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I HAD JUST enough time to take Fideaux home and feed him, wash my face, add earrings, and change to better-looking flats. Even as I headed out the door, I was kicking myself for agreeing to dinner with George; but I'd been too surprised to remember how to let a man down nicely.
After squeezing the front door latch to make sure it was locked, I crossed my fingers and hoped the evening wouldn’t be one big regret.
Two minutes beyond the nearby Dannehower Bridge put me on the Norristown side street where George's daughter lived. I parked in front of some skinny homes built when necessity had favored utility over good taste. Facing these cheek-to-jowl stood four unadorned brick duplexes. Number Six proved to be the left half of one of these.
After crossing the street, I entered the Swenson's tiny front yard through a chain-link gate as off-putting as a drawbridge. The porch railing sported a realtor’s sign, but even without it the peeling white paint and absence of personalization told me the property was a rental.
George opened the door to my knock. He seemed taller somehow, his eyes a livelier golden brown. Could he possibly have more hair than he had at Didi’s?
I must not have been paying attention.
“Come in. Come in,” he offered, smiling as if he owned the place.
“This is my daughter, Susan.” He nodded toward a woman of about thirty with elaborate makeup and chin-length, perfectly straight auburn hair. Her clothing was all black, and her acrylic nails looked as if they could open a soda can.
“...and this is little Jack.” George beamed at the toddler kneeling at the coffee table scribbling on a piece of newspaper. He was a beautiful boy, really, with a perky nose centered in a photo-perfect face.
The mother ruffled his blonde curls and urged him to say hello, but the child’s concentration never wavered.
“He talks?” I asked. “I thought he was only eighteen months.”
“He says some things. When he wants to,” Susan replied with a shrug.
“Normal kid.”
“Pretty much,” she agreed.
“Have a seat.” George gestured me onto a soft, blue chair before joining his daughter on the sofa.
“Do you have any experience babysitting?” Susan inquired, “...if you don’t mind my asking.”
“No, it’s a perfectly good question, and the answer is yes and no. I’ve raised my own two kids, of course, and I changed a diaper a couple hours ago, but I didn’t give any thought to babysitting for anyone until your father mentioned it.”
“So you don’t have any references.”
“Her husband was head of a school,” George contributed. “They’re good people, honey. Why don’t we give her a few minutes with Jack, just to see how they get along?”
Susan opened her lips as if to protest then abruptly changed her mind. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll wait in the kitchen.”
After Susan and George departed, Jack spared me a bashful glance that conveyed the hint of a quiet intelligence. Very soon he would be learning things at warp speed. Did I want to be around to watch? Tempting, but not overly so. Of the two of us Rip had been the one soft on all children; I mostly loved my own.
Of course that was then and this was now. Now Garry needed spending money, which I wanted to send freely. “A penny saved is a penny earned,” said Ben Franklin, and I’d begun to appreciate exactly what he meant.
I slipped down to sit on the floor, selected a red crayon from the box, and helped myself to a sheet of newspaper. After coloring the truck in a Toyota ad, I offered to trade colors with Jack. “Want this one?”
He accepted the red and relinquished the purple.
Then the front door opened and Daddy Mike swept in.
“Hey, little buddy. Whatcha doing there?”
“Daddy!” Jack threw himself at his father’s legs.
The man narrowed his eyes at me. “And who are you, may I ask?”
I rose to my full height, far short of the man’s prying gaze. “Ginger Barnes.” I extended my hand, but Mike Swenson ignored it.
“Sorry, but you haven’t said why you’re here.”
“I’m an invited guest,” I told him, “a mistake that can be remedied at once if your attitude doesn’t change.”
“Michael!” The voice was Susan’s, and judging by her husband’s reaction it was uncharacteristically forceful. “This is the babysitter Dad met the other night. We talked about this, remember? If I’m going to take that job, we need somebody to watch Jack.”
Swenson glanced down at his son, who was staring back with shock bordering on fear. Not emotions you want a toddler to endure for long, if ever, so I instinctively scooped him into my arms.
Whereupon the father grabbed his wife’s bicep and steered her back toward the rear of the house.
“You know what I said about that job,” he snarled in a stage whisper. “I can’t believe you...”
“We need...” was all I heard of Susan’s reply.
Emerging from the wings, George rushed to relieve me of the now-whimpering Jack, who tucked his head under his grandfather’s chin and clung to him like lint.
Back in the kitchen the couple continued at a less-than- discreet volume. Most of their words were unintelligible, but their differences were clear. Susan was prepared to go earn money for the greater good. Mike wanted her at home. Macho bluster, in my opinion, but not really my business. I just felt bad that my presence had touched off this particular installment of their argument.
“Sorry about that,” George apologized as he petted Jack’s curly head. “Let’s give them a minute, then I’ll hand off Jackie-boy and we can go eat.”
“I don’t think...” I began, but George showed me his palm.
“You’ve come out of your way. The least I can do is buy you dinner.”
“But I’m leaving,” I said. “Right now.”
“Understood. How about Sullivan’s in fifteen minutes?”
I knew perfectly well what I should have said, but looking into those sorry, insurance-salesman eyes all I could say was, “Fine.”