Nanny Returns (14 page)

“Or ob-gyn.”

“Or cardiologist. If they have hearts.”

“But you could be in Omaha by then,” I say, feeling a pang at the thought of losing this proximity again.

“I might,” she concedes. “But I’ll be back. After my fellowship.” She drains her beer. “It’s New York. Everyone comes back. Look at you.”

11

As the elevator rises Monday afternoon I shiver, drenched from the downpour lashing the sidewalk as the deluge of April soaks into May. I secure my umbrella and play through, if being home with his mom is just too sad for Stilton, maybe Citrine might let us hole up in her place. Or I could take him for frozen hot chocolate. Is Serendipity still serving that crack? There’s always one of the five billion Dunkin’ Donuts. At the very least I should have had something sugary and comforting delivered over the weekend, instead of just willing Grayer’s discussion with Stilton about his mother’s health to go bearably from forty blocks away.

The elevator stops as I pull the deli daffodils from the tote just used to transport Grandma’s armor back to its rightful owner, feeling a modest degree of accomplishment that I am now comfortable wearing my own clothes to this apartment. So there’s that. The door rolls open and …nowhere to go.

The entire vestibule floor is lined with open umbrellas in a patchwork of Burberry tartans and Aquascutum earth tones. I take a few shuffling paces in, upending the domes onto their tops, dripping water onto the marble. I trip as I try to steady myself on the slick stone.

“Nan-neh!” Stilton slip-slides into sock-footed view—good sign. “Happy Cinco de Mayo. We had tacos at school.”

“Hola! How are you?”

“‘Day after day, day after day’.” He drops his voice and his chin and his head. “‘We stuck, nor breath nor motion;/As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean.’ You’re making a ruckus.”

“Sorry,” I apologize, trying to clear the knee-height designer debris from my path. “Whose are all these?”

“The ladies’. Can I take your coat? The closet’s full. I’ll put it in Rosa’s old room—Mom says I have to stop calling it that,” he catches himself, his palm flying to his forehead.

“That’s okay. Thank you, sir.” I pass off the daffodils and bend to add my umbrella to the others.

“Rosa’s gone. She’s a deeply selfish woman with no sense of loyalty,” he sums up her tenure, just as Grayer also once parroted his mother when describing my predecessor. “What’re these?” he asks.

“Flowers.”

“Oh.” He peers down the heart-paper funnel. “I’ll put these in there, too.” He holds out a hand and I unbutton my raincoat, hearing a wave of laughter from inside the apartment.

“Is Grayer home?” Folding the wet side in, I pass it to him and he drapes it over his arm.

“Not yet.”

“So …how are you guys doing?” I ask, stepping out of my Kermit green rubber boots and placing them out of the way to dry. I slip my work flats out of the tote, knowing full well what Mrs. X would make of catching me barefoot in her home.

“Nan? Is that you?” she calls from the living room, her voice more diminished than it was on the phone. “You got my message—so good of you to come.”

Stilton slip-slides away into the kitchen and I round the vestibule corner and see, through the open gallery archway to the living room, women in their midfifties sitting on every tasseled cushion, perched on every wrapped arm. Even the extra dining chairs decoratively astride the mantel are filled. And what women. A glance places them as having grown up a stone’s throw from this room; or, like their hostess, having impeccably absorbed the native mores. Delicate, lined faces sit in contrast to solid hands, strengthened and weathered from years of dressage, tennis, and gardening. And even if their faces and hands were obscured, I would know them from the day’s uniform: sixteen pairs of wellies, sixteen pairs of riding pants, sixteen Anne Fontaine blouses, sixteen ponytails—expensive, impeccable, and a tad boring in their restrictiveness. Is there a blue-blood bat signal that goes up? A dollar-sign silhouette projected against the cloudy sky?

And on every flat surface sits a get-well bouquet, one more elaborate and out of season than the next. Thank you, Stilton, for hiding the deli flowers that were for your heretofore neglected mother.

