Maybe This Time

  Andie didn’t realize Alice was having nightmares until she used the kids’ bathroom one night and heard her crying as she came out. She knocked on the door and went in, and found Alice weeping helplessly in her sleep. She woke her and then picked her up and carried her to the rocker and began to rock her, saying, “What happened, baby, what did you dream?” and Alice sobbed, “They had teeth.” “What had teeth, baby?” Andie said, and Alice said, “The butterflies.” Andie kissed her forehead and said, “Butterflies don’t have teeth, it was just a bad, bad dream,” and rocked and rocked as Alice cried, quietly now. I need a lullaby, she thought, but the only one she could think of was from a Disney cartoon Alice played over and over. She began to hum “Baby Mine,” and when Alice quieted down a little, she sang, “so precious to me,” holding her close. Alice sighed and in a little while fell back asleep, and Andie held her for a while longer, just for the chance to hold her and in case she dreamed again, and then she put her back to bed and tucked her in. The next day she asked Alice about the butterflies, but Alice said, “I don’t remember,” and turned away, stubborn as ever in the daylight. After that, Andie put a baby monitor in Alice’s room so that when the little girl had bad dreams, she could go to her.

  Meanwhile, Carter aced the tests Andie wrote based on the curriculum, listened patiently to her explanation of whatever lesson was next, and wrote his critical thinking papers. Whenever possible he wrote on comic books, but his arguments were clear and concise and that’s all Andie was looking for. After one particularly good paper on the way comics were drawn, she took the kids to an art supply store on their way to the shopping center and saw him smile for the first time. Okay, she thought, I’m getting the hang of this, and loaded him up with quality drawing supplies. Other than that, nothing changed: Carter did his work silently, read silently, drew in his sketchbook silently, worked on his computer silently, and ate everything Andie put in front of him, although he was now growing at such an alarming rate that she thought there was something wrong. “I swear, he’s grown two inches in three weeks,” she told Flo when she called her for help. “I expected him to grow out with all the food I’m shoving at him, but not up. And he walks like his legs hurt. I want to call a doctor but he won’t go.” “He’s twelve,” Flo said. “It’s a growth spurt. Keep feeding him, he’ll be fine.” So Andie bought him new pants that would cover his newly exposed ankles and gave him aspirin when he winced, and kept feeding him, and Flo was right, he was fine. Silent, but fine.

  And during it all, Andie tried to figure out what the hell was wrong in Archer House.

  Because once the routines were settled—schoolwork in the morning, grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch, reading and drawing and baking in the afternoon, reluctant eating of new food for dinner, Go Fish after dinner (there was a routine Andie regretted immediately since Alice seized on it and refused to give up, snarling, “Go fish!” with venom whenever possible), and then bedtime and reading comics for Carter, and bedtime and the princess story for Alice—once all that routine was in place and the house was clean, and at least the illusion of stability had been established, Andie still felt that whatever was wrong was as strong as ever, waiting out there for her. And she was pretty sure the kids felt it, too: Carter seemed to be always looking over his shoulder, waiting for something, and Alice’s screaming seemed to be tied to more than just being crossed, erupting when anything threatened her routine. There was more fear in those screams than Andie had realized at first, mostly rage, true, but definitely fear underneath. It’s the house, Andie thought, and tried to find a way to break through their resistance to comfort them with no success.

  “They’re just tolerating me,” she told North when she called him at the end of the third week to give him the update on their education. She was on the pay phone at the Dairy Queen, which wasn’t the best place to have long conversations but had the advantage that Mrs. Crumb would not be listening in. Add to that it was a sunny day in late October, and she was wearing her favorite skirt—greeny-blue chiffon with turquoise sequins—and Alice hadn’t screamed at all so far that day, and things seemed more doable than usual. It helped that she and North were being polite again after sniping at each other for a couple of weeks. The politeness was cold, but it wasn’t annoying.

  “You’re getting the job done,” North said, his voice brisk and detached. “Everything is back to normal there.”

  Andie thought about Alice sobbing the night before in another nightmare. “I think normal is still a long way off. I can hear Alice over the baby monitor talking to an imaginary friend at night after she’s supposed to be asleep, and she’s still having terrible butterfly nightmares.”

  “Butterfly nightmares?”

  “She cried last night because the butterflies were mad because we hadn’t mulched their garden. She said she and Aunt May put in a butterfly garden here and we needed to get it ready for winter. We just got mulch, so we can do that tomorrow, but in a day or so, there’ll be another nightmare. She has a lot of angry butterflies in her dreams. And she loves butterflies, North. I just don’t get it.”

  “Poor kid,” North said. “I don’t know what a butterfly garden is, but we’ll put one in. How’s Carter?”

  “Still silent as the grave. The only things he cares about are comics, drawing, and Alice. He won’t let me see his drawings but he works hard on them. I took him to an art supply store, and he looked like he’d died and gone to heaven. There was a drawing table there he kept looking at, but I didn’t want to buy it and put it in at the house since I’m trying to get him to move to Columbus.”

