Nanny Returns (13 page)

“After school I have a staff meeting to attend, Forensics Club to lead, sixty-two papers to grade, three tests to write, and a field trip to plan. Today …today is just not the . . .” She fidgets with the fraying cuff of her fitted oxford. “Today is shit. So with all due respect, can you just come another day or whatever because I really just …can’t.”

Before I get a word out, she’s opened the door to the din of voices and closed it abruptly behind her, leaving me flanked by the daguerreotypes of historical figures in American finance lining the walls. My bag buzzes. My BlackBerry. I feel around my wallet and keys to grab it.

“The new Shari!” I swivel to see a bespeckled man strolling toward me, open leather satchel in his arms.

“Yes, hi, it’s Nan.”

“I’m Jeff, medieval lit.”

“Jeff.” I regroup as I see that I have two texts waiting. “How are you?”

“Better than Ingrid. Pretty f’ed up, don’t you think?”

“Forgive me, what exactly are we talking about?” I ask as I open my messages to see they’re from Grayer: CALL ME and WHERE R U

“The website. That’s why you’re here, right? They called the Hall of Justice back into action.”

“For what? Jeff, what has
happened
?”

“Ah,” he says with resignation. “Step into my office.”

Still holding my BlackBerry, I lean over Jeff’s shoulder as he boots up his computer and clicks onto the Web and then onto a social networking site, typing in “Ingrid Wells.” The screen fills with a picture of Ingrid’s face Photoshopped onto the body of a centerfold, implanted, shaved, and spread. My stomach drops as my eyes dart down a stream of vile accusations—statements that would make Rush Limbaugh crave sensitivity training. Fifty percent porn, fifty percent character assassination, cloaked in racist epithets, it’s the last things you would want anyone to think about you, ever.

“Who
did
this?” I ask.

Jeff scrolls down the page to where the “Founding Member of the Ingrid Wells Sucks Big Black Cock Club” identifies himself. Oh.

“I found it this morning while doing my job of ‘policing the cyber life’ of our students. In a sick way you kind of have to admire the kid, he gets building a following.”

Beneath Darwin’s name is a list of boys who’ve pledged their allegiance, and at the bottom, as of ten minutes ago, Chassie.

“I don’t understand, Gene said Ingrid’s very popular.”

“She was—is. But Darwin’s suddenly taking her on and he has a lot of sway round these parts.”

“This page was created right after the—Estée Lauder incident,” I say, using Gene’s preferred lexicon. I look to the date the “club” was founded. “And you told Ingrid . . .”

“Immediately. She was calm. She told Gene. He lost his shit.”

“Which is why I’m here,” I say through my fingers.

“You saw Ingrid that night. That’s her thing—she wants the administration to address the issue at its source.” He rolls his eyes. “Force them to hold up a mirror. Not gonna happen.”

“Thanks, Jeff.” I pull up my bag and make my way directly back to the
Little Foxes
film set that is Gene’s office, where Janelle has me wait. I use the opportunity to call Grayer’s number, only to get his voice mail. SORRY, I text him. BEEN N MTNGS, U OK?

WHATEVER, I get back a minute later.

GRAYER! DO U NEED ME OR NOT? No little red light. GRAYER? I text again.

But nothing. Between his come-here-go-away routine and sitting outside the principal’s office, I’m starting to feel like a junior myself.

The minute his door opens, I stand as Gene strolls out with Tim, all smiles.

“Gene.”

“Nan! How’d it go with Ingrid?”

“Great!” We both turn to see Ingrid in the doorway, her jacket and bag clutched to her chest. Tim makes a beeline to what I presume is his office on the other side of the fireplace.

“Gene.” I turn back to him. “I really wish you’d told me about the website.”

“And I wish you’d told me
I
was the problem,” Ingrid says, her mouth trembling. Oh God, please don’t cry. There’ll be no coming back from this if you cry.

He scratches at the back of his neck. “Come on in, ladies.”

I wait for Ingrid to pass and then follow her inside, where Gene perches on the corner of his desk like he’s about to expound on the
Poetics
. “Have a seat.”

“I’ll stand.” Ingrid clutches her jacket to her chest, looking unfortunately like a petulant teen.
Keep it together. Keep it together.

“It’s been a challenging day,” I intervene. “Maybe Ingrid and I can get coffee and catch our breath and we can all discuss this situation later this afternoon?”

