Nanny Returns (18 page)

“Well, that, and—”

“Or is it just a little something to take the edge off? Stage fright and whatnot. They’re speaking clearly? Do you think they can perform?”

“I think maybe someone from Jarndyce should go back and check on them and, at the very least, cut them off.”

“Cliff!” I turn to see him arriving, a stately blonde, presumably his wife, in tow. And Ingrid—appearing mildly stunned—on his arm. Sheila looks back to me, her body already angled to his group. “Let’s not make a fuss tonight. With everyone here. Gene can deal with this on Monday.” She brushes away in a perfumed breeze to where Cliff is displaying Ingrid to a circle of parents. I bite my lower lip, gauging what to do next, as Ingrid walks over in a vintage cocktail dress, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Oh my God,” she says, voice low, “Cliff and his wife invited me to Park Avenue Spring for dinner.”

“Did you have a food taster?”

“Right? It was so awkward. Over ginger soufflé he tells me I just need to show my solidarity with their ‘vision’ tonight and we can quote ‘move forward.’”

“Forward is good,” I say, smiling. I touch her arm, relieved for her. “Ingrid, I was just backstage and—”

“Sorry to interrupt.” Cliff appears at Ingrid’s side. “But I want to introduce you to some of our biggest donors.”

“Sorry!” She twists back over her taken elbow as he leads her off.

“Have you seen Gene?” I ask.

“By the bar!” she calls, sending me to inch my way into where the crowd is concentrated, pressed closely enough to unwrinkle one another’s Fortuni.

“So I’m confused,” the woman ahead of me addresses her companion. “They did or didn’t fire her?”

I peer over a ruched shoulder and see her friend is holding a clipping of Ingrid’s letter to the editor in her cocktail ring–laden fingers. “She just came in on Cliff Ashburn’s arm, so they must have it under control.”

“We tried to get rid of one at Buckley, but after three years they have automatic contract renewal. The burden’s on the school to build a case against them. It’s disgraceful—they have us over a barrel.”

“And it was just kids being kids, I’m sure. You know how it is with the help. They don’t have our sophisticated sense of humor. I’m sure this boy was just being clever and she got the wrong impression. At brunch the other day my husband made some joke about wetbacks and my housekeeper, who’s Puerto Rican, mind you, got so offended. I mean,
come on,
we voted for Obama.”

“You’re so right.”

“And what was she doing on his Web page anyway? That’s the real question. It’s appalling.
Our
teachers would never violate a student’s trust like that.”

“It’s the neighborhood.” Her friend lowers her voice, tilting her head to reveal her cascading canary diamond earrings. “Can you imagine sending your children to the Meatpacking District for school?”

“It’s because they let in media parents.”

“And children with low math skills.”

“It’s tacky.”

“It’s gauche.”

“I feel sorry for the kids.”

“Two white wine spritzers.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,”
Bunny booms into the microphone on stage before stepping back to adjust the volume. “Please take your seats. Your appetizers have arrived and tonight’s performances are about to begin. And after each child entertains us, we’ll be bidding on an item to benefit that child’s school.”

The room darkens further as parents scuttle to take their seats and pick at their limp greens. “We will begin with Suzie Goldfarb-Wang from The Brearley School, doing her interpretative dance of the periodic table of the elements.” Before the room has even quieted, she is flying across the stage in a white leotard with black lettering. I find a good standing-room spot among the faculty as Goldfarb-Wang unfurls herself from the pose of uranium to wild applause.

“Okay,” the auctioneer announces, “Brearley has donated an original signed Kandinsky lithograph. Who would like to start the bidding at fifty thousand?”

A woman sticks her hand up. Her husband cups it back down to the tablecloth.

The room goes quiet. The twirling fabric crawlers freeze. They’re still stuck up there? I can see, across the room, cascades of sweat dripping onto the tables and guests. Some people are shielding themselves with their programs.

“Fifty thousand?”

The wives shift in their seats, playing with their jewelry to restrain themselves from bidding.

Bunny rushes onstage and takes the mike from the auctioneer. “Sorry, that is a typo. Twenty thousand.”

