Selena Kitt - Babysitting the Baumgartners

I was fifteen when I started babysitting for the Baumgartners. They had two kids. Henry and Janie were four and five the first time I sat in their living room eating pizza and watching “Lilo and Stitch” with them. I still remember them that way, both conked out on the floor, their greasy faces smearing their mom’s white carpet.

I loved babysitting for them. Mr. Baumgartner-”Call me Doc, everybody does”-usually came home drunk enough to pay me way too much for the night. Mrs. Baumgartner-she never said to call her anything but Mrs. Baumgartner, although I did shorten it to “Mrs. B” over the years-was very pretty and very nice and kept really good ice cream (Haagen-Dazs) in the freezer. They had a huge TV, an enormous house, and I became their regular babysitter every Friday night, sometimes Saturdays, too, all through high school.

My parents complained they never saw me on weekends, and would ask “Where are you going now?” as I headed out the door, calling back, “I’m babysitting the Baumgartners!”

“Again?”

Mr. and Mrs. B liked to go out. And I liked the magazines and clothes I could buy with all my extra babysitting money. I never had to flip burgers like my sister, Amy. The Baumgartners even sold me my first car, a 2001 Saturn, at a price far less than I would have been given anywhere else-Mrs. B said Doc was just tired of picking me up and driving me home.

I used to have my little sister, Amy, go babysit whenever I had a conflict. That usually meant I had a date-and the Baumgartners hated it when I started dating. Really, it was a hardship for me, too. Tough call-a date with Toby Lumetto, or babysitting the Baumgartners? Amy complained the kids never behaved for her, but they always did for me. They were great kids.

I loved the Baumgartners and they loved me.

The winter of the year I graduated high school, the Baumgartners went to Key West. When they came back, Mrs. Baumgartner swore she’d never do it again without help. Henry was seven and Janie was eight, and they were “too much of a handful,” she said. Just kids, I thought, but I wasn’t their parent-I was pretty much their playmate-so what did I know?

The next winter, Mrs. Baumgartner called and asked if I wanted to come with them-all expenses paid, over the Christmas holiday-a free trip to Key West! It took me about five seconds to say “Yes!” to that proposition. My parents hemmed and hawed about it, but I was over eighteen by then, and I could pretty much do what I wanted…technically. I finally got their blessing, packed my bags, and we were off to the land of sunshine and bikinis!

Up until then, I’d sort of thought of the Baumgartners as surrogate parents, but it was during the trip to Key West when things changed. The Baumgartners became more to me-much more-and that wasn’t all that changed. Everything changed that summer.

If I’d known… I don’t know. But I had no idea at the time how transformative the trip would be, then and even later in my life.

December in the Midwest wasn’t exactly tanning weather, and I wanted to come back and show off, sleek and brown as a seal. I had a bathing suit, of course, yellow and white, fairly respectable, since I was going to be taking the kids to the beach. It did have a bikini top but boy-shorts bottoms. I left the micro-suit at home. I figured Mrs. Baumgartner wouldn’t approve.

Shows you what I knew.

The morning after we arrived, Mrs. Baumgartner came out and joined me on the beach. I was supervising the kids, who were busy making some sort of sand castle-really, it was more of a sand village, as it already spanned half the beach! What I was really doing was trying to read a Nora Roberts novel while simultaneously working on my nonexistent tan, but I was bored.

That ended the minute Mrs. Baumgartner walked out of the house. I glanced up as she slid the doorwall closed behind her, and I was glad she paused to look at her reflection in the glass, working to pull her long blonde hair up into a ponytail, because my jaw practically hit the sand. I didn’t know what she would have said about me wearing the little white micro-bikini I’d left in my drawer at home, but for a moment, I simply couldn’t hide my shock when Mrs. Baumgartner stepped out of the house wearing her own black micro-suit!

No one out here to see here – why not? I rationalized it as I watched her adjust the bikini strings. The house was right on the ocean and we had a private beach. Mr. Baumgartner said it was a timeshare. Henry and Janie had wanted to swim immediately and, it felt like, all the time, so I’d already spent tons of hours trying to soak up some sun. My skin was pale next to Mrs. Baumgartner’s though, and for the life of me, I couldn’t see a tan line on her body. Of course, her backside was completely exposed in her suit, and the front covered…very little.

I averted my eyes as she laid out a large blanket on the white sand next to my towel. “How are you feeling, Veronica?” She was the only one who ever called me by my full name. Everyone else called me “Ronnie.”

“Better.” I put my book down and turned over onto my back. We’d ordered pizza the night before, after we’d unpacked, and something on it hadn’t agreed with me. I shaded my eyes and looked over at the kids. They were now having a sand fight, screeching and throwing shovels of the white stuff at each other. I sighed. I knew someone was gonna start screaming any minute about sand in their eyes or their suit, and then I’d have to go to work.

“Henry and Janie, you need to go in the house!” Mrs. Baumgartner called, stretching out on her stomach on the blanket.

“I can take care of them, Mrs. B.” Her bikini thong left her bronzed, rounded bottom completely exposed. I blinked fast and looked away. “That’s what I’m here for, right?”

The kids stopped at their mother’s warning and treaded through the sand toward us. They really were great kids. I wished sometimes my sisters and I got along as well as they did.

“Why don’t you two go inside?” Mrs. Baumgartner said as they approached. “There’s lunch on the counter, and Daddy hooked up the X-Box.”

“Woot!” Henry whooped, kicking up sand as he headed for the doorwall. Janie didn’t look as thrilled, but the promise of lunch was enough to lure her into the house.

“You know, watching the kids isn’t all you’re here for, Veronica.” Mrs. Baumgartner turned her face to me after they went in, resting her cheek on her folded arms. “Doc and I were just talking last night about how much you’ve done for us over the years. The kids adore you. You’re like part of the family.”

I flushed. “Thanks.”

“You deserve a good vacation.” She smiled, her eyes creasing at the corners. I wondered how old she was. It was hard for me to judge how old people were-to me, they just seemed either old or young. Mrs. B wasn’t really either. “It’s the least we can do.”

“If I can get a tan, that will be reward enough.” I grabbed the oil next to my towel and poured some into my hands. I worked more of it into my thighs and over my smooth, flat belly. I noticed her watching me. “Do you want some?”

“Sure.” She took the bottle and sat up to squeeze a pool of glistening liquid into her palm, rubbing it over her shoulders and arms. I slipped my boy short bottoms aside, checking for a tan line. I actually had one, which was thrilling, although it wasn’t as dark as I wanted it to be.

“You can take it off.” Mrs. Baumgartner untied her black bikini top around the neck and I stared as she started to spread oil over her full, naked breasts.