Nanny Returns (19 page)

“Sure.”

A nurse sticks her head in the doorway. “You brought the boy in, too?” she asks me. I point to Ingrid.

“Yes. I’m his teacher.” Ingrid steps forward. “His parents haven’t arrived yet, they’re flying in from Florida.”

“Well, he’s up if you want to see him.” She tilts her head at Darwin’s room across the hall.

Ingrid glances at me and hurries past the nurse. I follow her in, hanging back as she comes around his bed. He lolls his head to her. He doesn’t look small, or even childlike, but wrung out. His face, from his lips to his neck, is stained black from hours of vomiting charcoal. His eyes are bloodshot. His hair is damp and matted to his forehead. Ingrid takes a paper towel from the nightstand, dribbles some ice water on it from the Styrofoam cup of melting chips, and applies it to his forehead.

“You stayed?” he croaks, his voice barely audible.

“I did.” She brushes his bangs to the side.

“Stubborn,” he manages.

“
Ms.
Stubborn,” she corrects him, patting the cold towel across his brow.

“My, uh …letter to the newspaper was kind of …harsh.”

She holds the towel and peers at him, letting the silence sit, perhaps waiting to see if he’ll address the website. “If your intention was to hurt me, you succeeded,” she says simply. “I’m not trying to make you or any other student think like me, Darwin. I’m just introducing a range of viewpoints, something, hopefully, you and your classmates’ll always have exposure to.” To my surprise, he nods as he lets his eyes drift closed. “We don’t have to discuss this right now,” she says. “I’m just glad we’re talking. Glad you’re okay.” She smiles while tearing up from what seems like a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

The sound of high heels hurriedly clicking on the linoleum approaches from the nursing station around the corner. I turn to the doorway to see Grant Zuckerman and a very tan woman with puffy eyes in a floral trench on his arm. A woman I recognize from long ago, despite tauter tear-streaked skin and fuller flight-chapped lips. “I’m his mother,” she declares as Ingrid and I take a step back, and she drops her purse on the blanket to take her son’s hand. “Where’s the doctor?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Zuckerman?” The resident hustles in with the nurse in tow. He lifts Darwin’s chart from the foot of the bed. “Let’s just take a look here …Yes, your son is fine.”

“Fine?”
his mother questions.

“His toxicology levels were dangerously high when he was brought in. But we pumped him full of charcoal, so he’ll be pretty sick for a few days, but he sustained no lasting damage.”

She stares at the doctor so hard he looks back to the chart, lifting the top page as if something new will reveal itself. “Oh, oh,” she splutters, shaking her head. “He’s going to.” Dropping Darwin’s hand, she spins to her husband. “I am dragged all the way up here from Palm Beach in the middle of the night for this
bullshit
? He is paying me back. Every cent. We are docking the charter fare from his allowance.”

Stricken, Darwin goes to talk, but can only cough, black spittle spuming from his mouth. Ingrid grips the wet towel with both hands. “He’s had a really rough night—”

“Christ.”
Grant lasers in on her, Darwin watching intently with sunken eyes. “So you could’ve just let him sleep it off?”

“Your son was on the floor when the EMTs arrived.” Ingrid’s unable to contain her incredulity.

“And now he’s fine!” his mother spits. “Aren’t you, Darwin?”

Darwin nods in one deep thrust, his gaze dropping to the stiff sheet. The monitors hum.

“You
disgust
me,” Grant announces to the bed, his expression unguardedly overwhelmed. “No sense of protocol, no sense, period.”

“He needed help,” Ingrid tries. “He
needs
help. Let me get you some coffee and you can have a moment alone with him and when you calm down I’m sure you’ll—”

“Fuck this,” Grant declares predominantly to himself. “I’m not going to be lectured by you. Tinsley, let’s get back to the airport.”

“What about discharging him?” the doctor asks.

“She can do it.” He jerks his head at Ingrid before taking his wife’s elbow and she grabs her purse as they walk hastily out, the nurse hurrying after them to sign the forms.

Exhaling a shaky breath, Ingrid lifts the towel toward Darwin’s forehead.

“Don’t,” he croaks. “Fucking. Touch me.”

