Page 82 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
Finally, I get completely desperate and call the one person in my life who just might be able to help me.
“What’s wrong?” Eloise demands when she answers on the fourth ring. I definitely woke her up.
“I need help.”
There’s a pause. A long enough one to make me irritated because it’s not like me asking for help is enough to stun my sister into silence.
“Are you there?”
Eloise sputters. “I just … I’ve never heard you utter those words before. I was taking a moment to process.”
Okay, so maybe me asking for help IS enough to make my chattiest sister swallow her tongue. Whatever.
“I need to know what to do with a kid for a few hours.” Or more. Maybe it’s going to be all day. I start to sweat, pacing the tiny kitchen.
“Like … babysitting?”
“Yeah, kind of.” Only with stakes that feel much higher.
“Do you know what time it is here?” Eloise asks, sounding irritated for the first time.
Outside, the light has the diffused gray, dreamlike quality of pre-dawn. Which would make it practically the middle of the night on the west coast.
“I’m sorry. I just … didn’t know who else to call.”
This earns me another pause, and I’m not sure if I’m more irritated with Eloise for being shocked or with myself for being so closed off that a phone call asking for help is so shocking.
“And why would you think to callme?” Eloise asks, then yawns loudly.
“I met Naomi, and she said Liam comes over a lot to be with Jake. I thought maybe you have some fresh experience with this kind of thing.”
When she still says nothing, I pull the phone away from my ear to make sure the call didn’t drop. Nope. Still going. “I guess I thought maybe with you dating Jake—”
“I’m not dating Jake,” she snaps.
“Well, yeah. I figured with all his moping, y’all must have broken up before you left, but it was pretty obvious there was something going on—”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Where Jake turned into a veritable Eeyore after the breakup, my sister apparently turned into a hedgehog. Or maybe a porcupine. I’m not sure which is pricklier, but whichever it is, that one is Lo.
“Fine. You’re not dating. But my powers of deduction lead me to believe you spent time with Liam, and I really need advice.” I pause, and Eloise still doesn’t say anything, so I pull out the big guns. “I’m desperate, Lo.”
It’s easier than I thought it would be to confess my complete ineptitude. Maybe all these years I held things together, I could have just been falling apart like everyone else and it would have been totally fine. I actually feel weirdly relieved.
“Wow. This is … a surprising turn of events.”
“Yeah, yeah. Rub it in. Butlater. Now, I need you to tell me what to do.”
“Merritt, I have full confidence you can handle whatever child you’re watching. You’re good ateverythingwithout even trying.”
“I am not,” I say quietly, but she’s still going, clearly not hearing me.
“Just use common sense. You’ll figure it out. This isn’t so hard.”
“I appreciate your vote of confidence, but you’re clearly underestimating my lack of experience here. What if I break her? Or accidentally spill the beans about the birds and the bees?”
There is a snorting sound I’m pretty sure is a laugh on the other end of the line. “You aren’t going to break her. And no one calls it the birds and the bees anymore. Plus, why would you be talking about sex with a kid?”
