Fifteen
Natasha
“These?” Emma asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“What about these?”
“No.”
“Or these?”
“Nu-uh.”
“Oh come on. You have to take these,” she said.
“No, Emma. Look, the place I’m going to be staying at in Africa is the equivalent of my own little mud hut. I can’t take much with me. Most of this is going back in storage,” I said.
“Speaking of storage, what are you sleeping on if all of your furniture is gone?”
“I have to get used to sleeping on a harder ground again. I’ll have a cot, but it won’t be much.”
“You're sleeping on the hardwood floor, Natasha?”
“This was how I prepared for Africa for the first time, so this time is no different,” I said.
“So what are we packing your stuff for Africa in?” she asked.
“My backpack.”
“And…?”
“That’s it,” I said.
“That’s it? A backpack!? Where will your hair dryer go?”
“In storage,” I said.
“What about your mousse?”
“In storage,” I said.
“You have to take your mousse. Your hair will be everywhere all the time,” she said.
“Not if it’s up all the time. It’s hot in Africa, Emma. I’m not wearing my hair down and going to a bonfire.”
“At least they have bonfires,” she said.
“Look, my clothes are lightweight in order to keep me cool and I have a special way of folding them. When I took my backpack last time, I could fit fifteen outfits, a jacket for the cold nights if they happened, ten pairs of socks, three pairs of shoes, my brush, several hair ties, my laptop and its charger, and the small bottles of all the essential toiletries.”
“All in that backpack.”
“Yep. All on the plane with me so I don’t lose it, too,” I said.
“I don’t know how you do this. It takes a very special person to do this.”
“I’m honored to be able to do it. And very excited.”
“So how about this? You pack your backpack and I’ll throw everything else into boxes? We have to be quick about it, though. That van hauling your furniture’s going to be here soon.”
“I still can’t believe you hired them to help me. Thank you, Emma.”
“Girl, going through this the first time was a pain in my ass. If you’re doing this again, I’m at least making the process easier,” she said.
I wrapped my arms around my best friend and hugged her close. I was going to miss her. But I knew I was doing the right thing for my life. Despite all I had witnessed in Bria, I missed it. I missed the kids and making a difference and helping them in all the ways I knew how. And I knew I could use my persuasive expertise to open up more funding for the team I was about to join.
I couldn’t wait to see the guys.
“So, talk to me about this fun mud hut you’ll be staying in,” Emma said.
“Everyone on the team has their own. I know Clark and a couple of the other guys have heavy-duty tents they’ve pitched, but I like living how the rest of the people live. It makes the kids feel more comfortable when they come to visit me.”
“Makes sense. Thatched roof and all?” she asked.
“Mhm. Fires to boil water and rice, though some now have battery-operated stove tops in their mud huts.”
“Why do I feel that’s a problem waiting to happen?” she asked.
“They use them outside,” I said with a giggle. “But it’s opened up a lot of avenues in terms of how they cook their food. There still aren’t many resources, but they are worlds away from where they were when I was there ten months ago.”
“How did Carter take the news?” she asked.
I sighed as I started to lay all the clothes out I was taking with me.
“About as well as could be expected,” I said. “Though I’m still not sure why he reacted the way he did.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I expected him to be shocked, but not upset.”
“He got angry?”
“In his own way. He became very removed and his statements were clipped. There was one point where he tried to convince me that my nightmares and things would get in the way of me doing the good I wanted to do.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah. I don’t think he meant it coming out that way, but that was what he said.”
“Well fuck that asshole. Who the hell does it think he is?” she asked.
“I told him the job wouldn’t take place for another month so I could help him find another nanny, but that really pissed him off. He put me in an Uber. After picking me up.”
“What?”
“Yeah. And then the next morning, he called and told me he’d already found another nanny.”
“What the hell is this guy’s problem?” she asked.
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to the kids, Emma. He just… shoved me out and replaced me. Easy as pie for him.”
“Look, if you want to say goodbye to those kids, then go say goodbye to them. He’s being a little bitch about this and he’s hurting his kids because of this. Go over there, spout some of your educational science mumbo jumbo about how this is detrimental to his children, then hug their necks.”
“Educational science mumbo jumbo?” I asked.
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“What if it makes him angrier?” I asked.
“Who the fuck cares? When did you ever care about pissing someone off?”
“I don’t know. Carter’s struggling with this for some reason. Even if he won’t tell me why and he chooses to push me away instead, that doesn’t mean he isn’t struggling.”
“And I’ll ask again… since when did you care about stuff like that?” she asked.
Emma had a point. I usually never cared about that kind of thing. Making people upset was never an issue for me, especially if I knew I had a point. And I missed the kids. I really did. I would miss them when I left. But Carter was a businessman. He was driven by his want to succeed in the areas that made him happy. And I couldn't for the life of me understand why he didn’t get that. Why he couldn't see that I was doing the same thing.
But I wasn’t going to let him rob me of the proper goodbye I wanted to give his kids. I was supposed to have another money with them, and instead he swooped in, hired someone else, and shoved me aside like I was nothing.
Like I meant nothing.
That wasn’t happening. Those kids were not going to think I had abandoned them. I knew what abandonment felt like. I knew what it felt like to be forgotten. And I’d be damned if those kids were going to think I had left them at the drop of a hat for something greater.
Because that was not what happened.
It was time to put on my big girl panties.
“Fine. Then that’s what I’m going to do,” I said. “I’m going to go over there and say goodbye to those kids.”
“Good for you,” Emma said.
“Carter isn’t going to act like a manchild over this and make it seem like I abandoned those kids.”
“Fuck him,” she said.
“He isn’t going to throw this temper tantrum and think he can shove me out like that.”
“Yeah!”
“I came in there and fixed his life,” I said.
“Yes you did.”
“I straightened his kids up.”
“Hell yeah, you did!”
“I cooked and cleaned and reorganized his entire world. I re-evaluated his children’s schedules and increased their quality of life,” I said.
“You’re the fucking woman, Natasha.”
“And I’ll be damned if Carter’s going to throw that away because he can’t be happy for me,” I said.
“When are you gonna go over there?” she asked.
My doorbell rang out and I gazed out the window. I saw the moving van outside waiting for my boxes to be packed up. I drew in a deep breath and looked over at the clock still on my wall.
We would be done with all of this before lunch.
“Now,” I said. “Can you handle making sure those boxes get in the van?”
“Yes I can. Your backpack full?” Emma asked.
“Don’t touch anything over here that isn’t in a box. Otherwise, yes,” I said.
“Knock ‘em dead, Natasha.”
“Trust me. I kind of want to,” I said.