Count My Lies

Chapter 12

12

At 12:25 the next day, I climb the stairs to the Lockharts’ front door. My heart is beating quickly. Starting today, I’m the Lockharts’ nanny. No longer a nail tech, but a nanny. It feels right, like I am exactly where I’m meant to be.

The front door to their brownstone is cracked open, resting against the frame. There’s muffled music coming from inside. I knock lightly, but when no one answers, I push it open and step into the entryway.

The music is coming from the kitchen. It’s blaring loudly, the sound filling the whole house. I recognize the song. I walk toward the source. “Violet?” I call out.

I enter the kitchen to see Violet on the other side of the island, dancing wildly. She’s holding a tall pepper mill as if it were a microphone, singing into it with her eyes closed. If it was anyone else—if it was me—they’d (I’d) look ridiculous. Limbs flailing like one of those inflatable tube men, bending and flopping, Elaine in Seinfeld . But Violet isn’t anyone else. She’s magnetic. I could watch her dance all day.

A moment later she opens her eyes. She sees me, standing there in the doorframe, and grins, her performance momentarily paused. She spreads her arms out wide and calls out, “Welcome to New York!” Then the chorus begins and she resumes singing, her eyes on mine, about how the city has been waiting for me. And right now, in their kitchen, it feels like it has. This New York, the one with Violet in it, is different than the one I’ve lived in for the last fifteen years. It’s new and special, and finally, I belong here.

As Violet sings, she picks up a matching saltshaker and dances toward me, the shaker outstretched. I’d planned on asking her if everything was okay, worried about her after what I’d seen yesterday afternoon, but here, now, she’s radiant. She seems more than okay.

I drop my bag on the floor and take the shaker from her. I hesitate, only for a second, then start singing, too. We both know all the words. We dance around, shimmying and swaying to the beat, singing into our microphones, the music so loud you can’t hear either of us.

When the song ends, Violet yells to Alexa to lower the volume, then drops into a kitchen chair and lifts the hair off the back of her neck, fanning herself with her other hand.

“Sit,” she says, and I do, my heart thumping from the dancing, in a seat across from hers. We’re both breathing heavily, grinning at each other, delighted with ourselves.

“Some days just call for a dance party,” she says.

“I agree wholeheartedly.” Actually, it was something I did when I worked at the preschool. Every so often when the mood seemed off, I’d turn the music up and all the kids would dance crazily around the room until they collapsed on the rug in giggles. It would reset our whole day. I want to tell Violet about it, but don’t. I can’t.

“Harper should be home any minute. One of the other moms offered to walk her home today. Coffee?” she asks, and I nod.

She gets up, returning with two cups, setting one in front of each of us on the table. “I played that song every day when we moved here,” she says. “Embarrassing, right?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “But I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan.”

“Right.” She smiles. “You said that the first day we met at the park. That’s how I knew we’d be friends.”

I beam, tickled that she remembers our first conversation.

She looks me right in the eye. “I know I’ve said this before, but I really haven’t made many friends since we moved. It’s nice to finally have one. I’m so glad we met.”

I feel a blossom of warmth in my chest. She said I’m her friend. Not her nanny. Her friend.

“Me too,” I say. She has no idea how glad. I study her, tucking my hair behind one ear like she’s done, sitting up a little straighter.

“You’ve lived here for a long time; you must know a lot of people.” Violet blows on her coffee, then takes a sip.

I press my lips together, nodding slowly. “Sure, I guess.” I used to know more. I was friends with a lot of the other teachers at the preschool. We’d go to brunch on the weekends or someone would host everyone for a Sunday dinner, but after I got fired, that doesn’t happen anymore. “But since my mom got sick, I’ve sort of been keeping to myself.”

Violet nods. “What about dating? Are you single? Seeing anyone?”

I consider making up a boyfriend, but decide it’s too risky. If we become close, like I hope we will, she’ll want to meet him, go out to dinner on a double date. I’ll have to make up excuses about why he can never join us or how he’s away—again—on a business trip.

“Single,” I say.

