Come Turning of the Tide

AN: Finals next week. Wish me luck. Thank you to my reviewers. (Ero, when are YOU gonna update? Hm? Hmm? HMMM???)

Google turned up no results for a Clay Sandborne in my area at that address. I wondered if he had moved, or it perhaps this was all a prank someone was pulling on me. I tapped the index card against my desk thoughtfully.

“What’s up?” Sarah Jane, my roommate came in. I sighed.

“Someone answered my dog walker ad.”

“Really? That’s great! You’ll have work! You can pay rent!” I knew she was getting tired of pulling my weight as well as her own.

“He doesn’t want me to walk his dogs.”

“What’s he want you to do?” she wrinkled her nose, hanging up her jacket. “Doesn’t he know that there are strip clubs and street corners for the other sort of thing?”

“No, no, nothing like that. He asked me to babysit his kids.”

“Babysit?” her voice raised an octave, making me cringe. Sarah Jane already has a naturally high voice.

“Nanny, technically.”

“How did he decide a dog walker would make a good nanny? Did you talk to his wife?” she cracked her gum.

“I don’t know if his wife is in the picture. If she is, I can bet that I’m not long for this gig. I’m not qualified to look after kids.”

“How hard can it be? It’s sort of like the dogs isn’t it?” Sarah Jane flopped down on to the couch with a magazine. “You take them out, run them around, let them poop, and then they go to sleep.”

“Are you saying that because you really think that way, or because you just want my half of the rent?”

“However did you guess?” she asked dryly over the edge of her magazine. I sighed and turned back to my computer. I might as well bone up on my child care skills before I went in for the interview.

**

I showed up at the coffee shop he and I had agreed on. I wore a gray pleated skirt, a string of glass pearls, and a cardigan. I hoped I looked professional enough. Most people don’t care what their dog walker wears, but I had a feeling wearing pajamas to this wouldn’t look that great. I was supposed to look after his kids, after all.

Suddenly, a man with dark glasses and a hat plopped down at the little table across from me. I jumped and started to tell him that this seat was taken, in a polite tone, of course. After all, surely my future employer wouldn’t show up in torn blue jeans and a ratty hooded sweater.

“Are you Charity?” he asked in a low voice, not looking up.

Oh, God, where was my mace?!? I reached for my purse and made to leave.

“I’m not--,”

“Sh! Sh! Hang on, I just wanted to see if we could meet somewhere else. Here,” he passed me a card and then got up and walked away. This was getting stranger and stranger, but I realized that my mace was right underneath my cell phone, so I figured I’d be okay.

The card had the address of a small restaurant and a note to present the card at the door. O-kay. Maybe it was just because he was rich. I heard the rich had strange habits.

I walked down the street to the restaurant and gave the doorman my card. He nodded and led me inside, where a maitre d took me to a table. The man was sitting there, only now his hat and glasses were off, and I saw he was Johnny Depp.

Johnny freaking Depp was sitting there. I stopped walking for a minute and shook my head. I must have been seeing thing. But when I opened my eyes again, he was still there.

“Is one of my friends playing a joke on me?” I asked bluntly, standing next to the table.

“No.”

“So, Johnny FREAKING Depp just happened to see my ad in the paper for a dog walker and decided I’d make a good nanny, so he called me?” this couldn’t be happening.

“Well, yes,” he squirmed in his seat.

“And then Johnny FREAKING Depp gave me a false name, met me at a café and led me here?”

“That’s pretty much it.” He agreed.

“And now Johnny FREAKING Depp is telling me this isn’t a joke, and I’m supposed to believe it?”

“Seeing as Johnny FREAKING Depp is right here, I’d say yes.” Was he laughing? Was he laughing at me? I sat down with a huff.

“You do realize that there are a bunch of nanny agencies?”

“Yeah, I know. I just didn’t want to use them. I mean, they’d either send me a cranky old lady, or Mary Poppins, and all that signing would give me a headache.” He smiled, but I couldn’t give him one in return.

“Listen, I’m not qualified to take care of children. I walk dogs, really.” I confessed.

“I figured if you didn’t like, pepper spray me as soon as I was acting all creepy you’d be okay. I don’t want someone too touchy watching my kids. I want someone who’ll let them skin their knees, make a few mistakes, you know?”

“Following you here when I didn’t know who you were probably wasn’t the best idea.” I couldn’t believe I was telling someone who could give me money why I’d be a bad employee. “What if I tell your kids it’d be okay to take candy from strangers or something?”

“You won’t do that. You’re too responsible. I can see it already. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have told me something like that.”

Damn. Foiled by my own logic. I sighed.

“Doesn’t your wife have someone else picked out?”

“My wife--,” he faltered. I knew something was wrong. “My wife won’t be here for some time. And by the time she is, we’ll have you whipped into shape and being the best nanny ever.”

“Goody,” I intoned. “Why don’t we make some kind of deal?”

“What?”

“Why don’t I help you out until you find a real nanny? How’s that?”

“Fair enough,” he took out a pen and a pad of paper and started to scrawl his information down on it.

How did I let myself get talking into things like this?