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Chapter Five

Eleanor was about to turn off the light in her classroom when her cell phone rang. She set her teaching bag on the nearest miniature chair, cursing as she realized her phone wasn’t in its outside pocket. Where the hell was it? She searched through the bag, pushing aside a notebook and a pair of children’s scissors. This was why she always tried to put everything back in its rightful place.

Just as she found the truant cell phone wedged into a set of laminated flash cards, it beeped—gone to voice mail. She flipped it open and checked the screen, but the incoming number was unlisted. Probably another wrong number from Massachusetts. She’d gotten so many that she now knew the former owner of her cell number was a guy named Nathan who had friends with uber-WASPy names like Addison West and Maxwell Alexander. Probably an Exeter grad. Likely a Harvard alum.

That was another thing she didn’t miss about Boston—the hordes of lemming-like prep schoolers, recognizable by their Kennedy-esque good looks and the well-fed rosiness of their white cheeks. She knew the type only too well after teaching at private schools her entire adult life. Had it really been ten years? She’d never intended to be a teacher. Her current career was only supposed to be temporary, a pause between undergrad and graduate school. That was why she’d never taken the time to become certified—why spend the time and money on public school certification when she would soon be headed down a different career path?

Five years, she’d promised herself: Once her mother hit the magical five-year cancer-free milestone, after which she would have the same odds of developing the disease that anyone else had, then Eleanor would go back to school. But that didn’t happen, and Eleanor kept on teaching private school in Boston, only a few hours from home. Over the years, she had attempted to instill in her Choate- or Concord-bound students a mistrust of privilege and a generosity of spirit that would follow them to the hallowed halls of their future academic settings. No way of knowing what kind of impact, if any, she’d had.

The phone beeped again as she slid into the front seat of her Jetta. The mystery caller had left a message. She turned on her Bluetooth headset and dialed voice mail as she left the Barclay School parking lot, waving at the uniformed attendant at the front gate. The hulking guard, a former Marine officer according to the head of school, nodded coolly back at her. As she turned onto Mulholland Drive, she was thinking about what she wanted for dinner, if the letter from Wisconsin-Madison would be there when she got home, whether or not it was too hot out for a quick run. But all of these thoughts vanished as Tessa Flanagan’s voice sounded in her headset.

“Hi, Miss Chapin, this is Tessa, Laya’s mother. Could you call me? I have an idea I was hoping to discuss with you. My cell phone number is 323-770-1478. Thanks. Take care.”

Eleanor pressed replay and listened again to the luscious Tessa Flanagan speaking into her voice mail. Thank the gods she had misplaced her phone. Otherwise she might actually have answered and proceeded to behave like Sydney Ellen Wade in The American President (one of her favorite movies) in the scene where President Shepherd calls Sydney to ask her out and she hangs up on him. Twice. Eleanor could just see herself saying, “Right, Sasha. Very funny.”



Except that Tessa’s voice was unmistakable, even filtered through multiple satellite relays, and there was no chance the world-famous actress was calling to ask her out.

She hit Sasha’s work number on speed dial. “I need advice,” she said when her roommate picked up, and quickly described the contents of the voice mail message.

“Call her back, you idiot,” Sasha responded. “It’s probably something related to school. Maybe she wants to hold an end-of-the-year party for her daughter’s class. Stars like to do that kind of thing.”

“Of course. You’re right. It’s probably nothing.”

“That, or she’s always wanted to sleep with a Vermonter.”

Eleanor ended the call, cutting off Sasha’s laughter. She was almost down the hill to Franklin. Should she call Tessa back right away? Didn’t want to seem too eager. Right—as if playing hard to get was the reason she might delay the call instead of abject fear. She was beginning to wish she’d never submitted her application to the Barclay School.

Back at Sasha’s, she found parking on a narrow side street off Beechwood and entered the building from the back. She checked the mailbox first thing—no letter from Madison yet, damn them—and made her way upstairs. The apartment was at the quiet(ish) rear of the building, top floor, with a view of the Hollywood sign from the living room window and balcony. The rent was outrageous, but for a comparable monthly mortgage payment, Sasha would have had to move to Van Nuys. She didn’t want to cross over to the dark side, she said. Meaning the Valley.

