Free You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny by Suzanne Hansen Page B

had never been to an NBA game before. Since I had no friends within a thousand-mile radius, I asked if I could take Delma. Michael looked perplexed, but he agreed. He gave me the tickets and a VIP parking pass.
    Ecstatic, Delma and I headed off on our adventure in her old car. When we arrived at the arena, a parking valet appeared at the door, ready to whisk away our carriage. I didn’t have a clue how to handle the protocols of power, LA-style. So, did this guy need a tip? How much? Now or later? My last experience at a big venue had been when Ozzy Osbourne played in Portland. My friend Amy and I had hiked the North 40 between the parking space and the coliseum because we didn’t have enough money to pay for stadium parking. I had certainly never encountered a valet at a sporting event.
    Delma giggled, getting right into the spirit of being a big shot. I’d found a friend. I’d fine-tune parking protocol later; for now I gave him a whopping $2.
    It got even better inside. Our seats were directly behind the visiting team—the Seattle Super Sonics were sweating on their bench not a foot from our faces. I didn’t even care that I didn’t know any of the players. Delma spotted the TV cameras right away and spent the rest of the evening checking out who the crews were filming—Jack Nicholson, as usual. We were only ten chairs away! I peered at the camera every time it pulled back for a crowd shot. Was I making a splash in Cottage Grove?
    Our seats came with our own server, who came by several times to ask if there was anything we wanted. I was overwhelmed with all the questions running through my head: If I’m holding the ticket, does he think
I’m
someone important? Or can he spot an imposter?
    We never did order anything because we were too embarrassed to ask if it was complimentary, and we only had $8 between us. Oh well. It was fun to have the perks of power, even if they were just borrowed for the evening. And my short-lived ascension into status that night at the Lakers game turned out to have a lasting benefit. From that day on, I knew the exact location of Michael’s seats. Years later I would be very grateful that I could tune in to Lakers games and try to catch a glimpse of the children. But for now I was happy just sitting in the front row.
    My lessons on the ways of the wealthy continued.
    Next up, art.
    As Michael was leaving for the office one Friday morning, he told me that some deliverymen would be arriving that afternoon with a large painting from his friend’s art gallery in New York. The dealer, who sold Michael a great deal of art, was always treated as an honored guest when he came for overnight visits, sleeping in the luxurious guest suite just off the upstairs gallery.
    All I had to do was show the deliverymen into the sitting room and tell them to hang the painting on a particular wall. Judy was going to be gone all day, and it was Carmen’s day off, so Michael made it clear that it was my sole responsibility to handle this important matter carefully. I had no idea how much the painting was worth. My only frame of reference was one of the small paintings in the family room. Carmen had told me it was worth $750,000. This definitely required my full attention. The thing was probably worth more than most people in Cottage Grove would make in a lifetime.
    Since I grew up in a place where it was customary for most men over the age of fifty to start almost every sentence with “Well, I reckon …” it is not surprising that my father’s idea of art was the bowling trophy he won back in ’69 for bowling a perfect three-hundred game. It also doubled as our living room clock. My mother’s art collection consisted of a snowman that my sisters and I had made for her from one of those yarn things you hook—the kind that’s on the square burlap, and you match the yarn with the painted pattern. My personal art collection included a framed picture of Jon Bon Jovi that I special-ordered