Nanny Returns (4 page)

“Well, I’m on the board of my alma mater in Manhattan—that’s where you are now, yes?”

“Yes, yes I am.” I glance out the window at the Key Food bags that appear to be blooming off the backyard tree.

“It’s a splendid preparatory institution, but we’re in need of a consultant.”

“I’m delighted you thought of me.” I wipe my wet hand across my T-shirt and grip the phone, back straight, wallet open.

“Well, we were a bunch of cranky old coots and you brought some order to the place.” I flash to the weeks of sessions it took to get formalized employee reviews to replace the Tipton tradition of promoting based on a “feeling about a guy.” “And the school’s in a bit of a crunch—their director of staff development, which in
my
time was the headmaster, but hell, I’ve only been on this board twenty years.” He lets out a disgusted huff. “At any rate, this woman was due back from her maternity leave yesterday and sent a resignation note in her place. So they think the position needs to be filled, but I prevailed inasmuch as we won’t make it full-time again. We’ve been burned, you understand.”

I give a noncommittal hum of understanding.

“There were reservations about hiring another woman, but I told them you’ve already had kids so you’re not flighty.”

I inhale, my mouth momentarily stuck wide. “I don’t actually—”

“And they need someone ASAP. I suggested my college roommate, former head of Choate, has his own consulting outfit now, but they want to go with a business consultant again, someone who speaks our language. Anyway the cap’s three hundred.”

“Three hundred?”

“An hour. Tops.”

I elatedly wave my injured hand in the air. “Well”—I hold my voice steady—“as it’s a school, I would be willing to consider it.”

“Fantastic. Since she went on leave I’ve wasted God knows how many weekends on the phone with these people and their grievance committee. That faculty is a noisy, contentious crew. You know academics, like to hear themselves talk. The headmaster will be expecting to interview you this afternoon at the school.”

I scramble through the tools for a pencil and step to a free stretch of Pepto wall to scribble. “Great, let me just open my agenda—”

“I’ll have my secretary call you back with the details. Thanks so much.”

“Of course.”

“Our board has some very established members in the business world, not a bad set of contacts for you,” he tosses out as an afterthought that makes me jump in little hops, sending Grace’s head atilt.

“I look forward to meeting them.” I steady my breath.

“Very well. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.” Nan Hutchinson Consulting Client Number Two!

An hour later finds me still digging pink paint from under my nails as my cab alternately races and brakes on the West Side Highway in a cluster-fuck of rush-hour rushers.

“You want I take Fourteenth Street?”

I pull my BlackBerry from my bag to double-check the address. “It’s at Sixteenth and Ninth.”

“Meatpacking District. I take Fourteenth.”

“Great.” I gather up my tote, containing a hastily compiled, if generic, plan for breaking through faculty “noise.” The cab pulls off the highway to inch along a Fourteenth Street I recognize from
Sex and the City
DVDs, but nonetheless blows my native mind. It looks like every major Madison Avenue flagship has unmoored and drifted south to settle on what I recall from my adolescence as a foul-smelling stretch of godforsaken blood-soaked cobblestone. Perhaps Intermix is now sharing storage with hanging cow carcasses. Perhaps fashion’s finally won and Manhattan’s abandoned eating altogether.

“Is here.” The cabbie tilts his head and I fish for money as I scan out the window to the hulking white building with its grid of distinctive circular windows.

“No, this is Safe Harbor House,” I say, referring to the shelter for runaway teens. I check my BlackBerry.

“Is street,” he says with certainty as the passenger-side rear door flies open and a teenage student with a monogrammed Louis Vuitton backpack leans in.

“Sorry,” she offers, but stays put.

I scooch over to get out, peering up to where the ghostly silhouette of the words “Safe Harbor” can be seen in the cement of the building’s facade. I trade places with the girl and her friend in a whir of strong perfume and Marlboro Lights, dodging their tossed butts to arrive at brushed-steel double doors and, to my relief, a discreet glass sign quietly announcing THE JARNDYCE ACADEMY 1878 in the etched block font of a boutique hotel.

Intrigued, I let myself into a white gallerylike space and am greeted by a well-dressed receptionist seated at a white desk. “May I help you?”

