No Ordinary Child

“I hardly think the woman is a battle-ax.” Sam rubbed his brow. But that was a lie. Three hundred pounds if she was an ounce, Cloretta sported kinky gray curls that looked rubberized, wore hideous flowered polyester pantsuits and size-twelve white nursing oxfords. She topped it all with a perpetual scowl. Okay. So what if Cloretta was a bit of a stereotypical battle-ax nanny? “It wouldn’t hurt Meggie to come under a firm disciplinary hand for once.”

“Oh, really? What good would that do? Discipline or not, Meggie is always going to be age three, mentally.”

“But she doesn’t have to be a bratty, unmanagable age three,” Sam argued. He had long worried about the fact that Andrea spoiled their child to pieces, but he felt powerless to change that when he only had Meggie for short visits three times a year. But now, for the foreseeable future, their little terror Meggie was going to be his sole responsibility. He didn’t exactly have a ton of options here. “I’m calling Bob Barrett.”

Gayle stopped making the sandwich and clapped her hands once. “Wait! I know who we need!” She darted in front of Sam on his way to the built-in kitchen desk. “Christy Lane! Do you have a phone book?”

“Who?” Sam followed his mother as she turned and charged to the desk. The name Christy Lane had a familiar ring.

“The Pearsons’ nanny. That child is delightful! Very creative. Does origami and stuff like that with the Pearson children. Why, she actually gives those kids piano lessons.”

“Mom, Meggie doesn’t need piano lessons and origami. She needs constant management and close supervision.”

“Meggie has the right to have fun just like any other child. And from what I hear, Christy Lane is an absolute bundle of fun. Lou said she is adorable.” Gayle was rapidly opening and closing cabinet doors above the desk.

“Lou who?” Sam said.

“Trustworthy. Kind. Talented. Lou can’t say enough good things about her. The girl is a regular Mary Poppins.”

Finding Sam’s cupboards predictably bare, Gayle started opening the desk drawers. “Where on earth do you keep the phone books in this house?”

Sam wondered how his mother knew so much about this Christy Lane woman. “If this nanny is so special, won’t the Pearsons be determined to keep her?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. The Pearsons don’t actually need a nanny. All Amy Pearson does is shop. Ah-ha!” She pulled a Tulsa telephone directory out of a drawer.

“I swear, every time I pass through Dillard’s at Utica Square, there’s good old Amy,” Gayle muttered as she flipped the pages of the phone book. “Pawing through a sale table or examining some ridiculous little purse as if it were an archeological find. It wouldn’t hurt that woman to stay home with her children once in a while. And I saw Christy running a register at Wal-Mart the other day, so I’m thinking the Pearsons probably don’t employ her full-time. I’m sure she’d much rather work for you.”

Again, Sam wondered how his mother could possibly know what Christy Lane would rather do. “Mom—” he slapped his palm onto the open phone book “—I refuse to hire somebody else’s nanny right out from under them.”

“This—” Gayle yanked the phone book out, jerking Sam off balance “—is a family emergency. Besides, I’m not calling Christy Lane. I’m calling Lou Allen—” She flipped the phone book open.

“Lou who?” Sam asked again.

“Lou Allen. Amy’s mother? I’ll talk to Lou and then she’ll talk to Amy and then Amy will talk to Christy. It’s how these things get done—with a little finesse. Before I’m through with them, the Pearsons will feel like they’ve done a great kindness for us.” She glanced at his skeptical frown, then started punching numbers into the phone. “Sam. Your situation is dire, even if it is—” She paused with her finger above the phone and gave Sam’s face a searching look. “This is only temporary. Isn’t it?”

Sam didn’t know what to say. The thought that it might not be temporary had snaked across his mind, but he’d banished it. Andrea would get well. Andrea had to get well. She would get well and they would all return to their former lives—patched together and painful as those lives sometimes were.

How he longed at this moment for his former imperfect, sometimes hectic life. Drumming up enough projects and contracts to keep a business with twenty employees thriving. Keeping track of a handicapped daughter who lived all the way across the country. Staying at the office until the wee hours to finish the drafting on a project. Sometimes he got lonely, but now that his imperfect life was about to be torn to pieces, he decided it hadn’t been so bad, after all. He could visit the remote building sites whenever the mood struck. He could indulge in late-night dinners and drinks at the Polo Grill with his buddies. He never had any trouble arranging the occasional date with an attractive young woman. But now…now his solitary life was about to become totally disrupted. His mother’s meddling couldn’t possibly make it any worse.

“Okay,” he said, caving in, “call your friend Lou and ask her to see if Amy Pearson might be able to loan me this Christy Lane woman for a while. Let’s say just for the summer.”

“Yes. We can make it through the holiday weekend on our own.” Gayle Solomon was already punching in the final numbers. “And then Christy can start next week.”

CHRISTY LANE SMILED AT THE next customer. Smile. Smile. Smile. It’s a good thing she had perfected that little habit. The average patron at Wal-Mart seemed to be in sore need of a smiling face. Especially on a Memorial Day weekend when the crowds were crazy.

