The kids haven’t stopped shouting since dawn.
Are my ears ringing? Sure. But it’s a small price to pay for a normal morning. Especially after last night.
It was a blessing in disguise that I hardly slept. Made the sound of the a.m. bell less jarring. I cleaned myself up, dressed, waited for Thomas outside his office so I could get the day’s schedule. The man stepped out, locked his door, and handed me a printout of the agenda without even a “good morning.” Instead, he just said, “Review this carefully. Follow it.”
Yes, sir.
After I grabbed Luis and Jada from their bedrooms and got them ready, they finally showed me their overstuffed play area and introduced me to their little potted cacti in the sunroom. I even convinced Luis to spend a grand total of four minutes playing “Hot Cross Buns” on his recorder.
Then the kitchen treated the three of us to a full breakfast, traditional ackee and saltfish mixed with onions, tomatoes, and thyme. Chef Wesley made it right: creamy, buttery, with that kick from the Scotch bonnet. It’s easy to forget you’re eating fruit and cod. Mom never liked ackee—preferred breadfruit with her salted fish—so we rarely ate it at home. I hate to say it, but I’m starting to think she just didn’t know the right tricks.
In the backyard, the ocean breeze cuts the rising heat of the day, leaving us toasty but not melting. And the kids are behaving.
“Don’t run close to the pool, please!”
Mostly.
Luis is a top whirling across the backyard, yelling about the game he’s made up, one with rules that evolve every minute. To him, I’m background noise.
But not to Jada. We sit under the umbrella-shaded patio table. She’s fixed on my face. Every once in a while, she pulls out her thumb to pepper me with questions.
How old are you?
Eighteen.
Do you live here forever now?
No, just for a couple months.
Why not longer?
Because your real nanny will be here when summer ends. I’m just here to help until then.
What if I miss you after you leave?
That’s okay. Missing someone means you care about them.
Do you miss your friends?
That last question might have gutted me if anyone else asked it. But I don’t mind it coming from her. I even tell the truth.
Yes.
Years of sleepovers and adding her shitty exes to our “Fuck You” book. Sneaking into warehouse raves and cruising in Joy’s car on warm summer nights. We did everything together, shared everything. She even shared this job.
But I’m here alone.
There’s that thickness in my throat. Careful. I need a minute.
“Why don’t you play with your brother?” I suggest.
She doesn’t bother removing her thumb to answer. “He won’t let me.”
“Tell him I demand he play princess with you.” She scurries off, yelling Luis’s name with a smugness that almost makes me laugh.
I sit up straight in my chair, check that Luis’s inhaler is still next to me. The most enormous mango tree I’ve ever seen sways nearby, heavy with fruit, just like the trees carved into the front doors. The pool ripples. I sip the smooth soursop juice Wesley kindly made me after I asked for more at breakfast. A little sour from the extra lime, a little sweet from the brown sugar. Ice-cold liquid hits my stomach and nearly masks the unease pooling there.
Nearly.
Last night’s dinner was perfect. Mrs. Hall had Wesley give me his sweet potato pudding recipe since I loved it so much. Mr. Hall shared a hilarious childhood story about how he accidentally picked weed from the garden instead of mint, brewing this crazy tea for his mother’s church friends. Luis told some terrible jokes he’d learned before school let out for the summer, but he couldn’t remember the punch lines. Jada and I laughed anyway. Everything went well.
Then stress turned my bedroom into a broiler.
It was as if the good night went up in smoke. And in my mind, as I tried to sleep, I dreamed of concerts without music, a funeral, the red ribbons my mother used to tie into my braids when I was small. I woke with thoughts as tangled as they were a couple hours before.
The sunlight glints off my JOY name tag.
Blackbead is beautiful. And I don’t belong here.
But here I am, under a patio umbrella, watching two rich kids play in the backyard of a fancy mansion. And nobody here even knows my real birthday.
Of course I feel like the sky is falling.
But if I keep behaving like the perfect au pair, maybe I can hold up the sky for a little while longer.
Two figures turn the bend into the backyard, carrying shovels and bags of fertilizer. One’s a much older man, stubble across his square jaw, frowning hard.
And the other’s Aaron. Squinting against the sun, clean-shaven. I remember the water from his glass slipping down his chin.
Why am I remembering that?
I pretend to fully focus on my drink. But from the corner of my eye, I notice the pair drop their things and start working on some flower beds. Aaron tugs his sweaty shirt away from his body. It clings to his torso again. He sucks his teeth, checks to see if anyone’s spying, then pulls the shirt off completely.
My mouth goes dry. He must not have seen me. Right?
The kids run to Aaron. “Do you have time to play?” Luis asks. “It’s knight and princess.”
