She bit her lip. She wanted to accept, I could tell, but something was holding her back.
I bent my knees a bit, tilting my head to the side to catch her gaze, which had been downcast toward the floor.
“Isn’t that what you’re saying you need, Polly?”
I could tell my question threw her for a minute. Like it took something for her to accept help, even though she was the one asking for it.
“Yes.”
I was a little surprised she agreed so quickly, but I wasn’t going to argue. “Great. I’ll plan on coming over tomorrow afternoon with my things. You want my number?” I grinned as Polly got her phone from her pocket and thrust it at me, her floral scent drifting over me. Plugging in my number and sending myself a text, I held out the phone to her. Taking her hand down from twisting her earring, she accepted her phone.
“Can’t say I ever thought I’d do an interview shirtless,” I teased. I gave a cursory look down at my now-covered chest, then back up to Polly, quirking one eyebrow. “Mostly.”
A laugh burst out of her as a shout sounded through the door. “Polly? Where are you?”
“Crap!” Hastily walking toward the door, she wrenched it open. “Coming!” she shouted down the hall.
Polly closed the door again, glanced over her shoulder at me. “OK. I guess we’re doing this.” Her eyes moved down to my neck, and she winced. “One percent hydrocortisone cream, Loradatine, and a cool compress. Don’t scratch that.”
And then she was gone.
I watched the door long after she left.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
POLLY
To quote a great poet of yore, “The shit hath hitith the fan.”
Drags to Richesby Ann Richter
Narrated by Nikki Martin
Between Ryla’s party, the interaction with my father, and hiring Jace, today couldn’t have been more surreal.
As I loaded the dishwasher, my mind kept replaying Jace’s Kent the Clown act. He was phenomenal. After a few minutes, he’d had everyone completely absorbed by his performance. I’d had a rare mental image of my mother at one point, as if she was standing and laughing alongside me, nudging me with her elbow, equally impressed.
“What’s that smile for?” Leah asked me, coming into the kitchen.
“Just the day. Thank you so much for helping. And staying overnight. I wish you’d let me pay you, you really don’t have to stay longer,” I told her as I placed the last of the dishes into the washer.
“You can pay me in books!” She turned on the faucet to rinse some dirty plates. “I saw the door to the basement was open and went down there. You must have had some rogue partygoers. I picked up this contraband.” Leah gestured to her hand where she was washing the remains of frosting from a plate. “I’d check the rest of the house just in case.”
“Little hoodlums,” I teased. “Hey, I have a meeting with your friend Rose next week.”
“Already?” Leah asked.
“Yep. I emailed the school district superintendent on Friday with more than a dozen questions. Rose was cc’d on the reply I got back from him. No less than half an hour later I got an email from Rose, herself. It was ten paragraphs long. We set up a meeting for Monday.” I eyed Leah with trepidation. “Her enthusiasm really jumped off the page.”
“That’s Rose for you. You’re gonna love her.” Leah rinsed a dishcloth in the sink. “You kind of disappeared for a little while there at the end. You seemed pretty frazzled when you came back. Everything alright?”
I shut the dishwasher and grabbed the dishrag from her to start wiping down the counters. I had yet to tell Leah about what happened with Jace and my father. “Oh, uh, yeah. I had to tell my father that I hired a nanny which was right after he offered me a mail-order nanny straight from the Tower of London. Words were exchanged.”
“What? You found a nanny! When? Who is it?” Leah asked excitedly.
“Oh, um. Yeah. It’s actually that guy who did the puppet show at the school. Jace Vargas? He was the clown today, too, if you can believe it.” I was too much of a chicken to look at her as I said it. Her answering silence was louder than anything she could shout.
“Did you just say Jace Vargas?” Leah took a step closer to me, pressing into my side.
