Free Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin Page A

his left ear on the pillow I don’t think he can hear a thing.”
    “So.” I finger the black stitching on the armrest. “I have a potentially scary meeting on Friday.”
    “New client?”
    “Yes,” I say, only partially lying. New, old—same diff.
    “Nan, that’s great! I knew your business was going to take off.”
    “The thing is . . .” I crack the window to let in the night air as I try to isolate what the thing is in the general feeling of clammy that seeing Mrs. X again induces. “The connection is through some nanny work I did and I might run into a few old faces—”
    “I have just the thing! I’ll send it to your iTunes account right now.”
    “iTunes? Don’t tell me, you have a ‘Say No to Say Yes’ dance remix?”
    She laughs. “Even better. One of my clients turned me on to it a few years ago and now I give it to anyone whose ex is screwing with their shelter vouchers. So we’ll see you and Ryan for dinner Friday? I was thinking Chinese.”
    “Yes to Chinese and let’s hope Ryan is back by then.” I touch the gold lotus pendant he gave me last Valentine’s where it rests warmly between my collarbones.
    “You getting lonely over there? You want Dad and me to come for a sleepover?”
    “Uh, no,” I laugh. “But thanks.”
    “All you have to do is ask. See you Friday.”
    “Love you. Bye.”

4

    “Now I don’t know exactly what you have in mind, but I pulled a few things and lay them on the bed.” On Friday, having abandoned my mother’s suggested podcast for empowering divorcees, I follow Grandma into the loft to see a fan of dry-cleaner bags basking in the noonday sun. “Your mother believes that in confrontational situations, holding the purity of your intention is enough. I say, hold it in Chanel!” She sweeps up a pale pink tweed jacket with the signature gold buttons, the empirical armor of the neighborhood, as Citrine identified. “Your new clients are like those people you worked for in college?”
    “Yes,” I affirm, feeling doubly bad about fibbing to her, but I just have to get through today and then tell everyone about it years from now when it’s just this really great altruistic thing I did and not the stupid thing I’m about to do.
    “Now, I didn’t take out the skirt, because I think you should pair it with those crisp jeans you’re wearing so it doesn’t look like you’re trying. Here.” She hands me a large dark blue Jimmy Choo purse that picks up the flecks of blue in the tweed. “And . . .” She opens a shoe box with a pair of pristine navy Chanel ballet flats. “These you can keep. I have never worn them. I was having a farty moment. And this.” She opens a red Cartier box on the bed and extracts a string of pearls. “Your grandfather gave me these on our twentieth wedding anniversary. Your father traded them once for a bag of pot, but we got them back. There. Pair that with the fresh-out-of-the-package T-shirt.” I hold up the one I was instructed to buy at the American Apparel on the corner. “And you are good to go.” She snakes the cool pearls into my palm.
    “Grandma, I can’t thank you enough, this is fabulous.”
    “I’m glad you called.” She takes my shoulders. “I know you know how to make potable water in the desert and build a hut out of twigs, but this is a different jungle and Manhattan is not for the unshelled slug.”
    “Can I quote you on that?”
    “If I don’t use it as the title for my memwah ,” she says, swanning the air with her kimono sleeve.
    I kiss her and go into the bathroom to don my shell.
    And then all at once a combination of trains and one-foot-in-front-of-the-other puts me back under the gray awning and the doorman is swinging open the door. “Hi. Nan Hutchinson. I’m here to see Grayer X,” I say, willing his mother to be tranqued as promised. And in Tahiti.
    “He’s expecting you.” He points the way. “Elevator on your left.” And spotlit urn to my right—yes, I know.
    I round the