Aaron stands with his hands on his hips. I wait for him to politely decline and get to his tasks.
His work pants hang low. Something inside me wakes. Bares its teeth.
“Depends,” he says. “How fast can you save the princess from… a dragon!” He throws Jada over his shoulder, sprints across the yard while Luis chases. Jada’s giggles pierce the air as Aaron dodges the jabs from Luis’s imaginary sword.
He looks like he spends his free time boxing or hiking, not playing storm the castle with silver spoon kids. But they seem to love Aaron. And he seems to love them too.
Aaron gently places Jada on the grass and collapses. “You got me.” Jada escapes and Luis deals his killing blows. Stab, stab, stab. Aaron gasps in fake pain. And with the threat neutralized, they’re off to play something more fun.
He hauls himself off the ground, grabs his T-shirt, and tries to wipe the stuck dirt and grass from his body. He joins me under the patio umbrella. I’m cool. I’m chill.
“Thought you were gonna save me,” he says.
I lean back in my chair, act like I don’t care about him or his pretty brown eyes at all. “My responsibility is to care for the kids. Barely noticed you.”
“Think you notice plenty.”
Warmth rushes to my face. Maybe he did see me before.
Back home, when Joy and I would catch guys staring, we’d call them out: “Get caught, get shot!” We wouldn’t shoot anyone, obviously, and almost everyone likes attention. But it made the guys think twice about leering at strangers. And here I am, doing the same thing. History shows my brain stops working when boys are involved.
Note to self: get caught, get shot.
“Sorry,” Aaron adds. “Too soon to be messing with you like that.”
“Bet you do that with everyone.”
“Not true.” He holds my gaze. Whatever he’s trying to say, I refuse to translate.
In the background, the older guy scowls, shades his eyes, and peers around like he’s searching for something.
Or someone.
“That your boss?” I ask. My voice cracks because I’m pathetic. “I think he wants to get back to work.”
Aaron peers over his shoulder, waves at the man who must be Gregory. “Thought I was working.” He winks at me. Then off he goes, digging beneath the Jamaican sun, sweat running down his broad back. Gregory’s squinted glare stays on me for a second too long.
I didn’t imagine it yesterday. Aaron’s seeing me. And I’m seeing him.
Yes.
No.
Shit.
“Yo, Carina! You still hungry?”
There’s Josh, scurrying through the glass doors like a thief with loot, arms full of plates. Ora and Simone slowly trail behind.
“Breakfast wrapped. What’s this?” I ask.
Josh simply says, “Brunch.”
“Leftovers he stole from the kitchen,” Simone clarifies. She stares uncomfortably as Josh places the dishes on the patio table. “Tried to stop him. Wesley will have Scoob washing up all day when him find out.”
“And him better hope that’s all he suffer,” Ora adds.
I shoo Josh away. “I’m not getting caught with all this. What if Thomas docks my pay or something?” Nobody specified what the consequences were for breaking “Blackbead standards,” but I’m not trying to find out on day one.
“If we don’t eat this,” Josh says, “it’ll go straight into the trash. Staff not even allowed to take none of it home. But Rush and Juney just complain they’re hungry. It’s a waste.”
“The Halls can waste what they want,” I reply. “They bought the food. That’s their business.”
“That’s true,” Ora murmurs.
But still, Simone and Ora ogle the platters. It’s like I can hear their stomachs growling. And there it is: guilt. Because I had my fill at breakfast. I’m allowed to eat as much as I want. That’s one of the gifts of this nanny gig, the benefit of being the foreigner who’s “like family” to the Halls. I’m part of the house staff, but I see the difference between me and the housekeepers, or me and the cooks.
Like how those guys all start work so early. I’m not sure if they have time to eat much before their shifts. And sure, I bet Ora and Simone brought lunches to eat during their assigned break, but that won’t be for a while. It’d be a shame for them to starve while the Halls throw out all this food.
The perfect nanny probably wouldn’t do this. But the new me? She would.
I glance at the back door. Nobody there.
Please, don’t make me regret this.
I subtly nudge a plate toward Simone. “Can’t work well if you’re hungry,” I say. Simone pauses. Stares at me hard.
Then, she says, “Thomas nosy and mean. Eat fast.”
I let the others take most of the food, wait until it seems everyone’s satisfied before I grab a piece of spiced bun nobody wanted. I nibble, eat around the raisins but savor the molasses and cinnamon. While the kids play tag, Josh waves Aaron over. Aaron bites into some pear-shaped apple I didn’t recognize at breakfast. His teeth break the burgundy skin, exposing pure white flesh.
