Tainted Love (6 page)

“Hey, Esme.” Steven strode into the room, a very different picture from his wife. His friendly, tanned face was lined, since he was successful enough in Hollywood to eschew Botox without economic repercussions. A baseball cap hid his thinning hair, and he was sporting his on-again-off-again scraggly beard. If you didn't know that he was one of the most successful producers in the history of television, you could easily mistake him for a homeless guy outside the Staples Center. “How's life?”

“Fine,” Esme replied, resisting the urge to add “sir.” Mr. Goldhagen had told her endless times to call him Steven, but it still felt odd.

“Sit, sit.” Steven motioned toward a high-backed eggshell velvet chair. Meanwhile, he joined Diane on the matching sofa. Okay, this was getting stranger by the moment. As easygoing as Steven was, he was almost always working. Even when he ran on his home-office treadmill (he had another in his new digs on the Warner Brothers lot, where he'd recently inked a three-year deal), he used the time to watch daily rushes from one of his shows. What was he doing home on a workday?

“We have a surprise for you,” Diane said. Cleo barked her
agreement, which made Diane laugh. “I think it will make you really happy.”

You're doubling my salary
, Esme guessed silently as she waited for the kicker.
You bought a winning lottery ticket and since you're already richer than God you've decided to give the fifty-five mil to my parents so they don't have to scrub your toilets and mow your lawn and nice you to death.

Yeah. Like
that
was going to happen.

“You are about to take a trip to the airport.” Diane scratched Cleo's neck under the gold ribbon.

She was picking someone up for them. Why? They had one full-time driver and a part-time fill-in.

“Remember when we were in Jamaica and the girls wandered off at that festival?” Steven recalled. “And you met a lovely young woman named Tarshea, who helped you find them?”

Esme's heart quickened. She did remember. Tarshea Manley was a tall, lithe, and beautiful Jamaican girl, a couple of years older than Esme. They'd met when Tarshea painted the twins’ faces during a visit to the sugarcane cutting festival on Jamaica's southern shore. One minute, Esme had been chatting with Tarshea about the girl's desire to go to art school and how impossible that goal was in a place like Jamaica. The next moment, the twins were gone. Esme couldn't remember a time when she'd been more panicked over something that was her direct responsibility.

It was Tarshea who had helped her find the girls and then covered for Esme, pretending she had glanced away from them to look for another color of face paint. Tarshea's story was the only reason Diane and Steven had not fired Esme on
the spot. She had been so grateful that she'd asked the Gold-hagens if they could help bring Tarshea to America and fulfill her dream of going to art school. Maybe she could find a nanny job. Maybe Esme and her friends could help her on that score.

Steven had jotted down Tarshea's contact information, which consisted of her minister's phone number. Tarshea's family, like so many others in Jamaica, was too poor to own a phone. Esme had seen the look on her beautiful face when they'd departed to go back to their exclusive resort on the north side of the island; the sadness and resignation. Esme could tell just what the Jamaican girl was thinking: the rich Americans would have her out of mind just as soon as she was out of sight.

Now they were bringing up Tarshea's name. And the airport. So could it possibly mean—

“We managed to secure Tarshea a work visa,” Steven continued. “We hope that's a good surprise.”

“It's … fantastic!” Esme cried. “You never said anything …I can't believe … when did you …” She knew she was sputtering but she couldn't help herself.

Diane nodded approvingly. “We weren't sure we could pull it off. That's why we didn't tell you ahead of time. And we don't have a nanny job lined up for her yet, so we stretched the truth and said she'd be working for us. I hope you don't mind sharing your guesthouse with her while we find her another position.”

“No, no, of course not! Of course it's fine. I can't believe the two of you did this. It's so … kind.”

Steven looked fondly at his beautiful wife. “Thank Diane. It was her idea. She was pretty damn relentless about it.”

“Thank you,” Esme told Diane, and meant it with all her heart. Diane was such an enigma. She was high-strung and high-maintenance, worried about appearances, and at times utterly superficial. Then she turned around and did something like this.

“Tarshea's minister went on and on about how wonderful a girl she is, and how talented,” Diane said. “So I registered her for art classes at the Museum of Contemporary Art starting in the fall. My friend Abigail Huff is a docent.”

Steven glanced at his classic Rolex tank watch. “Tarshea's flight from Kingston arrives at LAX in ninety minutes. You'd better get going. International arrivals building. You'll see her when she clears customs.”

“Great. Let me get my keys.”

Esme jumped up. She'd need to run back to the guest-house to get her purse and the keys to the Goldhagens’ Audi, the car her employers had provided for her daily use.

Diane waved her off. “No need. Stuart will drive the limo. We thought Tarshea would enjoy arriving in America in style.”

“That's right. And after that, he'll take you to the Warner Brothers commissary for lunch, over in Burbank. The good one at the office building on Riverside, not the bullshit one on the lot. All you need to do is sign when you go past the cashier. See if your nanny friends can join you—what are their names? Lydia and Kiley? I'll call their bosses and send temps to watch their kids if they want. Tarshea needs to meet some people.” Steven got out his BlackBerry. “I'll call the commissary now.”

“That's very generous of you,” Esme told him.

Steven rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Just following your lead, Esme. If it wasn't for you and the initiative you took, Tarshea wouldn't be coming here. I think it's the very least that Diane and I can do.”

Tarshea stared wide-eyed out the rear window of the black stretch limousine as it inched north on the 405 freeway somewhere south of Marina del Rey. Though it wasn't yet noontime, they were stuck in traffic, with cars and SUVs in both directions as far as the eye could see.

“So many cars,” Tarshea murmured in her lilting Jamaican accent. “This is the third time in my life I've ever been in a private car. Only buses for this Jamaican girl. No wonder none of this seems real.”

