Nanny Returns (11 page)

“No, you don’t.” She shakes her head, the flame bursting blue under the old Le Creuset skillet.

“I do. I want to hear it’s all going to be okay.”

“Well, of course it’s going to be okay. It just might not include children.”

I look up at her, trying to suppress my sadness at her resignation, trying to access the feeling of gratitude at the empowerment she is aiming for, when a grinding sound comes through the ceiling, startling the puppies and Grace to barking on their feet.

“Shush!
That
is Carey Schwartz’s new SUV for toddlers, which she lets them drive around at all hours. And our two seconds of barking a day is the violation! Why she needs three more up there I’ll never understand.” She cracks an egg into the pan and it sizzles as I wave Grace over to hush her. “Just don’t wait too long, Nan. Don’t wait so long to be ready that you have scientifically induced sextuplets. What would you do then?”

8

Worried that my backfiring conversation with Mom had established a bad precedent for the day, I’m pleasantly surprised when the lunch with my client, a software company, goes smoothly. Buoyed, I announce myself with conviction to 721’s doorman at precisely three o’clock. He looks dubious. “Is she in the city?” he asks.

“She should be. She’s expecting me.”

Less than convinced, he does a little spin to the brass console, lifting the receiver. “I thought she was in Europe. Usually she’s in, she out, ladies coming and going, deliveries, but—Hello? Mrs. X? You have a visitor. Okay!” He pivots back to me, smiling. “Go right on up.”

I get out on nine and ring the doorbell, praying, despite the hour, that a sock-footed Stilton will appear and skate circles around us for the entire encounter. Unless she really is going to thank-me thank-me. Then I’d like him to do a quick oil painting of the event.

Silence.

Silence.

Then a small voice. “Coming!” Finally she opens the door and stands there looking even more fragile than she did two weeks ago. She’s swimming in ecru silk wide-legged trousers and a long silk jacket open above a matching shell top, the toast colors doing nothing to brighten her colorless face. “Please, come in. It was so good of you to travel all this way. I just don’t have the energy to be out and about right now. Grayer tells me you’re living in Harlem.”

“Yes, we bought a derelict house the city reclaimed and are fixing it up,” I say, following the direction of her outstretched arm toward the living room, somehow sure that Grayer omitted the fact that he’d actually been there. “It’s going to be beautiful when we’re done.”

“Pioneer spirit, how lovely,” she says, touching where her collarbones bones approach beneath her throat. “I never had that. Please, sit.” She gestures to the couch opposite where she settles herself. “Tea?” she asks, leaning forward to pour from the same service used to woo Chester Dobson.

“Thank you.”

“I apologize there are no sandwiches or scones. We’ve run out of everything and Rosa just up and quit on me, I’ve no idea why.” She gives a mirthless laugh.

“So what’re the boys eating?” I ask jocularly.

She looks at me blankly as she hands me my cup. “Pizza? Grayer hasn’t asked me for money so I’m assuming their father is giving them cash. Grayer doesn’t come into his trust until next year. Milk?”

“Thank you.” I cut jocular from my repertoire as the conversation switches tracks, and take the silver-rimmed pitcher from her. “Grayer told me about Mr. X. I’m so sorry.”

She sits back, crossing her veined hands in her lap. “
Grayer
told you?” she asks. I hesitate for a moment, unsure what I’m admitting to.

“Yes,” I finally say.

She raises a seed-pearl comb from her dark blond hair, no longer the near-black it once was, and readjusts it. “So you don’t read the
Post
?”

“No.” I don’t cop to this week’s habit.

“It’s all so tacky.” She brushes imagined crumbs from her pristine lap. “So, so
tacky.
And to think of the lengths I have gone to . . .” She looks into the empty fireplace before regaining her bearings. “It’s just tacky.”

I smile softly, awkwardly, genuinely commiserating, whether she’s referring to his behavior or the coverage. It
is
tacky. “What do you imagine Elizabeth would’ve made of all this?” I venture, mentioning her daunting mother-in-law.

“Oh, she’s still alive.” She leans forward. “When her sister died she sold the house in Boston and moved into her family mansion in Greenwich. Forty minutes away. And no call of support from her. I guess we know which side she’s chosen.” She flares her diminutive nostrils and purses her bare lips before reclining and recrossing her hands. “So.” She pauses. “I asked you here to thank you.” Okay, yes, yes, you did, we’re on the same plane of reality. “With Stilton’s acceptance letter came a phone call.
Apparently
I made a very charming impression on his evaluation.”

