Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 99017 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99017 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Hell, I don’t want that.
I don’t want to sue anyone. I just want to earn a living doing something I’m more than capable of doing! No, I can’t carry heavy trays full of food anymore. That’s beyond my scope in my struggling-to-heal body. But I can keep up with a five-year-old. Women with disabilities parent children effectively all the time, and Gus is a well-behaved little boy. It’s not like I’d be chasing after him to keep him from running into the street, but if I had to, I could.
When properly motivated, I can move fast—just ask any of the bus drivers on my usual route.
Fighting tears, I glance back down at my phone, forcing myself to read the rest of Tasha’s text—But don’t worry. I’m working on a Plan B to make sure everyone gets what they need moving forward. I’m confident I can have a new placement lined up for you soon. Maybe even by tomorrow! Just give me a few hours to make some calls, and I’ll be in touch. Hang in there, and keep your chin up.
Keep my chin up…
I do my best, I really do, but a few minutes later I find myself in bed with Nutasha P. Bettersquirrel tucked under my chin, crying my eyes out.
There, there, love, she says in her teapot voice. It’ll be all right. You’ve faced worse than this before, and you always make it through. You’re made of sterner stuff than you give yourself credit for, poppet.
I want to believe her.
I want to be hopeful and positive, but a girl can only get knocked flat by shitty twists of fate so many times before she starts to think Fate isn’t on her side.
Or, at the very least, it has a deeply messed-up sense of humor.
The suspicion that Fate has it out for me is confirmed when Tasha texts a little later to inform me that I’ve been given a temporary nanny assignment for tomorrow, while the temporary nanny takes my job with the Hendersons.
I’ll be taking care of two little girls—aged three and four—and my new boss expects me at his place half an hour before he takes his mother to the airport tomorrow morning.
And my new boss’s name, you ask?
Why, Mr. Dean Kate.
“Shit,” I mutter, my stomach cramping as I do a quick internet search, desperately hoping there are two Dean Kates in New Orleans.
But there aren’t.
Of course, there aren’t. There’s only one, and he’s so cool with putting our romantic history behind us and moving on as my boss, he doesn’t even bother to text me. Not so much as a “Wow, small world, huh?” or a “Don’t worry, it won’t be weird that you’re living above my garage, I promise.”
There’s nothing, not a peep from “Mr. Kate” between the moment I get the news at five and when I slide into bed at ten, wanting to make sure I get a solid night’s sleep before I leave for his place.
“I wonder if he’ll expect me to call him, Mr. Kate,” I mutter to Nutasha.
She clucks her tongue, assuring me, This is a bad idea, love.
She’s right, but it’s also the only way I’m paying my bills this month.
So, I set my alarm for five-thirty, close my eyes, and pray I won’t have weird sex dreams about my new boss.
Seven
DEAN
The bananas are wrong.
Not rotten. Not bruised. Not insufficiently banana-shaped.
Just wrong. Wrong in a way that only a three-year-old with strong opinions about bananas—and what kind don’t belong in her pancakes—can express.
“No, Daddy, these aren’t the good bananas. They’re the bad bananas,” Bella announces from her booster seat, her lower lip quivering. “I can tell. They’re the mean ones that make my tummy hurt.”
“No, they’re not, Bell. They’re the same bananas I always get, I promise.” I flip another pancake, trying to stay the course on this “fun and healthy pancake breakfast” mission, even as a part of me insists I should give up and let the nanny feed the girls cereal when she gets here.
Or cookies.
Or ice cream.
Whatever makes this already frantic morning easier for everyone involved.
“No,” Bella howls, her eyes shimmering. “They’re not!”
“They’re Chiquita. You love Chiquita,” I insist. “Look, here’s the sticker to prove it.”
“No! Not the lady. The lady is the one I don’t like, Daddy! I like the ones with the circle sticker.”
The circle sticker…
Which company has a circle sticker? And does it matter? As far as I know, all brands of bananas at the local grocery are molecularly identical to the bananas being shoved across the table as Bella sobs, “Get away from me, mean lady bananas!”
“You need some help in here, Dean?” My mother’s voice cuts through the breakfast chaos from the hall.
“No, I’ve got it,” I promise, shifting the last pancake from the pan to the plate and shutting off the burner.