By the time Eleanor had dropped her bag by the dining room table and changed out of her teaching clothes, her nervousness had abated. Mostly. She picked up her cell phone, dialed voice mail and wrote down the Flanagans’ number. She could do this. Tessa was a student’s mother. So what if she also happened to be a Hollywood goddess about whom Eleanor had recently taken to fantasizing?

Tessa picked up on the third ring. “Hi, Eleanor. Thanks for calling back.”

“No problem. Is everything okay with Laya? I noticed she was sneezing this morning.”

“Just allergies. Sometimes she sneaks one of our cats into her room at night. Sweet, but the dander doesn’t always agree with her.”

“Gotcha.” Eleanor hesitated. “So, what can I do for you?”

“I was hoping to talk to you in person about a possible job opportunity. Do you have any free time this weekend?”

“I do.” Should she put it out there that she wasn’t really on the job market?

“Would you be interested in having lunch with Laya and me at our house on Saturday?”

Then again, it couldn’t hurt to hear what Tessa had to say. “Saturday would be great.”

“Good. I’ll send a car for you at noon. You live off Beechwood, don’t you?”

Was it creepy that Tessa knew where she lived, or just insanely flattering? “Yes, but I can drive myself.”

“I’m sure you can.” Tessa’s voice sounded as if she were smiling. “The car will be there at noon. Laya and I will both be looking forward to seeing you.”

“Um, yeah. Me too.”

The line clicked, and Eleanor sat staring at the phone, a little stunned. Then she hit save and entered Tessa’s name in her cell phone directory. A month ago, before she got the job at Barclay, if someone had told her that she would be going to lunch at the Flanagans’ house in the Hollywood Hills, she would have laughed herself silly. But here she was, already wondering what she possibly had to wear to such an occasion. She dialed Sasha’s office number. Good thing her best friend was straight and a native Southern Californian. For once, those qualities would come in handy.

Tessa stood inside her walk-in closet, lights turned high. This was just another professional lunch, she told herself. Only instead of a discussion of up-front quotes and gross points or, more recently, nonprofit funding strategies, the conversation today would revolve around summer vacation and nanny duties. She could have called a service, but her daughter would be losing her second mother and only father figure when Ama and Dani left for the Philippines next month. If Eleanor Chapin, who Laya already adored, agreed to take the position, Ama had argued convincingly, surely it would be better for all involved. The fact that Tessa found her daughter’s teacher attractive was beside the point. Hiring Eleanor hadn’t even been her idea.

She paced the closet. One side of the walk-in housed her work attire—business clothes, designer evening wear and assorted accessories, most from top tier designers who sent her clothing at no charge in exchange for a free PR boost. A couple of times a year, she donated her freebies to silent auctions and other charity fundraisers. She used to complain to Michael that he was forcing her to wear drag whenever she dressed up in Hollywood glam. Over the years, though, she’d come to enjoy the sleek lines of a Vera Wang dress and even, on occasion, the look of her legs in Christian Dior stilettos. Did that make her a lousy lesbian? Probably. Then again, she wasn’t exactly winning any HRC awards with her closeted status.

The other side of the walk-in held real-life clothes—jeans, capris, shorts, sweats, tank tops, collared shirts and sweaters. She settled on a dark red V-neck wraparound shirt that showed a modest amount of cleavage, paired with blue jeans and her favorite around-town clogs. Maybe a little dressed up for lunch at home, but it was, after all, a job interview. She’d asked Eleanor to come to the house not only so that the teacher could get a feel for what the position would entail but also so that Ama and Dani could meet her. It was just possible that her own judgment might be somewhat clouded when it came to her daughter’s teacher.

