Chapter Thirty-Four
Hand in hand, they vaulted over the flower beds and around the lounge chairs. She pushed Teddy ahead of her as they skittered onto the paved walkway that led to the east wing of the house. Just as they hit the stone staircase, Jane heard Gigi call, “Yoo-hoo! Jane!”
Busted. Jane stopped. Teddy clutched her side. She kissed the top of his head and whispered, “Just smile. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Fine.” He grumbled and didn’t let go.
Footsteps and voices approached behind them. Jane hoisted Teddy onto her hip and turned. Three cameras focused on them. One large video camera. One cell phone camera. One paparazzi camera.
The television reporter took a surprised step back. Jane cringed inwardly. Her pocked and flaking skin had made the woman recoil. That was exactly the ego boost she needed.
The video camera lens extended and zoomed in on Jane, shedding like a snake, and Teddy with practiced but still heart-melting smile.
Lark, Gigi’s publicist, stepped out of the group and caught Teddy’s attention. She pulled her finger over her upturned lips, signaling their smiles should be bigger.
Gigi held her hand out. “Jane is our wonderful nanny, and this is my dear child, Teddy.”
“Hello,” Jane managed.
Gigi faced the reporter. “As I mentioned.” Her low voice took a somber, practiced tone of sympathy and compassion. “Jane’s blisters and burned patches are an unfortunate result from our trip.”
Burned patches? Jane would’ve flinched at the description, but indignation had hold of her backbone. She wouldn’t cower, but hell if she didn’t want to offer a nicer-sounding description such as third-degree sunburn.
“Her injuries occurred as we raised awareness about women and children with nowhere else to go but refugee camps,” Gigi continued.
Not exactly. Jane repositioned Teddy, waiting until they were no longer on display before allowing her aggravation to show.
“Her blisters may scar. Her complexion will never be the same.” Gigi grimaced sympathetically, covering her hand to her heart. The sun glinted off her ring set with a diamond the size of a marble. “But when you look at Jane, you can see the vicious suffering that others face without our help.”
And with that cheerful description, Jane was done. “Off to piano, or we’ll be late.”
That was how Gigi saw her? A wonderful nanny who was the living breathing illustration of mass casualty suffering. Angry tears burned the back of her throat.
The group mumbled as Jane hurried away.
“Jane.” The click-clack of designer heels hastily followed. “Jane?”
If only Jane could teleport to piano lessons. She turned and set Teddy down. “Run to the bathroom before your lesson. Okay?”
He agreed and ran off before Gigi came within arm’s reach. Jane wasn’t sure what Gigi might say. Maybe she realized her word choice had been cruel. Perhaps she wanted to tell Jane that she was appreciated. Jane didn’t count on it, but hope springs eternal. “Yes?”
Gigi gestured the direction they had come. “They’re filming a special quick-to-air mini-documentary.”
Not an apology. Jane wasn’t surprised. “Sounds wonderful.”
“Everyone in the world wants to know how we’re doing—you know, after the incident.”
“Got it.”
“Isn’t it absolutely thrilling? Almost as if we have our own reality television show, without any of the tacky PR-whore conventions. It’s all about us!”
Just like everything else. “Sounds exciting.”
Gigi beamed. “If the ratings are good, there’s no holding us back. We’d be household names.” She leaned closer to Jane. “That’s something money can’t buy.”
Speechless, Jane rolled her lips together.
“It’s so close I can almost feel it.”
Jane didn’t know what to say. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I need to check on piano practice.”
“Oh, of course!” Gigi said theatrically, stars in her eyes.
“Oh, I forgot. Dax is in the piano room, being interviewed. Why don’t you see if you can get the piano instructor to teach on the Steinway in my sitting room?
And I have some people inside, updating the décor.
Make sure Teddy doesn’t get in their way.
” Then, with a wrist flick, Gigi dismissed Jane.
“Household names,” Jane muttered as she quietly slipped inside the house and found Teddy’s piano teacher alone.
Jane took the teacher into the west wing, depositing her in Gigi’s sitting room and then searched for Teddy. He wasn’t where she expected him, and Jane returned to the east wing, where his bedroom was located. There she found him. He sat on the floor of a hallway bathroom, crying.
“Teddy.” Jane crouched in front of him. Had Dax yelled at him for interrupting the interview? Was he still worried about the lapse in piano practice? Teddy made no secret of the fact that he didn’t enjoy piano, along with just about everything his parents made him do. “What’s wrong?”
The sound of wood splintering penetrated through the wall followed by a harsh demand, “be careful.”
Jane turned toward the noise as though the wallpaper could explain what was happening.
Teddy pointed toward the wall also. The bathroom backed to his bedroom, and her stomach dropped. Jane inched into the hallway but saw nothing to account for the sounds.
Teddy’s bedroom was bigger than the house Jane had grown up in, and Gigi kept it fashionably decorated.
In Jane’s opinion, Teddy’s room looked more like an adult bedroom.
Even though it was painted in primary colors with fun wall posters, his room still missed the little touches that made a child’s bedroom unmistakably theirs. Like toys.
Toys were only in the playroom. That strictly enforced rule from his mother kept their house picture-perfect.
