How Nancy Drew Saved My Life Read Free Page B

up that metaphor, but so what, because in that moment, I realized I no longer had any friends, not like Nancy did, not even a friend of not-readily-determinable sexual orientation like George.
    You could say I felt sorry for myself. I knew my own choices and actions had led me to where I was, but I still felt sorry for myself.
    If things had somehow worked out with Buster—not that I’d ever been able to define for myself, even before the bust-up, what would constitute things “working out” with a married man plus two kids—would I still be feeling sorry for myself at this point?
    Probably, I figured. Because I would have still reached that critical state in a relationship where you realize you’ve let all your friendships die and all you have left is the one relationship.
    Not that I’d had any other experience with relationships.
    Come to think of it, I’d had limited experience with friendships, too.
    I glanced down that first page of #56 and saw that—omigod!— Nancy was still eighteen! How was such a thing possible? I was pretty sure that even Sherlock Holmes, over the course of his many adventures, had aged a few years. So how had Nancy managed to age not one year over the course of fifty-six mysteries? I quickly did the math.
    Okay, I went to find my calculator.
    Figuring it wasn’t a leap year—because what are the odds? Something like one in four?—I did the division. Let’s see…365 divided by 56 is…6.5178571. 6.5178571??? This… teenager was solving mysteries at the rate of one every six and a half days? What kind of a girl was she? Oh, man, was I sooo not her.
    Talk about an overachiever.
    But then, after I was annoyed for a really long time, I started to think, How cool!
    Imagine having one incredibly long year, the most stretched-out year imaginable, with enough time to get right everything a person needed to get right. What would I do with such a year? I couldn’t change the past. But maybe in changing my present, I could change my future?
    I looked at the calendar on the back of my bedroom door, kittens in Greece, the sole present I’d received from Aunt Bea for my birthday: it was April 26. So, calculator time again, I had already lost 116 days so far that year—it wasn’t a leap year—meaning I’d already blown the chance to solve 17.846153 mysteries. But hey, there were still 249 days left, so there was still the opportunity for me to solve the remaining 38.153847 mysteries.
    Whatever they were.
    If only I could get up to speed real fast.
    Actually, I was beginning to think that even I should be able to solve .153847 mysteries. It was the 38 part, I suspected, that would be the problem.
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    For the remainder of the two months until it was time for me to get on the plane to Iceland, I could read a book a day of Nancy Drew, leaving me five days at the end for shopping, packing and biting my nails to the quick.
    Except for the day I went for the job interview, of course. Even someone desperate for a nanny who was willing to leave her life and go to Iceland wasn’t going to hire that nanny without first meeting her in person…. No matter what kind of wonderful things Ambassador Buster had said about her.

chapter 3
    T hen came the call. It was by one Mrs. Fairly, definitely a Mrs. who would never allow herself to be addressed as Ms., who requested I come to her master’s— master’s? —Park Avenue home for an interview. Clearly, this was a step up from Ambassador Buster Keating’s home, where I’d originally been interviewed and hired by his disinterested wife. I was now to be hired by a minion, which I figured meant I was moving up in the world.
    Trying to answer that ever-popular euphonious question, WWNDD—What Would Nancy Drew Do?—I searched my practical wardrobe for the perfect persuasive costume to wear. Rejecting the casual allure of slacks and the confidence-inducing