“Single in New York, the dream,” she says longingly. “At least, it was for me. Well, high school me, thanks to Sex and the City .”

“Oh god,” I groan. “You have no idea what it’s like out there now.” I give her a pained expression. “Tinder has ruined everything. It’s the bane of my existence.”

It’s an exaggeration. Actually, it keeps things interesting. I have a dating profile—a few of them, truthfully, all with various pictures of other women I’ve found online, women that I’m sure will catch the eye of the kind of man I’d be interested in—on several of the apps, Tinder included. It’s one of my favorite things to do on a Friday night, sweatpants-clad on the couch with a bowl of ice cream, flicking through the available men, reading their (occasionally successful) attempts to be witty. I’ll send a like or a heart to the ones that I find especially clever and wait for the ding of a new message alert. It’s fun, having guys tell me how beautiful I am, exchanging charged texts into the early morning hours.

Occasionally, I’ll use a profile with my real picture, meet up with someone for dinner or coffee, but the dates are usually awkward, filled with stilted conversation. Every once in a while, they’ll end with a make-out session on the sidewalk or mediocre sex on his futon, but there’s almost never a second date. They don’t ask, and if they did, I’d probably turn them down.

I tell myself it’ll be different when I have a better job, or when I finally get my own place. Maybe I’ll have a shot at the kind of guys who want to date me when I’m pretending to be someone else.

“Is it weird that I’m a little jealous?” Violet says, laughing. “Jay and I started dating right before Tinder launched. I’ve always wished that I could try it, at least once.”

“Yes,” I answer, nodding emphatically. “Very, very weird. Considering. You’ve seen your husband, right? Do you need your eyes checked?”

Violet buries her head in her hands in mock embarrassment, her dark hair shaking. “You’re right,” she says, muffled. She sits back up and sighs. “We just got married so young, you know, that sometimes I feel like I missed out on all the fun.” Absent-mindedly, she brushes at her bangs, coiling a strand around her finger. “And now I’m a mom with stretch marks.”

I smile. I highly doubt she has stretch marks. “You didn’t miss out on anything,” I say. “I promise you. Unless you like the idea of pervy come-ons and unsolicited pictures of male genitalia flooding your phone.”

“That’s not a myth?”

“What, dick pics?” I shake my head. “No. Very much not a myth. I can show you if you want…” I start to reach for my purse.

“No!” Violet squeals, giggling. “No, I believe you. Please don’t!”

I laugh. “Okay, I won’t. But what about before Jay? You must have had a million boyfriends in high school.”

Violet is a prom queen. A cheer captain. I can see her now, younger, in low-slung jeans and a crop top, surrounded by the other popular kids, the boys elbowing each other to get closer to her, to be the one to carry her backpack home. I was, by contrast—as Taylor Swift puts it—on the bleachers, watching girls just like Violet, wishing someone would look at me like they looked at them.

Violet’s smile dims, but doesn’t go out, not entirely. “Not really.” She shrugs. “I pretty much spent my whole life—before Jay, I mean—in love with this one boy. I went on a few dates with other guys, thinking I might get over him, but it never worked.” She lets out a little laugh, like how silly she’d been to believe that could happen.

“What was his name?” I take a sip of my coffee, settle back into my chair. There’s nothing I don’t want to know about Violet, but I especially love hearing about her childhood, what she was like as a teenager.

She hesitates, then says, “Danny. We were best friends growing up. We were inseparable, did everything together. Everyone thought we’d get married. So did I.” She smiles, amused at her younger self. “He had the biggest heart. And he was beautiful. A beautiful boy who grew up into a beautiful man. Messy golden curls. Gorgeous brown eyes.” She stares into the distance as if she’s remembering. “And he has this little scar, right at the tip of his eyebrow.” Violet touches the spot on her own face.

“We were sixteen when he kissed me for the first time. And when he did…” Violet trails off. I lean in, my breath hitching. She sees me, laughs. Then she sighs, her eyes softening again. “It was like I’d been waiting my entire life for that one moment.”

