Courting Mrs. McCarthy (8 page)

Chapter 12

The next day, Nathan went to Seers Point to have breakfast and a swim. His text to Griffin had gone unanswered, which was to be expected. Griffin was a late sleeper and had consumed significantly more alcohol than Nathan had. Not having him around also made the possibility of seeing Jackie much more appealing. Despite his reservations, he wanted this meeting to occur.

It didn’t take very long for an encounter with her to materialize. Nathan was sitting on a bench at the club eating a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich when April came running up to him.

“Hi, Nathan, did you make that sandwich?” she asked in an unimpressive yet cute attempt at humor.

Nathan laughed. “No, not this one. It’s not very hard to make though.” He could see Tiffany talking with some of the girls her age, but Randall was nowhere to be found. He took a quick glance around for Jackie, but she found him first.

“Boy, you are just the greatest babysitter on the East coast. The kids can’t stop talking about you,” said a familiar voice from behind him. He turned around and saw Jackie wearing a green sundress with large sunglasses, presumably designer. She added, “You should have reminded me that I still haven’t paid you.” She handed him a wad of money.

There were numerous twenty dollars bills, which amounted to one hundred and sixty dollars. This was a highly exorbitant amount for a babysitter to be paid for a few hours of soft labor. “Um, Mrs. McCarthy, this is way too much,” Nathan replied. The
um
sounded a bit ungrateful, but the large quantity of cash was hard to process.

Jackie didn’t blink an eye as if she was used to hearing that. “Oh, nonsense. You earned it. And how many times do I need to tell you to call me Jackie?”

It would have been inappropriate to push the issue of the overpay with April standing right there. Nathan also considered the fact that the McCarthys were presumably quite wealthy and this sort of behavior was par for the course. There was another aspect he couldn’t quite rule out. He wanted to know if she still remembered asking him on a date.

There were many factors to consider in deciding whether or not to pursue that route. The most obvious was the fact that April was right there. If she did remember, there was no way she would say it in front of her daughter. She might also be very embarrassed. All these options pointed toward not bringing it up.

Before any more time could be devoted to the analysis of Jackie’s post drunken promises, she asked him, “Are you available to babysit on Tuesday? I don’t want you to feel like I’m always going to ask you but one of my college friends is in town and I really wanted to catch up with her.”

Tuesday was the night before his pre-calculus final. His aunt would not be amused by the idea that he was babysitting the night before a final, but he didn’t want to say no either. He could also plan his time efficiently, unlike many young students, limiting the risk involved.

April made his decision a little easier. “Oh, please, Nathan, can you do it?” Her tone was hard to resist.

“Oh, why not,” he replied.

Jackie’s face lit up. “You really are a life saver, Nathan. You don’t have to cook this time either if you don’t want to. Ordering out is totally fine.”

Nathan found it funny that she’d brought up cooking again. “It was really no bother. I like to cook. Besides, April was such a great helper. I’m sure we could make something fun and easy. Maybe cheeseburgers?”

April nodded with enthusiastic agreement.

He went for his swim and then rushed home to get his school things so he could study at the library. He was happy to have another chance to babysit the McCarthys. Though, Mrs. McCarthy was the one he had feelings for, he enjoyed the company of her children and growing close to them could improve his chances with her.

Nathan stopped at the local coffee shop to get an iced coffee before heading to the library. He also picked up a tea for Mrs. Buchanan, whom he had not seen much of this week. Though she constantly berated him for spending time in the library, he was worried she had missed him. He missed her too.

She was sitting in the armchair when Nathan sat down at his usual table. She appeared to be doing another puzzle. In addition to crosswords, she was also fond of sudoku. There was a jovial look on her face when she saw him.

Mrs. Buchanan glanced back down at her paper. “Oh, fancy seeing you here,” she said, in what was a not so subtle attempt to conceal interest in Nathan’s presence. He knew she was joking.

“It’s the end of the school year,” he replied. “I don’t have time to fool around here with you.”

She laughed. “This is a library. Why would you come here to fool around with an old woman, anyway?”

“Gross,” Nathan replied, though he had a similar look that showed he did actually feel that way. “I guess the context was there.” He handed her the tea he’d brought and said, “Scottish Afternoon. A little early, but it probably tastes the same no matter what time of the day it is.”

