Uncharted(3)

“Can’t… breathe….” I joke-wheeze, hugging her back equally hard.

“You be safe, you hear me?” she whispers forcefully.

I nod, wishing my eyes weren’t pricking. “I will.”

“You email twice a week.”

“I promise.”

“You take lots of pictures to show me when you get back.”

“Of course.”

She grabs my face in her hands and plants a kiss on my forehead like she did when I was barely more than a baby, heading off to kindergarten for the first time.

“I love you, Violet.”

“I love you too, Mom. See you in September.”

I brush tears from my cheeks as I turn and walk away from her, scolding myself for being silly as I pass through the sliding glass doors and hike my bags a little higher on my shoulder.

Maybe if I knew I’d never see her again, I’d have taken a second glance back, in those final moments on the sidewalk. Maybe I’d have memorized her a little better, so conjuring up the slope of her nose or sound of her laughter wasn’t so hard later, when it really counted.

But how could I possibly know what would come to pass? How could I know that the summer job I’d foreseen as a free adventure in paradise would blow up my life more effectively than a block of C4 thrown into my path? How could I know that, in seeking change, I’d courted my own demise more doggedly than a suicidal bridge-jumper?

I couldn’t have.

So… I didn’t look back. Not even once.

I guess it’s true what they say about hindsight.

That bitch is twenty-twenty.





Chapter Two





B A G G A G E





Six hours and three thousand miles later, I walk into LAX deflated like a pi?ata at a children’s party. After the cross-country voyage, my once chic, travel-savvy outfit is rumpled beyond recognition, my carefully-curled mahogany waves have flattened into a hopeless tangle of frizz, and my neck is aching fiercely from a seemingly endless flight crammed into the middle seat between a bickering couple who refused to relinquish either window or aisle, instead preferring to argue across me for the duration of our trip.

I’m due to meet the Flints in an hour, but I can’t show up looking like this. I can almost hear Mom’s voice in my head.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, honey. How you’re dressed determines how you’ll be addressed.

I heave a sigh, adjust the grip on my backpack, and head to the baggage claim to retrieve the duffle I checked before leaving Boston. Seth, his wife Samantha, and their daughter Sophie are at the swanky private terminal across the concourse, where all privately chartered flights depart Los Angeles. It caters specifically to celebrities, VIPs… and, evidently, my new employers. A flutter of nerves zips through my veins as I realize I’ll be face to face with them in mere minutes.

We conversed by email and video-chat after I accepted the position two weeks ago. They seemed nice enough from the relative obscurity of a laptop screen, but… I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I’ve been so eager to get out of my hometown, I barely considered the fact that this family isn’t like mine. Not in the slightest. Anderson mother-daughter trips involve pitching a tent on the Saco River every summer, or hiking to the summit of Mt. Washington to see the view of the famed White Mountains that belt our state.

We’re campfire songs and roasted marshmallows…

They’re caviar and company jets.

My pace increases as I make my way through the maze that is LAX, jostling around other travelers and keeping my eyes fixed on overhead Baggage Claim signs. The air here is saturated by a frantic sense of urgency. Everyone’s in a rush — searching for gates, running to make connections, shuffling doggedly through gridlocked security lines. Impatience is tangible. With each minute that ticks by, I feel my heart kick into higher gear, a mad tattoo of nerves jangling inside me like wind-chimes in a hurricane. It’s a potent medley of anticipation and anxiety.

Breathe, Violet. Just breathe.

My grip tightens on the straps of my backpack, fingers squeezing until the canvas cuts into my palms. I scan the faces around me — a sea of strangers rushing from one terminal to the next, their travel-weary eyes checking flight listings, their bare toes flexing against security line floors. Thousands of humans headed hundreds of places, jetting off from a single runway like branches of a tree reaching across the sky in all directions. Just being here, in their midst, is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.

Ever.

I can’t decide if that’s cause for excitement or self-pity.

Even though I’m here — three-thousand miles from home and only halfway to my destination — it still seems like a daydream. Like some elaborate inside joke between me and the universe. When Mrs. McNally cornered me in the produce aisle of our local supermarket two weeks ago and presented me with the opportunity of a lifetime — working as a nanny for her son’s former Dartmouth fraternity brother, Seth— I thought she was screwing with me. When I realized she was serious, the word yes! popped out of my mouth before she could fill me in on so much as a single detail.

Frankly, the details didn’t matter.

I didn’t care why their other nanny had suddenly become unavailable for the summer, or that they’d barely pay me anything except a small living stipend during the twelve-week trip, or that she’d already taken the liberty of telling the Flints all about my years of babysitting experience for the many families in our hometown. None of that concerned me. Not when there was a free trip to paradise on the table.