinkled, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved for days. Finally he snapped the laptop shut. “I see Jenna called in the cavalry.”
I poured cream into my coffee. “She’s worried about you.”