I am too bleary-eyed when I slam the cab door and jog up my stoop, counting the minutes until I can text sweet dreams to my husband, am in bed, and this day can be put down. Too focused, as I stick my key in the lock, on getting Grace, in our bedroom and hours past her evening walk, to blessed relief. Too confused, as I swipe the light switch inside and gear up to mount the staircase, to make sense of the undeniable fact that there no longer is one.

15

Later that morning I find myself riding up in the Xes’ elevator, my head pounding in exhaustion, still wearing what I pulled on to walk Grace. In concession to the standards of their zip code, I raise my arm overhead and sniff my sweatshirt to check if the spackling of deodorant is working. After waiting until six a.m. for Steve to bring a ladder tall and sturdy enough to support the descent of a two-hundred-pound man and a sixty-pound dog, and then restraining myself from beating him with it, I woke on my air mattress on the living room floor at seven and had to pee in a bucket.

At least we didn’t have to resort to the fire department, who would have condemned our sorry asses right onto the street. Us being me and Grace. Ryan was, I believe, enjoying the turndown service at the Lilongwe Hilton. Yes, while he was sleeping soundly in a down surround, daybreak found me achieving some level of nineteenth-century hygiene with a bowl, a kitchen towel, and a half-empty bottle of Joy.

By eight Mrs. X had called to request my assistance and here I am, tired, punchy, and deliciously underdressed. Yup, this is me. Giving a shit. About impressing. You. Saz answers the door in ironed jeans, an IZOD shirt, and ballet flats. “Nan, good morning.”

“Hey, Saz.”

“Nan!” Mrs. X calls from the dining room. “In here!” I follow to where Mrs. X sits in an oversized terry-lined silk bathrobe, surrounded by takeout bags from Payard, her unturbaned hair twisted up with a clip. “Nan, thank you so much for coming. It was actually Saz’s idea. I’m just in no state today to help them pack. Last night took too much out of me.”

“Happy to help,” I lie, without bothering to add the usual exclamation point. “How are they?”

“Well, Grayer can’t wait to get out of here, I’m sure, after that little display—honestly, I’m going to be on the phone all day cleaning this up—I just hope my voice holds out.”

“Honey, don’t overtax yourself.” Saz reseats herself beside Mrs. X. “Despite your husband’s best attempts to drop the blame at your feet, everyone knows Grayer wouldn’t have . . .” Her eyes go to the drapes as she searches for the words. “Acted out like that if his father wasn’t leaving you in the lurch. Croissant?” She offers me the bag.

“Thanks.” I wriggle out a brioche because it won’t make crumbs and I’m not sitting down. “It seemed like everyone really enjoyed themselves last night.”

“It was a disaster.” Saz snorts, pressing her fingertips to the flakes on her plate. “We barely covered our expenses. I’m supposed to be at Bunny’s right now for a postmortem, but I can’t face it.” She smiles at Mrs. X.

“Well, I’m going to head in and help them pack.”

“Grayer spoke with someone on Carter’s staff and they’re expected by noon.”

“Great, I’ll get them downstairs.”

“Oh . . .” She looks fretful.

“Yes?” I ask warily, having engaged with this look many times before.

“Well, if you could just see them there.” Mrs. X pulls her robe closer around her and ties the sash. “Get them settled. I doubt someone like Carter, who’s never had children, knows the first thing about getting the boys settled.”

The taxi makes its way down Park Avenue toward Tribeca in halting church traffic increments as I try to maneuver Stilton’s duffel to allow some circulation in my thighs.

“Thanks for helping us pack and stuff,” Stilton says from beside me on the backseat, listlessly fussing with the bag’s toggle.

“Of course.” I smile and nod, still trying to gather the moxie to check in with his brother about the concoction of substances he ingested last night. Every approach I compose has me fast-forwarding to his “What,
now
you care? Fuck off” go-to response.

“Oh, man, my lacrosse stick!” Stilton wails, his hand smacking his forehead.

“In the trunk with the rest of your stuff,” Grayer calls from the front seat. “And whatever we didn’t get today, we’ll send for. Cool?”

Stilton knits his eyebrows and stares out over the pile of his earthly possessions at the passing buildings, their windows glowing in the late morning sun. I free my arm from under the giant red nylon potato pinning me and wrap it around him. “But who’s going to pack it?” Stilton leans forward, grabbing the base of the opening in the plastic partition with both hands. “Mom can’t.”

