“You mean, besides the fact that your favorite drink is root beer mixed with heavy cream?”
“I call it a root beer melt and it’s delicious and the cream cuts the sweetness and someday you will agree with me. But no, I mean wrong with me medically.”
“Heeeyy!” Nina called out to someone, and she smiled that smile Josie knew to be genuine. “Sorry, I gotta run. We need to talk later, okay?”
“Yes, please call back.”
Josie blew a kiss. And wondered who Nina was smiling at like that.
She’d only just hung up when her phone buzzed with a text.
ROXANNE
Hey Jos! It’s been forever. Guess what … I’m coming to New York this summer!!! I want to see you. What are you in again? Can you get me tix?
Josie quickly deleted the text. Live with what you’ve got. Expect no more. Pull life’s blanket over your head and shut it all off …
She took deep, cleansing breaths and looked at the sky.
Missoula sat in a valley surrounded by bare hills, its bluish-greenness nourished by melting snow. The Clark Fork River tumbled through Hellgate Canyon and split Missoula in half. Josie was aiming for a park in a crook of the river she’d found by examining satellite images on her phone. As they neared, the air smelled increasingly springy, and Josie wrinkled her nose at the heavy scents of pollen and tree sap.
In the fifty-five-degree weather, college students were out in shorts and bare feet. Josie passed a dark-haired guy and a girl who were playing Frisbee. On a bench behind them, a white guy in a cowboy hat and boots was plucking out chords on a guitar. Another guy, with blond dreadlocks wafting the scent of patchouli, asked to join the game, and the college girl tossed the Frisbee in his direction. He caught it in a neat swipe behind his back. The scene looked ready-made for a brochure snapshot: Visit Missoula, Montana!
The only things Josie really knew about Missoula was from her online research: it was a college town just south of the Flathead Reservation and full of a mix of people from retired loggers to literati to environmentalists to sovereign citizens. And second-home Californians, but it was clear that everybody hated them equally.
Josie smiled at the Frisbee players in a way she hoped looked nothing like a second-home Californian.
Beyond the grass where Frisbee was happening, a playground sprouted out of a sandy circle. Several children around Mia’s age climbed, ran, screamed, tossed, and fell, and Mia immediately ran to join in.
The only non-children near the playground squished together on a single bench, but they looked too young to be parents. Fellow nannies? Josie’s pulse sped up; she was way more excited at the prospect of peers than she’d anticipated. She hadn’t quite realized until now just how much she’d been isolating herself.
Besides, Josie had made a promise to hook Mia up with some friends. Which meant playdates. Which meant Josie had to score some phone numbers today or face tiny-girl wrath.
The probable nannies—two girls and one curly-haired guy—each held a copy of the same book. There was a naturalness to their style that was unnatural. Plaid shirts beneath V-neck sweaters, sleeves cuffed just so. Makeup so light you might be fooled into thinking their cheeks were naturally blushing and their lips always this glossy pink.
Josie inched closer, hoping the trio would notice her and invite her into their conversation.
“… the point-of-view shift allows the reader to empathize with the narwhal,” the guy was saying.
“But at what cost?” said one of the girls, who looked South Asian. “The juxtaposition of the slight—even anemic—prose with the more romantic passages—”
“Is brilliant,” interrupted the blond white girl.
The other two nodded solemnly, absorbing the thought.
“The narwhal’s narrative cuts through the superfluous prose like a warm knife through cheese,” the blond girl continued.
“Brilliant,” said the curly-haired guy.
“So deft,” said the other girl.
“Hey … there…,” said Josie.
The three looked up. Josie wasn’t sure if they were squinting in the sunlight or scowling at the interruption. She reminded herself that she’d already binge-watched her way through two streaming services and, imagining a future with Montana friends to hang out with, took a breath and went on.
“Hey, how are you? I’m Josie. Josie Pie.”
The two looked to the blond girl, allowing her the first reaction to this newcomer. So many blondes in Montana! And they all seemed to wield such power!
The blonde smiled coolly and said, “Josie Pie? What a unique name.”
The other two laughed. Josie joined them, though she wasn’t sure why. She cleared her throat.
“So, I moved to Missoula a month ago.”
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” said the blonde. “I’m Misty.”
“Hey, Misty.” Josie exhaled. Introductions! This conversation was improving.
“This is Meaghan, and this is Marcus,” she said, indicating her bench mates. “We were in the same lit course at U of M last year, and when we discovered we were all also nannies—”
“Misty said, we should have a nanny book club!” said Meaghan. “Do you go to U of M too?”
“No,” said Josie. “But I am a nanny!”
“Cool.” Misty tilted her head. “So, do you want to tell us your real name?”
Josie blushed. How did they know? Pie was Justin’s last name, but she’d liked how it sounded with her first name so she’d adopted it when she moved to New York. So memorable, she’d thought. A perfect stage name!
“What do you mean?”
“How do you spell your last name?” Misty asked.
“P-I-E,” said Josie.
“Oh. It’s just…” Misty glanced at Meaghan and Marcus, her gestures contrite. “Josie Pye—P-Y-E—that’s the name of a character from Anne of Green Gables? That classic of Canadian literature? You’ve read it?”
Josie had. She felt her face drain of blood. Josie Pye! That mean girl who always teased Anne! She’d read the books in middle school, before she’d met Justin, but how had she never realized? A quick conversation changer—
“Um … did you know that in the US there is an average of eighty-seven people per square mile, but in Montana there are only six people per square mile? I’ve had a lot of free time, been googling information about my new state, as one does.” Josie expected them to laugh, so when they didn’t, she did for them. “Six people per square mile! Must be why it’s been so hard for me to meet new people here! So few of you! Spread out so far! I have to hunt you down!”
“I hunt,” said Misty. “Mostly deer. Sometimes fowl—pheasant, duck, goose…”
Meaghan and Marcus nodded.
“Humans are carnivores by nature,” said Misty, “but how much more humane to consume an animal taken in the wild than one raised in a cage, don’t you agree?”
“Um … that’s Mia on the slide,” said Josie. “The girl I nanny.”
“Mine is Ahab,” said Misty, indicating a toddler in a sweater vest over a collared shirt, digging in the sand.
“There’s my Atticus,” said Marcus. His charge was about four years old and wearing a navy-blue jumpsuit with white piping.