Authors: Emma McLaughlin
“They did it for me at the store—”
“Tah-dah!” She’s interrupted by Pippa wheeling in a Bugaboo stroller tied with a gigantic red ribbon. “It’s titanium!”
“Oh, darling!” Citrine leaps up to her feet to embrace her. “I wanted this one—it’s supposed to be the best!”
“I was keeping it in the apartment and my husband was, like, twenty-four hundred dollars
for a stroller
? And I’m, like, since when do
you
care?” She laughs.
“I know,
right
?” Alex chimes in from where she leans against the bookcase. “You do your job at the bank. I do mine at home. You get paid. I get paid. Freddie Mac can bite me. Don’t give me these excuses.” The crowd dissolves in knowing hysterics.
“Guys.” A woman in a pony-embossed cable-knit minidress overrides the laughter. “If he gives you any trouble, pay for everything in cash—he can’t trace it. Say it’s for the ‘tutor.’” She rabbit-ears her fingers.
Citrine holds up an envelope to regain the focus. “Ooooh!” The room is excited.
“What is it?” Pippa calls across the coffee table.
“Endermologie. A ten-pack,” Alex squeals back before Citrine can even tear it open. Wow. A procrastinating hour of trolling the Web off the search word “cellulite” once educated me that Endermologie is upward of five hundred a session. “Trust me,” Alex intones, “you’ll need it. My stomach looked like a corrugated roof.” As Citrine’s face goes white, everyone nods in agreement.
“It’s the
worst
thing we put ourselves through, right?” A woman leans forward, her plate nearly tipping its massacred contents to the carpet. I look around. Everyone has a pulverized quarter muffin on their plate.
Why?
Why take the carbs if you’re not going to eat them?
“No. Nursery school applications are
the worst
.” A murmur of assent.
“Just wait till kindergarten. Forty thousand dollars and they want to ask
me
questions. And it doesn’t stop. My oldest is in first grade and they keep calling me, she’s wetting her pants in school, blah-blahblah. I’m, like, forty thousand dollars! Change her, for Christ’s sake.”
“Have any of you been following this Jarndyce thing?”
I straighten up.
“The helipad? They’re launching it Friday, right? God, I wish our school had one—instead they put in another new science lab—yawn.”
“No.”
The first woman leans in, her eyes bugging. “Not
that
. The
teacher.
”
“I read about it on UrbanBaby.”
“I heard the story from John Frieda.”
“How does a teacher get so out of control? Reading the students’ websites.”
“Out of control?” I repeat, amazed to be hearing this sentiment out of mouths no older than mine.
“At Pilates,” another woman adds. “We agreed. It’s a total invasion of privacy.”
“And you know it’s all her,” Pippa says. “Has to be. We
loved
our teachers. So many students wouldn’t have created those sites if she wasn’t a horrible witch. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
I put my plate down on the piano. “But we have to take into account that the school controlled how the story came out—we should remember there are two sides,” I say, careful, as there may be Jarndyce mothers in the room. “I’ve heard the students loved her.”
“Remember,” Langly says softly into her champagne, quieting the room, “when I shimmied under the desk and tied Ms. Conner’s shoes together? She broke her front teeth.”
My classmates break into hysterical laughter; Alex and Tatiana shake, eyes watering. And all at once Sarah’s perspective doesn’t seem so much unforgiving as realistic. As I look around the room I have to admit that when I started nannying for all those wealthy families, I absolved my classmates’ wanton anger and frivolous cruelty en masse once I understood that behind the excessive privilege lay unjustifiable neglect. But sitting among them now, with the years and therapists and
Oprahs
that have passed and with every possible tool at their disposal …Is it that they normalize being mean for one another so they never have to address what they’re really angry about? At? Never have to change?
“Citrine, you
have
to use my baby nurse,” Alex finally says as she dries her eyes. “You know, you’re recovering from a
major
trauma. You’ll need rest.”
“How long do I need one?” Citrine asks.
“Six months. Minimum.” There’s a murmur of assent.
“But be careful, they’ll try to take advantage of you,” Alex warns. “They are sneaky and snaky. Keeping an eye on them is a full-time job.”
“That’s so interesting.” I’m done. “Because, you know, I was a nanny in college.” All heads swivel in my direction as thirty or so women wish they could raise their eyebrows. “And I never met a woman doing the job who wasn’t just trying to …do the job.”