Mrs. Buchanan smiled at his thoughtfulness. “Well, it’s the afternoon in Scotland, so close enough. Thank you. How is your inquiry to the ins and outs of love treating you these days? Has the end of school brought you clarity on your quest, young child?”

Nathan deflected the initial topic at first. “Do you need help on your crossword? I know people your age can get confused easily.” Doubling back to her question, he added, “It’s very good, I guess.”

This positive answer surprised the old lady. “I see. I’m happy for you. I take it you are no longer together with the girl from the academy,” she said. Nathan had not told her much about Sarah, but she had a sharp memory. It wasn’t much of a surprise to see her reach this conclusion.

“No, we broke up last week. I’m sorry for not telling you,” he said. It felt good to tell another person about his break-up, and Mrs. Buchanan was a better person to talk to about it than April.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s none of my business. I’d give you my condolences for your break-up but you don’t seem to need them. Who is this new girl?”

Nathan couldn’t think of a logical way to describe it. He wasn’t really sure if there’d ever be a time to talk about his infatuation with Jackie. Thinking that it would be bad karma to lie to an old woman, he said, “She’s more of an idea. I’m just giving it time to see what happens.”

This answer satisfied Mrs. Buchanan. “Good boy. Now study for your finals. I’m sure someone needs to tell you that. I don’t know if your aunt likes to cover that kind of stuff with you.”

He doubted he’d have such support from Mrs. Buchanan if he told her the specifics of the woman in question, but he felt good that he was in theory adhering to her advice. Going with the flow was just about the only thing he could do. He wanted to be a bit more pro-active, but there was really no viable way to go about accomplishing this.

Something Griffin had said when they were escaping the party came back to him. In his drunken stupor, Griffin had written off the infidelity he’d partaken in by using the rationale that there must have been something gravely wrong with the girl’s boyfriend if he found himself in a position to be with her. This notion had not seemed important to him at the time, but it ran parallel to his thoughts about the roadblock with Jackie. If Griffin was wrong, then so was he. The two were somewhat tied together.

But had he been too quick to judge Griffin? Nathan was not in a particularly good position to make an unbiased decision. He decided to seek the counsel of his Scottish friend.

“Mrs. Buchanan, I have another philosophical question,” he said while trying to downplay his interest in this moral dilemma. “It’s not about me, it’s about Griffin.”

Mrs. Buchanan looked like she suspected that Nathan was more interested in procrastination than her advice, and she asked, “Are you seeking a lecture because of interest or is your studying boring you?”

This answer played directly into the façade he was trying to show her. “A bit of both, I guess.”

He explained the night of the party to Mrs. Buchanan. He told the majority of the story save for his encounter with Jenny, but he did not spare details. He thought it was respectful of her time to tell her the truth. To Nathan’s credit, Mrs. Buchanan never winced or batted an eye, which showed that she was genuinely interested in the story and proving that she was a safe confidant for his information. He ended it with asking her if Griffin had done the right thing.

Skipping her usual pause before giving advice, Mrs. Buchanan said, “The simple answer to whether or not he did the right thing would be no. Call me old-fashioned for saying that. I don’t see this is a battle of right and wrong necessarily though.”

Nathan was about to open his mouth when she began the real lecture.

“I suppose you want to know if your best friend did something gravely terrible by sneaking off with a girl who was in a relationship. The times have obviously changed since I was an eligible girl, and I’m not going to say you’re all going to Hell for doing things that people in my day would have done if we didn’t have genuine fear of our parents. Though I’m sure plenty of them did. So provided that Griffin didn’t force himself on this young lady, or coerced her in any way other than flirting, I wouldn’t be concerned about your friend going to Hell. This is a battle for him to decide for himself.”

“I guess I knew that. But I can’t help feel like he should’ve respected the girl’s relationship. Even if she didn’t want to.” This was more a commentary on his own situation than Griffin’s, but it was disguised quite well.

Mrs. Buchanan seemed to appreciate the level of interest Nathan had for the sanctity of relationships. “That’s true, but what happened transpired because the girl had no regards for the commitment she made. I won’t call this infidelity because kids your age hardly understand the concept of a relationship enough to wrap their heads around what constitutes a violation, but this is a case of a bond that was broken because it should never have existed in the first place. You talked about how nonchalant she was after you came in. I don’t think this was a girl who was remorseful for her actions. It’s clear that the relationship she’s in should not exist. Or maybe it’s just that you all were too drunk. Heavens, I don’t know.”

