Time After Time (61 page)

"Filene's Basement is some
big secret? Listen to me: I don't want you driving around with kids
older than you. Not without my permission, and don't hold your
breath for
that.
Do you understand?"

His answer was a defiant
look of boredom.

"That's it!" Helen
snapped. "You're grounded for the weekend."

The boredom turned to
instant indignation. "Grounded! Why?
I
didn't blow a gasket!"

Helen wasn't sure whose
gasket he was talking about, and in any case she didn't want the
bickering to drag on any further, so she said, "Good night,
Russell," in the calmest possible voice and left him to stew in his
own teenage hormones.

The last of the sad
thoughts that drifted through Helen's head that night was that "Ma"
didn't sound nearly as winsome as "Mommy."

****

The Byrnes lived on a
street that was not only the jewel in the crown of Old Salem, but
arguably one of the finest avenues in America. Less than half a
mile long, Chestnut Street was lined with perfectly preserved
three-story mansions dating from 1800, many of them built for
Salem's early aristocracy: the merchants and sea captains who
reaped mind-boggling wealth from whaling and the China
Trade.

The entire avenue, east
end to west, was now a National Historic Landmark and a mecca for
history and architecture buffs. They could stroll virtually alone
along its brick-lined sidewalks and cobblestoned gutters in the
imposing shadows of the mansions, and dream about the clipper ships
that braved high seas to bring back unimaginable
treasures.

It was a great street—but
nobody really cared. Not the bread and butter of Salem's tourist
economy, anyway; those people were far more interested in Salem's
darker, uglier past. The witch trials of 1692, in which nineteen
innocent victims were hanged and the twentieth was pressed to death
under a crush of rocks—that was the story that busloads came to
hear.

Who cared if the Peabody
Essex Museum contained a priceless slant-top desk carved entirely
of ivory? It was much more fun to stand with a cluster of tourists
in a pitch-black room around a luridly lit pentagram and hear the
tale of Salem's shameful, sinful past.

Helen Evett ought to know.
Whenever visitors came to see her—depending on their ages—they
wanted to go to the Witch Museum or the Witch Dungeon Museum or the
Wax Museum or the Witch House. If they were the pensive type, they
sometimes wanted to sit and reflect at the witch-trials
memorial.

Rarely did they wish to
take a walking tour of Chestnut Street.

Helen drove slowly down
the one-way street, searching for the Byrne mansion. She hadn't
been on Chestnut Street in a long while, long enough to be
impressed all over again by its magnificence. Salem had plenty of
historic houses, of course; but there was something about the way
Chestnut Street's mansions stood shoulder to shoulder, united
against the outside world, that seemed exceptionally exclusive.
Chestnut Street did not permit slaggards. No peeling paint, no
sprawling privet here, by golly.

Stuffy little street,
Helen decided. Automatically she sat up straighter in the seat of
her Volvo.

She had dressed in keeping
with the neighborhood, pinning her hair in a knot at the back of
her head and wearing a suit much more tailored than her usual soft,
flowing dresses.

The preschoolers had
noticed the change the minute they saw her. One of them, whose
mother was a lawyer, had looked up at her and said, "Do you hafta
go to court, Mrs. Evett?"

Helen didn't, but she felt
as nervous as if she were appearing in her own defense. It was an
illogical, bewildering response to the telephone plea of the night
before.

Just who was this Linda
Byrne, anyway? She sounded too disorganized, somehow, for such a
formal neighborhood. And what about Byrne? Had he been surprised to
realize that he'd married a dysfunctional neurotic?

Now, now,
Helen told herself.
Give
the poor lady a break. Headaches can be paralyzing.

The problem was, Helen had
never had the luxury of dropping everything to nurse one. Like most
other working women, she could only pop a couple of pain relievers
and keep on moving.

She pulled up in front of
one of the grandest of the grand houses, a brick three-story
mansion with an Ionic portico framing a door painted the deepest of
greens. Like most of the houses on the street, the Byrne mansion
was set back only a few feet from the brick sidewalk and was
fronted by an elaborate painted fence; this one curved back to two
urned pillars on each side of the portico.

From the copper downspouts
to the fittings on the deep green working shutters, everything
about the house suggested taste, discretion, and affluence—and a
severity that Helen found strangely off-putting. This was no
charming ramshackle cottage; no rambling, whimsical Victorian like
her own. The painted ivory shutters on the inside of the windows
facing the street were all closed, as if the place were put up for
the season. Obviously the owners weren't fond of
sunshine.

If Helen had seen a
rosebush about to leaf out, or a pot of early pansies on the step,
then maybe she would've felt less wary. But except for the ivy
tumbling discreetly through the spokes of the fence, and the thick,
gnarled branches of an old tree nodding close to the second-floor
windows, she saw nothing that seemed relaxed or welcoming. If
houses reflected their owners, then Helen wasn't sure she'd like
these owners.

She got out of the car and
slammed the door. It was a simple, mindless act.

But it changed Helen's
life forever.

The noise of the car door
spooked an owl that apparently had been roosting in the tree. The
bird swooped down in front of Helen, then headed directly for her,
locking its gaze on hers. Helen froze. Her heart jumped to her
throat. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Just as
suddenly, the owl broke away and bounded off
erratically.