I can see it, feel it, like it was my heart pounding as his lips brushed against mine. The whole world splitting wide open.

“What happened?” I ask, when she doesn’t continue. I’m on the edge of my seat.

“We lost touch, after I went away to college. And then I met Jay.” She shrugs, as if that was the end of her love story. Or the beginning. I can’t quite tell. “Anyway,” she says, smiling. “My point is, no, I didn’t have a million boyfriends in high school.”

Then she glances at the clock on the wall, frowns. “Harper should be home by now. I wonder what’s taking them so long,” she says. “The school’s like ten blocks away, but it usually doesn’t take more than twenty minutes. Mockingbird Montessori. Maybe you know it.”

The smile drops from my lips. Suddenly, the kitchen walls seem to close in, the room shrinking. I feel the color drain from my face as a wave of nausea rolls through me, my limbs losing feeling. Did she say —

“Mockingbird?” I repeat weakly. My voice sounds watery, warbled, like there’s something in my mouth.

Violet turns. “You know it?”

I swallow the acid at the back of my throat. I wonder if I might throw up. How had I not known that Harper goes to Mockingbird? Of course she does; it’s the best preschool in Brooklyn, where everyone who’s anyone sends their child.

I nod, my head bobbing dumbly. “I used to nanny for one of the families who went there.” It’s the truth, but not the whole truth. Even still, I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. It’s more than I want her to know.

“Oh, that’s funny. What family?” She cocks her head.

I force my lips into a smile, trying to look nonchalant. “Oh, they moved. To Connecticut, I think.” I purposefully don’t answer her question. “It was ages ago.”

This is, of course, a lie. I’d nannied for them as recently as eighteen months ago. Before I became her nanny, Ellie McIntyre was in my morning class at Mockingbird. It wasn’t uncommon for the teachers to babysit the kids on the weekends for extra money. We all did it. The families were well-off, and they paid decently, at least twenty-five an hour, thirty or more for two kids, which was as much as we made in our teaching positions.

Ellie’s mom is Allison. Allison McIntyre. She’s the reason why I don’t nanny anymore, why I’m not a preschool teacher, why I had to work in a place where no one bothered to check my references. She’s the one who filed the restraining order. The one who walked into the spa and acted like she feared for her life. Even though it was my life that had crumbled.

She had two kids, both with red hair, just like hers. Ellie, who was four when we met, and Benji, who was seven. Her husband traveled during the week, and she needed help in the afternoons, when school got out and she wasn’t done with work. At first, it was just once in a while, on days when she had off-site meetings, a Friday or Saturday night here and there, but soon it became more regular—Monday afternoons when Allison had to go into Manhattan and couldn’t get home until after seven, then Wednesdays and Thursdays. Then weekends, too, until I was there more often than not, until it was like I was part of their family. Until I wasn’t.

Ellie is probably still enrolled at Mockingbird. She’s older than Harper, so they wouldn’t be in the same class, but they might play together on the blacktop, on the playground. Violet and Allison likely have seen each other during drop-off or pickup; maybe they even say hello to each other or chat as they’re waiting for the kids to come out. The thought of this turns my stomach.

I can’t tell Violet her name because if she happened to tell Allison about me, this would all be ruined. Allison’s eyes would harden; her face would grow stony. She’d tell Violet things about me that aren’t true—at least, not wholly. Don’t think I don’t see the irony in that.

Then I remember that Violet thinks my name is Caitlin, and for once, I’m thankful I’m a liar, and not ashamed like I usually am.

“Are you okay?” Violet asks.

I make myself nod; I can’t get any words out.

Just then, the doorbell chimes. “Oh! That must be Harp,” Violet says.

As soon as Violet leaves the kitchen, I drop my head into my hands. I’m sure I was talked about after I left, by the teachers, the students, the parents. It’s a close-knit community, which is one of the reasons I loved working there so much: if a child or teacher got sick, even just with a cold, everyone would sign a handmade get-well card; if there was a family emergency, a group of moms would send their au pairs over with ready-made meals. There were flowers on Teacher Appreciation Day and delicately iced cupcakes on birthdays. But there were whispers, too, when a student’s parents were getting divorced or when one of the dads was charged with insider trading, so I know there were whispers about me. How loud, I don’t know. I don’t know if the gossip lingered in the air, in the corners of the classrooms, in the mouths of the parents as they walked their children in and out of the school.

