Crazy About the Baumgartners (3 page)

If
it weren’t for the Baumgartners, I never would have met Ronnie, I realized. And
it was the Baumgartners who gave me the solution to my sudden dilemma. Ronnie
had slept with the Baumgartners and had said she loved it. I knew she loved men
and she loved women. We both had that particular proclivity. So why in the
world couldn’t we share?

Yes,
I’d been jealous while I watched her having sex with Vince, it was true. But I
wasn’t jealous because I wanted her all to myself. I was jealous just because I
wanted her. I wanted her
too.
It was that simple. I wouldn’t have minded
being in the middle of her and Vince, I wouldn’t have minded that at all. In
fact, the thought made me incredibly wet.

So
the simple solution to my problem was just telling Ronnie I knew—and
telling her I didn’t mind, because, really, I didn’t. As long as I could be
part of her relationship with this guy, why would I mind? And Vince… what guy
on the planet would say no to a threesome, I reasoned. It was a foolproof plan.
I smiled, starting the car, the weight on my chest lifted. I couldn’t wait to
tell Ronnie. It was the perfect solution.

“Gretchen?”
Doc knocked on the door.

“Just
a minute!” I sniffed, wiping at my eyes with a Kleenex and blowing my nose. I
flushed, pretending I was actually peeing, and looked at my face in the mirror
as I washed my hands. My eyes were red-rimmed, my face puffy from crying. I
looked awful, which made a whole lot of sense, because I felt awful.

“Are
you feeling okay?” he asked softly. “The fireworks are starting soon. The kids
want you to do sparklers with them.”

“I’m
coming!” I patted my cold, wet hands against my cheeks, wiping my face on a
hand towel before pulling open the door.

“Hey.”
Doc cocked his head, his eyes far too perceptive as they searched my face.
“Listen, if you don’t feel well…”

“No,
I’m okay.” I assured him, trying on a smile, hoping it looked convincing. “The
kids are out back still?”

I
could hear the sounds of the party going on, music and laughter. The
Baumgartners were hosting their annual Fourth of July party in their backyard.
They had the perfect vantage point for the fireworks, over the field behind the
house. The Clinton River ran back there and that’s where they let off the
fireworks, in the city park across the river. There was a gazebo by the water
they rented out for weddings and a small playground for the kids.

Down
by the river, people lined both sides of the grass with blankets. But over
here, separated by fields and trees, we could still see the fireworks display
and we didn’t have to deal with any of the drunken crowds. Not that everyone
wasn’t drunk here anyway. I could smell the booze on Doc’s breath. I wasn’t
drinking, of course. I was on nanny duty.

“Sure
you’re all right?” he asked, still blocking my way. He clearly wasn’t going to
let me go until I’d reassured him again. But I didn’t want to reassure him. I
could barely reassure myself.

“Ronnie
broke up with me.” I just said it, no first thought, let alone a second one. I
blinked, just as surprised as he was at my words.

“Oh,
Gretchen.” Doc put a heavy hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t even know… I mean, I knew you were roommates…”

“Right.
Roommates.” I spat the word. That’s what she’d told Vince I was. Just her
roommate.

I
still couldn’t believe she was gone. She’d moved all her stuff out last week
while I sat at the kitchen table and watched Vince carry her boxes. I still
couldn’t believe she’d rejected my perfect plan. Because it had been so
perfect. So very perfect. There had only been one flaw in my logic. It had
never occurred to me that Ronnie wouldn’t want to share.

And
that meant she had to choose.

And
she had chosen Vince.

I
burst into tears again, remembering the look on her face when she gave me back
her key. Like we were just roommates. I’d managed to keep it together until she
left, until she pulled away in Vince’s Ford F-150, all of her worldly
possessions strapped down in back. And then I’d lost it. And I’d been losing it
ever since. Just like this.

“I’m
sorry,” I apologized to Doc, shaking my head, trying to get it together again.
Just telling someone else had made it even more real. I’d been sleeping on the
couch all week because I couldn’t sleep in my own bed. Our bed. The bed I’d
watched her have sex with Vince in.

“Hey,
hey, it’s okay.” Doc put his arms around me, and that little bit of comfort
destroyed any chance of me regaining my composure. I collapsed, sobbing,
really, really sobbing, like I had that first night, curled up in a fetal
position on the sofa, crying all night long.

Doc
pulled me into another room—their bedroom—sitting on the edge of
the bed with me, an arm around my shoulder as I sobbed against his chest. He
didn’t shush me, he just let me cry, his arms encircling me tightly until,
slowly, my tears ended with long, hitching breaths.

“Want
to talk about it?” Doc asked softly.

