Authors: Allison Hobbs
“You saw a what?”
“A naked black woman running back and forth on Piper's Bridge. She looked crazy! I'm sure that I've seen her before?”
“Where?” Lizzy's voice took on a much higher pitch.
Wiping her hands on her apron, Carmen rushed to the foyer. “What's going on?” She took in Jen's appearance and furrowed her brows.
“Jen says she saw an escaped mental patient running around on Piper's Bridge.”
“I did. Really.”
“She claims she's seen her before,” Lizzy piped in, rolling her eyes upward.
“Where?” Carmen put a hand on her meaty hip and waited.
“I saw her on Ethan's computer!”
Carmen and Lizzy both went silent and exchanged doubtful glances.
“I'm serious. I don't think the security system is enough. We may have to ask the senator to hire a private security guardâ¦to watch the house. You know what I mean?”
“Jen,” Lizzy said calmly. “The senator is entertaining tonight. Madam Mayor is on the brink of winning the election. We don't need to do anything out of the norm that would draw unnecessary attention.” Lizzy had been listening to Catherine so long that she had her reasoning and logic down to a tee.
“But she could be dangerous. An escapee from jail or a mental hospital.”
Carmen threw up her hands, exasperated.
“I wouldn't make this up.” Jen sounded pitiful.
Carmen changed her tone. Spanish accent and all, she too,
mimicked Catherine's voice of reason. “The last thing we need is for word to get out that a crazy, naked woman was spotted running like crazy near the Provost home. The press will be crawling all over this place.”
Lizzy patted Jen on the back. “If she's out there, somebody will report it. You know, we can't get involved.”
Carmen nodded. “She's right, Jen. It's not our concern. Besides, we don't have to worry about her getting inside this house. The security system is high tech. We're locked tighter than Fort Knox.” Carmen chuckled and headed back to the kitchen.
Lizzy pulled out a plastic trash bag from the pocket of her wool sweater. “Put your muddy clothes and shoes in there.” Lizzy's pockets were deep and filled with all kinds of cleaning supplies and other crap. “The boy is in his bedroom, sitting in front of that computer. You'd better check in on him. Probably time for him to use the bathroom,” she said with a sympathetic ring to her tone.
“No one took him?”
“That's not our job. Look, I have to get this foyer cleaned up.”
“Lizzy, between you and meâ¦do you think I'd make something like that up?”
“Could be your imagination. Being around that boy all the time might be taking a toll on you.”
Jen couldn't blame Lizzy and Carmen for thinking her imagination had gone wild. She hardly believed what she'd seen herself. Frustrated and tired, she brushed past Lizzy and rushed toward the stairs.
She didn't check on Ethan. She went straight to her bedroom and peered in the mirror. Her reflection was appalling.
There were splotches of drying mud all over her face. Her bangs were encrusted. Separated and stiffened, Jen's bangs were
sticking out as though she'd been electrocuted. A thick layer of mucous created a crusty mustache over her upper lip. She looked like a lunatic.
She washed her hair in the shower, repulsed by the murky water that ran from her body and down into the drain. Then she rememberedâ¦
Oh, shit. Ethan!
She hoped he hadn't tinkled in his pants.
She threw on a clean T-shirt and jeans, and a pair of beat-up sneakers. With a towel wrapped around her damp hair, Jen rushed to Ethan's bedroom, hoping to deal with him as quickly as possible so she could blow dry her hair before it became impossibly tangled.
The boy's door was open. She could see the back of his head. A bout of anxiety stalled her outside the door.
Ethan wheezed. The sound made Jen's heartbeat quicken. Every muscle in her body felt tensed. She was a wreck! She should have been used to Ethan's unsettling patterns of breathing, but she was scared. Suppose that nutty woman, or ghost, or whatever, was back on the computer screen?
Feeling uneasy, she stood in his doorway, too afraid of what or who she might see if she got too close to the monitor. From the safety of the doorway, she stood, deliberately keeping her eyes focused on her scruffy sneakers. “Hey! Do you have to tinkle?”
Ethan didn't acknowledge Jen. His beady eyes were riveted to the monitor; his small hand moved the mouse back and forth, busily clicking images on and off of the screen. He looked down briefly at the mouse and Jen noticed his lips moving. She could hear his whispery mutterings.