Esme smiled, thinking what a huge culture shock this had to be for Tarshea, who had arrived with but a single beige suitcase held together with gray duct tape. She wore a much-washed plain white cotton blouse primly buttoned to her chin, and a thin navy blue polyester skirt that fell to her slim calves. On her feet were cheap navy blue patent leather flats. Her hair was slicked back in a short braid that showed off an elegant, swanlike neck. There was a small gold cross around her neck; her face bore no makeup.

“I didn't think this would really happen,” Tarshea confessed. “I don't know how to thank you.”

“I didn't do it. Diane Goldhagen did. Thank her.”

“You are lucky to work for such an admirable woman; adopting the twins, taking me in. … So tell me, how are the girls?”

“Fine, funny, spoiled rotten. Turning into Americans before my eyes.”

Esme loved Easton and Weston dearly. They were both still happily experiencing so many things they hadn't had back in Colombia. Everything from escalators to ice makers to cable television fascinated them. On the other hand, after barely more than two months in America, they were starting to act as though they were entitled to the life they'd parachuted into out of the blue. Recently, Jonathan and Esme had taken them out for their favorite food in the world—ice cream. When told that Cold Stone Creamery was temporarily sold out of their favorite, chocolate-chocolate-chip, each had a meltdown right in front of the counter.

“They should always remember where they came from,” Tarshea said.

“Well, Steven and Diane don't necessarily see it that way.”

“I don't understand.”

Esme tented her fingers. This was a subject that got her angry. First, the children had been born with very nice Spanish names—Isabella and Juana—but Diane had changed them to the more Hollywood-friendly Easton and Weston. Then, in a city full of Spanish speakers and Hispanic culture, it seemed more and more as though Steven and Diane were shielding their daughters from their roots. Yes, they'd hired bilingual Esme as the nanny, but that was to ease the twins’ transition to America. In Esme's opinion, the Goldhagens could be in for a rude awakening when the girls got older and realized how little their adoptive parents had made of their root culture.

“Me placeré verlos otra vez,”
Tarshea recited in halting Spanish as Stuart the driver inched the limo forward. They saw
the reason for the traffic jam: A BMW had tangled with a Hummer in the right-hand lane. The Hummer had won, judging from the condition of the Beemer's rear end. “Did I say it right?”

Esme was astonished. “ ‘I will be happy to see them again.’ When did you learn Spanish?”

“When my minister told me that he'd spoken with Mrs. Goldhagen, that she was arranging a visa for me, I immediately took a book from his library. I thought it would be important to speak to the girls in their first language. I hope my accent is not too atrocious.”

How nice was this girl? And how thoughtful?

“That's so sweet of you! Maybe together we can help them remember where they came from.” Spontaneously, she reached out and touched Tarshea's slender forearm. “I'm so glad you're here.”

Tarshea looked troubled. “You don't mind that I will be sharing your house? That is what Diane told my minister. Not that you'd be surprised, but that we'd be sharing.”

“Not at all. It will be fun.”

“I want you to know, Esme, that until I get a job, I will help you every way that I can,” Tarshea declared. “I can take care of the girls for you any time you want.”

Esme was touched. “Thanks.”

“You are more than welcome. If I lived two lifetimes, I could not do enough to pay you back.”

“I told you,” Esme insisted, “Diane is the one who—”

“But it was you who gave her the idea,” Tarshea pointed out. “I love Jamaica. It's my home. But …” Her eyes flicked back to the window. “You are an American. So you don't know
what it's like. To feel that you are stuck in poverty, to feel that no matter what you do, you can do nothing to change your circumstances.”

How ironic. Tarshea assumed that because Esme was American she was at least modestly wealthy herself. That doors were open to her. That anything was possible, when the truth was that Esme had more in common with the Jamaican girl than she did with the Goldhagens.

“Is their home very beautiful?” Tarshea asked eagerly.

Esme laughed. “That's an understatement.”

“My home is two rooms,” Tarshea explained. “For me, my parents, my two sisters and brother. We must go down to the well for water. Our bathroom we share with six other families. It is a ways from our house.”

God. Esme couldn't even imagine that.

“At the Goldhagens’ at my—
our
—guesthouse, we have our own bathroom and it's gorgeous. You'll have your own bedroom. And I'll introduce you to my friends. We're going to meet them for lunch now, in fact. Over at a movie studio. Warner Brothers.”

Tears literally came to Tarshea's eyes. “I cannot imagine.”

“Well, whatever you could imagine, the reality is even better.”

They finally passed the mess of the collision and started to speed up. Tarshea shook her head. “It's a dream. …”

Esme smiled, thrilled for her new friend. “No. It's real. Your dream is about to come true.”

Kiley stood on line with the three other girls at the entrance to the bustling commissary on the ground floor of the Warner Brothers office building on Riverside Drive. Located outside the main studio compound, the building held the writers’ offices of many WB Studios shows, including Steven's new one about the medical interns. Though the new TV season was still six weeks away, everything was in full production, which meant the commissary was jammed with workers.

Instead of playing spot-the-celebrity, Kiley's eyes were on Tarshea, who looked both overjoyed and bewildered. It wasn't surprising, since Tarshea had told them much about her life in Jamaica on the ride from Bel Air to Burbank.

What would it be like to get on a plane in that world and land in this one, where a chauffeured limousine picked you up at the airport, where you rode through streets and boulevards lined with mansions and ended up at lunch at a famous studio
commissary with three American girls? It had to be overwhelming.

“This is … it's …” Tarshea couldn't seem to find any words.

“Usually we just eat with our kids,” Kiley told her, lest the girl think that a midday reprieve like this was a daily thing.

“You'll be amazed how quick you can get used to living the high life,” Lydia added.

“I—I don't know …,” Tarshea stammered.