One Less Problem Without You Read online

  She’d heard tell of other things he did in the neighborhood—cruelty to small animals, mostly—though she’d never been able to catch him. She believed the stories of other children, but it wasn’t enough to convince the parents to get him to a psychiatrist.

  People saw what they wanted to see, but even more than that, people managed to not see what they really didn’t want to see. And while it seemed like Mrs. Tiesman might have some awareness that things weren’t right with the kid, she was very kind and supported her husband in his determined efforts to make this family strong and happy.

  Jessica was one hundred percent sure that was never going to happen.

  “So I thought you might have dropped something you needed,” Jessica went on, finishing lamely.

  He turned and glared at her. “I’m going to put my sister to bed.” He looked back at the baby. “Come on, Prinny Princess,” he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Jessica looked at Mrs. Tiesman with a tight smile.

  Ingrid Tiesman seemed to get it. “It’s all right, Leif. I need to change her anyway. You know how you feel about that.”

  Everyone who had seen—and especially those who’d had to clean—the soiled diapers he’d taken out of the Diaper Genie and smashed to the wall when they first brought Prinny home knew how he felt about that.

  Ingrid ruffled his hair and swept out of the room, Prinny safely in her arms.

  She didn’t see—as Jessica had—the look of sheer, unadulterated hatred he had shot at them as they left.

  “Listen to me,” Jessica hissed in his ear. “I saw what you did, you little shit. You pinched Prinny and made her cry. You’ve been doing that all along, all over her body, making your poor parents mad with worry over what is wrong with her.”

  “They’re not my parents.” He gave her a cold look, then opened his mouth and began to wail a fake cry, but she instinctively slapped her hand over his mouth.

  “Do it and you will be sorry.” Her anger was such that it took him aback. She could see the fear flicker momentarily through his eyes. “I swear it.” She took her hand off his mouth slowly, ready to clap it back if he made one peep.

  A moment passed in which he leveled that flinty gaze on her.

  A gaze, she knew, that would probably someday make doomed girls swoon. Doomed girls loved assholes, and this kid was going to be the king of them.

  “You bitch,” he said, then literally spat in her face.

  She slapped him, hard, a reflex she couldn’t stop.

  And with that one move, she knew her job was over. He was sure to tell, and even if he didn’t, she’d have to because she was not going to keep secrets in conjunction with this little heathen. There was just no way.

  So she went up to her room to pack her things. He was probably reporting on her right now, showing his red skin and crying his icy blue eyes out. She was going to be kicked out quickly and soundly.

  But she wanted to warn Ingrid Tiesman what she was dealing with. She wanted to tell her about Leif pinching Prinny, and hurting animals, and even the part about messing with the food. She assumed it was only toothpaste in the Oreos, but it wasn’t like she’d eaten a bunch to be sure. That could have masked any number of other things, and there was not one thing she’d put past Leif Tiesman.

  Eleven years old and she wouldn’t put it past him to actually try to kill someone.

  But what authority did she have to say anything? She was a maid. Not a childcare expert, not the nanny; she wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with the children at all. She was just the busybody who had something to say about something that was none of her business.

  Honestly, now that Jessica was thinking about this, even if she wasn’t fired, she’d be afraid to stay in the house one more night. She’d unleashed something in the boy, and he knew that she knew it was out there. She wasn’t safe anywhere near him.

  She took out the spiral notebook she used as a diary and began to write her letter of resignation.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Chelsea

  Don’t move a muscle. If ever she were to be held up at gunpoint and heard these words uttered behind her while the cold, hard mouth of a gun wedged into the nape of her neck, she would at least earn a gold star—or her life—for following directions.

  If she were ever on a reality show and the challenge was to cover her own body in honey and bees and stand stock-still no matter how many times she was stung, she would win. She hated those gross-out shows, but she was certain she would have the mental concentration and detachment to win that challenge.