Mrs. X extends her French cotton–encased arm. “This is our dear, dear family friend, Nan Hutchinson, Dorothy’s daughter-in-law,” she says, addressing the assembled. “She has been a godsend helping Stilton with his performance. I hate not doing it myself, but—”

“You don’t have the strength,” the nearest ponytail chimes in, fussing with the thick brown and cream H blanket draped over Mrs. X’s legs. “And not another word about going for chemo alone. I will be by your side for every treatment.” The sentiment is echoed around the room.

“Oh, no, I won’t hear of bothering you.” Mrs. X seems flustered by the outpouring of affection. “Nan is here and I—I can manage.”

“Now, I respect you not wanting us to speak ill of the boys’ father,” one of the women says as she leans over to a side table and picks up a dried citrus rind that has escaped the confines of its potpourri bowl. “And I know his fund’s been very good to us all. But, I’m sorry, he’s being an asshole.”

“Buying Carter Nelson that emerald necklace at Christie’s was just tasteless.”

“Have you called John Vassallo yet? He’ll get you thirty percent above the prenup, guaranteed.”

Mrs. X looks at her concerned friends, who momentarily have the rapacious air of spectators at a cage match. “I’ve been so …tired. But no, no, you’re right. I should call someone.” She hasn’t unleashed the hounds? What’s she waiting for? His money to ripen?

“Well, it was a pleasure to meet you all,” I say, giving an encompassing wave. “I’m just going to start with Stilton.” I back out and cross to the kitchen, where Stilton is standing at the counter, double-fisting from a cookie platter. From the all-you-can-eat cookie buffet. Every peach granite surface is covered in cellophane-wrapped, doily-covered foil platters of biscuits, crumpets, muffins, and scones, both chocolate-dipped and naked. Scratch the Dunkin’ Donuts delivery. “Take it easy, there, kid, I don’t want you crashing before the fourth stanza.” I drop my tote on the counter.

“Grayer makes me cookies on Saturdays,” he says through a full mouth, spraying crumbs as he points to the jar by the sink. “From a mix. Now we have real cookies and people over and Mom wears clothes.”

“I’m glad things are going …well.” I look down at him as he swallows. “And you’re doing okay?”

“‘Water, water, everywhere.’” He spins away, canting. I walk quickly behind him through the dining room, where it’s impossible not to get a mental flash of Ms. Chicago and her place cards. “‘And all the boards did shrink;/Water, water, everywhere;/Nor any drop to drink.’”

“So how does this benefit roll out exactly?” I ask as we arrive in his room.

Stilton takes off his school tie and carefully wheels it up into a coil. “Each school sends three kids to perform, lower, middle, upper. It’s supposed to be based on grades and good behavior and stuff, but last year everyone knows Liesle Greenborough only got in because her mom hosts that talk show. She forgot the lyrics three times and then just stood there and giggled while the song finished. It takes a real pro to do Gilbert and Sullivan. You can’t send in just anyone. That’s what everyone said.” He places his tie wheel on his desk and hands me his copy of the poem.

I sit down on his Gordon tartan bedspread and look at the picture of Ruth Bader Ginsburg pinned to his bulletin board. “So, the Supreme Court?”

“They take care of the Constitution. I’m more into the Food Network, but Grayer thought the court thing sounded better.” He swivels his bedside lamp so I can see the picture of Padma Lakshmi taped to the brass shade. “My parents were gonna take me for dinner at Perilla last year for my birthday so I could meet Harold Dieterle.”

“Wow, that’s so cool. I love
Top Chef
—I watched it online in Sweden.”

He shrugs. “Zagat hadn’t rated it yet and they didn’t want to go downtown.” He pulls out from under his desk an old bathroom stool hand-painted with his name buoyed by balloons and hops atop, holding his arms out like Socrates. “‘He prayeth best, who loveth best/All things both great and small;/For the dear God who loveth us,/He made and loveth all.’ Should I be praying for my mom?” he asks without pause.

“Oh.”

He looks at me with sudden intensity.

“Well, praying for people is never bad,” I say carefully.

“Because when the ladies leave, they’ve been telling me to pray for her.”

“What does Grayer say?” I ask.

“He says Mom can take care of herself and praying isn’t going to make Dad come back.”

That’s why you want to know—the departure, not the disease. “I see …Well, it’s always a good thing to send people we care about happy thoughts.”

“I asked my dad to come.”

“Oh?”

