and hurt.
“It’s not that. Just . . . school and stuff.”
Mrs. Alex straightens. Without her shoes, she’s four inches shorter than Dani. “All right, Dani. I won’t lie to you. It would be difficult. You would be hard to replace.”
Come on, come on, get me out of here, Dani’s mind says.
Come on, it can’t be that difficult. She tries not to look impatient.
“I guess I should be flattered,” Dani says. It seems the perfect thing to say, balancing kindness and persistence. “I am flattered.
But maybe if I could find a replacement—a friend from tennis, or someone else at school . . .”
“I could find someone, sure, but not anyone that Alex likes as much as you—that we both like as much as you. Who could deal with my disorganization? And you’ve never said one thing about it.”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Are you looking for a raise? Is that it?” She looks the way T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
Dani’s mother looks when she starts to talk about money; single women who don’t want people putting one over on them.
“No, I don’t need a raise.”
“We might be getting an increase at work. If I do, you’ll get an automatic increase, too. How does that sound?” Mrs. Alex hangs her cell phoneholder, keys, and work ID on pegs inside the door.
She’s trying to become more organized. She buys books about organizing. But things stay put for only a day or two before joining the disorder. Dani can almost hear the disorder churning, like the rotating bin on a garbage truck.
Dani nearly laughs. The money’s not it. She can get money anytime she wants from her mom. Dani would almost pay Mrs.
Alex to let her go, no more questions asked, no cajoling or convincing. But she can’t think of another tactic.
“I don’t know what I’m talking about. It was just a hypothetical.”
“You look really tired, sweetheart,” Mrs. Alex says. “I’ve never seen you so wiped out. School okay? Not too much partying? It takes one to know one, you know. Want a ride home? It’s so late.”
“I’d rather walk and clear my head. I have my phone. I’ll tell my mom I’m en route.” Dani picks up her bag.
“You wouldn’t quit without giving me plenty of notice, would you?”
“I don’t know if I will quit. It sounds like you need me not to.”
“I do. And it would kill Alex.”
It would kill Alex. How casually people said awful, terrible things. Her leaving wouldn’t kill Alex. But it would mess up his life. And Mrs. Alex’s too.
61
JANET RUTH YOUNG
How long will this go on? Dani wonders. Dani had walked around the house with her hands squeezed together. She had checked on Alex ten or twelve times, locked up the knives, put them back before Mrs. Alex came home, and changed the TV channel every time something nasty came on. In the last ten minutes she felt a huge sense of relief, because Mrs. Alex would be home and Dani would be glad to see her, to tell her everything’s all right, to sign off on Alex, and to quit and never spend a night like this again.
62
18
“Hey, Shell. Do you ever have . . . weird thoughts?”
Dani asks. They’re eating lunch in the courtyard.
“My whole life is one weird thought,” Shelley says. She offers Dani shoestring potatoes and a tub of tuna salad. “Isn’t everybody’s?”
“No, I mean icky, weird thoughts. Something bizarre and random that you wouldn’t want to think of.”
“Here’s an unexpected thought, Dani: I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
A bump in the road. But Dani is prepared. She knew she would have to work up to this conversation. She psyched herself up during biology lab while staining slides with Jess Blodgett. I’m going to talk to my best friend, Dani told herself. I will sit down with my best friend and tell her what’s bothering me, and see what she thinks.
Dani dips a potato in the tuna. She chews as if a new idea has captured her mind and she’s deciding what to say next. But in fact she rehearsed every word.
“I mean, you get a thought about something you might do . .
.” Chew, chew, swallow. “Then you wonder, Oh my God, what if one day I really did that? What if I couldn’t help myself?”
Shelley swats an ant off the leg of her jeans. “For example?”
Dani leans on one elbow. She makes herself smile like she’s