“Ethan!” she yelled. She needed to snap him out of the zone he was in before he conjured that terrible woman onto the screen.
The tiny swivel chair made a soft creak as the child turned away from the screen. Jen looked up and was informed by the small erection that tented the crotch of his Osh Kosh jeans that Ethan needed to use the bathroom.
Eew!
It was sickening, the way his penis stiffened whenever he had to pee. Jen marched across the room. Handling him a bit roughly, she tugged Ethan out of the chair. “Go potty, Ethan,” she scolded, forgetting how much he disliked being called by his name.
With a grimace on her face, she patted the child's bottom, prodding him along.
Offended by the gesture and the sound of his name, Ethan spun around. Instead of his usual flat affect, he glared at her, eyes ablaze with menace.
His face began to contort horribly. His top lip jutted upward toward the right and his bottom lip went downward in the opposite direction.
Jen's heart jumped. It was a hideous sight. “Stop making that face, Ethan! Go potty,” she said sternly, trying to nip in the bud what looked like the precursor to another screaming episode.
Oops, I called him Ethan!
She remembered too late.
His lips untwisted and a hint of a smile surfaced. For a split second, Ethan looked normal. Then his smile turned sinister; his dark eyes glimmered lewdly, like something vulgar was running through his mind.
Quick as a flash, the child undid his pants and snaked his small hand inside the slit of his briefs. Before Jen could react or jump out of the way, Ethan had gripped his large penis, aimed it at her, and was spraying her with urine from the thigh area of her denim pants down to the sneakers on her feet.
“Ethan, no!” Jen screamed. Calling him by his name again
only encouraged his bad behavior, and made him move in closer; making sure that her jeans were soaked through.
Carmen came running, with Lizzy shuffling behind. “Oh, my Lord!” Carmen spied Ethan's exposed privates through dark-rimmed glasses and took a few steps back; her fingers splayed against her heart.
Lizzy's scowl was drawn to the yellow puddle at Jen's feet and then her gaze roved back and forth from the puddle to her wristwatch. “If I have to scrub one more floor, I'll never get out of here on time.” She gave Jen a hard look as if she expected her to volunteer to clean up the mess.
Jen swallowed hard, fighting tears. “Is that all you're worried about? Look what he did to me!” She grimaced at her urine-soaked clothing. “Eew!” She glared at the monstrous child. “That's it. I quit!” She dashed out of Ethan's bedroom, leaving her young charge unattended.
Ethan, now back to normal, had the usual vacant look in his eyes as he stood in the middle of the room seemingly unaware that his pants were down and that he was holding his penis.
Carmen raced behind Jen. “You can't leave me with that child. Lizzy's leaving at four and I have a big meal to prepare.”
“I don't care! I'm out of here. No amount of money is worth this.”
Lizzy wasn't as fast as Carmen but she was only a few seconds behind. “I can't get involved with that child. I don't have any training with autistic children,” Lizzy told the two women.
Carmen was distraught, wringing her hands as she stood in the doorframe of Jen's bedroom. “I'm just a cook; I can't handle him, either.”
Standing beside Carmen, Lizzy gave a curt nod of agreement. “We're not qualified to manage that boy's special needs.”
Jen grunted with disgust. “Does it look like I can? You need to call the nanny agency.” Jen braced her shoulder against a wall.
Refusing to touch the urine-stained footwear, she used the toe of her right sneaker to wedge off the left and then began working to pry off the other. “Tell the agency to send someone else. Seriously, guysâ¦I'm out of here.”
With both soiled sneakers kicked to the middle of the floor, Jen bent at the waist, looking down at her sodden socks, trying to figure out how to remove them without using her hands.
After a tense silence, Lizzy cleared her throat. With nervous, heavily veined hands, she pulled her wool sweater tightly around her small frame. “Listen, Jen. You have to think about Ms. Provost. She really doesn't deserve this kind of bad publicity right now.”
Jen made a scornful sound. “I don't deserve to lose my sanity and that's what's going to happen if I hang around this nut-house.”
“The Provosts aren't nutty,” Carmen piped in.
“You're right. They're cool, but their kid isn't. Did you know he can talk?”
