Lauren Holmes - Barbara the Slut and Other People

I underlined HURRY UP! twice, and finally he washed himself. I got him out and dried his hair well and brought him his hearing aids. He put them on.

“Where are your pajamas?” I said.

“In my closet,” he said.

“Can you get them?” I said.

He went into his room and came out five seconds later. “I can’t see in there,” he said.

“Let’s turn on the light,” I said.

“It’s broken,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go in.” I used my phone to light the way. I tried not to step on anything as I made my way to the closet, but it was impossible. The floor was covered with dark heaps of toys, books, and clothes. So was the bed, and I wondered if he ever slept there. In the closet I found hanging shelves with exactly one T-shirt and one pair of underwear on them, so I took those things and made my way back out.

Timmy put on the clothes and got into his mom’s bed. “Can we read books?” he said.

“One quick book,” I said.

He picked one out and I lay down next to him and read it. When I was done he handed me his hearing aids and asked me to tuck him in. I tucked him in and he closed his eyes. I took a picture of him, tiny and human at the top of the frame, with his hearing aids on the table next to him, and the rest of the picture the smooth white sheet. I turned out the light.

“Leave the door open!” he said, so I did.

I cleaned up the bathroom and put the wet sign and the dry sign in a plastic bag and in my backpack. I didn’t want his mom to find them, like I shouldn’t have had to write him notes in the bathtub or something. Then I took a few more pictures. I found a flashlight on the shelf in the kitchen and shone it into Timmy’s bedroom and took a picture. Then I took a picture of the contents of the fridge, which was full of what I guessed were mostly very old leftovers in take-out containers. There was no fresh juice or milk or anything. Finally I took a picture of the windows in the living room with the fallen curtain rod, and then sat down on the couch. I doubted that Susanna would want me to use the pictures of the apartment, but I wondered if she would really be able to prove it was her house. She would probably let me use the pictures of Timmy, because parents loved it when I took pictures of their kids. But the pictures of Timmy weren’t exactly portraits, and I wanted them in conjunction with the pictures of the apartment. I wondered if I could get a picture of Susanna, looking like she did when I first met her, maybe yelling to Timmy from the porch, or maybe lying next to him on top of the white sheet, sleeping. If I kept babysitting and I got them to like me, I could shoot a whole essay.

Silas got there and I let him in. He put his bike in the hallway and I gave him a tour. I used the flashlight to show him Timmy’s room.

“Whoa,” said Silas. “Is the kid in there somewhere?”

“Oh my god,” I said. “No.” I showed him Timmy in his mom’s bedroom. He was fast asleep.

“He doesn’t look so bad,” he said.

“He’s not,” I said.

“Can he hear us?” he said.

“Nope,” I said. “We could scream at the top of our lungs and he wouldn’t hear us.”

“Cool,” he said. “Is there any food?”

I showed him the inside of the fridge and he said, “That’s disgusting.”

We went back to the living room and sat on the couch. Silas started kissing my neck and I made him stop and turned on the TV. In all my years of babysitting I had never had a boy over to make out with after the kids were asleep, and now that I had the perfect candidate I didn’t even want to. I just wanted to go home.

We watched TV until we heard a car pull in. I gathered up my stuff and went to meet Susanna at the door.

“Hi,” she said. “How was it today?”

“Much better,” I said.

“Oh good,” she said.

She checked on Timmy and then came and stood in the doorway to the living room.

“This is Silas,” I said.

They said hi.

Susanna counted out the money for the two days and paid me. “It’s a few dollars short but I’ll pay you the rest next week.”

“Okay,” I said.

“So we’ll see you then?”

“Yup,” I said. “Unless you do find someone else.”

“Why would I find someone else?”

“Well, I mean, today was much better, but it still seems like it would be better to find someone that he can actually get used to.”

“I can’t find someone else by next week.”

“Okay, I understand.”

“You clearly don’t want to come back.”

“I can come back, it’s just like I said, it seems like it’s not a good fit.”

“I hired you for this job. You agreed to this job.”

“Okay. I just feel bad that I’m going to have to leave soon. And this isn’t my normal rate.”

“You agreed to this rate.”

“I just thought you were going to keep looking for someone else.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I thought you needed to find someone else for the fall anyway.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t. You know what, don’t come back.”

“I can if you don’t find anyone else.”

“No, now you lied to me.”

“What? I didn’t lie about anything.”

“Forget it, I’ll find someone else.”

I glanced over my shoulder to Silas, who was sitting and staring at the floor. I turned around and got my bag and said, “Come on.”

We walked toward the front door.

“I’m sorry, I think we had a misunderstanding,” I said.

“Please leave,” said Susanna.

Silas grabbed his bike and we left.

I got in the car and closed the door. Silas took off his front wheel, put his bike in the trunk, and got in the passenger seat. I backed out of the driveway.

“Oh shit, I think I forgot my phone,” he said.

My chest tightened. I took my foot off the gas and looked at him.

“You’re going back alone,” I said.

“Ha, just kidding.” He flashed me his phone.

“Oh my god.” I punched him in the arm.

He laughed again.

“Oh my god,” I said again. “I can’t even believe what happened in there.”

“Yeah,” said Silas.

“What did happen? Did I just get fired?”

“Yeah, you definitely got fired.”

“I didn’t lie to her. What would I have even lied to her about?”

“I don’t know,” said Silas.

“Are you serious? You think I lied to her?”

“No,” he said. “Maybe she was just mad that you didn’t like her kid.”

“I didn’t not like her kid,” I said. “I just thought that this babysitting job made no sense for anybody. Now I can’t even use those pictures. She’s not going to sign a release.”

“What pictures?”

“I took pictures of the kid and the apartment and stuff. I got this amazing shot of him in the bathtub.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

“No, you can’t see anything.”

“Oh well,” said Silas.

“Never mind,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Then I remembered about the money and got it out of my bag. “Count this.”

Silas flipped through the bills. “One thirty.”

“One thirty?” There was no way that was right. I did the math in my head — it was thirteen and a half hours, so it should have been like a hundred and sixty dollars. “Fuck,” I said. “She owes me thirty bucks.”

“Oh man,” said Silas. “We should get a case of eggs and go back there.”

I didn’t know if he was joking, or if he would actually do something like that.

“Yeah, that would solve all my problems,” I said.

We drove in silence until we got close to his apartment.

“Want to get food?” he said.

“I’m not really hungry,” I said.