Nanny Returns (28 page)

Scrambling up this tractionless mental slope, I flap out big T-shirts, small T-shirts, big boxers, small boxers. I raise Stilton’s Batman tee to the fluorescent, feeling a flicker of pride that the remains of where Grace upended taco night have come clean.

I lower the piles into the large red tote standing in for a laundry bag and heave it to my shoulder. And I have to admit it’s incredibly satisfying, in a fabric softener kind of way, making a dinner they wolf down, folding their stain-free laundry, helping them tackle their homework. Especially when everything else I attempted this week was an unqualified failure.

Before I even get the key in the lock, I sense Grace circling inside for her last walk. And after not barking when I got off the elevator with the laundry, she’s earned it. I push the door, but it pushes back. “Grayer, you want to let me in?”

“Sorry,” a man’s voice comes from the other side. Startled, I shove it open and it hits the kitchenette cabinets, revealing Mr. X, who looks around as if appraising the place for auction.

“Jan, hi,” he says distractedly as Grace waggles out to greet me.

“Hi! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here—I’ve left messages.” I step inside and drop the bag on the carpet. “So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes, we’re going to talk all that through tonight. Smaller than I remembered.” His head torques from the stucco ceiling to the industrial carpeting. “But I’ve always liked the equestrian art. This was a good place.” He nods to himself. “Ready, Grayer?” As he turns I see he’s wearing a back brace under his jacket like a cummerbund.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

“What? Oh, this, it’s just …stress.” He manages a dry laugh.

“We’re going out.”

I pivot to Grayer, face radiant, baseball cap and sweatshirt in hand. “Great! Okay, then you’ll talk it through now and I guess Grayer can update me when he gets back?” I pat at Grace’s pushy muzzle.

“Uh-huh.” Mr. X smiles blankly.

“And where are you guys going?” I ask, fighting the temptation to throw the nearby leash around Mr. X’s neck.

“Out,” they say in unison.

At the word “out” Grace excitedly raises and drops her front paws.

“One minute, Grace.” I look at the clock on the cable box—11:14. “Okay, um, well, I’ll probably be asleep soon, so …have fun!” I cheer.

“Thanks. See ya.” As his dad holds the door open Grayer slips his cap on, narrowing the arc of the brim with one hand.

“I’ll get their things ready for tomorrow,” I say. “For when you pick them up after work. Around seven, do you think?” I try on relaying Gene’s message, but decide if he’s planning to “swing by,” it’s better for me to look uninvolved.

“Sure, definitely, yes. Bye.” Mr. X follows him out.

“Seven, then!” I call to the closed door. Right. Great—so this is great. After placing a pausing hand on Grace’s nose, I reach in and pull out two possible school outfits for each boy and then go to their room, where, racked out from his field trip to the Bronx Zoo, Stilton sleeps deeply, curled next to the indent his brother left. From the doorway I turn to a waiting Grace, willing what is transpiring right now, between Grayer and Mr. X to be a declaration of a happy family plan over hot cocoa, or even a declaration of a happy family plan on Mr. X’s Hustler Club expense account. Whichever—I’ll take it.

I’m still lying awake hours later, my mind crackling among Gene’s anxious face, Steve’s impassive one, and the devastation that awaits me on Ryan’s, when my door opens. “Grayer?” I sit up.

“Where is he?” Stilton asks, shuffling around the bed.

“He went out, Stil. He’ll be back soon. You okay?”

Stilton lifts the covers on the other side and, without ceremony, climbs in and curls up, raising his bandaged hand on the pillow like I showed him. “I’m sleeping here until he gets back, Nan.”

I look down at his small torso, his madras pajamas rumpling as he nestles deeper into the bedding. “Okay.” I lie back, resuming my vigil of the ceiling and try to stay distracted from the separation that looms.

BANG!

WOOF!

BANG!

WOOF!

Squinting against the pink dawn reflecting off the glass high-rise opposite, I fling off the covers and run out of the bedroom with Stilton on my heels. We find Grace baring her teeth at the door.

“Hello?” I call, jockeying to get around her to the spy hole.

