Adding Up to Family Page 5

  “Oh, absolutely,” Becky agreed. Trust this woman to understand, she thought. “Mrs. Parnell, you have a daughter, don’t you?”

  She could hear the smile in the other woman’s voice as she answered, “I do indeed.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what does she do for a living?”

  Celia wanted to know where this was going, but refrained from saying so. Instead, she stated, “She’s a private investigator.”

  “Is that what you wanted for her?” Becky asked.

  Truthfully, Celia had to admit that she’d been stunned when Jewel had told her that was what she wanted to do with her life. But she’d kept her misgivings to herself and it had all turned out for the best. Jewel had met her husband because of her work and now they couldn’t be happier.

  “What I wanted was for her to be happy, and being a private investigator is what makes her that way,” Celia concluded.

  “Your daughter is one very lucky woman,” Becky said with feeling.

  Celia laughed. “Could you tell her that? Because there were days when I know she didn’t feel that way herself.”

  “But she does now, doesn’t she?” Becky asked.

  Humor entered Celia’s voice. “It’s touch and go at times. Anyway, we have something important to address right now. You said you were willing to take the position.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And are you happy with that decision?” Celia asked.

  “Happy?” Becky repeated, slightly puzzled. To her recollection, Celia had never asked her that question before.

  “Yes, happy. Becky, I really don’t want you to feel as if you have no choice here. I want you happy about choosing this position.” Realizing that perhaps she was getting a little too carried away in her sentiment, Celia said, “I want all my people to be glad to be doing what they’re doing and not feel as if they have no choice about the matter.”

  “Don’t worry,” Becky said with a laugh. “I’ll let you know if I’m not happy about the job. Mrs. Parnell, you’re like a second mother to me. At times, even more understanding about my feelings than my own mother, and yes, I’d take this job even if I wasn’t happy about it, because you asked me to. But luckily, this seems to be working out well for both of us. I like the idea that I might be able to help Stephanie feel better about herself and not feel as if she was some sort of a freak of nature because she’s bright and actually likes learning things.”

  “I’m thrilled that this is working out for both of you—and don’t forget the dad,” Celia reminded her casually. “You’ll be like a godsend to him. You’ll be fielding questions from Stephanie. The kind of questions that I have the impression make the poor man feel completely out of his element.”

  “He really seems to love his daughter,” Becky mused.

  “Oh, he does. He adores the ground she walks on, and until recently, whenever he could get some time off, he’d take Stephanie fishing or they’d go off camping together. He was the picture of a loving, doting father, and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for that girl. But she’s growing up and with that comes a desire to carve out a little space for herself in a world that, sadly, excludes him. I believe you can help them both with that.”

  “You’re giving me a great deal of credit here, Mrs. Parnell,” Becky said, feeling as if maybe she couldn’t quite live up to those expectations.

  “And all of it deserved,” Celia assured her with feeling.

  Becky sighed. “You realize this means I can’t fail you.”

  Celia laughed. “That’s exactly what I’m hoping for, my dear. Exactly what I’m hoping for.”

  Chapter Five

  The following morning Becky was up and ready several hours before she needed to be. She found herself both eager to get started with this new job and dreading what was ahead at the same time.

  This was not unlike the time when, in a bid for normalcy for her, her mother had found a way to send her off to summer camp for several weeks when she was the exact same age as Stevi.

  She’d had butterflies in her stomach then, too. Just as she did now.

  As she recalled, that hadn’t exactly turned out the way her mother—and she, secretly—had hoped that it would. The adventure hadn’t ended with her making a ton of friends. Or even a few. She had nothing in common with the kids her age and she couldn’t exactly get off on the right footing with the older kids there, either. Both sets regarded her as being if not a freak, then someone who was terminally odd. The problem was she was too old mentally for the first group, too young physically to fit in with the second.

  At that point, Becky had resigned herself to being a loner. She’d struggled, but after a while had come to terms with it. Eventually, once she graduated college, she found her own niche. She did it mainly by working like a demon. However, that led to her becoming totally burned out. She’d realized that she needed to do something else with her life while she tried to regroup and find some sort of peace.

  It wasn’t easy, but she wound up accepting herself, and discovered that once she did that, others did, too. Not in droves, but enough to make her feel that she wasn’t the oddity she’d come to believe she was. There was something nice about that.

  But now, as she placed a couple of suitcases into her car, those butterflies were back. Not in full force the way they’d been all those other times; just enough to be a wee bit unsettling.

  Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this, taking on housekeeping responsibilities, she thought as she drove to Steve Holder’s house. Maybe she was better off just working for Mrs. Parnell, going in, doing a job and then going home at the end of the day. Simple.

  Still, Becky reminded herself, yesterday hadn’t been a disaster in any sense of the word. It had turned out to be a success. A minor success, granted, not anywhere close to what she’d accomplished while working in the aerospace program, but still... She had managed to get through to Stephanie and had gotten her to pitch in, making dinner.