Downstairs, she checked with Dani to see how lunch preparations were coming—fresh-squeezed juice, green salad and a variety of sandwiches on spelt bread—then went outside to the patio. The heat had descended early, and Laya was splashing around the shallow end of the pool, yellow inflatable arm bands keeping her afloat under Ama’s watchful eye. Almost from birth, Laya had demonstrated an impressive ability to amuse herself. She seemed happiest immersed in her own make-believe world, talking to animals and inventing stories about her immediate environment. Briefly, as she watched Laya leap off the edge of the pool into the water, Tessa wondered if self-reliance was a learned trait or if, instead, it might be something she had passed down to her daughter along with almond-colored eyes and delicate ears.

One thing was certain—Laya had inherited her love of nature from her grandmother. As a girl growing up on a tiny island in the Philippines, Tessa knew, Benita Reyes had spent most of her time outdoors, riding water buffaloes and climbing trees. She couldn’t wait to explore the wide world she imagined was waiting on the other side of the ocean, which was why she’d moved to the U.S. on her own with minimal family support. But when she reached Chicago, her adventurous spirit couldn’t help her find employment. A college-educated teacher back in the Philippines, she finally ended up taking a job in a textile factory in Chicago, where she met Tessa’s father, another immigrant living far from home.

Each summer, Benita had tended a small garden on the porch at the back of their building, growing vegetables and herbs in pots alongside sampaguita, a species of jasmine native to her homeland. Tessa shared her mother’s love of the tropical plant, whose sweet-smelling blooms opened at night and closed in the morning, the opposite of most traditional sun-worshipping flowers. At her vacation house in Hawaii, she’d had sampaguita planted throughout the grounds, and loved to sit out on the deck there at night knowing the flowers were silently opening in the darkness around her. Her mother would have loved the Kauai house.

The sound of a car door slamming came from the driveway, and Tessa took a deep breath. From her lounge chair near the pool, Ama smiled and offered a thumbs-up, a gesture her daughters had taught her.

Dani leaned out the door that opened onto the patio. “She’s here.”

Laya started to climb out of the pool, but Ama stopped her. “You wait here with me, my little clownfish.”

“We’ll be right out,” Tessa assured her daughter.

Smoothing her palms against the soft denim of her jeans, she returned to the house, pausing inside the patio doors. Eleanor was just entering the kitchen, looking around with interest as Dani hovered at her elbow. Tessa tried to see it through her eyes. The light, open kitchen with its butcher block island and limestone flooring merged directly into the dining area and family room where a fireplace, window seat and exposed beams framed a comfortable living space. This was her favorite part of the house, and she, Ama, Dani and Laya spent most of their waking time here. Or outside—French doors led from the family room to the patio, where a wisteria-draped trellis kept the midday sun at bay. She, Ama and Laya often gathered there at day’s end to watch the sun set over the distant ocean while Dani puttered about the kitchen or garden. He was not a fan of staying still, not when there was “always so much to do,” Ama would mimic him, smiling indulgently.

When Eleanor’s gaze stopped on her, Tessa smiled. “Hi. Did you meet Dani?”

“I did,” Eleanor said, turning a friendly look on the older man.

“Good.” She paused. “Would you like something to drink? There’s fresh-squeezed pineapple-orange juice, if you’d like. Or we have milk or sparkling water.” Tessa stopped. No need to run through the entire contents of their refrigerator.

“Juice would be great.”

As Dani poured, Tessa added, “I thought we might talk on the patio over lunch.”

“Sounds good.” Eleanor glanced around again.

She seemed nervous too. She was dressed in dark brown capris and a collared shirt open at the neck. Her freckles stood out against the white of her shirt, and Tessa wondered if she had them all over. She was staring again, she realized, and averted her gaze. What was wrong with her? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

They had barely stepped outside when Laya ran up to greet her teacher, bouncing from one foot to the other, her bathing suit and dark hair plastered to her skin.

“Miss Chapin! Want to see me do a cannonball?”

“Of course,” Eleanor said, grinning.

And just like that, the ice was unceremoniously broken. Tessa introduced Eleanor to Ama, who shook her hand enthusiastically and cast Tessa a sideways glance of evident approval. Then the older woman returned to her lounge chair by the pool, leaving the two women to chat over sandwiches and Dani’s fresh-squeezed juice.

