“Ten,” she said, her brows set in a determined line.
“Ten. You got this.”
My first week of nannying had gone… okay, I thought. It had been strange, making my way up to the Upper East Side on a bright Monday morning, back to a house I thought I’d never see again, but the cheery smile on Maddie’s face when she opened the door to me made up for the awkward grimace on Ryan’s as he rounded the corner after her.
“Hi, Flora,” he’d said. He was wearing another charcoal suit, his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the top, and I wrenched my eyes away from the V of skin exposed there.
“Mr. Walker,” I’d replied carefully. The corner of his mouth twitched.
He’d sent me the contract Saturday afternoon. I’d be working a schedule not so different than my school year: Monday through Friday, from seven in the morning to five or so when Ryan got home from work, later if he had a work dinner or a late meeting. Maddie’s mom would pick her up from here on Friday afternoons. It was work, coparenting successfully, but the two of them–Ryan and Ms. Talford–had seemed friendly when she dropped Maddie off last Saturday. I wondered again what had caused their split.It’s not your business,I reminded myself.You’re the nanny, not his girlfriend.
More surprising than the schedule, though, had been the pay: way,waymore than what I’d been making as a teacher. Enough to make me consider doing the nanny thing full-time, and forget teaching altogether… until I remembered that what I loved about teachingwasn’tthe pay. Regardless, it was enough to get me through the summer, to let me save up a little, even, in case I had to take a pay cut at my next school. I’d be starting at the most junior level, once again.
And the work itself–Maddie–was challenging, but enjoyable, I thought, sitting next to her at the sewing machine as she inched the fabric through it at a painfully slow speed.
“...nine …ten,” she said under her breath, counting out the careful stitches as the needle moved up and down through the fabric.
She looked up, a smile of triumph on her face.
“Justwaituntil I show Mom,” she said, eyes alight.
“What does your mom do?” I asked. I’d been trying all week to be entirely unsuspicious. Just a regular nanny, thank you very much, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t dying to know more about Ms. Talford.
“She’s a forecaster,” Maddie said, standing up to look at the back of the sewing machine for the lever that would raise the presser foot and let her remove the fabric, now bearing a short row of stitches.
I laughed. “I feel like you’re not talking about the weather, but I have no idea what you could mean otherwise. Here,” I said, reaching out to flick the lever up. She slipped the scrap of cotton free of the machine, admiring her work. “And don’t forget–”
“Trim the threads, right,” she said, reaching for a tiny pair of gold scissors. “She’s a trend forecaster,” she explained as she carefully clipped the tails of thread leading back to the machine.. “She tells all the brands what is going to be popular in the future, so that they buy the right stuff.”
“What, like…” I shook my head. “What do you mean? She’s not, like… atime traveller.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, ofcoursenot,” she said. “That’s not real. Although, this boy in my class said that– Well, I didn’t really get it, but he said that you could, technically, time travel. In space. But it wouldn’t be like in the books. I don’t know if I believe him, but if it isn’t like in books where you go back to visit ancient Greece and stuff, I don’t think I’m that interested in time travel, so it doesn’t matter.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think he was just trying to look smart.”
I wrinkled my nose, too. I knew the type.
“Anyway, my mom does a lot of traveling, and reading the news, and studying the current trends, and then she decides what will be cool next year and the year after that and after that.”
I nodded. I was still slightly lost, but it sounded interesting.
“You can ask her when she comes to pick me up. We’re going to arestauranttonight, just the two of us.”
“That sounds really nice,” I said. I didn’t imagine Ms. Talford and I sitting down for a cozy career discussion anytime soon, but it was sweet that Maddie and her mom seemed so close, even if she spent most of her time with her father. “Now,” I said, glancing down at the time on my phone, “it’s almost time for her to be here, so I’ll tidy up here, you grab your stuff.”
We chatted as Maddie packed the same small duffle bag she brought with her last weekend and I picked up the scraps of fabric and thread, putting them into a small trash can underneath her desk. I was just putting the cover over the sewing machine when I heard a voice call out from downstairs.
“Maddie? Are you up there?”
“Mom!” the girl yelled, making me jump. She raced from the room, her duffle bag slung across her shoulder and in her fist, the scrap of cotton bearing the ten careful stitches.Baby steps.
I followed her down the stairs at a more moderate pace, smoothing my hair back from my face as I turned the corner into the foyer, where Ms. Talford was giving her daughter a quick hug and a kiss.
“–and Flora and I did some sewing today, look,” the girl was saying, holding up the scrap for her mother to inspect. The woman nodded seriously, a glossy curtain of brown hair swinging, then looked over at me.
“I’ve heard nothing butFloraall week,” she said with a kind smile, then hesitated. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t quite as welcoming as I might have been last weekend. You just took me by surprise. I had hoped–” Her eyes darted to Maddie, and she pursed her lips. “Well. I hadn’t realized Ryan had found another nanny. I’m sure it was short notice. Thank you.”
“Thankyoufor the opportunity, Ms. Talford,” I said, and she smiled again, straight teeth dazzlingly white.
“Please, call me Tally, everyone does.”