“I’ll do it.” Grayer shrugs matter-of-factly.

“But where will
I
be when you pack?” Stilton continues. “Are you going to leave me with her? And who’s going to take care of Mom? Huh, Grayer? Who’s doing that? Rosa’s gone—”

“Stil.” Grayer drops his head to his chest.

“Grayer,” Stilton mimics.

“Stil!” Grayer whips around, sending him slumping back next to me. “Dad wants us to
live with him
. He’s
taking
us.” His eyes dart across Stilton’s face, willing him to get it. “We’re not getting left with her—you don’t have to go to boarding school. This is a good fucking thing! And the bonus is an Oscar-winning superstar who’ll get you new shit
and
make Dad happy. So just, be cool to her, understand?”

Stilton nods solemnly, absorbing the gravity of the stakes.

Grayer spins back around. The taxi is silent, save the cabbie talking in Swahili, the light in his Bluetooth earpiece glowing. I run through three thousand things to say, warnings about tempered expectations, apologies for leaving him to such desperation, reassurances that someday they’ll be shot of depending on such narcissistic nut jobs for their survival. And meanwhile, um, easy on the drugs.

“Nan?” Stilton turns his face up to me.

“Yes?”

“Does Carter have any pets?”

“I have no idea, Stil. Why?”

He pushes his pursed lips to one side with his finger. “Maybe it’d be nice if I talk to her about animals.”

Staggering under the weight of Stilton’s duffel and a tote of the boys’ combined sports equipment, I list toward the brushed-steel elevator keypad. “What floor?” Grayer asks from beneath his own multitude of suitcases.

I press the bag between my torso and the wall and winkle the ripped piece of yellow pad out of my sweatshirt pocket. “Eleven,” I read, squinting in the ambient lighting. “Your dad’s been here for how long?”

“Full-time for the last month. Anyone’s guess before that.”

“Have you been here?”

“Since Dad moved out he’s brought us to his skybox at Yankee Stadium for a Red Sox game. That’s the sum total of our logged bonding and there were, like, thirty other people there the whole time.”

“They had a sundae bar with Ciao Bella,” Stilton adds as the elevator opens onto a stark white vestibule with only a Lucite …thing.

“But now,” Grayer cheers as he lumbers out, a suitcase straining off each arm and a garment bag hanging around his neck, “we’ll be living somewhere he’ll actually want to come home to, so that’ll change.” Grayer smoothes Stilton’s hair and then nervously pats down his own blond bangs.

“Ready?” I ask, suddenly also nervous for how well I want this to go for them and the fact that the closest I’ve come to this level of celebrity is a tea ceremony with Desmond Tutu. And there were, like, thirty other people there the whole time.

They both nod. I tug out my ponytail and quickly shake my hair, wishing my Over It could have held off till after this visit. “I can’t believe I’m meeting Carter Nelson in yoga pants.”

“I’m sure she does yoga,” Stilton asserts.

I push the glowing button and hear a sonorous chime.

Carter herself opens the door, rubbing her hands over her well documented face. “Hi, guys,” she says, pulling out a smile beneath her tired eyes.

“Hey, hi.” Grayer smiles, blushing. He looks at her and then at the floor, awkward—sweet. How could she not eat them with a spoon?

“I love your art here.” Stilton gestures grandly to the Lucite chunk. “It’s cool because it’s see-through and also . . .” We all watch his mind race. “And also because it’s interesting to look at.”

“Oh.” She seems confused. “It’s an umbrella stand, but …thank you. Come on in.” As she doesn’t offer to take our bags or instruct us to leave them, we shuffle like pack mules into the moss-colored entrance hall. I can’t help but think as she struggles to open a pair of massive limed oak double doors opposite, her shoulder blades poking through the thin cotton of her dark green T-shirt, that Mr. X likes his women tiny.

The doors give into a sweeping fish tank of a room ringed with fourteen feet of floor-to-ceiling glass. One side looks across the Hudson to the shoreline of New Jersey. The other faces directly into an identical building, twelve stories open like a doll’s house, every tiny detail of each sun-bathed apartment visible, with only the narrow street between us. Stilton unburdens himself from the sagging backpacks he’s carrying, one in front, one in back, and runs over to the glass to lean his forehead against the pane. “Is that the West Side Highway?” he asks, pointing down. Is that someone applying mascara? I’m tempted to point across.

