THE NANNY DIARIES
The old nurse went upstairs exulting with knees toiling, and patter of slapping feet, to tell the mistress of her lord's return.
---ODYSSEY
°°°
I press down the backspace button and watch as my fifth attempt at a topic sentence deletes itself letter by letter. Jean Piaget . . . what to say, what to say?
I slouch back, rolling my neck on the top of the chair, and stare out at the Gray clouds drifting slowly above the roofs of the brownstones across the street.
George bats at my dangling hand. "Piaget," I say out loud, waiting for inspiration to hit as I start my hand at him playfully.
The phone rings and I let the machine pick it up. Either it's Mrs. X calling to check if I have any lifeblood she hasn't sucked yet or my mother calling to weigh in on the situation.
"Hi this is Charlene and Nan. Leave a message."
"Hey, working girl. I just want---" My favourite voice fills the room and I reach across my deck to grab the phone.
"Hi, yourself."
"Hey! What are you doing home at one forty-three on a Tuesday?"
"What are you doing, calling me all the way from Haa-vaad, at one forty-three on a Tuesday?" I push back my chair and trace a wide circle on the hardwood floor with my socks.
"I asked you first."
"Well, turns out Jean Georges lost the Xes' reservation for Valentine's Day so she immediately sent me home with a typed-up list of four-star restaurant to harass." I look over my backpack, where the document remains folded away.
"Why didn't she just call them herself?"
"I have long since ceased to ask why."
"So, where did you make them?"
"Nowhere! Valentine's Day is tomorrow. I suppose she's in denial that these places only take reservations thirty days in advance and that she already made me spend January fourteenth --- a Sunday, thank you very much --- calling them. And even then all I could get her was a ten P.M and I had to swear to the reservationist on my firstborn that I'd have them out by eleven. Yup, no go. They'll be lucky to get a booth at Burger King."
I picture Mr. X absentmindedly dunking his fries in ketchup as he reads the business section.
"So have you found the panties?"
"No. You're going to be really sad when we no longer need to talk about panties, aren't y?" He laughs.
"Actually," I continue, "yesterday we had a false alarm in which yours truly dove headfirst onto Snoopy's magician cape in a blind panic."
"They may not be black, you know. You should really try to think outside the box --- they could be pastel or tiger print or see-through ---"
"See! You enjoy this conversation way too much," I admonish.
"So then what are you doing if you're not making reservations or hunting panties?"
"Trying to write a paper on Jean Piaget."
"Ah, yes, Jean."
"What, you haven't heard of him ? And they call that pile of bricks an Ivy League."
"Not an Ivy League, dahling, the Ivy League---" he says, affecting a Thurston Howell III lockjaw.
"Right. Well, he's the grandfather of the child psychology, so to speak. I'm writing on his theory of egocentrism --- how children see the physical world exclusively from their own, limited perspective."
YOU ARE READING
The nanny Diaries
HumorNan has a tricky relationship with her employer, Mrs. A non- existent relationship with Mr X. But she loves their little boy to pieces. In between looking after four-year-old Grayer and running a thousand errands for Mrs X, his rich, upr...
