That guy who was visiting from Chicago that night who I met at the bar and we went back…
“Oh...Hi,” Sherry said, the words spilling out of her mouth before she could finish her thought. This was unreal; a crazy coincidence made in hell. Instantly, Sherry felt her palms sweat. Her anxiety only intensified when Darren extended his arm for a handshake.
Sherry stepped into the house, almost feeling as if she were barging through a strange tension between she and Mr. McWaters. Eye contact was a struggle for the both of them. Quickly, Darren showed the applicant down the hall to his dining room. There, they set down at the table – he on one side and she on the other. Sherry’s eyes gazed at the paperwork already on the table. Her confidence shattered; worry overran with worry. As she revisited the one night stand, as well as how she met this guy at The Blue Ivy then they went to dance at the bar down the street from her apartment, she wondered if he would even be able to take her seriously. Letting a woman with whom you had a one-night stand be the nanny to your practically-newborn baby? Sherry waited for the guy to open his mouth as it was very obvious they both were thinking about this awkward situation.
“So, how have you been, Miss Calhoun?” Darren asked. Familiarity made it difficult to conduct the interview how he’d planned. He looked at Sherry, quickly reminiscing as any man would about how he met this perky bartender one night then wound up going dancing then having wild sex in her bed. Something about her changed, though. She was still a very attractive woman – this couldn’t be denied. However, the paleness in her skin. Darren didn’t think she wore that much make-up at the bar. He had seen her in the morning with no make-up and she could easily give a lot of woman a run for their money. On top of this, her smile wasn’t the same; there was something cold about her gorgeous eyes.
Sherry smiled, trying her best to relax and take the situation for what it was. She shrugged. “I’ve been doing the best I can I can say. How have you been? I thought you lived in Chicago now that I think about it.”
“Um, yeah,” Darren said, nodding. “I did. I’m from there. Since then, I guess in the last year and a half, I wound up moving here for business and, well, here I am.”
“Oh, wow,” Sherry said, nodding her head and smirking. She tried to keep her composure. If she was unlucky enough to wind up with this kind of an interview, she was going to give it a good try. “Well, that’s interesting. Moved from Chicago to here for opportunity. That’s not really something you hear everyday.”
Darren chuckled. The sarcasm he remembered liking in Sherry at The Blue Ivy had come out. He set his pen down; his shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I guess not. So, you don’t work at The Blue Ivy anymore?”
“No, I quit there back before...” Sherry said, catching herself. “It’s been a while at this point. I’m just looking to build my laugh back.” Her bout with cancer came to mind. “So...”
Darren nodded, opening the folder. “Yeah, I can understand that.” He looked at Sherry and saw the woman had obviously had some kind of mind-changing experience. Tempted to ask, he smiled and decided to go on with the interview then maybe afterward, if the awkward tension simmered, he would try to bring it up in casual conversation as he walked her out to the sidewalk.
Sherry put on her game face and answered each and every question Darren threw her way best she could. What experience did she have with children? Back before cutting ties with her family and forever going down in the family picture book as the black sheep, she was the auntie who watched her older sister’s kids after school when they were first starting elementary school. Sherry made sure to mask the regret she felt from going so long since seeing the three of them with a smile and a high head.
Darren asked Sherry about her availability then transportation. He liked Sherry’s stance on having company, when to answer the door, and how to handle emergencies if he weren’t around. There were moments during the interview where they even laughed a bit as the answer to a couple of questions easily transitioned into sarcastic jokes for Sherry. The longer the interview went on, the longer Darren looked at her and smiled effortlessly.
Within twenty minutes or so, Darren finished up with the planned interview questions then closed the folder. He looked up at Sherry – he’d long given up calling her Ms. Calhoun – and rose up out of his seat. “Well, I guess before you head home, I should show you around the house. We talked about you living here and you said you would want to see the layout of the house as well as where you would be living. Are you still interested in seeing?”
Sherry stood up as well, smiling and nodded. “Sure, thank you.”
Darren led Sherry around his home’s first floor. She commented on the architecture – pocket doors, french doors, stained glass windows in the kitchen as well as in the hallway. She loved the small den at the back of the house – a room with bay windows on all three sides. “Yep, this looks like the kind of room where I would sit with a baby.”
Darren chuckled, looking Sherry up and down the first time he’d seen her walking around behind the bar at The Blue Ivy. “Yeah...that does sound nice.”
All the while Darren showed Sherry around the second floor, there was one thing she could never seem to weave into the conversation: How did you wind up being a single father? Where is the mother? This guy didn’t mention a wife, ex or current, when we talked that nigh. Then again, he could’ve just been telling me whatever I wanted to hear. Wouldn’t be surprised if the guy had a wife and family in Chicago and was just having a little fun while he was out of town. Damn, what happened with the wife? How did his guy wind up the single father of a newborn baby?
“So, this is the room where you would be living,” Darren announced, opening a large wood door – obviously original to the home.
Sherry stepped into the large room, which was adjacent to the nursery. She walked around the queen-sized bed. The armoire looked like it cost a pretty penny. Sherry loved the heavy, designer drapes covering a window that looked taller than herself. She looked out and admired the view of a tree-lined street in a historic neighborhood.
After looking over the clearly-added-on bathroom, Sherry stepped out into the light, next to the bed. “Okay, this would be fine for me. I don’t need much space.”
“Good, good,” Darren said. He still had a few applicants, but something in his gut was telling him to go ahead and hire Sherry. She seemed genuinely interested in the role; however, there were moments where Darren felt a little crazy for even considering her. He chuckled out of the blue, suddenly grabbing Sherry’s attention. His mother’s potential reaction to finding out her son hired a bartender he had a one-night-stand with while out of town to be his nanny was nearly SNL-worthy. “Whatever you would need to change about the room, like the wall color or maybe even some of the furniture, I’m willing to consider, but only at the point in which you’ve been a nanny for six months.”
Sherry conveyed that she understood then followed Darren back downstairs. He then walked her out onto the porch. He noticed how she looked around shortly after he pulled the door shut.
“This house is beautiful,” Sherry said. “You know, it makes me think of this house my aunt and uncle used to live in, but up in Goshen. Kids up and down the street would joke that it was the haunted house of the block. When my aunt and uncle retired and bought it, I was one of the first kids to actually see inside and it was spectacular.”
“Yeah, these old houses are really something,” Darren said, turning toward the front as they stepped off of the porch and headed down the sidewalk. “I will say, though, that they require a lot of maintenance. A lot of work went into this one, but I got it for a good price.”
Sherry nodded. “That’s good. You’ve really done the house justice.”
Darren nodded, not knowing what to say next. “Okay, well, I’ll walk you to your car.”
He searched the block for the Toyota he followed that night they hooked up. “Where did you park?”
Sherry pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it up, smiling. “Uber,” she said.
“Oh, okay,” Darren said, nodding.
“Excuse me while I get this together,” Sherry said.