As Nathan pondered what had just been said, Mrs. Buchanan added with a wink, “I wouldn’t be worried about Griffin cheating on your relationship with him. What you two have is far too special.”

The question was a unique twist on the concept of asking a question about your friend so that you can reap the benefits of the answer, a tactic often deployed in children’s sitcoms. The Griffin question was authentic, but he cared about the answer as it pertained to his feelings about Jackie. Mrs. Buchanan’s answer gave some insight toward the impertinent nature of teenage relationships, but he wasn’t going after someone from his own generation.

The thing Nathan wanted to figure out most of all was whether or not he was even in a position to pursue her at all. He had no problems with the age difference and after talking to Mrs. Buchanan, he wasn’t so sure that having feelings for a married woman was necessarily wrong either, given the obvious shortcomings of Steve. The loneliness she exuded while intoxicated combined with the wad of cash she’d given him were just a couple reasons to think there was a remote possibility Jackie might be attracted to him. He tried to avoid thinking that loneliness was a major factor, but it did work to his advantage.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Mrs. Buchanan asked. “More counsel on the matters of life and love.”

The mood was certainly pleasant in the library as Nathan’s anxiety eased. “No, thanks. I think I’m good,” he replied. “Always important not to force things and to let them happen naturally,” he added.

This simplistic notion would serve as the framework for his courtship of Jackie McCarthy.

Chapter 13

Nathan might have been the only student in the state of New York who relished the quiet comfort of finals week. The usual procrastinators and other subpar students were scrambling to salvage a wasted semester of goofing off. He had a good time at school, but he found that keeping up with his work did not detract much from his ability to have fun. This allowed him to put only a few hours into studying when tests came up and didn’t force him to miss many social opportunities.

He went to a yoga class after reading an article online saying that it was the best way to calm down while studying. He found many girls his age also believed in this logic but were struggling to apply it in the class itself. A girl broke down crying on her mat because she thought she would fail AP European History. Nathan had been too relaxed to care.

The only thing he was nervous about was babysitting the McCarthy children on Tuesday. His studying was going fine, but he kept wondering about what his next interaction with Jackie would be. He could not really prepare for that. This plagued the rest of his weekend, but a phone call put an end to his speculation on Monday afternoon.

He sat in his room studying with the TV on. Cupcake Wars was a guilty pleasure of his, but he was only half paying attention as he went over the names of characters for his English final. This kind of work was tedious, but necessary though he could still focus completely with the TV on in the background. His phone rang and he paused the TV as his face lit up when he saw who was calling.

“Hi, Nathan. It’s Jackie. I’m at the store, and I was wondering if there was anything you’d like me to pick up for dinner tomorrow.”

For a brief second, Nathan allowed himself to think that she was talking about the dinner, which she suggested that they should have. She sounded informal enough for it to be believable to a delusional teenager. Knowing that she was talking about her children, he quickly started to think of ideas. The cupcakes on the TV weren’t helping.

“Hmm. Do your kids have any particular favorites?” he asked, forgetting that he’d mentioned cheeseburgers to her at their club.

“Well, we eat out a lot so they’re pretty flexible. I know Tiffany and April really like Chinese food, but that’s a pain to make.”

Nathan started to laugh, but he held back for fear of sounding condescending toward a woman whose culinary skills were well beneath his own. “Uh, it’s not that hard. Stir-fry is really easy. Why don’t you pick up some chicken, soy sauce, rice, and some veggies. Surprise me,” he added, sounding slightly flirtatious and nonchalant.

“Wow, you really are an impressive person. I can’t believe you can make all of this. Can you come by around five-fifteen tomorrow? I don’t need to give you another tour, unless you’d like one,” she said. Nathan was not really sure why she added in that last part, giving the illusion that she might be just as nervous as he was.

He didn’t want to overthink it. “Sounds great, see you tomorrow.” Just as he was about to hang up the phone, he said, “Wait, Jackie.”

“Yeah, Nathan, what is it?”

He wasn’t sure how to say it without making her feel stupid, but he blurted out, “Make sure you take the chicken out of the freezer a couple hours before.”