“I don’t want coffee and I don’t want professional development. I
want
to know what the plan is. Gene, what’re you doing about Darwin? You can’t just ignore him like you did with Chassie. Because, I don’t even care for me. I can take it. But it’s a cry for help, for boundaries.
Boundaries
, Gene—
this
is why we don’t reward kids for doing crap work. He needs a talking-to. His parents need a talking-to. His parents need to be talking
to him.
” Tears start to roll down her cheeks. “He’s making it …impossible …to teach him. Is that what you want?” She rakes her sweater sleeve across her eyes.

Gene leans so far back he’s almost parallel with his desk, as if her tears might jump across the room and burn his khakis. “Ingrid, listen to yourself.
I. I. I.
This is not all about
you,
okay? The board is very concerned about what you may have done to incite such—”

“Fuck the board.” She drops her head back. “I’m talking about our responsibility.”

“You see what I’m up against?” Gene says to me.

“Great!” Ingrid looks accusingly at me. “Great, no, that’s just—great. Thanks for the support.” She swings a fist up in mock cheer. “I’m gonna go get ready for my next class and then I guess I’ll see you all Monday for another great day of can-do.” And with that she leaves.

“Fucking impossible,” Gene mutters.

My hand vibrates. ST VINCENTS CANCER CENTER 16TH N 9TH.

10

“I’m looking for a Mrs. X?” I ask between huffs as I lean over the treatment center welcome desk and attempt to catch my breath after the half-block sprint from Jarndyce.

“One moment, I’ll check the list.” The guard in the suit and tie smiles pleasantly as he runs his finger down the stack of printouts in front of him. “Do you know which doctor she’s seeing?”

“I—I don’t. She has breast cancer . . .”

He smiles encouragingly.

“Her son, Grayer—sixteen? Tall, blond? He texted me about ten minutes ago that he was here.” I bite my lower lip.

“He’s meeting Dr. Rosen in the library.” Another guard, having ended his phone call, stands to point me past the interior sliding glass doors. “Around the corner and down the hall.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” I scurry inside and down the bright skylit hall, glancing in each door I pass. Reception. Lab. They’re in the library? I jerk to a stop as I arrive at a set of double doors that open onto a tranquil room lined with bookcases. But the armchairs, the tables—are empty. I lean back out and strain to look down the hall—the heart-wrenching sight of two gaunt patients in wheel-chairs, a bald woman doing a crossword, but no sign of the Xes. I step back inside and over to one of the tables, where, in a low pool of lamplight, medical books are sundered around a notebook covered in jerking scrawl.

Sniff.

I whip around. In the corner, one of the club chairs has been turned to face the wall. Over the high backrest I see a hooded sweatshirt pulled over a bent head. I glance back at the notebook and then down under the table at the collapsed messenger bag inked with its familiar graffiti. “Grayer?”

He clears his throat but makes no move to turn to me.

“I’m so sorry. I was stuck in a meeting. I came as soon as I—”

The sweatshirt hood nods haltingly up and down.

“Where’s your mom? Is she okay?”

“Home and no.”

“Grayer, I’m so sorry.” I pull up a chair and sit behind him, dropping my bag between my feet. “What exactly do you know?”

“What the fuck do
you
know?” His voice is hoarse. Angry.

I exhale. “Well, I know that your mom has breast cancer, but that she’s working with doctors to get the care she needs.”

His shoulders lift in a short, blunt laugh. “The care she needs,” he repeats.

“That’s funny?” I ask gently.

“Hilarious.”

“Okay . . .”

He clears his throat again. “Just go.”

“You texted me. I don’t want to just go. You’re upset. Understandably. This is
huge
information to try to make sense of, Grayer. You shouldn’t have to do this alone. I can …I can . . .”

“Yeah?” He angles his head to me, revealing only the profile of his nose.

“I can find out who her doctors are and we can make an appointment with them. And I’ll go with you and we can get every question you have answered—”

“Like, is she going to die?” He turns away again.

I peer at the back of his head. “Yes, like that.”

“’Cause it doesn’t say there.” His pointer finger, protruding from the sleeve pulled to his knuckles, jabs toward the pulled periodicals. “And it’s not online. And my friend’s dad, who’s a surgeon here, canceled on me. And she, she won’t tell me who her doctors are, so good luck with that, because she doesn’t want to
upset
me more—” His voice breaks, his hand clamping in front of his face. “I can’t do this to Stilton—tell him—without having all the information. He won’t be able to take it. He still needs her, depends on her. I can’t . . .”