  If she ever had a kid, and he tried to goad her by pretending he was going to shove a finger up her nose, then she’d gain points from onlooking moms who admired her patience and stillness in the face of annoyance as she did not move a muscle, even if the sticky, Jolly Rancher–covered digit made its way past her nostril.

  So now, if she ever got famous—no, when, when she got famous—she’d be able to tell interviewers about that laugh-riot era in her twenties when she’d picked up extra cash (essential cash, really, nothing “extra” about it) by working, among other less-than-glamorous things, as a living statue at Union Station.

  The job was fine. Easy, compared to many. Certainly compared to manual labor. If you said to a plumber or a trashman that you thought your job was hard, and then admitted that your one requirement was to stand still and let people pose with you as if you were Snow White in Disneyland (a job she’d practically kill for at this point), you’d sound like a spoiled idiot.

  As if you didn’t already.

  One of the biggest problems, and one she never remembered to adjust for, was when she had set herself facing one way, doing a pose facing away from the clock, then realizing that her shift must soon be up. Because inevitably, she’d be facing anywhere but within peripheral view of the clock, and statues trying to look at the wristwatches of passersby were creepy, not cool.

  “Mom! Mom! Look, I think that statue just moved!”

  Dammit. She’d scrolled her eyes to the left to try to possibly see at least the little hand on the clock.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said the mom, in that Blues Clues way that means you are absolutely right and urges you to investigate further. “A statue, Hank?”

  Hank? Hank for a six-year-old? That’s the name of a weirdly tall and whip-thin farmer guy who just wants to drink his beer and have some goldang quiet.

  This poor little man. Hank.

  “I saw it! I did! It’s magical!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Magic? Or a trick?” The mother laughed uncomfortably. She was probably starting to think it was time to have the Talk about Santa Claus, so a moving statue was one thing, but a magical one was quite another.

  She should come to the store. That magic would probably really freak her out.

  “Can we take it home?” Hank was too old to ask something like that. Was he accustomed to seeing large objects in public places and thinking he could just grab them?

  “Not today. But why don’t I take your picture with the statue?” And something about the way the mother suggested it made Chelsea know—she just knew—that tonight, when she really needed to get out on time, Mom was going to take her damn time trying to figure out the camera settings on her phone, then try to get the perfect shot. It was like waiting in line for the one working bathroom stall in a bar behind someone with a wooden leg, a catheter, and no real hurry to get out of your way.

  Hank slowed down in his approach to her, suddenly wary. He brought his hands together and looked up at her, his half-smile frozen.

  She let her eyes go unfocused, so they’d be less likely to catch on movement, and waited until his mom was gazing down at her phone to get the camera open.

  Then she looked down at Hank and winked.

  He gave a tiny squeal.

  She had him! He was charmed. She could totally be Snow White (or Elsa or Cinderella or Tinker Bell) in a Disney park. She’d charmed a child, the toughest audience there w
as.

  “Mom!” Hank tugged on his mother’s arm. “He did it again!”

  He?

  Chelsea sighed as undetectably as she could. Forget the charm. She’d probably just scared him. Her mammoth, white-painted self had scared a child. She hated getting this Grecian woman costume. She’d always suspected she looked less like an Olympia and more like cartoon Aladdin after he became a sultan, and Hank’s reaction just proved it.

  This would not be a hot portfolio picture.

  “That’s fun, huh?” The mother circumnavigated the area, then crouched down like a tourist pretending to be a real photographer.

  Both of them were waiting for her to move again. The trick was to wait until just after they decided she wasn’t going to.

  It took a frustratingly long time, particularly since she had to leave. She had to get to the shop. She had appointments lined up, and they paid better than this gig, though they weren’t likely to get her on Broadway anytime soon.

  Prinny wouldn’t say anything bitchy if she was late—that wasn’t her style—but she’d let out a breath that sounded like that yoga breathing technique, Ujjayi Pranayama. Except way less relaxed, and way more irritated.