This next guy was a fat old sourpuss who whomped a very corroded battery onto the conveyor belt beside the shiny new one he obviously intended to buy. “I’ll want the battery deposit refund,” he announced to the whole store. “You got any idea how to do that?”

“Sorry. You’ll need to stand in our special battery-deposit-refund line on the other side of the store for that.”

His face shot red and his fat lips dropped open, ready to spew out a diatribe, no doubt, about how he’d already been standing in line for half an hour, or whatever. But quick as a flash, Christy tapped his rough hand with her pen. “Just kidding.” She winked. “Five bucks, coming right up.”

If her smile didn’t work, a little touch usually did. The old sourpuss grinned, visibly relaxed.

A little girl in the line started whining about needing to go to the bathroom, so Christy punched the necessary keys lightning fast. “Here you go.” She dismissed Mr. Sourpuss with his receipt, the refund and another quick smile.

Christy treated every customer special. Every customer got her full attention. Her friendly, laid-back style was deceptive. Christy’s line actually moved faster than the other checkers’.

The next lady, a slender, petite woman with stylishly bobbed graying hair, smiled and said hi. Christy could sum people up pretty fast, and this one was not your typical Wal-Mart maven. She wore an expensive-looking gray silk outfit with a tiny black alligator shoulder bag strapped across her chest. She was buying a bunch of kiddie stuff, and while Christy ran the items over the scanner, the woman leaned forward confidentially. In a strange, low voice she said, “Christy?”

Christy glanced up from her work with her habitual smile. Her name tag read Christina, so how did this woman know she preferred to be called Christy? “Do I know you, ma’am?”

“No, you don’t,” the lady said. “I’m a friend of Amy Pearson’s.”

“Oh!” Christy relaxed. “Yeah. Mrs. Pearson.” The beep of the scanner continued rhythmically. Some little kiddo was sure getting a load of stuff. Beginner coloring books, Barney videos, musical cassettes, preschool toys. Maybe she was shopping for two kids, because there were also socks and underwear big enough for a school-age child.

The woman leaned in a little more. “I called Amy a couple of days ago, asked her to give you my number. Did she?”

“Me? No. Not that I know of. But I haven’t been home enough to check my machine.” Between this Wal-Mart job at night, her part-time nanny job in the daytime and writing her songs, there was little time to take care of details at her own humble apartment. Lately, Christy had been praying for a breather.

Beep. Beep.

“I’m Gayle Solomon.”

Christy’s hand halted and so did the beeping. Solomon. As in Sam Solomon? This woman, though incredibly well preserved, certainly did look old enough to be his mother. Christy took a closer look. As a matter of fact, the deep-set dark blue eyes were amazingly similar.

“Do I know you?” Christy said again, although she already knew that the answer was no. If she had ever met Sam Solomon’s mother, she would have surely remembered it.

“No, you don’t know me, but I believe you went to high school with my son.”

Gayle Solomon decided to leave it at that. She didn’t add that she’d had a soft spot in her heart for Christy Lane ever since she delivered a new coat to Christy’s house on behalf of the Junior League. The beautiful, tiny blond child who had answered the door had caused Gayle’s breath to catch in her throat.

“Are you the coat lady?” the child had said with the sweetest little smile.

Gayle hadn’t been able to stop herself from staring. The delicate little girl before her could have been Lila’s twin.

Through the years, Gayle managed to find ways to encounter Christy over and over, always from a distance, always with a strange mixture of longing and curiosity and sorrow. At the Junior League vision screening in third grade, when it was determined that Christy desperately needed eyeglasses, Gayle quietly arranged to pay for the eyewear herself. She had seen the conditions at Christy’s home firsthand—there would be no money for glasses in that impoverished family of four children. Later, Gayle had come to the same conclusion about braces.

And years later, when the arts council was choosing its scholarship recipients, Gayle had squared Christy’s application in front of her on her mahogany desk and reminded herself to remain strictly impartial. Then she opened the folder and stared at Christy’s senior photo, at her pretty, round blue eyes, her sweet smile. She remembered thinking, Is this what Lila might have looked like?

Through the years, Gayle had managed to keep track of Christy’s progress, and her struggles. And through the years, Gayle had kept Christy close in her heart, wishing the best for her, as if she were her godchild or something. As if she were her lost daughter.

And now here they were, face-to-face in Wal-Mart. If only Amy Pearson had cooperated and allowed Gayle to do this behind the scenes, the way she’d done everything else for Christy Lane.

The beeping started again.

“Your son? Is his name Sam?” Christy smiled her famous smile again. But she imagined it looked just a touch uneasy now. She could never think about Sam Solomon without getting a little confused. She’d actually written a song about him once, to get him out of her system: “I Should Be Over You.” It never sold.

“Yes. My son’s name is Sam Solomon.” The beeping finished and Gayle swiped her card to pay. “Do you remember him?”