“Yes, Nan Hutchinson. I’m here to see the headmaster.”

“Just a moment, please. I’ll let Gene know you’re here.” She picks up her phone.

Running a straightening hand through my hair, I take in the gleaming lacquered floor and circle of white resin tree stumps beneath what I believe is a Chihuly chandelier, trickling down in a million white glass twirled tubers from the double-height ceiling and illuminating the hourly rate Philip quoted. My eyes land at the back of the hall, where the spine of a staircase is incongruously shrouded in scaffolding.

“Ms. Hutchinson?” I turn to see a young woman approaching from a door on the right. “It’s okay, Meredith, I’ve got it. Sorry to keep you waiting—”

“Not at all, I just walked in, actually.”

“Oh, good. Gene asked me to meet you—he’s coming to my homeroom next period and thought it’d be great for you to see the kids in action.” She pulls her hand from the pocket of her trapeze sweater. “Ingrid Wells. History, Forensics Club, and eleventh-grade homeroom.”

“Nan, the potential new director of staff development.” We shake, her bangles making a silvery ping. “Am I crazy or didn’t this building used to be a shelter for runaway teens?”

She nods. “And now it’s for—”

“Runway teens,” I fill in.

She laughs. “I’ll take you through the back way.” She gestures for me to follow her toward the scaffolded stairs. “It’s off-limits to the students, but much faster. The building’s just being finished.”

“Didn’t Jarndyce used to be in the East Fifties?”

“Yes, the middle and lower schools are still there. But a few years ago the board sold the air rights to that building in order to buy this place and gut it. The Jarndyce of the new millennium is . . .” She gestures to the chandelier as we pass under it. “Luxury education.” I trail her through the arc of faux stumps and a plywood door at the base of the scaffolding, letting us into a drywalled stairwell. “This building was only supposed to house the high school,” she explains as we ascend one flight. “But the parents protested at the thought of having to send their drivers to two separate locations for pickups and dropoffs, so the middle school will join us next year and this will be their floor.” On the landing she opens the door and my eyes are immediately drawn to the antiqued mirror panels on the hallway ceiling. Yes, just what seventh graders need: reflective surfaces. “And they recently closed on another property in the neighborhood for the lower school—over by the highway.”

“Wow.” I step out behind her into the corridor of barn-planked flooring that runs the length of a city block, lined on either side by backlit boxwood hedges in narrow rectangular zinc planters. “And I was psyched to have a locker.”

“Right? It’s raised some hackles in the faculty. Some took early retirement last year. But, personally”—she leans in—“I love it. I live in Bed-Stuy and get to spend the day in a Domino spread. I don’t know if it’s done jack for the kids’ self-esteem, but it’s been great for mine.” As I laugh she looks to me, her brunette topknot listing. “So, you’re in the running to be the new Shari?”

“Shari?”

“Shari Oleson. Our ambassador to the board.”

“Ambassador, I like that. I always think my job could use a little diplomatic immunity. Yes, I’m interviewing.”

She withdraws her hands from the pockets of her twill sailor pants as we approach the next set of double doors, the hall turning to the left.

“And through here”—she pushes into them—“this becomes the science floor, where my homeroom is currently situated. Due to a backorder on some desks coming from Germany a few of the floors are still doing double duty.”

“Gotcha.”

We pass into the next section of hallway, where, interspersed between the black classroom doors, the walls are lined with life-sized holograms of famous scientists from Marie Curie to Stephen Hawking. “So, this is my temporary homeroom.” She gestures to the door behind her, from which emits the clamor of contained chaos. “I’m just going to make sure no one is pile-driving anyone in there. Gene should be here any second, are you okay waiting?”

“Of course, thanks for the tour.”

“Sure, good luck,” she says before hustling inside, leaving me staring at Mathilde Krim, who’s staring back at me while holding her microscope.

“Isn’t it fantastic?” a man calls out as he approaches from the opposite end of the hall. “We’re trying to up the Harry Potter factor. Gene DeSanto, headmaster. How’s it going?” He strides over and pumps my hand.

“Nan Hutchinson, hello! There’s a Harry Potter factor?”

“Well, Rowling set the bar high, you know, in terms of kids’ expectations. Kids expect a lot of excitement these days.”

