Last Girl Ghosted(113)

Besides, Geneva was known to Selena—coveted, in fact. They’d met on the playground during Selena’s first year home with the boys. Work, the commute, the race to pick up from preschool, the balancing act that never quite balanced. It had worn her to a nub. She and her husband Graham decided that she should stay home for a time—indefinitely. They could afford that—Graham made good money. There wouldn’t be Range Rovers and trips to Tahoe every spring break. But they would be fine.

Selena had loved the way Geneva was with the Tucker boys, Ryan and Chad. She was sweet but firm, prepared but not anal. The boys listened to her. Eyes on me, she’d say brightly, and so it was. Geneva wasn’t like the other nannies Selena observed at the park—millennials staring at their phones while their charges ran amok or stared at devices of their own. Geneva chased, pushed swings, played hide-and-seek.

And, you know, she was not that hot.

Lovely features—a button nose and full lips, dark, heavily lashed doe eyes, buxom but just the tiniest bit—pleasantly—plump. Broad in the beam, as her father used to say. In a nice way, the way of strong women built for physical labor. Selena was long and slim, a genetic boon for which she was grateful because god knows she didn’t have the time anymore to work for it.

Now, she turned up the volume a little, listened to them groaning. Did it sound—forced?

Selena remembered how she and Geneva had chatted almost daily. Selena’s boys—Oliver and Stephen—loved her. Is Geneva going to be there? Oliver, her older, sometimes asked as they were headed to the park. Probably, Selena would answer, wishing that she had someone like Geneva, even just part-time. Someone with whom she felt good about leaving her children. But she was happy enough to be home. She didn’t miss her publicity job. She’d never had that drive to accomplish that so many of her friends seemed to have. She just wasn’t wired that way. She liked working—the independence of it, the comradery, the satisfaction of doing something well. The money. But it had never defined her.

Graham: “Oh, yeah. That’s so good.”

She bumped the volume down again. Picked up one of the framed pictures of the boys, holding it up so that it blocked the screen, and gazed into their flushed, joyful faces.

Motherhood defined Selena in a way that work hadn’t, the idea that she was there for her children—that she cooked their meals and kept their house, their schedules, their doctor appointments and haircuts. That she was there on car line, at parent-teacher conferences, school Halloween parties. It wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t always easy. There wasn’t a ton of cultural praise for the role, not really. But she found a level of satisfaction in it that she hadn’t found elsewhere.

Then Graham unexpectedly—well, did anyone ever expect it?—lost his job. Not his fault, really. Publishing was shrinking, and his big salary was hard to justify in a flailing self-help imprint. That very same week, over cocktails, Selena’s good friend Beth serendipitously offered her a huge job—a licensing director position at Beth’s literary agency. Selena’s salary would be more than Graham’s, plus bonuses. Of course, there would have to be a nanny. Because Graham, well, he wasn’t exactly hardwired for caregiving. And finding a job is a full-time job, babe.

So, it felt like kismet when during a chat at the park—the very next day, when Selena was grappling for solutions to their problem—Geneva told Selena that she was about to lose her job. Mrs. Tucker wanted to be home for a couple of years, she said.

When things were easy like that, it meant you were in the flow, didn’t it? Isn’t that what they said these days? It made it easy for Selena to go back to work. It wasn’t necessarily what she wanted. But you did what you had to do, right? Graham would find another job. It wasn’t forever—though the money was nice.

The way the camera was positioned, Selena had the best view of Geneva—who apparently liked to be on top. Was it Selena’s imagination? Geneva didn’t seem that into it. Though from the look on her face and the movement of her lips, she was surely making all the appropriate noises.

On the other video feed from the downstairs camera, the boys were slack-jawed in front of Trollhunters. They were both scrubbed clean, fed, and in their jammies, waiting for Selena.

Geneva was faultless on that count, which was odd to note in a moment like this. But Selena had really appreciated that Geneva wasn’t one of those nannies that tried to be the mommy. As soon as Selena returned home in the evenings, Geneva took her proper place, eagerly leaving as soon as she could, sometimes before Selena even came back downstairs from changing. The house was always clean, the boys were usually calm-ish—as calm as boys five and seven could ever be. But they weren’t wild like they were when Graham was at the helm. On the rare occasions when Graham had the kids for the day, they’d be filthy, overstimulated, out of routine—desperate for order and a way to calm themselves. Graham thought he was one of them, acted more like a corrupting older sibling than a parent.

Like now. As he boned the nanny in the playroom while his young sons watched television downstairs.

Why wasn’t she angrier about this?

It had been a buzz in the back of her head since the first time she’d watched them three days ago. A barely audible thrum, something she pushed away and pushed back, down, down, down. Why wasn’t she weeping with anger, the sting of betrayal, jealousy? Why hadn’t she raced home after the first discovery, raging, and tossed him out, fired Geneva? That’s what anyone would do.