“Open up! Police!”

I peek through to see a man in an ill-fitting suit and an even more ill-proportioned mustache standing with a uniformed cop. “Open up, ma’am!”

Leaving the chain on, I crack it open. “Um, good morning. Can you please show me your badge?” He whips it out, wedging it to me under the chain.

“Nan, why are the police here?” Stilton asks from behind Grace.

“I don’t know. Go wake Grayer.”

“You’re being evicted is why the police are here,” the mustache guy says in a clipped British accent, adjusting his pocket square.

“Evicted? But this isn’t my apartment.”

“Exactly! I told you, officer, this has to end—”

“Hold on,” I cut him off. “I’m confirming your badge.” I bolt the door and step over to the phone by the couch.

“He’s not here.” Stilton runs from their room.

I turn to him, seeing his stricken expression as he tugs down on the hem of his pajama top. “Right, yes, not to worry. He actually was out with your dad last night—isn’t that great?” Pleaseohpleaseoh-please. “He didn’t want to wake you, but he told me to give you a big hug for him. They probably had so much fun they lost track of time.” Is it lying if I’m not
entirely
sure it’s not the truth? “So Stil,” I say gently, “go pee and brush your teeth. I’m going to start oatmeal.” I ruffle his black Woodstock hair. “Don’t worry, this is just some weird misunderstanding and I have it totally under—”

BANG!

WOOF!

“I’m coming!” As soon as the desk clerk confirms the badge I go and open the door fully, handing it back to Officer Velasquez. “Sorry, but I read the paper.”

“No, that’s smart.” He nods, returning his ID to his pocket.

“So what’s the problem, exactly?” I wipe my hair off my face and try to project authority in my pajamas, while Grace and Stilton push against my legs.

Mustache raises his chin as if we smell. “The problem is that you are behind on your rent and I have a notice to evict!” He snaps a thin pink paper.

“Well, it’s a mistake, a hedge fund owns this place. Maybe a mix-up in the billing?”

“X Wealth Management has not replied to written notices, phone calls, or legal summonses.”

“I’m sorry, miss,” Officer Velasquez says, looking it, “but you have to leave.”

“Of course I do,” I sigh. “Can I at least have a few minutes to get dressed and get him ready for school?”

Mustache straightens his lapels—he probably spends all day read-justing his readjusted apparel. “We will wait in the lobby. If you are not downstairs by eight o’clock, I will have you arrested for trespassing.”

By 8:01 I have finished packing for three, gotten myself dressed, walked a dog, fed a child and readied him for school, all the while projecting a calm vision of his future, smiling while I move into full-on panic about his brother’s whereabouts. As we sit on the duffel bags in the lobby under the watchful and derisive eye of Mustache, I give up on his cell phone and call Mr. X at work. “The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please check your number and try again.” Wha? So I do. And the main number. And his private extension. And Connecticut 411. Disconnected. Disconnected. Disconnected.

“Grayer!” Stilton yells, leaping up.

“Wait here, okay?” I hand him Grace’s leash and stride through the door and out onto the street. “Where the hell have you been? Is that your father?” I break into a sprint as I spot a town car pulling away into traffic.

Grayer catches the hem of my jacket. “That’s not him.”

I spin and take him in. He looks like utter shit. Which for a teenager could mean anything—at that age the best night of your life and the worst night look the same the next morning. “Where were you?” I follow him inside.

“I took the train—what the hell?”

“Grayer, Grayer!” Stilton jumps into his face while Grace sniffs at his calves.

“We’ve been evicted. What train? What happened last night with your father?”

Grayer gives a sardonic smile to their belongings strewn over the Buena Vida lobby floor. “Of course we have.”

“What did Dad say? Are we moving to the gobble building now?”

Grayer pats Stilton’s bobbing head. “No.”

“What’s the plan? What time is he picking you up tonight?”

“He didn’t get around to that.”

Stilton clamps his hands on the hem of his brother’s sweatshirt. “So where are we going to live now, Grayer?”