“I’m so sorry,” I rush.

“Don’t be.” She raises her cup and saucer from the table. “It’s something they’ve learned from their father, I expect. Deceit.”

My face stings. “I think they were trying to spare you any additional stress, under the circumstances.”

She looks at me for a moment, weighing accepting my gracious spin. I take a tight breath. She smiles. “That’s very kind.”

“They’re wonderful boys and I’m thrilled to hear Stilton was accepted,” I say earnestly, despite the fact we seem to be dancing closer to the moment where she hurls scalding Earl Grey in my face.

“You remember Grayer, of course.” I lean back slightly at this acknowledgment that we met before two weeks ago, my hands still ready to grab Grandma’s Choo as a shield. “But Stilton . . .” She smiles to herself. “He’s my happy surprise.”

“He’s wonderful. And Grayer’s great with him.”

“I had a few miscarriages after Grayer started at St. Bernard’s.” She sniffs.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, thrown by the deepening intimacy. “I can’t imagine. That must have been awful.”

“It was …painful. Finally they said my eggs were just too old.” She gives a little laugh on “old” the way some people whisper disease names. “We found a marvelous egg donor, just marvelous.” Her pallid eyes light up for the first time since my arrival. “PhD, proficient in the violin, adorable girl. So we tried that way for a couple of years, but by then they said my uterus had ‘timed out.’” Again the little trill on what I’m taking as code for menopause. “But we were so
attached
to the donor, such an
enchanting
girl, so we found a surrogate to carry the baby. Of course, by then, with the demands on Mr. X, leaving the bank and starting his fund, we decided it was easier to use a sperm donor. Et voilà. My darling boy. He is
such
a love, isn’t he?”

I pause to add that up. “He really is. I saw his room. His passion for the Supreme Court is really something.” I laugh. She smiles blankly. “Grayer seems to have been a wonderful influence on him. I remember what a good time we had together,” I say, testing the cloudy waters.

“Hm.” She makes the sound with her lips closed, a small smile playing around them. She nods to herself for a moment, eyes on the Audubons.

“We had so much fun together—”

“Right,” her voice comes back firmly. “You babysat him a few times,” she states.

“I, uh—” My breath catches and we stare at each other. And then suddenly her face softens. “But you were his favorite. I do remember that.”

The front doorbell rings.

“This has been lovely.” She brushes imaginary crumbs from her lap. “I’m so glad we had this time together. Would you mind getting that for me? I don’t have the strength to get up.”

“Not at all.” I stand. So …we acknowledged that I worked here—kind of. And that Grayer and I were close—relatively. And that’s as far as we are going—probably. I cross back to the entrance and open the heavy front door to two Chanel-clad ladies in their midfifties. If Lewis Carroll and Tom Wolfe collaborated this would be their Tweedledee and Dum. Identical blond blow-outs, identical bouclé suits, one robin’s egg, the other pink, identical black Kelly bags, identical black flats, similar patrician good looks probably preserved by the same tasteful dermatologist.

“Bunny? Saz? Come in,” Mrs. X calls weakly as if the oxygen had suddenly gone thin.

The two ladies skirt past me to rush in and kiss her pale cheek. “Honey, how are you doing?” they both intone with almost southern verve as they sit on the couch facing her. “Are you
all
alone?” One leans in pityingly.

“I’m hanging in.” Mrs. X smiles bravely.

“We are
so sorry
we haven’t been to see you sooner—”

“Any sooner—”

“We have been up to our
eyeballs
with the benefit—”

“Our eyeballs—”

“With the new
program format
—”

“The ‘eco’ considerations—”

“An
organic
menu—”

“But you have been on our minds—”

“In our
prayers
—”

“In our hearts.”

Mrs. X nods, letting their weightless words hang in the air for a moment like Chinese lanterns. I stand awkwardly in the doorway, uncertain if I’m supposed to excuse myself, uncertain if I got what I came for, or if that’s even available to me. “Yes,” she says, “when the e-mails abruptly stopped—well, we know how stressful the final weeks of planning are. It was so considerate of you to spare me this year with everything I have going on. Girls, I want you to meet a dear, dear friend of mine, Nan Hutchinson.”
What?!