“Apologies for that, folks,” the auctioneer says as bids go up and the room relaxes, except for a gentleman at the back who levitates out of his seat. Presumably the donor. Bunny takes the paper from the auctioneer’s hand and runs a pencil through a few items as three collegiate third graders prepare to reenact the chain of British succession. Which they do with two wigs, three hats, one fake finger (Boleyn), and a wide ruff collar. It is a feat. Then we wait through a limp bid for an hour of Tucker Carlson’s time and then Stilton takes the stage. I cross my fingers and look into the crowd to make sure the Xes are paying attention. I spot Carter’s hair, which catches the halo of Stilton’s spotlight, but the seat beside her is empty. As is the seat between Bunny and Saz.

Shit.

My eyes fly to Stilton as he inhales a deep breath, his chest bellowing, a hand in his pocket, and he’s off. “‘It is an ancient Mariner/And he stoppeth one of three.’” At an almost chipmunkesque gallop. Not that anyone notices as they continue their whispered conversations, heads bobbed in pairs. I surreptitiously hustle my way to the double doors and out into the emptied hallway. I rush down to the restrooms and stick my head in the ladies’. “Mrs X!” I call …Nothing. I let the door close, stymied, my pulse speeding. Suddenly I pick up voices from the ajar cloakroom door across the hall.

“I told you it’s just an accounting oversight,” I hear Mr. X as I approach.

“You’ve been saying that for over a year,” she retorts. “Only now you’re gone. And Gillian flatly avoids my calls. It’s not as if I’m calling to beg you to come home. I simply want what I’m entitled to. I mean, Jesus, you’re spending millions on her—that necklace alone.” I twirl my hand at the door crack, willing them to wrap this up without prompting.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Here. Here’s …three, four, five …here’s a thousand and I’ll have the rest wired into your accounts tomorrow.”

“I honestly …how could you do this to me, making me corner you.”

“How could you show up here looking like Gloria Swanson? A little over-dramatic, don’t you think? You look like your mother.” Oh my God—they’re in for the long haul.

“Go back to your
actress.
” She hisses the last word with a sixteenth-century disdain. And I fling open the door to the cloakroom. They blink at me, stunned by the light like chickens in a coop.

“Your son is performing right now,” I say, my heart pounding on his behalf. Scowling, Mr. X pushes past me, his wife brushing my other shoulder, torquing me like a turbine.

“Mr. X,” I hear myself say, stopping him. He spins around as she continues on. “Fathers and sons are wearing matching ties tonight. Since Stilton doesn’t have his, we were hoping you might take yours off.” He looks as if I’ve suggested he remove his pants. “Just . . .” I smile entreatingly, motioning to loosen my make-believe tie. He storms off.

I just slip in the door to the ballroom as Stilton declaims, “‘A sadder and a wiser man/He rose the morrow morn.’” I clap wildly as the lights come up and Stilton takes his bow, his smile withering as he spots his parents weaving between the tables back toward their seats.

“Haverhill has donated a walk-on role on
Gossip Girl,
opening bid fifteen thousand dollars.” Once again the eyeballs swivel, napkins twist, smiles quiver from being held too long.

“Eighteen thousand!” Mr. X barks as he pulls out his chair. A smattering of applause surrounds his table. Mrs. X’s face is inscrutable.

“I guess his fund steered clear of this subprime mess,” a man at the table in front of me whispers to his wife.

No other paddles rise.

“And …
sold
to the gentleman at table two.”

“My son will love that,” Mr. X shouts up to the auctioneer, and Stilton looks confused. “My other son,” he adds.

“Dude!” someone cheers from the doors down the wall from me. All heads turn, even the acrobats. “That’s really …just totally . . .” Jacket on, hood up, Grayer jogs through the tables toward his father. “We could go together—” He trips over someone’s satin-sheathed toe, lunges forward, and grabs the edge of a nearby table. “I’m—” And sends a glass of Cabernet tumbling onto a trio of evening dresses. “Sorry. Shit.” Then he grabs a napkin from someone else, knocking over his ice water and dropping the linen on the floor before backing away. “Dad.” Grayer spins as Mr. X stands to grasp him by the shoulders. Oh God, he’s—

“Drunk,” Mr. X growls as I step forward into earshot. Mrs. X stands. Carter stands.

“No! I’m just …really …it’s awesome that you would get me this. That’s, just, I didn’t see that coming, so thank you.” Grayer bobs his head. Mr. X releases him and looks as if it’s taking everything he has not to wipe his sullied hands on his silk pocket square. Grayer’s loopy grin drains away, he backs up a few feet, and then, bumping into a seated blonde, tucks into himself to run out the double doors.