Warily, Jane left Teddy and walked to his bedroom door. She held her breath and said a quick prayer before opening it.
Three men were dismantling the furniture. Any sign of Teddy had been boxed up. She moved through the doorway. “Um, hello?”
“We know,” the man closest to the door said. “Keep it down.”
“No, I mean…” The framed prints had been removed. The curtains were gone. “What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like, lady?” he said, unfastening a bolt from the bed. “Time for another round of renovations.”
The home décor update that Teddy was supposed to stay away from was for his bedroom. Dang it. Teddy just got used to the new design. She shook her head as she walked back to the bathroom.
Teddy looked as if his universe were ending.
“I’m sorry, honey. But I bet—”
Tears slid down his cheeks. “They threw away Bun Bun!”
Bun Bun was his very special stuffed animal.
It was the only thing he’d been allowed to keep from the moment he was born.
Every night, he clung to it as he fell asleep.
Sometimes he didn’t let go until after breakfast. “Isn’t Bun Bun at my place?
” Though she didn’t remember seeing Bun Bun next to the crayons and paper.
“No.”
She balked at the impossibility of purposefully throwing his toy away. “I’m sure they just moved him. I’ll go check.”
“Okay. Thanks, Janie.” He buried his tear-stained face against his knees.
Jane rushed back into the boy’s bedroom. She poked around, finding nothing. “Did you see a turquoise bunny? Like a stuffed animal?”
“That’s all gone.”
She stepped past them, looking where Bun Bun should’ve been and then in a trash can. “What do you mean all gone?”
The man closest to the door shrugged. “First thing on the list, remove personal touches.”
“And do what with them?” Teddy kept his personal touches in the playroom or her cottage. The only thing in his room that didn’t come from a designer was his Bun Bun.
The man shrugged as though Jane needed to take her argument elsewhere. She gritted her teeth. This, apparently, was where she drew the line. She would not let his parents destroy Bun Bun.
The Thanes had their trash receptacle area hidden on a wooded side of their property. Everything disposed of from the house, from kitchen scraps to donations, passed through there, and she guessed that’s where Bun Bun would have gone.
Jane stormed from the bedroom, swept him into her arms, and spoke with forced cheer. “While you’re at piano, I’ll get Bun Bun back. Okay?”
His eyes filled with tears again. “B-But I want to go with you!”
She should’ve expected that. Jane decided he’d earned the right to save his stuffed animal.
“All right. You can miss your piano lesson today.” Jane would hear it from Gigi, if Gigi ever peeked out from her bubble and found out, which was a big if.
At least, Jane would spare the precious Steinway.
“Let me tell your teacher, and we’ll go look. Okay?”
He nodded, and a small smile broke on his face amid the tears.
As she led the piano instructor downstairs, Dax was still pontificating about himself and his wonderfulness.
They said goodbye to his teacher. A reporter Jane recognized flagged her over.
She groaned that the reporter had been let inside the gated community, but the guardhouse let Lark and the Thanes call the shots.
“Jane!”
“Nothing to say.” And they had a stuffed animal to save.
“What do you say about the rumors?” the reporter called from the sidewalk.
“Rumors are a dime a dozen,” Jane muttered, backing them away so that the piano teacher could back out the driveway.
“You don’t care about problems between Dax and Gigi?”
Jane stopped and glanced at the reporter holding his phone out to catch her comments and then pointedly to Teddy. “Do you mind?”
Thankfully oblivious, Teddy pulled on her hand.
If his parents had problems with their relationship, Gigi and Dax wouldn’t be on television, constantly exposing their family, home, and habits. Unless… her stomach turned. Well, honestly, she wouldn’t put a stunt like that past them if it meant a few new headlines.
Together, she and Teddy walked away. Her curiosity grew. Once they were out of the reporter’s sight, she let him run ahead. Jane took out her phone and scanned the gossip pages. Sure enough, several gossip websites had various theories.
Jane scanned the articles and comments, and no one offered anything specific but mentioned rumors of upcoming television appearances.
“Janie!”
Sighing, she pocketed her phone and lifted her gaze to Teddy. “Coming.”
After walking the perimeter of the expansive property, they stopped at the wrought-iron gate that protected the trash from reporters and dumpster divers who wanted to sell Dax’s half-eaten apple on eBay. Trash receptacle was just a pretty name for a dumpster. She could smell it. Ugh.
“Are you sure Bun Bun’s in there?” Teddy asked hesitantly.
“I think so. He’s on a wild adventure.” She squeezed Teddy’s hand.
“You’re going to get him for me?”
She laughed. “Yup, and I hope you still love me when I smell like garbage.”
He giggled. “I’ll always love you, Janie.”
And that was why she adored him so much, why she would risk a thousand smelly dumpsters for him. No one in her life had ever loved her unconditionally. She ruffled his hair and took a deep breath, and prepared to go dumpster diving.
After searching through all sorts of grossness while Teddy looked on, Jane finally emerged victorious, holding the blue bunny above the rim of the dumpster to Teddy’s wild applause.
She climbed out and presented it to him. He hugged the dirty bunny and then hugged her, even though she was, in a word, disgusting.
“Thank you, Janie.”
All in a day’s work.