Racing the Sun(24)
I paste on a smile. “As long as I last two months, then I’ll be golden.”
She gives me a derisive snort. “You’ll see. They’ve never had a nanny before other than the old woman. What a horrible person she is.”
“I’m not the nanny,” I point out. “I am teaching the children English.”
“Why?” Lenora asks. “They learn that in school.”
“Apparently it was the wish of their parents,” I say.
“So they were a bit crazy, too. She was an author, you know, Sophie Larosa. Very famous, though she kept to herself. Who knows, maybe she thinks learning more English will make them little writers in all languages.” She looks at Shay, who has been listening intently this whole time. “What do we owe you?”
“Ten euro,” Shay says and Lenora fishes out a twenty from her Gucci wallet.
Lenora wiggles her manicured nails at me. “The extra ten euro is for you, for the next boat out of here. You’ll thank me later when you have no choice but to leave that crazy family.”
She turns around and leaves the bar with Utavia.
“I forgot to mention,” Shay says carefully and with a smile, “that aside from ordering a Guinness, they also like to indulge in their bitchy tendencies. Don’t worry, though, most people on the island are really nice.”
I nod, feeling out of sorts and strangely defensive about the Larosas, especially Derio. I don’t doubt what she said is true. He could be gay, I guess. His wife probably did leave him over money. He might drink too much. He might have mental problems. But none of that makes me like him any less. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t.
“Have another pint?” she asks, just as a few more people enter the bar and sit down next to Cole and Charles.
I glance at the clock on my phone. “I wish I could but I guess I should get going.”
“Hey, don’t let those girls scare you. You’ve already been hired right? That means you’re right for the job. And anyway, it’s just for a couple of months, not a lifetime commitment. You can do anything for a couple of months, I believe that. Besides,” she says, and pulls out a paper coaster. She takes her pen out of her apron and writes down her phone and e-mail address. “You have any problems, or just want to talk or have a beer, just call me, okay? You’re one of the few Americans I know staying on this island. It would be nice to have a friend.”
I take the coaster, tell her I’ll be in touch, and attempt to pay for the second beer I had.
She shakes her head. “Just come in next time and maybe I’ll let you pay.”
I gratefully agree and take off, heading toward my new job and the scary unknown.
CHAPTER FIVE
It’s been one week since I was hired to work at the Larosas’, one week since I’ve called the Villa dei Limoni Tristi home, and one week since I’ve seen Shay or really anyone else outside of the household.
During that week I’ve managed to make Alfonso and Annabella cry. They’ve made me cry. Felisa has yelled at me. Felisa has yelled at them. I’ve thought about quitting, especially when notebooks and pencils were hurled at my head by angry Italian children. I’ve had too much espresso at breakfast and too much wine at dinner. I’ve spent all my spare time reading up on how to teach these damn kids better, how to be better, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to bring the grounds around the house back to life. I’ve also become convinced there’s a ghost in the small attic upstairs.
And yet, during all the trials and tribulations of the first week, I’ve barely seen Derio at all. Sometimes in the mornings I’ll see him walk up the path to the road and bring his motorcycle out of a gated shed to the left of the property and then zoom off. Sometimes I catch him on his bedroom balcony smoking. Sometimes I just see the door to his office closing, as if the ghost I think lives in the house is passing through. But I have not conversed with him, nor exchanged any sort of smile or acknowledgment.
In some ways it’s good. It keeps me focused on Alfonso and Annabella. In some ways it’s bad, for those same reasons. After one week, the two don’t seem to be warming up to me at all. The good news is that their English is at least improving a little bit. So far I’ve let them choose the topics. For Alfonso, it’s sharks; for Annabella, it’s everything involving Africa. Turns out her obsession with animal print is because she loves the idea of safaris, not because she’s making a fashion statement.
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m sitting on the floor in the kids’ playroom, going through my day planner and trying to think of what to teach them. I’ve turned the place into a partial classroom, complete with a whiteboard on an easel, plastic chairs, and a box of “mystery” (aka, weird things of mine or things I find around the house that might make for good show and tell). It’s the end of a long, difficult week and I want to make things interesting and fun—then I want to hightail it to the Irish pub and have a few pints with Shay and get hit on by drunk British boys. Anything to take my mind away from here.