Citrine looks at me, all traces of warmth draining, and I have the strangest sensory experience of the room swirling away and the eyes in her thirteen-year-old face locking with mine as Sarah and I bring Ms. Conner a wad of paper towels.
“Cake! Cake!” someone cries with the mania of the underfed as Alex enters from the kitchen with a giant teddy bear–shaped confection. And not anywhere in the chaos of the big titanium carbohydrate reveal am I acknowledged for a gift I picked out with thought and consideration, to help someone I considered a friend on the journey she is about to embark on. Without me, it is starting to seem.
“Mom! MOOOOOMMMMMM!” I hear a young girl scream over the bleating cry of a baby on the other side of the door. The sickly residue of Splenda-sweetened teddy bear cake still in my mouth, I rest the box against the wall and catch my breath on the landing of Shari Oleson’s third-floor walk-up. “Mom! Mom! Mom!” The girl rat-a-tats as the sobs get louder. I hear the clicking of the door being unlocked.
“Sorry, just a—Stand back, Chloe, so I can—”
“But you were going to get me my crayons!”
“Just let me get this open, please.” The door pulls in to reveal Shari on the end of the energetic spectrum opposite her beatific wedding photo self. Her hair tugged haphazardly into a ponytail, she has a cloth diaper slung over her shoulder and a red-faced baby screeching in her arms. A three-foot blonde in a T-shirt and Dora the Explorer underwear peers up at me from behind Shari’s legs.
“Are you sure this isn’t a bad time?” I shift the weight of the box back into my arms.
She smiles wanly at this assessment, seemingly applying it to more than my arrival.
“I’m waiting for my crayons,” Chloe informs us as she focuses on simultaneously unfurling the steeple of her fingers and kicking into a long split in the narrow hall.
“No, it’s fine,” Shari answers me over the screaming. “Please come in. Thank you so much for lugging this stuff up here. Sorry I never got back to you. And I’m sorry we’re not really dressed.”
“Oh my God, no worries.” As I step inside, I glance at Chloe’s shirt and panties, the cardigan half buttoned over Shari’s leggings, and the diaper-and-sock-clad baby. “I think among the three of you, you actually have a complete outfit.”
Shari laughs. Chloe eyes me suspiciously.
“Get it, Chlo?” Shari points down at her daughter’s tummy. “You have the shirt, I have the pants, and Jake has the socks.” Chloe looks from herself to her mother and brother and then breaks into hysterical giggles. “Thanks, we’re running short on jokes around here.”
I realize she is bouncing, has been bouncing since she opened the door, despite Jake’s monotonous, irritated wail. “Oh, you can just leave the box there. I have to figure out where I’m going to put all that stuff.”
“No problem. Sorry to seem so urgent this morning. I’m glad we finally connected.”
“My husband will be back any minute, God willing, and we can take a walk.”
“Great!” I lower the box to the floor and Chloe immediately sticks her little feet into my line of vision.
“I have purple polish on my toes.”
“Gorgeous,” I admire as I stand to smile at Shari, who stares at me foggily in return. Jake provides the soundtrack.
“I need my crayons.” Chloe tugs heavily at her mother’s cardigan.
“We’ve covered this. Pants, then crayons.”
“But I don’t want pants.” Chloe despairs, dropping her head through her arms, dragging her mother’s sweater to expose the top triangle of her thick nude nursing bra.
“How about a skirt?”
Chloe shakes her head forlornly.
“Shorts?”
“Pa-ja-mas.” Chloe drops the sweater and slips to the floor, crumpling into a lanky heap.
Shari tilts her head at me.
“Long morning?” I ask.
“Long everything. Chloe, we’ve officially discussed this. This has been discussed from every angle.”
“Crayons,”
Chloe moans into the shellacked hardwood.
“You’re on a warning, Chlo.” Bouncing, Shari switches the baby to her shoulder. “Come in, Nan, please.” She waves me down the long hall lined with framed family pictures. We pass a door to a small bedroom where a crib and changing table have been wedged in around the queen-sized bed. “Oh, God, please disregard the mess. Between the colic and the colic we’ve gone to seed.” Shari talks up to the ceiling, pushing her voice over her son’s to me.
“No! It’s—This is a lovely spot. I’ve always loved the West Seventies, such a great neighborhood for families,” I cheer as we pass the doorway of the next room, no bigger than an alcove but festooned in an explosion of Indian saris and stuffed animals.