  Okay, maybe that was a sign that she should stick it out, Becky told herself. She’d give this “noble experiment” until the end of the following week, and if she still felt that her presence was helping Stephanie, well then...

  She’d give it another week, Becky thought with a small smile. After all, differences usually were made by taking baby steps, not giant leaps.

  Becky blinked. She’d arrived at the Holder residence, she realized. How had that happened? She didn’t remember getting here.

  Taking a deep breath, she parked her car in front of the house, right by the curb. She turned off the engine and then sat there in her vehicle for a moment, hardly moving. She was psyching herself up.

  Mrs. Parnell seemed convinced that she could do this. If Mrs. Parnell thought that, then she could. All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other. She could certainly do that.

  There was no reason in the world not to have confidence in herself.

  She took in a deep breath and then slowly let it out.

  Then did it again.

  “Remember, kids can smell fear,” she murmured to herself. “So be fearless. Here I go,” she whispered, getting out of the car. “The Fearless Wonder.”

  It was too bad that along with all the brains she had, she hadn’t managed to garner an equal amount of confidence to go with them.

  Taking her suitcases from the trunk, she slowly made her way up the driveway, one in each hand. Setting the bags down at the entry, she rang the bell.

  The next second, the door swung open, almost scaring her.

  The look on Steve Holder’s face was that of a man whose faith had suddenly been miraculously renewed. “Oh, thank God you’re here,” he cried.

  In the face of his relief, some of Becky’s larger doubts slipped into the background, then faded completely away.

  She smiled at him. “Well, you certainly know the ri
ght thing to say to make a person feel welcome.”

  He looked at her, confused. “What? Oh, yes. Of course.” In the middle of another emergency, Steve found himself stumbling over his words. And then he noticed the suitcases. “Are these yours? Of course they are,” he said, answering his own question before she could. “Let me bring those in for you.”

  And before she could tell him that she could carry her own bags, she found them being whisked away into the house.

  Rather than placing them in a spare bedroom, he put the suitcases down in the living room, as if he hadn’t made up his mind where they were going.

  At first Becky thought the man was just in a hurry, but another look at his face told her that he was actually distraught.

  That, in turn, increased her own confidence. It was as if she felt that she needed to balance out the deficit he was exhibiting, otherwise everything would fall apart.

  “Is something wrong, Mr. Holder?” she asked him, concerned.

  Steve wanted to tell her that no, everything was fine. But if the woman was anywhere near as intelligent as Mrs. Parnell had told him she was, he knew that she’d be able to see right through any half-hearted attempts to lie to her.

  So he didn’t.

  “It’s Stevi,” he said, reverting back to the name he’d always been comfortable using. Right now, it seemed that getting his daughter’s name right was the least of his problems.

  “She doesn’t want me living here,” Becky guessed. Maybe she should have approached this part of the arrangement at a slower pace, she thought. Maybe she’d be better off spending several days working here before she moved in and spent the night.

  But Steve negated her assumption. “No, it’s not that,” he told her. “As a matter of fact, she had a couple of nice things to say about you after you left last night. She seemed perfectly fine with the idea of you living here with us. It might even seem odd not to, seeing as how all the other housekeepers did.”

  Becky looked at him, confused again. “Then I don’t understand...”

  “Neither do I,” Steve confessed helplessly. “One minute, we’re talking at breakfast and she was telling me about a project she was going to do at school. In the middle of talking, she gets up to go to the bathroom. I didn’t think anything of it,” he said.

  “When she didn’t come out, after a while I went and knocked on the door, telling her we were going to be late. That was when she screamed at me to go away. I tried talking to her, but that just made it worse.” Steve looked at Becky, a totally befuddled and beleaguered specimen of fatherhood. “I just don’t know what I did wrong. If she keeps refusing to come out of the bathroom, I won’t be able to get her to her summer school class before I have to be at work.”

  At a loss, Steve glanced at his watch, the numbers on the dial hardly registering. “I’d take the day off, but I’m supposed to be giving this presentation to management...” He looked in the direction of the bathroom, obviously at a loss as to which path he should be taking.

  “What’s the school’s address?” Becky asked him.

  Because the present situation was taking all his attention, he had to think a moment before he could remember and tell her.

  Becky nodded. She knew where that was. “Don’t worry. I’ll take her to school, Mr. Holder.”

  He looked down the hall again. “You’re going to have to get her out of the bathroom first.”

  She smiled as she nodded again. “I’ll do that, too,” she promised.

  He knew he should just thank her and go, but his conscience had him hesitating. “I don’t feel right about leaving you like this,” he told her.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Holder,” she assured him. “You have to go. Outer space is waiting for you. And don’t worry. I’ll take care of Stephanie. She’ll be fine.”

  Steve sighed with relief, but still remained where he was. “I just don’t understand why she’d have this sudden meltdown,” he confessed. “I know I didn’t say anything to get her like this. When she left the table, she looked fine.” He peered at Becky in bewilderment. “Why would she just...?”