I
shook my head, looking down at my hands, but I did. I talked anyway. I told Doc
about my relationship with Ronnie. About seeing her with Vince. About my
perfect solution and its imperfect dissolution. Because Ronnie didn’t want to
share. Instead, she decided to choose. And she chose someone else.

“Why
didn’t she choose me?” I asked softly, my breath still hitching in my chest.
“What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s
nothing wrong with you, sweetheart,” he assured me. “Nothing, Gretchen, I
promise you.”

“Then
why?” I wailed.

“I
don’t know.” He sighed, his arm tightening around my shoulder. I felt his lips
brush the top of my forehead, soft, tender. “Some people are just too afraid of
who they really are to embrace a bigger life.”

A
bigger life. I liked the sound of that.

“Did
you love Ronnie?” I sniffed, lifting my head to meet his eyes. I had never told
them that I knew, but he saw it in my eyes.

“Yes.”
He nodded slowly, answering me honestly. “We both did. Carrie and I. Ronnie is
easy to love.”

“I
know.” My lower lip quivered. “I loved her too.”

“But
she’s so young,” he reminded me, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“So
am I.” I was only twenty-six. Ronnie was five years younger than me.

“She’s
young in a different way,” Doc countered. “Ronnie is naïve.”

“Not
anymore.” I snorted.

“Just
because she’s more sexually experienced doesn’t make her any less naïve,” Doc
said. “Do you know what I think? I think Ronnie will find someone. Maybe this
guy. Maybe the next. Or the one after that. And she’ll settle down and she’ll
have kids. And she’ll start to realize that her life isn’t quite complete.
There’s something missing. Someone.”

I
sniffed. “It’ll be too late.”

“For
you and her, probably. But Gretchen, you already know who you are. You know
what you want. You’re already ten steps ahead of her. And by the time Ronnie
realizes who she is, time will be her enemy.”

“How
do you know all this?” I lifted my head to meet his eyes. They were brown, dark
and deep and kind.

“Experience.”
He smiled.

“Thanks,”
I whispered. It was hard being alone in the world, and knowing that the
Baumgartners were open-minded and loving and really cared—it meant a lot.

“Any
time.” He stood, holding a hand out to me. “I think those are the fireworks. Or
else Carrie’s finally decided to kill the children.”

“We
better get out there.” I laughed, letting him help me off the bed.

I
excused myself to wash my face in the bathroom, hearing the boom of fireworks
again. I glanced out the window to see the pink sparkle just fading in the sky.
I wondered if Doc would tell Mrs. B everything, and realized, of course he
would. They were married. I had told Ronnie everything and we weren’t even
officially a couple. Even if it had felt like we were.

Downstairs,
I joined the festivities. Parents sat in lawn chairs with bottles of beer or
wine coolers while kids ran around in the grass with sparklers, making patterns
and writing their names in the air. I saw Doc sitting next to Mrs. B, their
heads bent, talking together.

“Gretchen,
come do sparklers!” Henry appeared at my elbow, grabbing my hand and dragging
me through the crowded backyard. I wasn’t the only nanny present—Kim Lowe
was another nanny in charge of sparklers. She was sitting in a lawn chair,
lighting them and handing them out to the kids, who took off running.

“Hi.”
She smiled at me, nodding to the empty chair beside her. Kim was a tiny, pretty
oriental girl with the smallest hands and feet I’d ever seen on a grown adult.

I
sat in the lawn chair and helped her light sparklers as the crowd ooohed and
ahhhed over the big fireworks overhead. I just kept thinking that Ronnie was
supposed to be here. Mrs. B had asked me to invite her, and although Ronnie had
hesitated when I asked, she said she’d come. And now she was gone. She was
probably somewhere over on that riverbank, sharing a blanket with Vince and his
monster cock.

“Gretchen,
look!” Henry grinned, writing obscenities with his sparkler, misspelling “fuck”
as “fok.”

“Henry,”
I warned and he rolled his eyes, going back to making figure-eights.

“Come
sit with me on the blanket, Gretchen.” Janie came over, no sparkler in hand.
“Sparklers are for babies. Let’s watch the big fireworks.”

So
I followed Janie over to the blanket and Henry soon joined us on the ground,
all piled up in a heap as more and more kids joined in, abandoning sparklers in
favor of the big pyrotechnics show going on in the sky. It was a beautiful
display, and the finale at the end made everyone cheer and clap.

Then
the neighbors gathered their kids and started saying their goodbyes. I steered
two overtired kids toward the house, smiling at Doc and Mrs. B as I passed.

“I’ll
get them to bed,” I called. They were playing host and hostess, wishing
everyone a good night.

