“Alice, are you sure about this? You know I haven’t been a nanny for a bear shifter before…”
“You’ve done plenty! Victoria, you are a talented young woman with glowing recommendations from all over the country. Everyone has nothing but good words to say about you. I know you two would work well together. And the kids, they’re just perfect!”
“I’m sure they’re all great,” Victoria said quietly into the phone. Alice had been subtly raving about Bruce and his amazing kids for the past three weeks, so her bringing up a possible meeting hadn’t come as much of a surprise. Frankly, it was a wonderful opportunity. Things hadn’t been going well for Victoria lately. An illness had caused her to abandon her former clients and had cleaned out her savings account entirely.
She’d had nothing to fall back on and was desperate for a way to get back on her feet. Victoria had been evicted because she had gotten so behind in her payments and had a month to figure something out. She’d been trying to figure something out on her own. Victoria had always been independent. It had taken a lot of courage, and a lot of fear for her future, before she had admitted to Alice just how dreadful things had gotten. And she had come up with a solution instantly.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Alice assured her. “They are a beautiful family. And as soon as he meets you, I know, for sure, that he’s going to want you to come right home with him.”
“Sure,” Victoria said into the phone, sighing quietly. “I guess if he wants to talk to me about it you have my phone number.”
“Absolutely! Don’t you worry about a thing, he’s going to call. I will make sure of it. He will realize just how prudent it is to get a childcare provider! Especially one as talented as you are!”
“Wait, he doesn’t even want a childcare provider?” Vicky exclaimed. “This is hopeless. Alice…”
Alice chuckled.
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s Bruce. And you. I have a strong suspicion that the two of you will really hit it off.”
“Yeah, maybe if he actually decides he even wants a childcare provider!”
Alice laughed again.
“Stop obsessing, that’s just a small detail. There are many reasons this is perfect, and he would be foolish to overlook the logic in this. You two will be a perfect match, you’ll see.”
Victoria smiled slightly and tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice. “Okay, Alice. I guess we will see.”
“You will see that I’m right!” she assured Victoria. “You know I wouldn’t lead you astray, Vicky. This time next week you will have flown to Oak Mountain and we will be having tea at my favorite restaurant together.”
Victoria smiled, laughing quietly to herself. She liked Alice’s gusto, but it was a little bit hard for her to simply believe everything was going to be all right. She had to have a plan. That was part of why she had been so professionally successful. Although she couldn’t quite find a client on short notice like this, there was a possibility. She would just have to try to trust that things were going to work out and she wasn’t going to end up homeless.
Alice didn’t realize just how bad the situation was. Victoria hadn’t wanted to alarm anyone. But the fact was, she was banking on this job. Without it, she would have to start looking for shelters. Her family could not be of any financial support to her. Her father had died when she was very young, and that had set her mother off on a self-destructive spiral. She was an alcoholic with little regard for anyone else. That type of selfishness had made Victoria’s childhood a living hell, but she loved her mother fiercely, regardless. She only hoped there might be some way to get through to the woman and remind her that there were still things left out there worth fighting for. A reason to live and take care of herself. Watching her mother self-destruct for so long had been unbelievably draining.
“I’m going to have to let you go, Bruce and Marie should be here soon. I just know you two will get along so well, I can’t wait for you to meet him!”
Victoria smiled despite herself. Alice seemed fairly sure that this possibility was the be all that ends all of Vicky’s search for a client. And if it turned out Alice was wrong about that, she was going to have a hell of a problem on her hands.
Still, she had to try to let herself hope for the best, even if it didn’t seem quite realistic. There was a small likelihood that Alice was right, and everything was going to be fine, and that was what she was going to have to try to hold onto, whether she was confident in what the future was going to bring or not.