Mrs. X extends her arm up to me. She pulses her fingers into her palm and I realize she wants me to take her hand. Oh, sweet Jesus. But I do. This random stranger who babysat her kid a few times takes her hand and she presses it against her cool face. “Dear Nan. She’s Dorothy Hutchinson’s daughter-in-law.” The Tweedles murmur appreciatively as I struggle to keep my shock from reading. “When Dorothy couldn’t come herself she sent Nan.” She fixes me with an unprecedented smile of affectionate gratitude that I’m disturbed to feel some antiquated part of me, however tiny, desperately drink in. “Who has insisted on being here every day to look after me. Nan, this is Barbara and Susan.”

I blink down at them.

“Nan?” Mrs. X prompts.

“Yes, hello.” I free myself from her cheek to shake their freckled hands.

“How
is
Dorothy?” Susan inquires.

“Good!” This one I can answer. “She’s made a life for herself in Hong Kong, still doing her photography.”

“Well, give her our best. New York just has not felt the same without her!”

“So.” Barbara opens her purse and sets a small paperweight-sized scale on the coffee table. “What do you have?”

“Nan, darling,” Mrs. X asks, “would you be a dear and get that envelope I left on the bed?”

I find myself nodding and then exiting to turn down the twisting hallway to her now pewter-toned bedroom, where I see, atop her unmade bed, a bulging manila envelope. The curtains are open to the flat light of the city outside, but the room smells like sweat and confinement. My curiosity mounting, I walk quickly back with the envelope.

“It’s just these few odds and ends,” Mrs. X says, extending her arm once more to take it from me. She spills its contents onto the cloudy glass between them, gold bracelets, necklaces, and rings clinking into the Limoges boxes and gardening books that accessorize the table.

Barbara pulls out a black Smythson notebook and starts weighing each piece before putting it back in the envelope. “This is good,” Barbara affirms. “My guy on Forty-seventh will give you a great price.”

“It’s not that I need the money,” Mrs. X asserts. Again that nervous laugh on “money.” “It’s just I want to liquidate everything that wasn’t itemized on our insurance before this place is inventoried.”

“Smart,” Barbara says. “How’s your prenup?”

Mrs. X pauses, her pale eyes rounding to make her look more doll like. “Generous.” A faint smile. “What with
two
boys to look after.” She traps the tip of her tongue between her teeth as Stilton’s cash value is laid bare.

“I just got three thousand for my great-grandfather’s old war medals,” Susan interjects. “I took myself to Golden Door.” Mrs. X whips her head over. “Before the benefit planning took over,” she amends. “Eyeballs. We are up to our
eyeballs.
”

“I don’t understand,” I finally say as Barbara squints at the tiny lever bouncing into place under the weight of a large Dior cocktail ring.

“Gold is at record highs. There’s a global shortage,” she says, recording the ring’s weight. “I went with my son-in-law to pick out my daughter’s engagement stone and the guy behind the counter offered me cash money on the spot for the necklace I had on. I went home and cleared out all the old junk I never wear anymore and the next day I got that fur coat Randal wouldn’t buy me. Okay, done.” She slips the bulging envelope, notebook, and scale into her purse. “I like to preweigh. They’re
Jews.
” She mouths the last word as they stand. “I should be down there early next week and then I’ll drop the money off with your doorman.”

“Can’t you stay for a cup of tea?” Mrs. X asks, her tone reminiscent of entreaties to her husband from years ago. “
Please?
Or we could meet for supper later? At Swifty’s?” But they move toward the hall, seemingly eager to distance themselves from the specter of their own marital follies writ large. “Forgive me if I don’t get up,” Mrs. X calls after them, her voice spinning into a breathy wheeze. “Its only my doctor said I’m not to move around too much.” The Tweedles freeze at the threshold. Pause. And pivot, their Ferragamo bows moving in unison.

“Are you okay, honey?” Susan asks, coming no closer.

“Oh, yes, it’s just that, oh—” Mrs. X huffs to herself. “I promised myself I wouldn’t tell anyone until it was over. I didn’t want to worry you.”

At that they fly back to their seats on one straight Bill Irwin–esque vector, their knees bending as they approach. “Honey, you can worry us—”

“We are here for you—”

“Anything—”

“Anything at all.” They both lean in, eyes widening like dogs awaiting scraps.