Page 49 of Falling for the Nanny

I had dragged the first one to the door and was going back for the second when I realized I had nothing to load these suitcases into. The blue Subaru parked in the driveway belonged to David. David, who could be home at any time. He was going to be irritated enough that I was up and quitting like this. I wasn’t going to inconvenience him further by taking the car.

I called Alyssa.

“She lives!” she crowed through the phone when she answered.

“I need you to come get me.” My voice was strained from the weight of both the suitcase and the last twenty-four hours. “Please, Alyssa. Now.”

“Cat, what’s wrong?” Her voice switched over to concern in an instant.

I started to answer, but tears globbed up in my throat, making it impossible for sound to escape. I swallowed convulsively.

Alyssa must have heard it because she said, “Never mind, I’m on my way.”

It was an eighteen-minute drive from the condo in Reston to David’s Great Falls mansion. I stood in the driveway, my suitcases on either side of me, my nerves crawling under my skin like spiders. Every time I heard a car coming down the road, I squinted through the trees to make sure it wasn’t David’s. I didn’t know what I’d do if it was. Maybe run back into those woods he was so concerned about.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out. It was Alyssa’s Honda Civic that turned into the driveway so fast I heard her tiles squeal. She threw the car in park and jumped out to grab one of my suitcases. It was like she knew without me even telling her that time was of the essence.

“Is there anything back in the pool house?” she asked, throwing the suitcases in the trunk and shoving them back as far as they’d go to make room.

I thought about my shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom. My second favorite swimsuit drying over the curtain rod. “Nothing I care about.”

“Great, let’s get out of here.”

Alyssa took the curve of the U-shaped driveway like it was the Grand Prix and had us back on the road again in seconds. It wasn’t long before we joined the anonymous traffic jam that was Route 7. For once, though, I didn’t mind the bumper-to-bumper cars or the endless construction. It felt safe. There was no way David would track us down here.

Not that he’d bother.

My body simultaneously relaxed and tensed back up again. It was a relief to be away. It hurt to know he wouldn’t bother coming after me. Maybe if he’d caught me before I left, he would have tried to talk me around. It would be easier than hiring someone new.

More convenient.

I turned my head toward the window, glad that everyone around us was either staring straight ahead or down at their phones. No one could see the tears that were beginning to slip over my cheeks. Alyssa knew they were there, though. I was trying to be quiet, but she heard the slight hitch in my breath and reached over to wrap her fingers tightly around mine.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly.

I shook my head, still looking away from her. “Not yet.”

It took twenty-five minutes to get back to Reston. I was surprised in an indifferent sort of way to realize this was the first time I’d been to Parker’s place. It was nice. A mid-level condo in a high rise overlooking the town center. One of the few that had a balcony. I walked out onto it as soon as we walked in and sank down onto one of the two chairs. From t, I could see the network of roadways sprawled out, snaking around the town center, branching off. All laden with cars. None of them David’s.

Alyssa came out with a bottle of wine and two nice wine goblets she hadn’t owned when we lived together. They looked like real crystal. Like something you’d put on a wedding registry. She poured my glass up to the top, the way we’d done when we were in college. Back then, we’d bought our wine by the jug and drank it out of acrylic goblets. I felt a lurching pain, remembering how uncomplicated life had been back then.

“Catch me up on your life,” I said around the lump in my throat. I wasn’t ready to talk yet, but I didn’t want to just sit here in this heavy silence.

Alyssa obliged. She hadn’t seen anyone from our old crowd since we all went out together, that fateful night that I kissed David for the first time. She and Parker were doing fine. They had monthly dinner dates with his parents. The judge and the doctor liked to go to hot spots in DC. She’d seen the vice president at one of them. They were all going to Martha’s Vineyard in a few weeks.

“You think it will be as fun as the time we all went to Cancun?” I managed to joke.

Alyssa swirled the red liquid around the bowl of the goblet and stared out at the heavy flow of traffic getting on the toll road. “No,” she said finally, and there wasn’t a hint of laughter in her voice.

For the first time, something reached me through the fog of misery I’d been wrapped up in ever since I heard David describe me as convenient. I studied my best friend more closely. She had a pale, pinched look about her face, and something in her eyes reminded me of the time we got stuck in an elevator at college. She’d had a very silent panic attack that left a glazed, horror struck look on her face. Even after we were rescued, it stayed in her eyes.

It was there now.

“Are you okay, Lys?” I asked, setting my wine glass down and reaching over to touch her arm.

There was a touch of irritation in her voice when she said, “I’m fine.”

I wasn’t offended. I was worried. For Alyssa, irritation was the same as a shaking voice on anyone else. She hated not being fine so much that she got mad before she got scared. The easiest thing to do would be to back off and wait until she worked through it. The quicker thing to do was to make her snap. The faster she snapped, the faster she moved through the stages of denial.

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