Once
the kids were in their pajamas and had brushed their teeth, I tucked them in.
Janie was sleeping almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. I kissed her
forehead and pulled up her blanket, leaving the door slightly cracked on my way
out. Henry was awake but sleepy, his eyes half-closed when I came in to shut
out the light. I smiled, seeing an old squirt bottle of “monster spray”—a
trick I used back when he was afraid there were monsters under his bed or in
his closet—sitting on his dresser. He didn’t ask for it anymore, but it
was still there anyway, just in case.

“No
more profanity, Henry,” I warned, brushing his dark hair from his eyes. He was
a little mini-Doc in a lot of ways. “Got it?”

“What’s
profanity?”

“Swearing.”

“Oh.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Goodnight,
Henry.”

“Goodnight.”

I
shut out the light, leaving his door cracked too. Mrs. B insisted, just in case
they called out in the middle of the night, because the Baumgartners’ bedroom
was all the way upstairs. I made my way down the hallway, through the big, open
kitchen, into the family room. I looked through the French doors onto the
patio, seeing the crowd had dispersed. Doc and Mrs. B were sitting in lawn
chairs, talking. I went outside, starting to pick up empty cans and bottles, holding
the recycling bin against my hip as I went.

“Gretchen,”
Mrs. B called, waving me over. “Leave it. Come here.”

“I’m
just cleaning up.” I squatted to pick up two wine coolers leaning against the
leg of one of the lawn chairs.

“Don’t
worry about it tonight,” Doc said, waving me over too.

“We’ll
get it in the morning,” Mrs. B assured me. “Come on, have a seat. We want to
talk to you.”

I
put the recycling bin on one of the chairs, walking slowly over to where they
were sitting. They looked serious, too serious, and I was suddenly nervous.

“Am
I getting fired?”

“No!”
Doc. laughed. “Of course not!”

“Doc
told me about you and Ronnie.” Mrs. B reached out, taking my hand. Hers was
soft, tender, as she pulled me toward the third chair. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.”
I sank into the lawn chair across from the two of them.

“We’ve
been talking,” Doc said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, fingers tented.
“And we’d like to you to stay.”

“Oh.”
I looked around at the mess all over the lawn, empty bottles and cans, junk
food wrappers, used sparklers and fireworks wrappers. “Well, thanks. I
appreciate it. I can stay the night and help you clean up in the morning.”

“No,
Gretchen.” Mrs. B smiled, shaking her head, leaning forward again to take my
hand in hers. “We want you to stay. Here. Full-time.”

“You
mean, as a live-in?” I looked between the two of them, back and forth, not
quite believing what I was hearing.

“Yes,”
Doc insisted with a reassuring smile. “We want you to live here. We’ll give you
the guest room upstairs.”

“Are
you sure?” I looked down at Mrs. B’s hand in mine.

“We
were already going to ask.” Mrs. B covered my hand with her other one. “You
know we’ve been approved as a foster family and they’ll probably place a baby
with us soon.”

A
baby. I saw a lot of sleepless nights in my future. But I didn’t really mind.
The Baumgartners paid very well already, and I was only with them part-time. A
full-time position would be even better. And I wouldn’t have to worry about
getting another roommate, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

“What
do you say?” Doc prompted.

“Yes.”
I smiled, squeezing Mrs. B’s hand in mine. “Absolutely. I’d love to.”

“I’m
so glad.” Mrs. B sat back, looking relieved. “You’re already a part of a
family. Now you’ll just be living with us too. It’s perfect!”

The
perfect solution.

“You
can stay in the guest room tonight.” Doc stood, yawning and stretching. “We’ll
get your stuff this weekend.”

“Thanks.”
I stood too, looking between them. “Really, you guys… thanks. You’ve saved me so
many times.”

Well,
twice. But who was counting?

“And
you’ve saved us,” Mrs. B reassured me, standing and putting an arm around her
husband’s waist. “You’re so good with Janie and Henry.”

“They’re
good kids.” I knew that was true even more after tonight, having hung out with
a bunch of other kids who weren’t anywhere near as well behaved. “Well, I guess
I’ll go turn in. I’ll get up early so we can clean up this mess.”

“Goodnight,
Gretchen.” Doc called as I headed toward the house.

“Goodnight.”
I closed the French doors behind me, looking around the enormous family room
with its cathedral ceilings, giant TV, brick fireplace. This was home now? It
was hard to imagine.

I
went upstairs, used the bathroom, undressed down to my t-shirt and underwear,
and got into the big guest room bed. I turned out the lamp and snuggled under
the covers, thinking about Ronnie, about the Baumgartners. About my life up
until now and my life going forward. Was this it? Was I going to be a nanny
forever? I wasn’t averse to the idea—and I was relatively good at it. And
I did love the Baumgartners.