  Becky had a hunch, but for now, she kept it to herself. Out loud, she tried to comfort him by saying, “Teenage girls have mood swings.”

  Stevi wasn’t a teenager. She was still his little girl, his fishing buddy. This was totally out of character with that image. “But she’s only ten,” he insisted.

  According to her birth certificate, Becky thought. But developmentally, it was a different story.

  “Stephanie is precocious,” she reminded him. “Her ten is someone else’s fourteen.” She hesitated for a moment, then decided to point out something he probably hadn’t considered yet. “A lot of hormones are swimming around, causing havoc at this age.”

  “Hormones?” Steve repeated, saying the word as if he’d never thought about something like that in connection with his daughter. All this was happening way too fast for him. He wasn’t ready to accept it. “She has hormones?”

  “We all have hormones, Mr. Holder. Hers are just coming into their own. Now go,” Becky urged him. “Leave the home front to me.”

  Steve really didn’t want to go and leave her with all this to deal with, but he was completely out of his element here and he was needed at work. There, at least, the problems that came across his desk had eventual solutions, things he felt equipped to handle. Moreover, they weren’t mercurial in nature, as his daughter seemed to be.

  He let out another long breath. Becky was right. He needed to go.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “But if you can’t get Stevi to come out—and I don’t know why you shouldn’t, but I also don’t know why she’s in there now—I want you to call me. You still have my card, right?”

  Becky offered him a patient smile. “Yes, I do.”

  Steve started to go. He got as far as opening the front door before he turned around and looked at his new housekeeper. “You sure you don’t mind my leaving you with Stevi?”

  “It’s why you hired me,” she reminded him, her voice pleasant and cheerful.

  “Yes,” he allowed, “but technically, this is your first whole day on the job and I feel like I’m tossing you into the lion’s den.”

  “Not the lion’s den,” she assured him. “Maybe the large kitten’s den...”

  She made him smile for a second. He was still uncertain about doing this, but he knew she was right. And he needed to get to work for that presentation, so he left.

  The moment he closed the door behind him, Becky turned away and went down the hallway to the bathroom. Oddly enough, the butterflies that had been fluttering in her stomach, threatening to overwhelm her when she had arrived on the job, were completely gone now.

  She stood for a moment in front of the bathroom door and then knocked. But before she could say a single word, Stevi shouted from inside the room. “I said go away!”

  For a little thing, she had a powerfully strong set of lungs, Becky thought.

  “Stephanie, it’s me. Becky,” she added just in case, in her agitated state, the girl didn’t recognize her voice.

  The fact that it was someone besides her father didn’t change anything. “Go away!” Stevi shouted. “I want to be left alone.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” she told the girl. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to come out and talk to me.”

  “No, I don’t,” Stevi cried fiercely. “I don’t want to talk to you or to Dad. Go away!” she repeated, her voice cracking. “I want you both to leave!”

  “Well, you have half your wish. Your dad’s gone. He wanted to stay because he’s worried about you, but I got him to go to work. So it’s just you and me, Stephanie,” she told the girl. “Why don’t you come out?”

  “No!”

  Well, she hadn’t expected this to be easy, Becky thought. She tried to remember being that a
ge again, and how uncertain she’d felt about things. She needed to make Stevi feel as if they were kindred spirits.

  “You know, it’s a lot more pleasant out here than it is in there,” she coaxed.

  “I said go away!”

  Listening closely, Becky could tell that Stephanie was crying. And she had a feeling she knew why.

  She tried again. “You know, you can tell me anything, Stephanie. I was your age once and I know that lots of confusing, scary things are happening to you right now. Your hormones are waking up, making you feel happy one minute, angry the next, confused after that. Meanwhile, your body’s going through all these changes and you don’t know what to make of any of it.”

  She paused, hoping to hear any sort of response coming from inside the bathroom, but didn’t.

  “If you unlock the door and let me in, we could talk. Maybe, if we talk long enough, I could make things less scary for you.”

  “Please go away,” Stevi begged. Her voice was definitely shaky.

  “I’m not going to do that, Stephanie,” Becky said softly. “I’m going to stay right here until you decide that you want to talk to me.” Leaning against the wall, she slid down until she was sitting on the floor. “I’ll be right here, outside the bathroom door, until you come out. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  Becky could almost hear the minutes ticking by. Finally, the bathroom door slowly opened. Stevi was standing in the doorway, looking very small and lost. She’d brushed away tears with the back of her hand, but the telltale stains were still there, bearing silent testimony to her fears.

  “I’m dying, Becky,” she sobbed.

  Becky had gotten to her feet the moment she’d heard the lock being flipped. She wanted to throw her arms around the tearful girl, but held herself in check. She wanted to hear Stevi out first.

  What the girl had said struck a chord. Rather than dismiss the idea, she treated it seriously.