“To the benefit. Grayer said it’s really gonna help. I called Gillian and she said she’ll do her best.”

“Who’s Gillian?”

“Dad’s assistant. She only wears black. She’s scared of swans.”

“Well, that’s great! I’m sure he’ll be there.” Given that his girlfriend is chairing it.

“Mom says he’s a very disappointing person. ‘It is an ancient mariner/And he stoppeth one of three.’” And we’re off. Seven straight stanzas without stopping. Then, raising his arm, Stilton twirls his hand at the wrist and bows.

I leap off the bed, applauding and whooping. “That was amazing! Can’t we cut it there? Do you have to do the whole thing?”

“Mom says all of Part One. I have a week. And
Throwdown
is in reruns.”

So I sit back down and we plod forward, Stilton alternately lying on the floor or bouncing and slapping at his cheeks as he tries to remember. He is alarmingly determined, seemingly holding himself to a standard of perfection as a solution to the situation as he understands it.

The unmelodic bleat of the back doorbell sounds and Stilton leaps from his stool and flies into the hall, shouting,
“I’ve got it, Mom! Don’t get up!”
as he passes through the dining room. I follow, eager to snag a buttery palmier to fuel me through the remaining thirteen stanzas.

I arrive to find Stilton trying to tug a cellophane-wrapped tray of tea sandwiches from a man’s hands in the doorway.

“Stilton, heel!” Stilton releases his grip. “Sorry, can I help you?”

“Yeah.
This
is a gift. But the three sandwich platters I dropped off this morning weren’t. Her credit card was declined,” the man says with a thick Brooklyn accent, his baseball jacket dripping from the rain. “And my instructions were not to leave without payment.”

“Stilton, why don’t you go work on the mariner’s arrival and I’ll be right there.” I take the tray from him and slide it on the last free bit of granite real estate. “How much?” I ask after Stilton’s cleared the doorway, figuring I’ll pass a note to Mrs. X.

“Including today, three thousand.”

“For tea sandwiches?” I lower my voice. “There has to be a billing mix-up. Sir, she’s having a party right now, but she can call you when her guests leave. She’s not well. I’m sure your boss will understand.”

“My boss is paying twice as much for eggs, bread, milk, and gas as he was a year ago. I am freezing and soaking because we no longer use the van for local deliveries. So I’m sure my
boss
will not give a shit.” He pushes his finger into the buzzer, sending an ear-grating squawk through the apartment.

“Nan?
Nan?
” I hear her approaching call.

“Sir.
Please
.”

Mrs. X rounds the corner and he releases the bell. “
What
seems to be the problem?” She crosses her arms, her pale hands disappearing against the white fabric.

“Your cards were declined,” he says loudly. “I need cash.”

She rushes toward him, her voice hushed. “Well, I don’t have any in the house. And I’d appreciate if you were mindful of the fact that I have guests in the other room.”

“You gotta give me something.” He moves his finger threateningly to the buzzer.

“Wait.” She spins, wide-eyed, the bevy of trays catching her attention. “All right. Since your beautiful store seems to be everyone’s first choice for gifts, moving forward, your boss can pocket each as a credit against my debt.”

He thinks for a moment. “What if the gifts stop?”

“They won’t.” She summons her full Mrs. X–ness and steps closer so that he has no choice but to back out into the landing. “I am very sick. My friends are very concerned.”

“Lady, I can’t leave empty-handed.”

She purses her lips, turning to open a nearby cabinet door and pulling out six thick crystal tumblers. “Nan, there’s a drawer of paper bags next to the sink.”

I find them and hand her one, which she fills with the glasses, her face flushing furiously. “These are Fabergé and cost five hundred each. Tell him he can hold these as collateral. I will be seeing my husband this Saturday. I will be in on Sunday morning with the cash. Your employer is not to pawn these, understand?” She shoves the bag into his chest and slams the door before he can answer.

I reach for a palmier and place it into my mouth, so as to have something to do while she runs a shaking hand over her hair and takes a bracing breath. “This is funny to you, isn’t it?”

“Not at all,” I mumble truthfully through a dry mouth of cookie.

She fingers her collar. “I just need to see my husband so we can get this straightened out.”