“That’s my room!” Chloe rolls onto her back beside the front door and extends an arm at me while her feet climb up the box I ferried.
I smile and turn to see we’ve arrived at a large space serving as kitchen/living/dining room, its three windows looking into the lush brownstone gardens below. “What a view!”
“Yeah, it’s a special one.” Shari darts her hand between piles of folded laundry covering the oval table, and reemerges with her phone. She hits a number as she brings it to her ear. “Where are you? …Oh. Hi!” she yells toward the front door.
“Daddy!” Chloe squeals.
“Chloe! Sorry, babe, the train took forever.” I hear a man’s voice as Shari walks around me and down the hall. I turn to see her hand the baby off in exchange for Trader Joe’s bags, both parents still gripping their phones.
“Nan, this is my husband, Scott. Scott, this is Nan.”
“Hi!” I give a little wave as Chloe wraps herself around his jeans and he theatrically walks her toward the living room like Godzilla, his upper body resuming the bouncing motion Shari’s has at last dropped. Jake screams, keeps screaming.
“Hey there,” Scott greets me.
“Okay!” Shari lifts the groceries onto the counter and swipes up a handbag, dropping her cell in it and simultaneously stepping into a pair of slip-on sneakers. “We’ll be back in fifteen. Nan?”
“Yes! Nice to meet you, Scott and Chloe.” I follow her as she pats each child’s head and strides down the hall.
“Daddy, I need my crayons.”
“Chloe!” Shari calls wearily as she opens the door and I step out onto the landing.
“I
need them
!”
“Bottoms on first is our deal, Scott. Warning two, Chloe.”
“Noooooooooooooo.”
Chloe’s erupting cry adds a density to her brother’s, chasing us down the steps and out the door to the stoop. Shari is on a mission. I scurry to keep up as we step into the afternoon sunshine and round the corner to West End. She abruptly stops to dig in her purse, producing a pack of cigarettes.
“Do you mind?” she asks, sticking one in her mouth and pulling a deli matchbook from where it’s tucked between the pack and its ripped cellophane. I shake my head no; at this moment I’d allow her heroin.
She inhales deeply as she leans back against the building wall and then focuses in on me. “Okay. Hi!” she says, mugging greeting me for the first time.
“Hi.”
“Please don’t think I’m an asshole.” She touches my arm with one hand and waves the cloud away from me with the other. “I don’t smoke. I mean, I haven’t since college. But I’m craving them like crazy. The smell is the only sign to my fried adrenal system that I’m off duty.”
“I’m sure.” I nod. “And with the colic—”
“Relentless. A baby’s cry is nature’s brilliant design to disturb you into action, but when there’s just no action that will help him,
you
just end up perpetually disturbed.” Her eyes tear and she blinks them dry. “And poor Chloe is so getting the raw end of the deal.”
“She seems pretty terrific,” I say reassuringly. “I mean, she’s not crazy. Pants can be a downer. And it’s great that your husband is around to help.”
“Yeah, I’d rather his pilot got picked up, but no, it’s good. With the writers’ strike it’s been a much lighter year for his work than usual. I’m sorry you had to stalk me, but he wrote your message on the back of a grocery list and then—”
“Yes, you mentioned that on the phone,” I remind her gently.
“Shit. I’m saying everything at least twice these days. With the crying, I’m losing track of what’s in my head and what’s out loud.” She lifts her cigarette-free hand to brace her temples. “Sorry, how can I help
you
?”
“Thank you—you are awesome to give me even five minutes.” I smile. “So, it looks from your files that Jarndyce is in the process of building cases against some of the teachers, and neither Gene nor Tim seem to be able to have a straight conversation about it.”
“Yes, straight conversation is not their forte.” She takes one last drag and drops the cigarette, stubbing it out with her toe. “And now I feel like shit.” She sighs, tingeing green. “From what I’ve been told it didn’t start that way, but since Cliff and Sheila took over the board—first thing they did was push out the old guard by upping the donation ante into the tens of millions. So now it’s all about brand and efficiency. They’ve been trying to wrestle the faculty into giving up all of their benefits in exchange for equity in the school. They’ve invested the endownment at some astronomical rate of return. And anyone who doesn’t want to toe the party line, maintain ‘flexibility’ as they love to say, they’re weeding out. Or as they prefer to call it, taking early retirement. Who did you axe?”
“Ingrid Wells.”