  “Let me know which one it was and we’ll put it in his room here. Mother’s getting the bedrooms on the second floor cleared out now. She asked if there was anything the kids wanted.”

  “Alice likes blue. And sequins. And butterflies. The butterfly garden will be important for that.”

  “I’ll call a landscaper in the spring. That way Alice can plan whatever she wants with him.”

  “Oh,” Andie said, taken aback by how careful he was being. Somebody else would have just socked in a butterfly garden, but North wanted Alice to be a part of it. “That’s a great idea, it really is. Carter will just want bookshelves and art stuff. He loves that computer, too. He’s a really quiet kid”—completely silent, actually—“so books and drawing supplies and the computer are probably all he needs.”

  “What kind of books?”

  “Comic books, drawing books, books on drawing comics . . .” Andie thought back to what he’d been reading, what he’d written about. “He likes . . . justice, so maybe some novels like that?”

  “Justice?”

  “He’s big on fairness, on lousy people getting what they deserve. His school papers are about that a lot. And his favorite TV is old Equalizer reruns. So any stories like that . . .”

  “His dad was a lawyer. You think he’s interested in law?”

  “As a career? Maybe. He’s twelve, he’s probably more interested in the hot cars and the cool spy gadgets.”

  “And the cool babes,” North said, which was so out of character for him that Andie laughed.

  “He’s twelve,” she said.

  “Southie chased girls in kindergarten.”

  “That’s Southie. When did you start?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Girls were always around, but I wouldn’t have passed up hot cars and cool spy gadgets for them.”

  “So they chased you based on your limitless charm and devastating good looks,” Andie said, only half kidding.

  “Well, the money helped.”

  “It wasn’t the money,” Andie said, remembering the first time she’d seen him, leaning against the bar talking to some blonde in a black dress and looking like something out of an old movie. Cary Grant. Paul Newman. “It definitely was not the money. But still, you never chased girls?”

  “Just you,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “And you m
et me halfway. It’s hard to chase somebody who’s coming right at you.”

  “I couldn’t help myself,” Andie said. “I’d never seen anybody like you before. It was like meeting a giraffe.”

  “Well, thanks for coming to the zoo,” North said. “Although I’d have gone after you, if you hadn’t.”

  “Next time I’ll play hard to get,” Andie said, and then realized what she said. “You know, in the next life. Or whatever. So the drawing table for Carter would be great, and the butterfly garden for Alice, but I’m still not getting anywhere in convincing them to leave. And you’d think they’d want to. This place is creepy.” Please don’t ask me what I meant by “next time.” Because I have no idea.

  “You still think the house is creepy?” North said, moving on, to her relief. “I figured you’d be past that by now.”

  “No, North, I’m not past it because you can’t get past it, it’s creepy. And then there’s Mrs. Crumb. She has some very odd habits. Like she plays gin by herself.”

  “What?”

  “Gin rummy. She deals herself a hand and sticks another hand in a card rack across the table, and then she plays both hands. It makes no sense but she does it most nights with a cup of spiked tea beside her. Several cups.” I have tea, Andie thought, trying to separate herself from the crazy woman. But I don’t drink peppermint schnapps. I have standards. I hit the Amaretto. “I think the house has made her insane. I swear, sometimes she’s two different people. One of them is grumpy and dumb and hates me, and the other is a lot sharper and thinks I’m an idiot. It’s like her mind comes and goes. We’ll be talking and she’ll just . . . change.”

  “Is she dangerous?”

  “No. She’s not that proactive. Hell, she usually loses to the other hand. She’s just . . . cantankerous and strange. Like everything else here.”

  “Well, your month is almost over,” North said briskly. “Congratulations for sticking it out for three weeks.”

  “Thank you,” Andie said coldly, prepared to bitch if he said “bolter” again.

  “If the place is getting to you and you want to leave early, you can. I’ve found another nanny. She seems very—”

  “What?” Andie said, jerked out of her annoyance.

  “The next nanny. She’s coming out the first of next week to meet the kids, so if you want to leave early, I’ll tell her that’s when she starts.”

  He went on, explaining the nanny’s educational background, all her sterling qualifications, and Andie watched Alice and Carter talk over their hamburgers, and thought about telling them that there’d be somebody new moving in to teach them, that she’d be leaving them alone again in all that weirdness.

  Get out, every instinct she had said. Get out now. You hate it here, and the kids don’t like you, and the new nanny is more qualified than you are anyway. She does math.

  “So she’ll be there Monday afternoon—”

  “I’m staying,” Andie said, and there was a long silence before North spoke.

  “For how long?”

  “Until I can figure out a way to get them to Columbus. I’ll stay until they move in with you, and then Will and I will be in Columbus, and I can still see them and . . . help with the butterfly garden. Or whatever.” The instinct in her that was saying Run away was still there, just not so loud. She’d only been there three weeks. It hadn’t been that bad. It wouldn’t take that long to figure out what was going on and get them to Columbus. She’d have them out by Thanksgiving. Christmas at the latest. “Lose the nanny. I’m staying.”

