Pia Z. Ehrhardt (short story) "Babysitting" in Literary Potpourri

Greg was watching Sherry's niece, Kai, get dressed through the half-opened door. He thought Sherry was out running errands, so he peeked as Kai buttoned her blouse, put on lipstick, crunched her hair with her hands to mess it.

"Busted," Sherry said, startling him.

"Oh. Hey there," he said.

"Lecherous behavior, Gregory. Some countries would cut off your dick."

Kai was living with them in New Orleans for the summer, after Sherry's sister, Erica found drugs in her backpack. She'd just finished the eleventh grade. Sherry liked the idea of her niece filling the place up. She wanted her to know how she and Greg lived. He worked at an art gallery, and Sherry produced documentaries for the public TV station in town. They were both forty, had been together since college, and Kai was fresh air.

Sherry closed the door. "First time you've done this?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Eighth time?" She knew the answer. She didn't want to admit that she spied on her, too, like a guy, just one touch, please, and I'll know what I can't have.

Now Greg was afraid to get too close to Kai. He sat on the other side of the room, and didn't make eye contact.

Kai's father was Polynesian and her mother, Italian. She had a wide face with tawny skin, light eyes, and full lips she stained pink. Her name meant sea in Hawaiian.

"He's acting weird," Kai said to Sherry. "You two having trouble?" She went to take a shower.

"Act normal," Sherry told Greg. "You look shifty and weird."

"No," he said. "I'm making coffee." He set out the cups and saucers, put cookies on a plate.

"You're wearing slippers," she said, looking at his feet.

He kicked them off and went barefoot. Sherry slid her feet into them and skated around. He almost smiled. She didn't tell Greg she'd like to be the one parading herself in front of a guy she thought was kind of old, a little dull, nice.

"I'm courting a child," he said.

"That's sick," Sherry said.

"I know. It feels rotten."

"Liar."

"Yeah, it feels great."

Sherry sat at the table and peeled an orange. "We have to return her."

"When?" he said.

Kai walked in freshly showered with her hair in a towel turban.

"Not yet," Sherry whispered. She wanted to keep Kai, steal her away from her sister, change who she loved like a mother, like she tried to do when she was sixteen and babysitting people's kids. Libby Turner's parents had taken her with them on vacation. Sherry had worked hard to win Libby's love - tea parties, paper dolls, nature walks - until the child wanted only Sherry. She sat on the other bed while Libby slept, a guard against the monsters but different than a parent, her private friend.

Kai came out in shorts and a tank top and her legs were long and smooth.

"Let's sit on the balcony so your hair dries," Sherry said.

It was as tiny out there as everything else in the apartment with room for two wrought iron chairs, a small table, and one potted plant. Their place overlooked the cupola on top of The Napoleon House. A pigeon was standing on a weather vane of a chicken.

"Do you want a little glass of wine?" Sherry asked, and Kai nodded a big yes.

They chatted. Sherry asked her questions, treated Kai like she was an expert witness so she would tell her what it felt like to sneak out of the house at 3 a.m. and screw her boyfriend at the boat launch under the night sky, riggings clanking in the wind.

Sherry was working on a documentary about the Mississippi River, and she took Kai to work. She wanted to show off her pretty niece. Kevin, the cameraman, came over and asked Kai how things were going. He wanted to know how old she was; he guessed twenty-three. Kai liked him right away. It hit Sherry like a brick in the face that this was a bad idea. When Kai ran for Cokes and snacks, the gaffers and grips watched her and exchanged looks. She wanted to fire them on the spot. She was a thousand miles away from not her own youth, but Kai's, and all that sloppy allure that came from not caring completely about what you had, what you did, because there was so much time left, a big wide life of anything's possible.

Kevin set up an orange crate so Kai had a place to sit. The day was long. Kai was happy, helpful. By the time they wrapped, she knew everyone. She stood on the crate, braiding Kevin's hair. "You better get her out of here," he warned Sherry. "I'm in love."

Erica, called in the morning to see how it was going. "My kid driving you crazy yet?" she said.

Sherry was straightening up, folding Kai's afghan in half and the phone was between her shoulder and chin. "She's great. Easy." Her underwear was on the coffee table, socks and shoes were beside the couch. "She's hamster messy, though. You didn't tell me that."