“Your home is beautiful,” Eleanor said, her gesture encompassing the house, the patio, the canyon view.

“Thank you.” The sunlight that filtered through the wisteria revealed the highlights in Eleanor’s hair, Tessa noticed, just like the first morning they’d met. Real, or bottled?

“How long have you lived here?”

“I moved in when I was pregnant with Laya. I wanted a house that felt more like a home. Before that I lived on the beach in Malibu in one of those glass-walled houses with way too much space.”

“Do you miss the beach?”

“Not really. Photographers used to anchor their boats off-shore and take shots through the windows. Here there are only a few ways in that don’t involve climbing a sheer canyon wall.” Talking about security concerns, it occurred to Tessa, might not be the best way to convince her guest to take a job looking after Laya. “Anyway, I know you went to Smith, you’re from Vermont and you used to teach in Boston. What brought you out to California?”

“My college roommate is from here and I needed a break from New England.” She hesitated. “I guess it was just time for a change.”

“Do you think you’ll stay in the area?”

“No. Actually, I’m starting grad school in the fall.”

Definitely not part of the plan, Tessa thought, and took a sip of juice. “I see. What will you be studying? And where?”

“Developmental psych, but I’m not sure where yet,” Eleanor admitted. “I just heard from the last school yesterday, and I got into three.”

“That’s great, isn’t it?” Tessa’s admiration for her daughter’s teacher clicked up a notch. It had taken her nearly a decade to finish her own B.A. from UCLA.

“It would be great if any of them had offered me full funding. Unfortunately, they didn’t.”

Which meant she needed money for school. Ah-ha—an angle. “Maybe I can help,” Tessa said, reworking her intended spiel on the fly.

Eleanor tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I invited you to lunch because Ama and Dani are moving back to the Philippines next month,” she said, lowering her voice so that Laya wouldn’t hear. She wanted to finalize the replacement nanny plan before she shared the news with her daughter. “That means I need to hire someone for the summer to look after Laya while I’m at work. Ama and I thought you might be a good option.”

Eleanor had just popped a cucumber sandwich into her mouth. She seemed to swallow it nearly whole before choking out, “Me?”

Tessa nodded. “You’re already part of Laya’s life, and I need someone I can trust. You’re great with her, and you’re clearly overly qualified for the position. It’s only for a few months.” As Eleanor looked out at the pool where Laya was floating happily, eyes closed and face raised to the sun, Tessa added, “The position pays twenty-five hundred a week.” A generous salary, perhaps, but it would go toward a good cause—the education of a future child psychologist.

Eleanor stared at her. “Are you serious? That’s way too much.”

“Now I know you’re not from around here,” Tessa said, smiling. “Anyway, you don’t know what I’d ask of you. You’d have to spend a lot of time here at the house, and sometimes I keep odd hours. Early on, in fact, I would ask you to come to Hawaii with Laya and me.”

She watched Eleanor frown and toy with a loose thread on her shirt sleeve. Tessa was used to poker-faced industry executives who considered it unprofessional to reveal any sign of emotion. Eleanor appeared to have no such compunction.

“Will you at least think about it?” Tessa asked.

“Of course. It’s a very generous offer, and Laya is a great kid.”

Whew. “Good. If you wouldn’t mind letting me know soon, I’d appreciate it. I’ll need to make other arrangements if you’re not available.”

Eleanor glanced out at the pool again. “Would tomorrow be soon enough?”

“It would,” she said. “I do hope you’ll take the job. I think it could be a great summer for everyone involved.” Her eyes dropped to Eleanor’s lips, and then she averted her gaze again as she saw the blush tingeing Eleanor’s throat. Great, now she was officially sexually harassing her daughter’s teacher.

If Eleanor took the job, Tessa thought, reaching for her juice glass, she would have to figure out a way to douse the flare of attraction between them. It wasn’t like anything could really happen, not when Eleanor was headed to graduate school in the fall. But just then, with the sun’s rays deflected by the winding boughs of wisteria and the sounds of Laya’s poolside delight plainly audible, September seemed impossibly remote.


Date: 2015-02-28; view: 671


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