  Just as Hank started to walk back to his mom, smile almost entirely faded, Chelsea shifted her arms to a Superman stance and spun herself to face the clock. Four fifty-five. She had an hour to get undressed, redressed, and on the road to the shop.

  “Mom!”

  “I’ve got it!” The camera started clicking its little digital click sound as Hank maneuvered himself in front of Chelsea.

  She’d wait for them to finish and head off—didn’t they have somewhere to be? This was a train station, for God’s sake, not a sunny park on a Saturday. It took all of about fifteen minutes to see everything there, and that included a jaunt into The Body Shop for emergency hand sanitizer (something Chelsea purchased frequently in this place).

  It took them a few more minutes of examining the marble floors—Hank surreptitiously looking back at Chelsea every few seconds to see if she’d moved again—but they finally left.

  Chelsea turned like a soldier when they were out of sight, facing the direction that led to the back offices and locker rooms. Yes, locker rooms. Not dressing rooms.

  She lowered herself down onto one leg and extended her other forward off her pedestal. (Ha, the number of times ex-boyfriends had encouraged her to do just this, jump off her pedestal and be real.)

  Then she let the other down, unfocused her eyes, relaxed her face so she looked as bland as the girls who kept getting the roles she wanted, and made the march back to her locker, as still and unanimated as one could imagine a walking statue would be.

  Once she was beyond the threshold of the door, and into the hot room that smelled like chalk, makeup remover, and hot bodies, her muscles melted, and she skulked to the bench to sit down.

  She peeled the costume off and shoved it into one of the five-gallon Ziplocs provided for the statues’ wardrobe, then jumped into a steaming hot shower. Well, actually, it was a shoilet, a small closet space that held a toilet and had a showerhead in the ceiling, just like you’d find in the “luxury cabins” on a cross-country train. The space was so small she was sure that if she put on three more pounds she’d have trouble fitting in it. But she didn’t have time to worry about that now, or ever. She had to work with what she had and pray that someday these would be funny stories of climbing up the ladder to fame and success, rather than the actor’s equivalent of a former frat boy’s Tales of Glory.

  Slapping on her exfoliation gloves, she poured on the thick orange goo used to remove latex paint and sticky things from skin. It had solvents and little beads that helped get the stuff off, no way was it good for your skin. It wasn’t exactly Bliss Spa peppermint scrub. Still, it did the trick faster than if she were to painstakingly take the stuff off with makeup remover wipes or endless latherings of soap.

  It was a full ten minutes until she was finally back to her peachy, if rubbed red and blotchy, skin tone. She had just dropped her towel when the door slammed open and a shirtless, slick-skinned guy burst in.

  “Hey,” he said, perking up with a smile when he saw her. As she scrambled to cover herself, he didn’t cover his eyes or make an awkward apology. Instead he laughed and entered the locker room with even more confidence.

  A sound that might have been an attempt at “um” came from her mouth, and she tightened the terrycloth around her chest.

  “I pride myself on being on time,” he said, walking past her and whipping his backpack off. “And then on my first day, I’m running this late. You know I actually got off the Metro and ran the last two miles?”

  That explained the slick skin. She would have guessed baby oil and unnecessarily bare pecs, but a shirtless run made sense, too, with a guy that looked like this.

  He bent over, his hands on his thighs, breathing deeply. Chelsea could tell from the tight torso that he was definitely no stranger to working out.

  “Whoo!” He stood up. “I’m Jeff.”

  Jeff held out one hand and swept off his backward-turned hat with the other one.

  Pulling the towel closer with her forearm, she shook his hand. “Chelsea. I’m not usually so naked. Or silent. I just wasn’t expecting anyone to come in. Especially not—”

  She stopped—what on earth had she been about to say?

  Unimaginable as it might seem, there was a whole world of living statues. Just as every restaurant and coffee shop has its own little society and its own dramas, relationships, and feuds, so, too, did Statue Land, and it was firmly divided into two camps.