He heard a laugh on the other line. “All right, Emeril, I think I know how to defrost a chicken.”

He was pleased that he hadn’t upset her. “Okay, can’t be too careful.” He hung up the phone.

He wasn’t really sure what to make of that conversation. There wasn’t anything in it that inherently suggested any romantic connotations, as much as he would’ve liked it to. He still saw parallels between his conversations with her and the early days of his romance with Sarah.

Nathan had met Sarah at a party at Ralph’s house. She attracted his attention when he found her rummaging through Ralph’s kitchen in search of a bottle opener for her Smirnoff Ice. She was startled by his presence at first and then grew annoyed when he told her the bottles were twist-off. Despite this, some spark had gone off and they found themselves hooking up just two hours later.

Their relationship had largely been the result of Sarah being attracted to Nathan’s oddities and her desire to make him into something he wasn’t. Her biggest complaint about him was that she didn’t feel like he needed her. He unsuccessfully tried to convince her that this was either untrue or irrelevant, to no avail.

He still thought the concept of “needing” someone to be ridiculous. He had interests which extended beyond her and saw no need to change them because she wasn’t into them. He also didn’t think she’d get along with Mrs. Buchanan, which seemed funny but was also telling in deciding if she was a keeper. This had not been entirely deduced before she made the decision for him.

Maybe this was what drew him to Jackie. He could see that her emotional needs were more than his, but she was a woman who would be naturally independent because she was a mother. Making space in his life for her did not require any sort of drastic change.

Despite these reservations, Nathan was still very excited to spend another evening babysitting her children. He dropped his studying and started looking up recipes for stir-fry. He’d made it a few times before, but he wanted to hit a home run with the McCarthy children. If they hated him, his chances with Jackie were dead in the water.

The second time babysitting was a lot more low-key, probably due to the mood set right from the start. The fact that Jackie was wearing jeans alluded to the fact that her plans were far less important this time around. Nathan made light of this when he stepped through the door.

He said, “Oh, no big fancy baseball dinner tonight, Jackie,” as his eye contact with her intensified. He described this as “sort of flirting” to Griffin once. He simply raised his tone a bit while not asking anything particularly provocative in order to gauge the interest of the other person. Some people might call this teasing, but Nathan preferred to take full credit.

It seemed to have achieved the desired result. “Oh, stop, Nathan. I’m just going for drinks, not a late night. Are you done with school yet?”

“Not quite. Finals are this week. It’s not too bad,” he replied, not realizing the guilt potential this information could have on his employer.

Jackie gasped. “Oh, you should have said something. I don’t want to make you mess up your finals because I asked you to babysit. And I pressured you to cook too. I should have known. I’m so sorry.” From the look on her face, he might have suspected there had been a death in the family.

This made Nathan feel almost as terrible as Jackie while he watched the tides begin to turn on his good fortune. “No, no, it’s fine. My exams won’t be that bad, I promise. I wouldn’t have said yes if it were going to be an issue. Jackie, don’t feel bad. I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about it.” He tried to control the damage without going overboard.

The one thing that really stuck with him as he did his best to make sure Mrs. McCarthy felt better was that he had become perfectly capable of calling her by her first name. He had previously felt very awkward doing it, but now it felt like second nature. In two short weeks, he had grown comfortable casually conversing with her.

Jackie left after apologizing at least a dozen more times though Nathan detected just a hint of sarcasm in the last few. Tiffany was once again in her room and Randall was watching the Disney Channel, leaving April to help once again with the cooking. She had seemed rather amused by her mother’s constant apologies.

“What can I do?” she asked, eager to help with the preparation. Nathan had located the wok in the drawer. He was happy that the McCarthys owned one, as he did not feel comfortable asking Jackie that over the phone after the defrosting debacle.

“If you promise not to cut yourself, you can prep the veggies while I get the chicken all sliced up,” he replied. “I think your mom would have a heart attack if you starting bleeding.”

As if she had been expecting a comment about Jackie’s previous behavior, April said, “Yeah, she can get a little cray cray when she thinks she’s bothered someone.”
Cray cray
was a popular substitute for the word crazy, often used by children either near April’s age or around her maturity level. Nathan had never understood why someone would say that instead of crazy, as if kids had something against the letter
z
or simple pronunciations.

