Francesca looked down at the newspaper. She was just about ready to fold it all up and toss it into the recycling bin when she noticed the classified section peeking out from the bottom. Not sure of exactly what she was looking for, she pulled out the section and opened it to the help-wanted ads. Her gloom turned to dismay when she beheld the columns of employment opportunities. As she scanned the page, she found nothing for which she was even remotely qualified. Francesca was good with numbers, but she was certainly no accountant. She was as good a cook as any restaurant could hope for, but she had no formal training or license. She possessed no bachelor’s degree in any subject, nor did she have any computer skills. She would have loved to offer her services to the local school district as a substitute teacher, for she was certain that there was a lot she could teach the kids, but even those temporary positions required a degree and certification from the state.
Francesca sighed and put the paper down again. She had just made up her mind to forget about the whole thing and toss the paper out when her eye spied a very small help-wanted ad near the bottom of the page. Her first inclination was to skip over it, but then she leaned closer and gave it a quick read. Then she read it again more carefully. Somewhere inside the back of her mind the light of a new idea suddenly flickered to life. At first, she tried to dismiss the notion, but try as she might, it only seemed to glow that much brighter. Francesca sat there for a time, wondering what she should do. It would help to talk to someone. She needed to talk to someone, but who? Rosie and Alice were sure to have a conniption if they found out what she was contemplating, and Joey was off to the other side of the world. She stayed there, turning the matter over and over again in her mind, until at last she came to a decision and stood. A few minutes later, bundled up in her coat and hat and boots and gloves, Francesca grabbed her book bag and opened the front door. She stood there for a few moments, wondering if she was doing the right thing.
“I’ve waited long enough,” she finally muttered. Then she stepped outside, locked the door behind her, and went to the car.
CHAPTER 10
“You want to do what?”
Peg gaped at Francesca with wide-eyed incredulity. Francesca had found her, as she had hoped she would when she had left the house, back in the library computer room. Natalie was there as well, gazing at Francesca with much the same look. Connie, Francesca suspected, would have been making the same face had she not been off in some other part of the library, looking for a book.
“Frannie,” Peg continued, “I can understand you want to keep busy, but do you really want to be a nanny for someone else’s brats?”
“Really,” Natalie chimed in. “Are you crazy?”
“It’s not really a nanny the ad said she’s looking for,” Francesca tried to explain. “It’s more like a babysitter, ‘a responsible person’ is what it said, to look after a couple of children at their home for just one or two hours after school every day. What’s so bad about that?”
“Ayyy, that’s how it starts,” warned Natalie. “Trust me, you don’t know what parents are like these days. First they tell you that they’ll be home at five, next they ask if you would mind staying a little later because they’re busy at work, and before you know it, they’re out till all hours, gallivanting around every other night, while you’re stuck there watching their kids. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen, so I know what I’m talking about.”
Peg nodded her head in agreement. “She’s right, Frannie,” she said. “These people will take advantage of you every chance they get. It happened once to my daughter, Judy. She agreed to watch one of her neighbor’s kids one day after school. The mother said she had some big important thing to do at work, and that neither she nor the husband would be able to get home on time. The next day, she asked my daughter to do it again. At the time, Judy figured it was no big deal, since the little girl went to the same school as my granddaughter and they were friends. All of a sudden, though, the mother’s calling Judy from work practically every day, asking her to watch the little girl for her. Naturally, Judy always winds up having to feed her supper too, and even helping her with her homework. She was more of a mother to the little girl than her own mother! Well, before long, the kid was showing up at the front door even when the mother didn’t call. They sucked Judy right in. It went on for quite a while like that, until one night when the parents didn’t pick her up until almost ten o’clock. That’s when my daughter finally got up the nerve to put a stop to it.”
“How sad for that little girl,” said Francesca.
Her two friends were not telling her anything that she didn’t already know. It was nothing new. She was well aware of how selfish some parents could be, of how indifferent they often behaved when it came to caring for their own flesh and blood. They looked upon parenting, she could only assume, as some sort of chore that had to be avoided whenever possible or, at best, squeezed in somewhere between their busy work and social lives. In truth, Francesca had always believed that such people had no idea of what they were missing. It was the plight of the children, though, that saddened her most. In a land of plenty, there were so many, rich and poor alike, who went without the simple things that counted most in life.
“Forget about it,” Natalie advised. “Why would you want to do it in the first place?’
“I don’t know,” Francesca admitted. “I guess it’s almost like asking me why I breathe. I don’t understand how or why it happens, but I know if I stop doing it, it’s all over for me. That’s kind of the way I feel about this whole thing. It’s just a way to keep me breathing.”
“If I were you, I’d stop and take a deep breath, and then think about this some more before I went ahead with it,” said Peg.
Just then, Connie appeared at the door. Peg and Natalie soon filled her in on Francesca’s plan.
“What are you, crazy?” she exclaimed.
“They’ve already asked me that,” replied Francesca. She was finding it hard to suppress a smile, because the more they all tried to dissuade her, the more she felt convinced she was doing the right thing.
“But who are these people?” asked Connie. “What do you know about them?”
“Nothing,” replied Francesca with a shrug. “The ad just said, ‘Working mother seeks responsible person,’ to watch her kids after school. That’s all I know.”
“All the more reason why you shouldn’t do it,” said Natalie. “You never know what kind of creeps you might end up involved with.”
“Oh, don’t worry, girls,” Francesca told them. “I know how to take care of myself. Besides, who’s to say that I’ll even get the job? And there’s nothing that says that I have to take it even if they offer it to me. I just want to give myself the chance, that’s all.”
“Well, it’s your life,” said Peg, turning back to her computer. “But if you asked me, I’d say that you’re just looking for trouble.”
“Maybe, but what else is life for?” she replied.
Later, Francesca left the others to their computer