This was Madison, campaign manager. She looked at the children setting my fucking hair on fire, these naked fire starters, and she saw only a problem that could be solved with a press release or a photo op.
“I just don’t know,” I said. Those weird cucumber sandwiches were now making my stomach ache something fierce. My teeth hurt from the sweet tea. Where was Carl? Could he drive me back to my mom’s house? Would Madison even let me leave?
“Lillian, please. I need you. And I’ve read your letters, okay? I know your life. Do you really feel like you’re giving up much of anything? That friend who stole your television? Your mom making you drive her to some casino in Mississippi? We’re going to pay you, okay? A ton of money. And, yeah, it’s a lot of work, but Jasper is a powerful person. We can help you. After this is all over, you’ll be free of your life and you’ll have something better.”
“Don’t act like you’re the one doing me a favor,” I said, a little angry.
“No, I know that I’m asking a lot from you. I didn’t want any of this, you know? But you’re my friend, okay? I’m asking for you to be my friend and help me.”
She wasn’t wrong. My life sucked. It was bad, and it hurt because I had envisioned a life that was, if not Madison’s fate, at least something that could sustain me. Really, truly, I still believed that I was destined for an amazing life. And if I tamed these children, if I cured their weird fire sickness? Wasn’t that the start of an amazing life? Wasn’t that something that got optioned for a prestigious biopic?
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, I’ll watch these kids. I’ll be their . . . what did you call it?”
“Governess,” she said, delighted.
“Yeah, I’ll be that.”
“I promise you that I will never forget this. Never.”
“I’d better get home,” I said. “Is Carl gone? Can somebody drive me to the bus station?”
“No,” Madison said, shaking her head, standing up. “You aren’t going home tonight. You’re staying here. You’ll spend the night. In fact, you don’t have to go home if you don’t want to. We’re buying you everything you need. All new clothes! The best computer. Whatever you want.”
“Okay,” I said, so tired all of a sudden.
“What do you want for dinner tonight? Our cook can make anything.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe pizza or something like that.”
“We have a pizza oven!” she said. “The best pizza you’ve ever had.”
We stared at each other. It was three in the afternoon. What did we do until dinner?
“Is Timothy still napping?” I asked, trying to break the awkwardness.
“Oh, yeah, I’d better go check on him. Do you want a drink or anything?”
“Maybe I can take a nap?” I asked.
I barely took note of how huge the house was now that I was able to move through it. We went up a spiral staircase, like in some big-budget musical. Madison was telling me some nonsense about how during the Civil War they took horses up these stairs and hid them in the attic from the Union army. It’s possible I imagined this, some kind of fever dream in the aftermath of making a life-altering decision.
She led me to a room that looked like there should be an exiled princess in the bed. Every single piece of furniture seemed like it weighed a thousand pounds. Probably some nineteenth-century carpenter had built the desk right in the room and it had been here ever since. There was a chandelier. I’d lived in apartments that were one-third the size of this single room. I made a mental note that I needed to stop being so awed by Madison’s wealth. I was going to live inside this place. Everything that she owned was now mine. I would need to get used to touching it and not being electrocuted.
“Do you need a nightgown?” she asked.
“I’ll just sleep in this stuff,” I replied.
“Sweet dreams,” she said, kissing me on the forehead. She was so tall; I’d forgotten how she’d kiss me on the forehead in high school, how soft her lips were. And then she was gone; the house had swallowed her up. I couldn’t even hear footsteps.
It was almost too much to get into the bed. I felt like the dirtiest thing this house had ever seen. I felt like an orphan who had broken in to the mansion. I kicked off my shoes and then delicately lined them up next to the bed. I got onto the bed, which took actual effort, it was so high up. I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. I thought about those two kids, on fire, beckoning me with open arms. I watched them burn. They were smiling. I wasn’t even asleep. I wasn’t dreaming. This was my waking life now. They stood in front of me. And I pulled them into my arms. And I burst into flames.
Two
I never went back home. I called my mom the next morning to tell her that I was staying in Franklin. I had an elaborate lie cooked up, something about being hired as a paralegal and working on a big class-action lawsuit involving toxic waste, but she didn’t even really care. “What do you want me to do with your stuff?” was all she asked.
I didn’t really have stuff, nothing that I needed. There were some magazines that I’d stolen from the grocery store, this one T-shirt that I really liked, and a pair of basketball shoes that I’d saved up for six months to buy and wore only when I played pickup games at the YMCA. But Madison had said they’d buy me anything I wanted.
“Just keep it there,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come get it later.”
“You’re with Madison?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m staying with her,” I told her.
“She’s always been good to you for some reason,” she said, like she was dumbfounded by unnecessary kindness.
“Well, you know, I did a good thing for her,” I told her, heating up, ready for a fight.
“Ancient history,” she said.
“I’m actually going to be a governess,” I told her suddenly.
“Okay, then,” she said, and she hung up before I could explain what that was.
Madison was downstairs in the breakfast nook, a smooth leather bench that curved all the way around the table. There was a huge bay window and I could see squirrels hopping around the lawn, scavenging nuts. It took me a second to realize that Timothy was there, holding a sterling silver fork that fit perfectly in his little hand. I tried to remember how old he was. Three? Four? No, three. He was beautiful, but it was a different kind of beauty than what Madison possessed. On Timothy it was unnatural, cartoonish. His eyes were so large that they seemed to take up seventy-five percent of his face, like a collectible figurine in some old lady’s house. He was wearing pajamas that were red and patterned with the insignia of the Tennessee state flag.
“Hello,” I said to him, but he kept staring at me. He didn’t seem shy. He just couldn’t figure out whether I was someone he should talk to.
“Say hi to Lillian,” Madison finally said. She was eating cottage cheese topped with blueberries.
“Hello,” Timothy said, but he immediately turned back to his scrambled eggs. He was done with me.
“Do you want coffee?” Madison asked, like I was one of her children, like this wasn’t the first time in years that we’d even seen each other.