Aaron notices me noticing. “You see how the skin blood-red?” he asks. “That how you know it sweet.”
Ora does a little shimmy as she eats, like she can’t stop herself from dancing, even when she’s at risk of getting in trouble. Go back in time, and Ora and I could have been two halves of the same person. She makes a better Joy than I do.
The plates finally clear. Aaron heads back to the flower beds. I check the back door.
Someone’s watching.
Dante.
What’s that saying? No good deed goes unpunished?
“The son’s here,” I warn. The son who isn’t afraid to report the help, according to his mother. The pressure in my head builds. Move. Fix. Behave. I start gathering dishes. “Help me clean.”
Everyone twists to see him looming through the glass.
“He like to lurk, that one,” Simone says as she grabs forks and spoons. Her eyes linger at the back door. “Him see a lot but don’t usually say much. But you never know, do you…”
Josh snickers, then tosses a grape into his mouth. Simone hits his shoulder with the utensils, practically begging him to act right, at least while one of our bosses is surveilling us. Instead, Josh lazily strolls around while we tidy the mess he so kindly gifted us.
“Wait,” Josh starts, “Rina don’t know who’s who yet. Let’s teach?”
Ora slides into a chair next to me, pretends like she’s all about piling up these dishes. “We start with Thomas. Fenky-fenky, you think. Stuck-up, don’t do a thing wrong. But you know he used to be a peeping… Thomas?”
“He what?” There’s a tiny window high on my shower wall. I thought it was for show. Did he see me last night, drenched in sweat and icy water?
“Rush, behave.” Simone turns to me. “It’s just what we’ve heard.”
“So, a rumor?”
“Lies can start in truth,” Ora states. She jerks the grapes away from Josh and puts them on the opposite end of the table. “So maybe he isn’t spying on the girls now. But in his youth?” She shakes her head like she can’t bear the weight of her disappointment.
“And Gregory?” Josh points him out, working in the yard with Aaron and grumbling all the while. “He get all the pum-pum ’cause the women know he won’t leave them with child.”
Gregory? Grouchy old Gregory? He’s really pulling women that easily? He hardly even talks.
“How do you know that?”
Josh shrugs. “Don’t know it. But believe it.”
Simone offers me a kitchen towel, and we wipe down the table. Dante’s still there. He’s got his arms crossed, vague expression—he’s too far away to overhear anything. But he’s clearly inspecting us. Maybe calculating the damages of all the food we ate. Maybe mentally drafting the speech he’ll give when he fires me for theft and sends Cultural CareScapes after me for employment fraud. “And what else should I know about Dante?” I ask.
Something wild sparks in everyone at the mere mention of him. “He keeps to himself,” Simone starts. Diplomatic answer.
“Think he’s too good for us,” Ora adds. “He’s always kept a distance, like we have disease.”
“Him keep a candle lit in the kitchen window all day long,” Aaron says. “He makes the staff check that it still burn.”
“It’s true!”
Then everybody goes off, almost too quick for me to follow who’s saying what.
“Heard him have a secret family. That’s why he’s hardly here.”
“Nah, Dante’s busy talking to demons. His energy’s wrong. Cleanse him, Lord.”
“The family do Obeah since before Dante born. Probably dress themselves in chicken blood and make deals with demons. How else you explain the wealth? Strange.”
“Not strange. Mr. Hall pay off all kind of people to keep squeaky clean. No one else in Parliament this rich.”
“You mad. The money come from Dante running drugs to the States now his father can’t. That’s the only ‘community’ he concern with.”
Jokes overlapping, laughter all around. I force a chuckle.
It’s funny to them, the rumors. And I get it. What’s a little hearsay amongst the help? What’s some silly gossip to a man who could fit four of your house inside his mansion? And Ora’s right. There’s some truth in almost any lie.
But that grain of truth doesn’t make the lie hurt less.
I search for Dante at the back door.
But he’s gone.
YOUNG BIRDS
- JOSH: dante is a sneak fr. halls dem cut my pay becuz me take sum food they dun need
- CARINA: You’re joking.
- SIMONE: But we all had some
- JOSH: said me bad role model bc me been here longest. dem xpect more from me
- JOSH: maaaaaaaad
- JOSH: let the duppy deal wit em then
- AARON: damn. sorry man.
- ORA: didn’t mean to get you in trouble!!
- SIMONE: Nothing we can do now
- SIMONE: First day OK Carina?
- CARINA:
- JOSH: cant handle it? lemme hav ur job then
- CARINA: Over my dead body.
- ORA: back up, scoob!! rina cant die yet!!
- AARON: we have to take turns annoying her, ya hear?
- CARINA: Feeling so welcome.
- SIMONE: And we just get started.