I reach my palm out to his shoulder and he drops forward at my touch, his hood grazing his knees as his shoulder lifts and falls, his covered head sinking into his splayed fingers. “You shouldn’t be alone with this. Let me help you.”

He takes a long breath in, pulling himself together. “I have to get home to my brother.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks, but no.” He tugs forward and away from me to stand. “I’ve got it under control.”

“You sure?” I ask his broad back.

He wipes at his nose with his sleeve. “I just said so, didn’t I?” Hood still obscuring his face, he crosses to the table to gather up his things.

“Well.” I stand, unsure of my next move, unsure what he’d even accept from me. “I’m glad you texted.”

“Right,” he spits, dropping the notebook in his bag and jerking the zipper closed. “So you could not come.”

“Hey. I’m here.” My voice hardens. “You may not remember what here looks like, but it’s this—a grown-up, standing in front of you and offering to help you figure out what you need next, even when she can’t see your goddamned face.”

He twists; the eyes finally meeting mine are round, shocked. I hold my breath, ashamed I’m calling him on his shit in St.Vincent’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.

He lifts off his hood, sheepishly revealing the splotches on his cheeks.

I nod softly in acknowledgment of the gesture.

He slings his backpack onto one shoulder. “You can buy me a Red Bull.”

“What?”

“Since you’re here. I used the last of my cash on the cab down.”

“Okay . . .”

“I mean, that’s what I need next.”

“Okay.” I pick up my bag.

“Okay.” He walks with me out into the hall and to the sliding glass doors.

“But I’m buying you coffee.” I wave thanks to the guard as we pass. “Red Bull will put you in an early grave.”

We step out into the brisk air and he breaks into a grin as we approach the coffee cart on the corner. “Nice.” He cracks up as I realize what I’ve said.

“Oh God, I meant—”

“Really, you
gotta
loosen up.” He shakes his head, still grinning as he orders, and I pass him a dollar.

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically.

“Yeah, thanks,” he says so quietly I think I may have imagined it. Before I can respond, his hood is flipped up and, coffee in hand, he jogs away down the subway stairs.

That evening I exit the train into the sprawling Columbia-Presbyterian medical complex and spot the green neon shamrock from two desolate blocks away. When I push open the bar door, Sarah is tucked into the first red Naugahyde booth, already halfway through a pint and a cheeseburger. She looks up with a smile that matches those of the 1973 soccer champions in the faded photo above her shoulder. “I’m
so
glad you called.”

“I can’t believe you’re free. I thought you might have a hot Friday night date.”

She shakes her head. “From eight to twelve. Then I have to go back.”

“You’re kidding.” I slide into the booth, riding the ridge between the two permanent butt indentations.

“I was going to sleep. But this is better.” She pushes up the sleeve of the waffle Henley that buffers her from her scrubs.

“I can’t believe you can drink and go back to work.”

“I can have
one
beer.” She holds up a grease-tipped finger. “At eight o’clock, which will be fully metabolized by midnight, when I will have a double espresso.”

I shake my head, in awe of her stamina. “What you guys do to your bodies in the pursuit of healing others—”

“The irony is not lost on me. So what’s up?” She takes a hearty bite as I knit my fingers on the tabletop.

“What can you tell me about breast cancer?”

She slumps forward dramatically across her plate.

“Please?”

“Nothing.” She straightens up, mustard on her scrubs. “I can tell you nothing about cancer from eight to midnight. Let me tell you about Brad and Angelina going for a bi-gendered quorum or about the geriatric specialist with the nice hands and infinite patience who texted me ‘had a
nice
time Friday.’ What does that mean? Nice, like bridge with your nana? Or nice, like,
niiiice.
I can’t respond until I know what he means.”

“You can decipher five words?”

“You have a lot of time to nurture your inner life while administering an enema.”

“So, breast cancer,” I steer her back.

“Yee-eee-ees,”
she concedes in multiple syllables, addressing the fireproof tiles, dropping her shoulders, giving in to me. “Wait.” She flags the waitress over. “I changed my mind. Can I get some cheese fries? You want anything?”

“Burger and a glass of whatever she’s having, please.”

The waitress nods her sprayed gumball-red hair and takes away the oily menus.

Sarah sips her beer. “You know you can look all this up on the Internets.”