“I have no fucking idea.” Shit.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Stilton. Okay!” I say, trying to confine this wreck to the tracks. “Grayer, let’s get you a clean shirt and off to school.” I reach into his bag and extract an oxford I ironed and a packet of Wet Ones from my overnight. “Strip.”

“Here?” He gestures to Mustache.

“You’ll make his day.”

We pile everything into yet another taxi and I get out with all their worldly possessions and one dog at 721.

“Okay,” I say, striving for an authoritative tone that couldn’t be farther from how I feel. I look back into the cab as I hand them hastily scribbled late notes, propping the door open with my hip and holding Grace’s taut leash. “So you don’t have a key?”

“No,” Grayer mutters from behind the driver. “I told you, it’s always open.”

“Right, okay, so I’m going to figure that out and, Grayer, you’ll bring Stilton here after school?”

He just stares into the foggy partition, his eyes at half-mast.

“We’re going home?!” Stilton throws his arms around my neck from the seat beside Grayer. He smells like cinnamon. I have to stay focused.

“Yes,” I say, pulling away and running my hand through his hair. “Good luck with your Neil Armstrong presentation. Have a great day, guys!” I shut the cab door and watch it weave back into the flow of uptown traffic.

After tying Grace to the wrought-iron guard rail, I follow the doorman ferrying the bags through the bronze French door and gird myself for take two. “Hi! So those can go right up to the Xes’, thank you!”

“Oh.” He stops, the bags pinning his arms to his sides. “No deliveries. She’s not in.”

I blink up at the gilded ceiling. “She’s not back yet?” I ask, even though I suspected as much, since every good-night call of Stilton’s went to voice mail.

“Nope.” He shrugs, lifting his gold braid epaulets. “She’s still in the hospital. And I’m not supposed to accept any deliveries.”

“Okay, well, this isn’t a delivery, these are her sons’ things.”

He drops the bags to the floor. “Look, I can get you a cab.”

“Except I don’t need a cab, because these bags are staying in this building because they are the belongings of two residents of this building who’ll be home this evening. So I can leave them here or bring them up, which I am happy to do,” I say through clenched teeth.

“You have a key?”

“Don’t you?”

“I do not.” He circles back behind his desk.

“Well, someone must. What about plants?” A ridiculous question of a woman who wishes her own children inanimate. “Look, why don’t I just leave this stuff in their vestibule for now while I try to get in touch with her at the hospital?”

He shakes his head. “No can do. Fire code.”

“And why can’t I leave it in the lobby or the package room?” We look at the towering pile of bags and sporting equipment. “Or just run up and check the door, because Grayer said it’s usually unlocked, maybe she forgot to—”

“You arrive with stuff. Might be tenants’, might not. I don’t know you. I don’t have a letter vouching for you.” He points at a leather binder overflowing with such letters. “I’m sorry, I’ll get in trouble. Excuse me.” He opens the door for a delivery guy in a red and yellow windbreaker and I wish I’d had the forethought to bring a fake letter to slip in the binder.

“Mrs. X,” the guy says. I whip my head up. “I’m double-parked.” He practically flings the red and yellow envelope at the doorman, holding out his clipboard for a signature while hopping away on one foot. While entering the delivery in the building ledger, the doorman rests the envelope on the desk. I twist my head to read the mailing label—X Wealth Management.

“Why would Mr. X messenger her something all the way from Connecticut if she’s not even here? He could mail it.”

“She’s picking it up,” the doorman says as he scribbles.

“She’s
what?
” I am now, I believe the kids would say,
in his grill
.

“It’s not my business.” He puts his hand up.

“Sir. I am folding her children’s boxer shorts. We just got evicted from their dad’s place.
Please
.”

He twists his lips and then lowers his voice. “One messenger drops an envelope off and another picks it up, to take to the hospital.”

“In
Baltimore
?” Have these people never heard of stamps?

“That’s what she said.”

I walk over to the door, where I can see Grace’s panting profile, and in full view of the frowning doorman, I plop down on Stilton’s red duffel bag and tug out my cell. The president of the board can forcibly remove me by my hair.