If I’d kept in touch with anyone, I could have asked, but I haven’t. I haven’t spoken to any of the other teachers since I left. It was a small staff, twelve of us, but only one of them reached out to me after I’d been let go. Her name was Rachel, one of the teachers in the five-year-old class who I often ate lunch with. She called, but I didn’t answer. I was too embarrassed. A few weeks later, when the loneliness seeped in, I tried to call her back, but this time, she was the one who didn’t pick up. I left a voicemail asking if she wanted to get lunch, then sent a text, but there was never any response. I tried another few teachers over the following months, but no one returned my calls. Not one parent reached out to me, either, not even the ones who had sent gift baskets at the end of the school year or the ones who hugged me tearfully when their child graduated from my class to the next. I’d become infected; no one wanted to catch it.

In the next room, there’s the rise of voices. Panic grips me, coiling around my throat like a constrictor. What if Violet invites whoever brought Harper home inside? What if they recognize me? I look around wildly for a place to hide, a broom closet maybe, behind the island.

Just as I’m about to bolt from my chair, I hear Violet say goodbye, the front door closing, Harper chatting excitedly. I exhale, one big whoosh, and shake my head. Get it together, Sloane. It was well over a year ago now. I’m sure my name had faded from everyone’s lips by the time Harper started at Mockingbird. And if it hadn’t, it doesn’t matter. To Violet, I’m Caitlin, not Sloane. But even so, from now on, I’ll be sure to arrive after Harper gets home from school, never before.

A moment later, when Harper bounds into the kitchen, Violet behind her, I have a smile on my face.

“Caitlin!” Harper yells. “Look what I made at school today!” She waves a round piece of colored construction paper over her head, edges jagged with scissor cuts. “It’s Jupiter!”

“Wow,” I say, taking it from her. “You must have worked really hard on this!” Praise the effort, not the child! An oft-repeated refrain of the principal at Mockingbird. Old habits, I guess.

Harper and Violet both beam at me.

“Should we go to a new park today?” I ask. “I know of a good one just off Hoyt.”

“Yeah!” Harper says. “Can we, Mom?”

Violet nods. “Absolutely! Do you want a snack first?”

“A muffin!” Harper says, doing an excited little wiggle.

“Sure, go wash your hands and I’ll get you one.”

A pout forms on Harper’s face. “I want it now!”

“Okay,” says Violet patiently. “As soon as you wash your hands.”

Harper’s face crumples. “I hate washing my hands!” Harper belts. She drops to the floor and begins to kick her feet against the couch.

“Harper,” Violet says. Her voice is stern, but I can see the worry on her face. I feel my hands grow clammy, my heart rate quicken. I’d seen a million tantrums at preschool, but this was different. What if her heart gives out?

Half-panicked, I crouch down next to Violet. “Hey, Harper,” I say. “Can you show me how to wash my hands? I forgot how! Do I put water on my feet? Or on my head?”

Harper stops crying, sniffles, and looks up at me. “No,” she says, shaking her head.

“Do I put water on my nose?”

She wipes snot from her face with her sleeve, giggling a little bit. “No.”

“Will you show me?”

She nods, gets up. Violet shoots me a grateful smile. I smile back, but I’m rattled. What if I hadn’t been able to get her to stop crying? What if she’d fainted? Violet would have expected me to know what to do. She trusts me.

Guilt gnaws at me, its tiny teeth sharp. Of course she trusts me. Because I told her I was a nurse. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t want to know the answer to that.

Harper is waiting expectantly for me, so I get up and follow her into the kitchen. Something could have happened, but it didn’t. It didn’t.

“Come on,” I say to Harper, taking her hand. “Do I put soap in my ears?”

She laughs and pulls me toward the sink.