Carter comes up behind him and plants her thin legs astride his, wraps an arm in front of him, and tilts his head up with her other hand. “Yes,” she says warmly, her signature thick red hair falling in her face. “And no skin against the glass. I only have someone come in once a week so let’s not cover the view with fingerprints.” She releases Stilton, who seems unsure if he was cuddled or admonished, his eyes darting to Grayer’s as she turns to me. “It’s just I hate having anyone in the apartment.” Yes, he likes ’em tiny
and
charming. “And definitely not while I’m home. You’re the nanny?”

“No, just a—family friend.” They’re a family? I’m its friend? “With the boys. I’m a friend of Grayer—and Stilton.” I’m not sure why I’m clarifying, except for the not so far-fetched possibility that George Clooney or Cate Blanchett could walk in and she’d introduce me erroneously as Mrs. X’s friend, and then I would be in their minds forever linked with that woman.

“This is really nice,” Grayer says, waving Stilton over to him in the sparsely furnished room. “The way you’ve …done the place,” he adds carefully, having learned from Stilton’s failing to discern art from utility. “It’s very chill.”

“Oh, thanks. I can’t take a lot of visual information in my nest. So, your room is the last down the hall. I hope you don’t mind sharing—
containing the chaos,
” she sings. “Take a right at the fork.” The fork?

I walk them down the full length of the building, past multiple doors and finally a horse-sized mural of a bent antique fork, to the last room on the right. White floors, olive-tinted cement walls, two white twin beds, a stainless steel desk, floor-to-ceiling glass—it feels like I’m dropping them off to be experimented on. Stilton beelines to the nearest bed and releases his backpacks with an “Oof.” He immediately reaches shoulder-deep into one, pulls out a scrap of paper, and presses it to the stainless steel sconce. Padma Lakshmi. We all watch as she slowly unsticks and swishes to the floor.

“I’ll go uptown tomorrow,” Grayer rushes, unstrapping himself from his suitcases. “And get whatever you want. We will make this place feel like home.”

“Yes! Totally,” I add with forced certainty, because Stilton looks like he’s just waiting for the cue to tilt from happy ending to despair.

Grayer takes the duffel bag and tote from me and lowers them to Stilton’s bed. He reaches in and pulls out a fist of stuffed animals, which he places carefully along the white duvet where the mattress meets the wall. “We’ll just get your little guys set up here . . .”

Stilton turns toward the beckoning windows, fingertips extended. Fine. If they can get through this and the worst that happens is he rebels with finger-pad sweat, this will have been a raging success. “Look,” he entreats.

We extend our gaze to the twin glass building across the street, where a girl who appears to be about Stilton’s age sits on the floor of her own white room, drawing. Having noticed Stilton, she crawls a few paces across the sheepskin rug to the window and holds her paper to the glass—“HI.”

“Hi,” Stilton mouths back, waving.

“Hey.” We whip our heads around. Carter grips the doorframe with both hands and leans into the room. “I’m making tea. What would you like?” she addresses me.

“Oh, I—Mint? Grayer?”

“I’m great.” He smiles again, shrugging. “We’re great, thanks. The room is awesome.”

“Good. Oh, ignore her.” Carter tips her chin up toward our little artistic friend in the tie-dye sweater. “I think she’s a fan.”

“Oh.” We nod, as in this neighborhood it is quite possible for this girl to be the world’s youngest celebrity blogger. Grimacing to herself, Carter retreats.

“Okay, guys, I’ll be right back,” I say as Grayer continues to populate the barren space with the colorful contents of Stilton’s bag.

“We’re cool, Nan.” He looks at me over his shoulder, shaking his bangs out of his eyes.

“Cool!” I give him a thumbs-up.

“I mean, you can have your tea and head out.”

“Sure. So I’ll just, maybe, give you a call later, make sure you’re settled in.”

“If you want.”

Stilton turns back from the window to watch me.

“Of course I want.”

Grayer stands, a stack of folded shirts in hand. “’Cause we’re all set. I mean, I’ve got this covered.”