Shocked, Lizzy took several gasping breaths.
Carmen reared back and shook her head. “No!”
“Yeah, he says a few words every now and then. Trust me; you don't want hear his voiceâ¦he sounds like a crabby old man and it's disturbing as hell.”
Carmen shuddered and crossed herself. She didn't have to say a word. That instinctive religious gesture spoke volumes.
“I can understand why you're pleading with me to stay. You don't want to be left alone with eerie Ethan. Though I sympathizeâ¦you didn't get peed on by that mean little brat. I did! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take a shower.”
Jen pulled her T-shirt over her head, signaling them to leave her in peace. When the cook and the maid didn't budge, Jen stared at them pointedly. “Can I have some privacy, please?”
Lizzy unclenched her sweater in defeat. Carmen's shoulders heaved a resigned sigh. Reluctantly, the two women left Jen's bedroom.
Inside the shower stall, Jen didn't reach for her favorite peach-scented bath gel. The fruity fragrance seemed inappropriate for washing away the stench of urine. Using hand soap, she lathered her body, scrubbing her thighs until they were tender to the touch.
Jen's mind wandered to the woman on the bridge. In hindsight, she decided that her mind had been playing tricks on her. The woman was merely a figment of her imagination.
Dealing with Ethan was taking its toll, causing her to hallucinate. Hell, she had so much pent up anxiety, she was slowly losing it. Maybe she'd even imagined that she'd heard Ethan speak the other day. She was definitely becoming unglued and if she didn't get far way from eerie Ethan, she might end up in a psych ward.
The nanny agency would fire her for sure if she walked off this job.
So what?
She would not allow herself to be victimized by that atrocious child for another day. The child was beyond strange. He was so odd-looking; with an adult-sized head and frail little body.
Not to mention his penis! It was hugeâ¦vile and unacceptable. No little kid should be hung like a horse.
During her interview, Catherine Provost never once mentioned her son's big dick or any of Ethan's other peculiaritiesâ his finicky food choices; his creepy grimace if he didn't like something he heard you say; his refusal to leave the computer
even when he had to urinate; his self-induced catatonia when he didn't want to go to bed. He was weird, weird, weird and impossible to care for.
Catherine Provost had reeled Jen in, dangling an internship in the senate if she stuck around for a while. Well, she'd been on the job for six months. Six months too long.
It was time to find another job. Or just pack up, go back to Centerville, and tell her parents the truth. On second thought, she couldn't do that. It would devastate her parents to know that she'd been kicked out of school.
Solemnly, Jen washed her body. She didn't have a choice. If she expected to save face with her parents, she'd have to continue working for the Provosts until she got the internship.
Working for the senator sounded prestigiousâa chance-in-a-lifetime jobâwell worth missing a semester or twoâ¦at least, that's what she'd tell her parents. But would she be able to last long enough to get the darn internship? With eerie Ethan getting worse by the day, Jen truly doubted if she could stick it out much longer as his nanny.
Stepping out of the shower, it occurred to her that aside from going home in disgrace, she had nowhere else to go. A daily hotel fee would cost a fortune; deplete her savings in no time.
A lump formed in her throat. Her future had looked so promising when she had arrived in Philly to attend Temple University on a full academic scholarship. Taking on seventeen credits was more difficult than she could have imagined.
More than half of her classmates had paid two hundred bucks for a copy of the Economics test, but Jen was the one caught with the text messaged quiz answers on her cell phone. The University did not take cheating lightly. Jen was expelled.
Torn between keeping a rent-free roof over her head and losing
her mind, Jen decided she wanted to keep her sanity. It was time to go!
In the midst of packing, there were two sharp knocks on her bedroom door. “Yes?” she said and continued to pack.
Carmen opened the door. “The senator would like to speak to you.” Carmen's eyes flitted from the open luggage and then over to the phone at Jen's bedside.
Jen took a deep, fortifying breath and picked up the phone.
Before exiting the bedroom, Carmen gave a slight head bow, obviously grateful that Jen was willing to talk to their employer.
“Carmen gave me an update. I don't know what to say, except that I'm sorry. I know Ethan can be a handful at timesâ¦after hearing about what he did todayâ¦well. I'm completely baffled.”