  In one were the teenagers to twenty-somethings who consistently put in their two weeks, then stopped bothering to come in or even call, instead climbing aboard a BoltBus to Manhattan or elsewhere to pursue real dreams.

  The other camp was made up of the older people who never went anywhere. These were called, terrifyingly, the Dying Statues.

  As the weeks and months passed, Chelsea was coming dangerously close to changing camps. In sad fact, she probably already had in the eyes of the others. Suddenly she was the college graduate wearing Hollister and realizing that not only had everyone else stopped wearing Hollister, but she especially looked ridiculous for still wearing it at her age. Like it might as well have been Gymboree.

  All of the young statues, girls and gay men for the most part, got dressed in front of each other, no problem, dropping clothes to the ground and chatting naked as they got ready, like a squad of America’s Next Top Model prospects.

  Jeff didn’t give off a gay vibe.

  Slightly too self-conscious for this communal bathing style, Chelsea took pleasure in working the early shift, which usually left the locker room open and empty for her alone.

  “I wasn’t expecting someone I didn’t recognize,” she filled in for herself. Perfectly reasonable option.

  “Well, now that won’t happen, even if I do burst in on you again, right?”

  “Right.” Chelsea averted her gaze, realizing she was staring at him as he pulled things out of his bag and put them on the bench.

  “How long have you worked here?” Jeff asked, raking his hand through his short brown hair. It stuck up for a moment, amusingly, then dropped back down into place.

  “About four months.” Closer to six, but she didn’t really want to admit that.

  “Cool. You’ll have to tell me the tricks of the trade!”

  “Stay still. Be a statue. That’s about the size of it here.” She smiled. “Much more challenging than people think, of course.”

  He laughed. “Good advice.” He turned around, his flat stomach facing Chelsea. He had that abs-framed-by-obliques thing going on. “Hey, I’m just moving into the area. I don’t know a soul. Do you want to maybe grab a drink or something after a shift this week? Or coffee, if that’s more your thing. Just someplace right here. You can give me the scoop.” One side of his mouth went up in a smile.

  She was completely taken aback
. Chelsea knew one thing for sure about herself, and that was that she didn’t strike most people as entirely approachable. When she wasn’t smiling, she had a chronic case of Resting Bitch Face. When she was smiling, she looked like a Dumb Girl.

  Was this guy actually attracted to one of those looks? Or, more likely, was he a particularly masculine gay guy looking for another bestie? She was also fine with that. Frankly, she was kind of intrigued by the idea either way.

  Then she thought about the week ahead of her. All early mornings and late nights. She had the store. She had the statue gig. She had auditions, and any free time she had she really needed to be spending memorizing lines and practicing. She had no time. No time, literally.

  “This week is really busy for me…” She drifted off, knowing he was going to think it was a bullshit excuse. She was going to come off as unfriendly at best and bitchy at worst.

  “I’m not coming on to you or anything.” He gave a laugh. “Really, I just want to meet some people.”

  Hm. Was that insulting?

  Had he just insulted her?

  Was she disappointed?

  Better to just play it cool, no matter what his deal was. “Really, it’s just a terrible week for me.” She gave an awkward smile, then emphasized it with an unintentionally insincere-looking shrug.

  His expression shifted. “Gotcha. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to get off on a weird foot. I’ll see you around.” He smiled, exposing straight white teeth. Model’s teeth.

  “I’m gonna rinse off in the shower,” he said, his voice clearly dismissive now. “If you’re not here when I get back, it was nice meeting you.”

  “You, too.” Chelsea nodded and watched him go to the showers, taking in the divots at the bottom of his spine, right above the low-slung shorts.

  She was gawking at him not because he was the most breathtaking human she’d ever seen, but because it was the first time in ages that she’d felt this—those pre-crush butterflies that make you stammer and replay the scene where you made an ass of yourself later as you fall asleep.