Kai walked in with Greg, and Sherry told her sister she had to go. He held bags of pastry and the Sunday paper and Kai had a paper cone of red tulips.

"Where'd you go?" Sherry asked.

"Tower Records," Greg said. "We had a fight."

They stood in front of Sherry and told their sides. Greg wouldn't let her buy Mystikal. Kai said she listened to gangster rap all the time. Greg said not on his watch.

Kai put the flowers on the table, went into their room and closed the door.

Sherry followed her. "I'm not a kiddie," Kai says. "The parental advisory sticker is for him."

Sherry lay across the bed. Dust outlined the blades of the ceiling fan. If she used the feather duster junk would fall on her head. "He hasn't been around teenagers much," she said. She was selling Greg out to win Kai back.

"I bought the CD anyway," Kai said, "while he was buying the flowers." She went to her suitcase, which had stuff spilling out of it, and dug for a doll sized sweater.

"Can I try on your clothes?" Sherry said.

"Sure." Kai found another little sweater and some baggy jeans. "Here."

Sherry stripped down to her underwear.

"You look good for your age," Kai said.

"I'll accept pity." Sherry pulled on the jeans. They were too big and fell around her hips, so she hitched them up.

"Leave them," Kai said. "You want to show skin."

Sherry wrestled the sweater over her head and tried to tug it down. She could feel the air on the band of skin.

She walked out to the living room to show Greg, and he smiled big and grabbed her waist. His hands were warm and she held them there like compresses.

Greg was reading the paper, and Kai came up behind him and asked if he wanted a head massage, and he said okay.

"Your scalp's tight," she said. "Open your mouth wide as you can, then relax." He did. "Close your eyes tight, then relax." He did. "Your hair's warm. Are you blushing?" she said, and looked around at him like she was peeking behind a corner. She looked over at Sherry and said, "What is it with guys?"

"You tell me," Sherry said.

At dinner, they were running out of things to talk about. Kai's interest in them was looking like good posture. Sherry didn't want to lose her to the same dullness she probably felt with her mother, so she looked up Kevin's number, called and asked if he'd drive Kai around. Kevin said sure and thanked her like she'd given him a gift. Kai left the table to get ready. Sherry told him to have her back by eleven.

She and Greg stood around the bathroom door and listened. The noises lined up so pretty - radio, shower, the quiet toweling pause, hair dryer, zippers, perfume sprayed. Sherry rested her head against the doorframe, and Greg had his hands in his pockets.

Once, when Sherry was babysitting for the Harrington's, the little girl complained about an itch, and Sherry had her lie down on the bathmat. She'd never seen her own genitalia, didn't know it was so ugly and beautiful. She had washed the child with a warm cloth, and washed her again.

"Did I take too long?" Kai said, when she came out. The bathroom was all steam and roses. Sherry went in and rubbed a spot on the mirror, but it was only her face.

With Kai out, Greg and Sherry sat in the living room and looked at the walls. Greg put his head back and closed his eyes.

"Would you have sex with a seventeen year old?" Sherry said.

"No."

"Eighteen?"

"I don't think so." He was breathing slowly and didn't open his eyes.

"What can I do to make you feel like that?" she asked.

He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't want to feel like that with you."

Sherry went into Kai's bag and dug through her clothes. She found a gauzy shirt with embroidery on the sleeves, and she took off her blouse and bra and put it on and went back to Greg. "Don't do that," he said.

"This is for me," Sherry said.

They made love, and it was a full bed, combinations of Kai, Kevin, and this older couple who had fucked eight hundred times plus this.

Sherry thought about the children, the ones she'd wooed and won, who didn't remember her anymore. All of that work for what? She had bumped into one of the families, the Barclay's, at the mall, and the young boy shook her hand and ran off to play in the arcade. The thought of having her own kids frightened her, the day in and day out when she wasn't the fun-machine, just the mother, how dangerous is was to be a parent.

It was a cool night. The French doors were open and a woman with a thin voice was singing. Tourists were under their balcony, and the guide was telling them a ghost story.

Erica called to talk to Kai, and Sherry lied and told her she was at the movies with the daughter of a friend.

"Is she going out with any guys?" Erica asked.

"No," Sherry said. "She's mostly here with us. This is her first night away."

"That's strange."

Sherry told her everything was fine and Kai would talk to her in the morning, but Erica wanted to be called when she got home.

"Why?" Sherry said.