  After a long minute, North said, “All right. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Andie said, and then hung up, thinking, I’m sure Will won’t mind. Much. Especially if she never mentioned that she’d told North there might be a next time for them. Because there wasn’t going to be. She loved Will.

  Then she called him to give him the news that she was staying, and he minded. A lot. “I’m coming down there,” he said when she told him she’d be there for at least another month. “I miss you, and I can write anywhere.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  Oh, hell. “Because the people here think I’m still married to North. If you show up, I’m going to have some explaining to do.”

  “Did he tell them that?”

  “No, I did. He was as surprised as you are.”

  “I don’t think ‘surprised’ really describes how I feel. What the hell, Andie?”

  “Look, I’m starting to make progress with the kids, it’s just another month—”

  “Is he there? Is he there pretending to be married, too?”

  “No, of course not. He has a law practice, he’s not going to come down here and play house. Especially in this place. It’s creepy.”

  “Can’t you bring the kids up here?”

  “That’s what I’m working on. I’m hoping I can do it before Thanksgiving, definitely by Christmas.”

  “Christmas?”

  Andie felt a tug on her skirt and looked down to see Alice standing in front of her, ketchup on her chin. She pulled the chiffon out of Alice’s hands before any tomato got transferred and said, “What?”

  “Can I have two ice creams?”

  “No. That’s greedy. You can have one cone.”

  “Andie,” Will said.

  “Just a minute,” she told him as Alice said, “I want a big cone,” her usual calculating gleam in her eye.

  “The last time you got a big cone, the top fell off. Wouldn’t you rather have a medium and keep the ice cream?”

  “It won’t fall off this time. That one was a bad cone.”

  “Okay, fine, big cone. You’ve got ketchup on your chin. Hold still.” Andie licked her thumb and wiped the ketchup smear off Alice. “I’ll be over in a minute to pay for your cone. Tell Carter he can have one, too.”

  “Okay,” Alice said, and went back to Carter, yelling, “Andie says we can have cones. Big ones.”

  “Okay, sorry about that,” Andie said to Will, licking the ketchup off her thumb.

  “You sound just like a mother,” Will said, his voice softer now.

  “More like a wrangler,” Andie said, looking after Alice’s straight little back.

  “Ready to have some kids of our own?”

  “What?” Andie looked at the phone. “I don’t want kids. Didn’t we have this conversation?”

  “Yeah, but you’re a natural, Andie. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “That’s exhaustion, which is probably about the only thing I have in common with real mothers. I’m not sleeping well here.”

  “That’s because you’re sleeping alone. I’ll come down and—”

  “And have sex with me? Somebody’s gonna notice that, Will. I will not be committing fake adultery. I’ll be back in a month. We’ll have an orgy then.”

  Will sighed. “I don’t like any of this. You were supposed to be home next week. I miss you.”

  Andie kept her eye on Alice, standing on tiptoe in front of the Dairy Queen window. “I have to go now.”

  “I love you,” Will said.

  “I love you, too,” Andie said, frowning as Alice took a towering cone from the counter girl. “I’ll—oh, for crying out loud.”

  Alice began to scream.

  “What?”

  “Alice dropped her ice cream. I told her—”

  Alice screamed louder.

  “I’m coming, knock it off, Alice! Will, I have to go.”

  “Call me—” Will began as she hung up the phone to go rescue Alice.

  “Stop it,” she said to the little girl. “Stop crying and I will fix it. Keep crying and we’re going to the car. You cannot shriek every time something goes wrong, you have to fix it, Alice. Screaming doesn’t do any good.” Alice kept screaming, and Andie looked up at the counter girl. “Give us another large cone, please. And a cup.” When the girl handed the ice cream over, Andie paid her and took the cone, upended it into the cup, and stuck a spoon in it. “Here,”
she said to Alice, “try not to wear most of it, please.”

  Alice stopped screaming and took the cup. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Andie said, and Alice began to demolish her ice cream. “Alice, next time there’s a problem, just ask, okay? If you can’t fix it, I will.”

  Alice licked her spoon, transferring chocolate ice cream to her nose, narrowly avoiding dragging the end of the stocking that drooped down from her topknot through the cup. Andie tied the stocking up higher as Alice said, “You’re not gonna be here.”

  “Yes I am.” Andie gave the stocking a last tug. “You have chocolate on your nose.”

  “Carter says you’re leaving on Halloween.”

  Andie looked back at Carter who met her eyes without expression. “No, I’m staying with you. The only way I leave is if you leave.”

  Alice licked up more ice cream from her cup. “How long are you staying?”

  “As long as it takes,” Andie said.

  “Uh-huh.” The little girl stabbed her ice cream with her spoon, looking mutinous again.

  “Okay, how about this,” Andie said. “I will bet you one of your necklaces that I will stay with you until you don’t need me anymore.” That seemed safe; she was pretty sure that Alice thought she didn’t need her now.

  Alice tilted her head. “What if that’s forever?”