“Would you like a lift home Rachel?” My wife asked our babysitter. Ellen turned to me before Rachel had a chance to answer. “Is that OK Tom?”
Great. It had been my turn to drive this evening, so not only had I stayed sober as I watched Ellen drink with our meal, now she was volunteering me to take our babysitter home. I was dead tired. I’d had a rough day at work. A rough week at work. I just wanted to hop in the shower and go to bed. I absolutely did not want to head out in the car again.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I lied. “If that’s OK with you Rachel?” I hoped it wouldn’t be fine. I hoped she wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing a car with a guy twenty years older who she barely knew. Rachel had babysat for us for a couple of years now, but we’d barely ever said more than a handful of words to each other. I’d never driven her home before. Ellen usually did that. Or Rachel rode her bike.
“Is it still raining out?” Rachel asked.
Fuck. It was. It was pouring down. A typical English summer’s evening. “Yep,” I said weakly. “Although it might have stopped by now.”
“I doubt it,” Ellen said. “It was tipping it down. The wind was howling a gale too. Don’t worry about being polite Rachel, Tom doesn’t mind.”
Rachel smiled a broad, warm, friendly smile at my wife. She looked down at her feet as she glanced over at me. “Thanks Mr Evans. That’d be great.”
Wonderful. Fucking wonderful. I felt a headache coming on already. Ellen paid Rachel, she asked questions about the kids, she kept talking to our babysitter as I stood and waited and grew more impatient with each passing second.
“Ellen. Enough. I need to take Rachel home. We can’t keep her here all night.” I’d meant it to sound casual, light-hearted, but I couldn’t hide the irritation in my voice. Ellen glared at me as Rachel put her jacket on.
I found the weather had turned even fouler as I opened the front door to take a look outside. The rain was hammering down, the wind blowing it into sheets that fell diagonally, that bounced off the road. Brilliant. The car’s headlights flashed as I unlocked the doors from the safety of the house.
“We’d better run,” I said to Rachel as she joined me at the door. “You ready?”
She flashed a shy smile at me as she nodded. She looked down again, the vision of teenage shyness.
“OK. One, two, three, go!” I ran out the door first but I heard Rachel close behind me. It was a five-meter dash to the car on the driveway, but the rain was so heavy it was blinding. It soaked me in seconds. I heard Rachel scream as she ran, but she was laughing by the time she reached the car. We hauled the doors open and leapt in to the front seats together.
My shirt was sticking to my chest it was so wet. Rachel’s blonde hair clung to the sides of her head. “Sorry about that,” I said as I started the car.
“No worries, that was fun.” She was breathing hard, her eyes were wide, a grin on her face.
“You’ll have to show me where to take you,” I said to Rachel as I pulled out into the road.
“You don’t know where I live?” She sounded surprised. “You’ve known me for years.”
Not really, I thought. I didn’t even know her second name. I’d seen her face every few weeks for years, but Ellen always dealt with her. I didn’t know a thing about this girl. “Sorry. Guess I should, huh?”
“I won’t take it personally,” Rachel said, relaxing as she spoke now. “And don’t worry, I can show you the way. I can take control. Take a left at the bottom of the road please.”
The rain was falling so hard I couldn’t see far in front of us in the dark. I had to focus on driving more than usual. I didn’t speak at first and neither did Rachel. We shared a moment of silence than gained weight with each passing second, the soon felt oppressive. Even though I was staring ahead intently, I wracked my brains for something to say to dispel the quiet. But what the hell does a forty-year-old guy have to say to a teenage girl? I didn’t even know how old she was.
“How old are you Rachel?” I winced at myself as I said it. I couldn’t have picked a more old-person question.
“Nineteen.”
“And what do you do?” Another terrible, unimaginative old-man question. God, was I going to talk to her about pensions next?
Rachel didn’t seem to mind though. She didn’t roll her eyes, not that I could see. “I’m at uni. Up in York. I just finished my first year. I’m back home for the summer.”
“Cool. What are you studying?” Another uninspired, old-person classic.
“Archaeology and ancient history,” Rachel replied.
For the first time that evening, I sounded genuinely interested. “Wow. Good choice. I always wished I’d studied that at uni. I love history.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I hadn’t expected Rachel to ask me a question back. I’d assumed this would be a one-sided conversation, as was usually the case with teenagers. “I was advised against it,” I said. “I was told it wasn’t a safe, sensible choice. I studied business and accountancy instead. I’ve always wondered if that was the first big mistake I made in life.”
“That’s sad to hear.” Rachel sounded genuine. “I think the world would be a much happier place if people followed their passions. Don’t you?”
The simplicity of that struck me. The truth of it. “That’s a pretty wise thing for a nineteen-year-old to say. I can see you’ve got your head screwed on properly. More so than me at your age, anyway.”
She laughed. “Thanks. You seem to be doing pretty well though, judging by your house and your wife and your kids. Maybe business and accountancy wasn’t such a bad choice?”
Rachel grew in confidence with each word and I forgot I was talking to our teenage babysitter. I found I was talking to an intelligent, precocious, young woman instead. I relaxed too. “Yeah, I guess. Although I always wonder what I missed out on by taking the safer path. How different life could have been. I guess that’s natural though.”
“I guess so. You don’t have to always stay on the safer path though Tom. You can go crazy once in a while. You can always go back to uni part-time, do the degree you always wanted to.”
“I’d never thought of that,” I said, feeling more than a little foolish. I changed the direction of our conversation though, getting life coached by a teenage girl was starting to feel unsettling. “And how are you finding student life? You’ve settled in? You’re having fun?”
“I love it,” Rachel said with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to get back. I’ve never had so much fun, so much freedom.”
I remembered how it was to return home from uni during the summer months. How much of a shock is was from feeling like a young adult to reverting to a coddled child again. “Tough being back home?”
“You have no idea. I’ve had nine months of being able to do whatever I want. I could stay out till late, stay out all night, do what I wanted, sleep with whomever. Now, suddenly, I’m back home and my Mum’s constantly in my business. Oh, take the next right up here please.”