Mr. X pivots to his wife’s table in the pin-drop silence of the room, his muscles harnessed into a tight smile.
“Clearly,”
he says, his voice raised, “I’ve underestimated how the stress of my wife’s illness is affecting the children. I think maybe it’s best if the boys come stay with us. Lord knows we have the room and can provide a stable environment while she convalesces.”

Mrs. X gives an equally tight smile and somehow shrinks further into her caftan, a steadying hand on her neighbor’s chair as she reseats herself. “That’s very kind. Very kind. I’m just exhausted from the treatment.” Her voice fades as her turban comes level with her dining companions.

And suddenly everyone is talking at once. Stilton—oh God—who has witnessed this all from his lone position on the looming stage, takes an uncertain bow and races into the wings. I follow, running out of the ballroom and through the children’s room, pushing the door into the performers’ space just as Stilton arrives from the stage side, nearly crashing into his immobile brother, who stands with Darwin over Chassie’s convulsing body. “Oh my God.”

The door bumps against my back. “Anything I can do to help?” Ingrid asks gently.

I move aside and she gasps, stepping inside to drop to her knees at Chassie’s side. “What happened?” She whips her phone from the pocket of her dress.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Darwin’s voice is high and terrified. “One minute she was fine.”

“Grayer?” I turn to him.

“I—I just got here.” He pulls Stilton into him and pushes his hand up into his own hair, his hood falling back as I watch him wipe at his nostrils.

“She had some of her mother’s Xanax and she was drinking,” I tell her.

“This is more than that. Is she epileptic?” Ingrid dials 911.

“No.” Darwin’s voice rises hysterically. He lunges for Ingrid’s phone and turns it off. “No. You can’t call anyone. We’ll get in trouble. Fix her.”

“Darwin, give me the phone,” she says firmly. But he just stares at her, paralyzed as Chassie’s shaking body goes limp. “If this is coke,” Ingrid continues with the same controlled tone, “her airways are shutting down. If we don’t call 911 she will die.”

“I’ll call.” I fumble for my cell, but Darwin hands the phone to her, his head slowly nodding. Ingrid places the call as Chassie’s lips tinge blue. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Darwin paces. “I’m so fucked.
Fuck!
Why did she have to be so stupid?”

Ingrid lifts Chassie’s head into her lap and listens to her breathing.

“How do you know all this?” I ask as I tug a jacket off a nearby chair and drape it over Chassie’s legs.

“My brother died when we were in college.”

I look at Stilton’s terrified face. “Grayer, take Stilton home.” Grayer can’t lift his eyes from Chassie.
“Grayer.”
He focuses on me. “Can you get him home? Are you sober enough to do that?”

“Yeah, yes,” he stummers.

I take a twenty from my clutch and push it into his hand. “Go, get a cab.”

He nods and pulls Stilton out the door. “Everything is going to be fine here, Stilton,” I call after him. “Chassie is going to be fine!”

“I’m going with them.” Darwin backs away.

“No.” Ingrid freezes him with the firmness of her tone. “You’re staying to help your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my—”

“Darwin! When the EMT gets here they’re going to need vital information only you can provide.”

“No, no, you don’t understand. He’ll
kill
me.” He continues his manic pacing until, on the other side of the screen, we can hear pandemonium as the stretcher arrives. “Fuck.
Fuck.
” Suddenly Darwin lunges for his backpack, whips out a small baggie, pulls it open, downs the powder, and throws himself to the red linoleum just as the screens fall to the floor and the EMTs blow in. Stunned, Ingrid and I stand back and let them tend to the children, plural.

The sky is still dark when I shudder awake in the vinyl hospital chair at the end of Chassie’s bed. Chassie’s chest continues to rise and fall as she sleeps, the oxygen line snaking from her nostrils. “Hey.” I stretch, looking over to where Ingrid is staring out the window into the rooms across Lenox Hill’s courtyard, her hands braced on her lower back. “Any news?”

“Not yet.” She turns to me, the circles under her eyes matching the inky purple of her cocktail dress. “Thank you for staying.”

“Of course.”

“I still can’t believe Sheila shrugged you off,” she says quickly, clearly having been turning it over in her mind since I fell asleep.

I nod, no longer sure what to say. “Did Gene reach her mother?”

“He talked to the housekeeper. He said it would be easier for him to keep trying from home with the time change.” She rolls her eyes. “I should check my cell again. I’ll duck outside?”