Taking Care of Terrific Read Free

best schools and knows which syllables to pronounce which way. She was the
kind of person who would wear only unobtrusive make-up, who would eat yogurt, listen to chamber music, ride a bike, jog, and save whales. But her bike would be a four-hundred-dollar Peugeot, and she would have the yogurt delivered from DeLuca's, along with cases of the right wine. She would go to antinuclear demonstrations wearing designer jeans and monogrammed sweaters from Land's End.
    Funny how you can tell all of that from a voice.
    She would no doubt have a rosy-cheeked baby with a biblical name, brought up on breast milk and natural foods. She would have read books about parenting. The baby would ride around in an expensive carrier on her back.
    I made arrangements to take her kid—naturally there was only one; she would be into zero population growth—to the Public Garden that afternoon after his nap. Ms. Cameron would be taking her harpsichord lesson then.
    I had planned to go to the Public Garden that afternoon anyway, to start my new life, and I liked the idea of having a kid with me. I like to babysit. It's a good feeling to have somebody need you, and nobody needs you more than a little kid who has wet diapers or scraped knees and who looks at you and cries and holds up his arms.
    "Mrs. Kolodny," I said, "I'll watch
As the World Turns
with you after lunch, but then I'm going to babysit."
    She got her glazed look again. "Lunch," she said. "Omigod."
    "What's the problem with lunch? There's that chowder on the stove." But as soon as I said it, I knew. "Mrs. Kolodny. You
didn't.
"
    But she had. It's absolutely astounding that in fourteen years my mother has never realized that Mrs. Kolodny is such a space cadet. What an enormous secret to keep.
    She and I dumped the chowder thickened with Tide down the garbage disposal. Then we opened a can of Chunky soup and shared it for lunch.

Chapter 4
    Joshua Warwick Cameron IV. I knew it.
    I liked him, though. He had thick blond hair cut like Buster Brown, corduroy overalls right out of a
New Yorker
ad, and he looked very suspicious of me when his mother introduced us.
    I liked it that he looked suspicious. Even though his mother had obviously gone through Charm School with straight A's, old Joshua Warwick Cameron IV, age four, was still half asleep and not too thrilled that his mom was urging him to shake hands with someone named Enid Crowley.
    "Ms. Cameron," I said, giving old Joshua time to wake up and assess the situation, "do you know my mother very well?"
    "No," she said. "I met her at a meeting, and when she mentioned that she had a teenage daughter, I just happened to ask if you'd be interested in babysitting, afternoons. Why?"
    "Well, I guess she didn't have a chance to tell
you that I really prefer to be called by my middle name, Cynthia. It gets kind of complicated, because my parents like to call me Enid. So if you call me up or anything, it's easier to ask for Enid. But I really like Cynthia better."
    "Oh. I see. Yes, I can understand that. My own parents still call me Elizabeth, although everyone else has called me Betsy for years. Joshua, sweetie, this is Cynthia. She's going to take you to the Public Garden."
    Joshua yawned. He looked at me carefully, now that his eyes were wide open, and finally he nodded.
    "Okay," he said. "I'll go get my sweater."
    Ms. Cameron began giving me instructions. Don't let him pat dogs because you never know about strange dogs.
    Okay.
    Make him keep his sweater on because she doesn't want him to catch cold; he is very prone to ear infections.
    Okay.
    No candy or other sweets. She is very careful about sweets because she doesn't want him to get cavities.
    Okay.
    Explain to him about not picking the flowers in
the Public Garden because it is against the rules, although certainly she wants him to enjoy
looking
at the flowers.
    Okay.
    Watch him so that he doesn't fall into the pond, but don't make him feel
fearful
about the pond.
    Okay.
    And especially