Feeling my face doing what Ryan calls my Twitches of Disbelief, I pivot it back to the holograms. “I expected a stallion to save me from a shipwreck, but Chapin never seemed to care.” He laughs as I recover my composure. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gene. I’m delighted to be here, delighted by your school’s consideration.”

“You, too, you, too. Philip Traphagen raved about your work. Shari really left us in the lurch, you know.” He’s younger than I expected, forty-five, tops. And with a slight Long Island accent I wouldn’t have thought to be well received in these parts. I’d have assumed they’d hold out for a little Yankee lockjaw, someone who says “yar.”

“Yes, I’m sorry to hear that. But from what Philip shared I think my business training makes me a strong fit for Jarndyce.”

“Yes, our board has a real interest in applying the efficiency of the for-profit sector to education.”

“Oh, interesting. That sounds like exactly the vacuum that drove me from non-profit to business consulting in the first place. And while I do currently have another client, I am confident I can coordinate—”

“Great, because we just don’t have the bandwidth to launch a full-scale search at this point in the year.” He scratches at the back of his neck.

“So you’re not meeting with other candidates?”

His cheeks redden. “Well, I mean, Philip was happy with you—and the trustees don’t want to cut the position altogether. They definitely prefer a cushion between themselves and the faculty.”

Three-hundred-dollar cushion, reporting for duty. “I’m delighted to step in, Gene.” I put my palm on his arm reassuringly. “Perhaps you could tell me a bit more about what the role requires?”

“Absolutely. As you can see, our facility is on its way to being state of the art.
State of the art
.” His enthusiasm tips him slightly forward. “We had a team prospect across the country, going from MIT to Stanford, reporting back on the cutting edge of education technology. And we are implementing it all
right here
.” He points down between his Docksiders. “And, of course, with that come a few organizational tweaks. Shari had been interfacing between the board and the faculty to roll those changes out.” He purses his lips, his expression souring. “You know, we both started on the same day and I thought she was just great, but jumping ship like this really blew my socks off. Apparently she’s just really loving being home with the baby. Anyway …the point is we’re pretty much done tweaking, but we’d want you to be on call for any staff development needs that may arise. And, of course, we’ll keep you on retainer,” he adds, as if this is customary. Wow. Who’s bankrolling this place?

“I’m sure we can work something out. This seems like a truly exciting time to join your team. What was your capital campaign, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Not at all! Fifty million,” he proudly declares, his chest lifting his navy blazer so that the crests on his brass buttons glint in the light. “Of course, things have gone a
hair
over budget.” He clears his throat. “But under the direction of our new chair, Cliff Ashburn, we just invested our endowment with X Wealth Management, plus I’m ramping up our fund-raising this fall—we’re on the short track to becoming the Harvard of prep schools.”

“X Wealth Management?” Is the name a coincidence or, in addition to leaving his family, has he also left the bank? “Any connection to Mr. X?”

“You know him?” He cocks his chin to the side.

“I do—I did . . .” I pause. “I knew …their son.” Which just sounds weird. “I was his nanny.”

His head ticks back on its axis. “You were a nanny?”

“In college. Before my master’s.”

He balks as if I’ve revealed that a stint at the Hustler Club subsidized my BA. “Well . . .” he prevaricates, “it
is
an impressive family. Are you still in touch?”

Technically? “Grayer was just over at my house yesterday.”

“Marvelous.” That seals it. “Long-term investment in a child—that’s what we believe in here at Jarndyce.”

“So, where did they steal you away from?” I move us along.

“Assistant vice principal, PS 348, Nassau County.” His voice drops to a monotone reserved for admitting embarrassing facts of public record. Like when celebrities on the red carpet are probed about their latest YouTube debacle.

“Oh, that’s great!” I exclaim with untempered gusto, the answer only making his presence here more confusing. Private schools of this caliber are like the National League or American League. There are minors and majors and strict rules. New York City heads are scouted from the top positions at the private schools of Cleveland, Boston, or Philadelphia. They are not plucked from the strawberry patches of Long Island. It’s one thing to eschew the ranks of the educational elite when choosing your consultant, it’s quite another when choosing your headmaster. “That sounds like it must have been good preparation for—”