Quid pro quo

Bella stared at me. Did she know what was about to happen?

Thanks for coming for one last day. My daughter will be happy to see you.” I smiled.

“Thanks.” Bella smiled back at me.

She was just 6 months out of college and had babysat my daughter for 5 of those months. She’d announced she was leaving for another job, and she’d agreed to come back for one last evening.

“Where is she?”

“She’s out.”

Bella looked at me quizzically.

“See, I needed to talk to you.”

I looked at Bella, who was a very skinny woman whose girlfriend lived across the country. She hoped to break into pansexual politics, though I didn’t really know how “pansexual politics” would generate revenue. Bella had spiky short hair, maybe an inch or two long. She had an impish look, like an androgynous teen boy, but feminine as well. She’d told my daughter she had pierced nipples, 16 tattoos, that her girlfriend let her date men when they were apart, but only if she dated immature boys and told her the details. I’d asked Bella to cut out the intimate details, which had made her blush. I’d enjoyed her blushing, and liked the fact that she was so relentlessly hip, and she was prompt, seemed responsible, and my daughter loved her, but when she told my 7 year old that she smoked weed most evenings, I’d planned to fire her. Then she announced she was leaving. I had, however, come across additional information.

“About what?” She looked worried, and she glanced at the front door, though maybe I was imagining it.

“Well, somebody wrote a check on my account.”

“Uh huh.”

“For $700, and it wasn’t my signature, and it was cashed, and the bank recorded that they’d supplied the cash to someone using your id.”

“Uhm.” She blushed. “That’s strange.”

“I found that out last week, and I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“Uh huh.”

“And so I turned on my kiddie camera for your last babysitting days. And here’s the video in which you took my camera and $120 from the top drawer of my desk.”

She paused. She was usually so cool. “Uh, listen, I couldn’t pay my rent and was ****. I’ll pay you back.”

“Do you have the money?”

“I’ll get it.”

“Check kiting is a felony, Bella, and my bank is going through with the prosecution.”