Racing the Sun(5)

But I have no time to say anything. She grabs my hands, turning them over and back again. “Okay, fine,” she says and peers at my face. Her eyes are a light gray. “You will do. Come on.”

And then she starts to storm away, hiking up her skirt so it doesn’t brush against the pebbles.

What the fuck was that?

“Um, excuse me,” I call after her, unsure whether I should follow or who she even is. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else.”

She shakes her head and keeps walking. “No. You are Amber. Come or we miss the boat.”

“Felisa?” I ask and then run after her, my soles slipping all over the place. “How did you know who I was?”

“Only tourists would go to wrong dock,” she says. She eyes me over her shoulder. “Also, I Google you. You have many pictures.”

Well, I have been updating my travel blog quite often. At least I know someone’s looked at it.

I walk fast to keep up with this woman. I’m a short girl with short legs, and though Felisa seems to be the same height, she walks like a giraffe, with impossibly long strides. It’s not long until I’m panting, totally out of breath, and we’re standing in front of one of the hydrofoils. A few people are dragging their luggage onto metal ramps that move with the swell of each wave.

“What are we doing?” I ask.

Felisa hands two tickets over to the man collecting them.

“You come to the house, you meet the children. And Signor Larosa.”

So many things happening at once.

“Wait, wait,” I protest, reaching out to grab Felisa’s elbow.

She shoots me daggers so I quickly let go, but at least I’ve stopped her.

“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I didn’t know I would be going to the island. How would I get back?”

“Tomorrow there is a ferry. Many ferries.”

The ticket guy is eyeing us warily now.

“But where do I stay? I don’t have any money. I’ve paid for my hostel here in full.”

“You stay in the house.”

“What house?”

“Signor Larosa’s. Where the children are.”

“Is he their father?”

She shakes her head. “Older brother. Long story.”

“How much older?”

“Older!” she yells. “Now come on, we will miss it.”

The ticket guy clucks his tongue in agreement.

I sigh, feeling all out of sorts, and follow Felisa onto the ramp and inside the ferry. She takes a seat on one side of the main aisle in the middle of the ship. I notice that everyone is kind of arranged the same way, with few people on the outer edges. I wonder why but there are bigger things to wonder about.

I sit down next to her. “Okay, let’s start again.”

“You start tomorrow, when you get your things back from Positano.”

“But you haven’t interviewed me yet. You don’t know if I’m right for the job.”

“You are on the ferry right now, aren’t you?” she asks, giving me a sharp look. “Then you are right for the job. You could have said no. Also, you have nice, strong hands and you need those when handling children. Now I have to bring you to Signor Larosa and see how you are with him. And the children.”

“Why is it important to see how I get along with him?”

She sighs, as if I should know all of this. “He is difficult. So are the children. But he is even more so. Hopefully he will pretend you don’t exist. If you annoy him, you will know it well.”

“And who are you?”

“I am the housekeeper,” she says with a slight tip of her chin. “I have kept the children and the house in line since their parents died. But now is time for the children to learn proper English. Signor Larosa speaks it well, as do I, but it is not good enough for them.”

“Them?”

“His parents, who made it their wish in their will. So we are looking for a teacher. The last three we had all left. Stayed one week.”

Oh, Jesus. This is starting to sound like the beginning of a horror movie.

“In the ad I asked if you were good with young children. You said you were.”

Actually, the ad said, good to young children. And of course I thought that meant if I spoiled them with candy and gave them gold stars for effort.

She waves her wrinkled hand at me. “It doesn’t matter. They will be less of a problem.”

“Than?”

“Their brother. Desiderio Larosa,” she repeats impatiently. She turns her head and peers at me, as if searching for cracks. “If you can handle that man, then you can handle the children. Then you can handle anything.”

At that she presses her lips together, closes her eyes, and appears to fall asleep right in front of me. She doesn’t even wake up when the hydrofoil picks up speed and starts to rock back and forth violently, waves splashing high against the sides of the boat. I spend the whole ferry ride wondering if I can make it to the bathroom to puke in time and if we’re all going to die on the high seas. That would be a change from falling to my death.