“Not alone in that house. At the bottom of every site, if you scroll down, it says, ‘Nan Hutchinson, the air you are breathing will give you and your dog polyps and black lung.’”

“Who is it?” Sarah asks.

“Grayer’s mom.”

“Yeesh.” She winces. “That poor kid.”

“I know. And he has the task of telling his seven-year-old brother. That’s why I’d love some information.”

The waitress drops a Velveeta-drenched plate of skinny fries with a clatter. “Shoot,” Sarah prompts, digging in.

“Okay, so, I’m getting this all in oblique half references, mind you, but it sounds like she’s having a lumpectomy and then a round of chemo.”

“Okay, lumpectomy is a good sign. They didn’t need to do anything radical. So we can assume the lymph nodes are unaffected. Then it’s all about rate of recurrence. The sooner it comes back the worse the prognosis. And then there’s metastasis. Breast goes brain.”

“I think that’s what he must have read at the library.”

“Grayer?”

I nod.

“And keep him offline. There are ten million sites that are just designed to terrify. If he wants some virtual support send him the link for standup2cancer.org.” She draws the 2 in the air with her greasy finger.

“Thank you. I think virtual support would be …about all the support he’s getting. I just . . .” I take a deep breath, the image returning of his hunched figure descending into the subway. “When he was little he had horrible nightmares and I could soothe him. Now he’s afraid of something crazy real and I don’t know how to help.”

She reaches across and squeezes my hand, leaving a smear of ketchup on my wrist. “
This
is helping. I see it every day—the people who get the flowers and cards, even if their family is far away—you can feel the love coming at them from all sides. Being there any way you can helps. Grayer will feel this, I promise.”

“Thank you. Okay—moving on.” I wipe at the Heinz stripe with a napkin.

“How’s Ryan? Have you had a
bébé
yet?”

“My husband is single-handedly solving the world grain shortage from an undisclosed location with spotty cell service and monitored e-mail. But my dog hasn’t fallen through anything this week, so that’s a plus. Oh, and an overzealous electrician magically showed up—mine is not to question—and now I have disturbing gouges running up every wall, including dangerously close to my brand-new steps.”

“So the tap-dance studio you were planning to open on the top floor may have to be put on hold?”

“Did I tell you my parents may get evicted?”

“Shut. Up.”

“But that’s okay, because they’ll just move in with me! And Mom can run the tap-dance studio, while I’m working for a paycheck to hand over to our nanny and my husband is halfway around the world having a nicer day just knowing his child exists.” I take a clump of fries, succumbing to their gooey power.

“Okay,” Sarah says, wiping off her fingers before pulling out her red ponytail elastic and slipping it on her wrist like a Kabbalah string. “First of all, at least you have a husband. I have a text message and chlamydia, but not from the same guy. You own your own home. I’m going to be in my little cement-bricked cell until I’m done with my residency.”

“Chlamydia?”

“Yeah, it’s not a big deal. I mean I work in the birthplace of antibiotics. It’s just gross. I mean, it’d been fourteen months since I’d had sex and
this
has not incentivised me to make more time for a personal life.”

“Sarah, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.” She takes another bite of her burger as the jukebox flips from “Angel of Harlem” to “One.” I rack my brain for anything else from my boring life I can offer on the same scale of intimacy that won’t just further underscore how married I am. “Citrine’s pregnant.”

“You’re still hanging out with her?”
she asks incredulously.

“She’s nice. And she reads a lot.”

“Nan, she used to throw lit matches at us.”

“That was Alex.”

“Guilt by association. They were mean bitches then. They’re mean bitches now. What?” She takes in my scrunched face.

“I don’t know …it’s just . . .”

“Yes?”

“If their childhoods were anything like Grayer’s, I get why those girls were so angry. They didn’t have the things we had. Like bedtime stories and …attention. I feel sorry for them.”

“Well, I don’t.” She wads her napkin and throws it on the leftover slice of iceberg lettuce sitting on her plate. “I feel sorry for the pregnant mother in the auto accident whose leg I saw amputated this morning. I feel sorry for the guy whose AIDS test came back positive. I don’t feel sorry for the spoiled-brat brigade.”

“Sarah.”

“What?”

“You’re punchy.”

She smiles. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry. I am suffering from too much perspective. Right now anything short of code blue feels like a day at the beach wrapped in cotton candy dipped in kittens. I promise after my residency is over I’ll be drowning in sympathy for Citrine and Tatiana. Who knows? I might even be their dermatologist.”