It had happened so fast,
in the blink of an eye. Helen was left shaking and weak-kneed, as
if a mugger had jumped out of nowhere and grabbed her purse. She
tightened her grip on her shoulder bag, not altogether convinced
that the owl wouldn't be back for it, and hurried up the three
steps to the door of the mansion.

Before Helen could lift
the heavy brass knocker cast in the shape of a square-rigged ship,
the door was swung open for her. An attractive, thirtyish woman
stood in the doorway, oblivious to the raw March wind.

"Ah! You made it!" she
said to Helen with a warm, vivacious smile.

Helen was caught off guard
at the sight of the slender, auburn-haired beauty. "Mrs.
Byrne?"

I knew it,
she thought.
There's
nothing wrong with her.

The woman laughed and
shook her head as she stepped aside. "No, no, I'm just the nanny.
Peaches Bartholemew. Come in. Mrs. Byrne is dressing to come down.
In the meantime, come and meet Katherine. She's been so excited all
day."

So. Wrong on two counts.
Well, one of them was an honest mistake. Peaches Bartholemew looked
and acted like the mistress of a mansion. She was beautifully
dressed in a calf-length skirt of fine-spun wool and a sweater that
had a lot more cashmere in it than poor Becky's. The apricot color
highlighted the delicate flush of her Meryl Streep cheekbones; it
was easy to see how she'd got the name Peaches.

A poor and distant
relation
was Helen's first, old- fashioned
thought as the two women made their way down the soaring hall, lit
by a wonderful chandelier, to one of the reception rooms. Helen
stole a glance at the nanny in profile and realized how striking
her beauty was: straight nose, high cheekbones, delicate brows and
lashes, makeup artfully applied. Her auburn hair was pulled back in
a French braid, more elegant, somehow, than the cleverest
cut.

Helen responded to the
woman's pleasantry about spring being just around the corner, but
she was thinking,
I wonder if I would've
had the confidence to hire a nanny this pretty.

They entered a room of
lofty proportions which clearly served as a music room. A grand
piano was strategically placed beside full-length windows that
opened to a view of the garden; a deep, well-thumbed assortment of
sheet music was scattered across the top of an obviously valuable
Federal sideboard with a serpentine table-edge.

"Katie, come see who's
here," Peaches called gaily. She had a beautiful voice, rich and
musical. No doubt she accompanied the pianist in the family,
whoever that was.

"Katherine?" Peaches said
again in apparent confusion. It was obvious that a game was being
played. "For goodness' sakes ... I thought she was in
here."

Suddenly a brown-haired
moppet in Oshkosh overalls popped out from behind a Queen Anne
armchair and shouted,
"Boo!"

The child broke into a fit
of giggles as Peaches reached down and wrapped her arms around her,
half-tickling, half-turning her to face Helen. "Do you know who
this is?" said Peaches to the child.

Without looking up, Katie
giggled again and said, "Yes. Mrs. Evett. She teaches preschool,"
the child added, in case there was any doubt.

Helen crouched to the
little girl's level and said, "Hi, Katie. I'm glad to meet you.
Your mommy said that you're a very smart little girl."

Katie fixed her bright
blue eyes on Helen's gray ones. "I know my ABCs, and I can count to
twenty," she said. This she proceeded to do on the spot, except for
seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen.

When she was done, Peaches
tucked one of her curls back and said, "We've been practicing a
lot, haven't we, honey?"

"Uh-huh. And I know how to
draw. Want me to show you?"

Helen said yes and Katie
ran to the other end of the room where she'd been coloring at a low
table, then fell to her knees and began sorting through her pile in
search of her best pieces.

"She's determined to make
a good impression on you," Peaches whispered to Helen. "I'm not
sure what Linda told her, but Katie seems to think she may not get
into the class."

"Oh ... no, I wouldn't say
that," Helen said vaguely. It was awkward to be put on the spot
that way, which is why Helen preferred to do the interviews at
school.

The reference to "Linda"
rather than to "Mrs. Byrne" did not escape Helen. Over the years
she'd met hundreds of nannies picking up their charges at the end
of the day. Very few of them referred to their employers by their
first names. Maybe Peaches was a relation after all.

To fill the void while
they waited for the child to make up her mind, Helen said softly,
"Does Katie have many friends to play with?"

Peaches pursed her lips
thoughtfully, cocked her head in the little girl's direction, and
sighed. "I wish I could say yes. But all the children in the
neighborhood are in preschools, getting ready for Harvard and Yale.
Linda was determined to hold out, but the pressure got to be too
much.

"Oh, good, Katie," said
Peaches to the girl as she came skipping back with a crayon-drawing
in her hand, "that was
my
favorite, too."

Without a word the child
handed the sheet to Helen, apparently preferring to let her work
speak for itself.

Helen didn't have a clue
what the brown and red scribbles were supposed to be. Nonetheless,
she was impressed with the little girl's command of shapes. "Oh
my," she said enthusiastically. "You must come sit next to me and
tell me everything that's in it."

Helen took the girl by the
hand and led her to a small camelback sofa opposite the piano,
glancing at the entrance to the room as they passed it.

The nanny took the hint.
"I'm sorry for the delay," she said at once. "I'll just go
see—"

She never got to finish
the sentence. A man's voice— loud and urgent and somehow
ghastly—cried out from a floor above them,
"Peaches! For God's sake, up here!"