"Because I can't sleep when she's out."

"Pretend you don't know."

"It doesn't work like that," Erica said.

"We'll call in the morning," and Sherry hung up.

The wind was blowing out of the north and the shutters were banging, so Greg hooked them open. The moon was bright and in that homely phase. They ate ice cream out of the carton and watched TV, fell asleep on the sofa during the news.

Kai walked in two hours late.

"Where were you?" Sherry said, half asleep and confused. Greg got up and said he was going to bed.

Kai was swaying in the door. "Just driving."

"Drinking?"

"Beer on the levee. Kevin showed me the elevators where they store rice."

Sherry eyed her and for a second couldn't remember whether she was talking to a roommate or a niece. Sometimes when she babysat she'd forget there were children in the house. One night at the Winstead's she got stoned and went to pick up Chinese food while the twins slept. "You're playing me," she said.

Kai stared her down. "No. I'm not."

Sherry wanted to slap her into being sorry. "I was worried sick," she said.

"Really?" Kai laughed. "I think you're exaggerating, aren't you?"

Sherry shrugged her shoulders and agreed because she wanted to know about her night. Every detail. What part of her Kevin touched first, her hair, how the streetlight hit collarbones, bare knees, if she brushed his cheek with her fingers, if they made love under that ugly moon. She lowered her voice to a secret. "My mother used to say that, too, when I'd come in late, but I didn't care because I was with some guy so good I didn't need a home."

"Yeah, he's that."

"So, how far did you two go?"

Kai looked at her in amazement and laughed. "Uh, let's see . . . I let him steal home."

"I'm supposed to be looking out for you," Sherry said.

"I'm fine," Kai yawned. "Probably time for bed, don't you think?"

Sherry went to the hall closet and got the sheets to make up the couch.

"I can do that," Kai said.

"No problem."

Kai watched her, impatient.

"Are you having a good time here?" Sherry said.

Kai shoved her hands into the pockets of her low jeans. "You guys are great. But I'm okay with going home, too, and getting back to normal."

"We'll miss you," Sherry said.

"I know. My mom and I worry about you and Greg," Kai said. "We wonder why you don't get your own kid."

"Really?" Sherry said. "Tell your mother it isn't a kid that I want."

It was Kai's last week in New Orleans, and they went to dinner at an Italian restaurant on Bienville. Greg ordered veal shank for four, a giant bowl of angel hair, and a bottle of red wine. Kai touched his hand and asked if he wanted to split an order of bruschetta and he said sure.

Kai's long hair was pulled back except for two skinny braids that hung down the sides of her face and touched the table. Kevin picked one up and looked at it more closely. He'd dressed nicely for her in a laundered shirt, khaki pants, and his hair was clean and loose.

He and Kai chattered about bands and TV shows. She looked lovely in the candlelight. Her shirt had a bright pattern on the front, and a different pattern on the sleeves. Kevin held her hand.

Sherry asked Greg about his day, and they talked and tried to pay attention to each other, but they would've preferred sitting in a dark theater watching Kai and Kevin.

Sherry touched Kevin's knee with hers under the table, but he thought it was a mistake and apologized. "Are you happy with the footage?" he asked Sherry.

"It looks fine," she said.

Kai leaned over and put her arm around Greg's neck, squeezing him in the bend of her elbow. "This is mine in ten years," she said. Greg looked happy at the thought, took her hand from around him and cupped it in both of his, like a bird was in there.

That night in bed, Greg said how different the apartment was going to feel without Kai. Sherry asked him if he was in love with her, and he said a little. She wanted him to not be. Sherry told him how she babysat once for a widower with kids. Mr. Kleinschmidt. Her boyfriend came over and they drank the man's vodka, sat naked on his sofa and made fun of his Sinatra tapes. It was great to live in his house like that, to eat from his fridge and fuck in his bed. The man drove her home and she asked about his night like she was the dead wife, and he told her all about it. Didn't he know she half-cared? He chattered on, trusting a teenager. When he got to her house she kept looking at him, still listening, and he kissed her. He smelled like a father and she pushed him away. She wanted Greg to know this. How the man apologized. He overpaid her, then drove off too fast. He called her to baby sit again, but she lied about other plans.

Greg was half-listening. He stared through the window at rooftops, as if Kai had now moved outside to dance for him on the tile shingles. "She's everywhere," he said.