Nathan wanted to ask April more about this, but he struggled to find a way to ask her that wouldn’t be construed as peculiar. Her perception could give him insight but could just as easily get him into trouble. Children were often massive information sponges, but approaching them wasn’t always easy. Nathan didn’t want her to think he was drilling her in any way.

Fortunately, April seemed perfectly willing to disclose more information. She said, “It’s because of my dad. He’s usually in a bad mood and he yells at her a lot. Sometimes I pray for her to leave him.”

Whoa
, Nathan thought to himself. He’d just realized why asking kids for gossip was a bad idea. He was left with absolutely no idea what to say to her.

This didn’t stop him from trying. “April, don’t say that, I’m sure your father loves you very much.” He had no idea if this was true, but he thought that this was what people said to children when these sorts of statements were made.

April didn’t appear to appreciate it, though. “You don’t even know him. He’s terrible. Who cares that he used to play baseball. He cheated anyway. No one cares except the people he works with or want money from him,” she said, with all the melodrama one could expect and then some.

The previous statement was not entirely accurate. Nathan did know a little bit about subpar fathers, even if his wasn’t in MLB. He wasn’t a cheater, either. All Jerome was really guilty of was not being around. Nathan had grown to not care about that any longer.

In an attempt to calm April down, he said, “Why don’t you poor the oil in while I heat up the wok?” He didn’t really want her around fire, but knives were not a great alternative.

April seemed to understand that her words had made Nathan feel uncomfortable and readily agreed to help with the oil. As she was pouring a bit in, she asked Nathan about the process. “Isn’t cooking basically just putting raw stuff into hot things?”

Nathan found himself thinking about a deeper meaning for the questions. “Pretty much. It’s not too hard. You master that first basic step and move on to the finesse from there. A lot of people overdo parts and it doesn’t turn out right. All a process.”

Nathan had essentially created his own deeper meaning there. He wasn’t sure what to make of what he’d said other that it felt profound and would make a lot more sense coming from Mrs. Buchanan. Now was not the time to ponder the inner philosophy behind his presence in the McCarthy household.

The rest of the cooking went well. Whenever Nathan felt like something could potentially go wrong with the preparation, he’d just add more soy sauce and stir the wok around a bit. He felt like this was a proper solution and was cautious not to overindulge for risk of giving the children sodium overload.

The quietness of the oldest and youngest members of the McCarthy household was something that Nathan struggled to wrap his head around. It would be one thing if all three children were quiet, but he sometimes struggled to get a word in edgewise with April. He tried to engage them in conversation whenever possible, but he found this is to be a fruitless endeavor.

Tiffany provided perhaps the only interesting comment he’d heard from her in his albeit brief time with her. As they were eating, she said almost directly to April, “This is
two
more times we’ll get a home cooked meal than last summer.”

Nathan thought about the peculiarity of that comment before asking, “Doesn’t your dad own a restaurant?” He had learned this information from a brief Google search of Steven McCarthy.

It was clear his children held him in low regard. The man’s baseball career would’ve been a respectable one without the steroids, even with the knee injury. His kids looked a little too young to care about that. After baseball, he’d diversified his portfolio and started looking like a respectable human being, on paper at least. Nathan had no desire to meet him, especially after the feelings he now had for his wife.

Tiffany rolled her eyes as she looked at her siblings. “Yeah, he does. Sort of like the boxer with all the grills. He just gave them some money and his face and now he’s got a restaurant. I doubt he could make a bowl of cereal that didn’t taste like shit.”

Nathan once again found himself in an awkward position with the McCarthy children. First Jackie had been slammed, and now Steve. He didn’t even think to reprimand Tiffany for using a cuss word in front of her five-year-old brother. He understood that kids often held resentment for their parents, but he’d never been in the position to directly deal with it.

The worst part was he was actually kind of enjoying it. Seeing Steve’s kids rag on him like that made Nathan feel good about his lustful feelings. The more he heard about Steve, the better he felt about what he was doing.

The after dinner festivities were similar to the last time he was there. Tiffany disappeared to do whatever ten-year-old girls do, and Nathan sat between April and Randall on the couch while they watched their children’s programming. He thought of more ways to detest Steve as a human being.