Page 88 of From Fling to Ring

I smile brightly, or at least as brightly as I think nannies are supposed to. “What can I tell you about myself?”

I can’t bring myself to use her stupid nickname.

“I know a little from Petal. There is one thing that concerns me,” she says, shaking one finger in the air.

Holy crap. Why didn’t Petal give me a heads up?

“You worked for that free paper in San Francisco. What’s it called?” she asks, her nose in the air.

“Oh. The Freekly. Yeah, they just closed down?—”

She shakes her head and cuts me off. “Right. Right. The Freekly. When I was growing up, my parents wouldn’t let me read that.”

I nod in agreement, a little uncomfortable with where I think this is going. “I get that. I mean, the content really is geared toward adults.”

“Well, I know it’s one of those subversive type of publications, and I want to make sure you don’t bring any of your… radical ideas into my home.”

Wow.

But I shake my head. “No problem,” I say, my smile starting to fade.

We talk for a while longer and I think she’s getting more comfortable with me, at least until she explains she doesn’t want a French nanny because she thinks their hygiene standards are not up to US levels.

Jesus.

She looks at her watch. “Hey, I’m going out to dinner with some of my friends. Maybe you’d like to come?”

“Oh my God. I’d love to, thank you.”

Awesome. A chance to hang out with some French speakers.

“Hey, how do you communicate with them if you speak no French?”

She laughs again, a privileged laugh that is completely clueless in its entitlement. “Oh, they’re not French. I have no French friends. Mine are all American wives married to Frenchmen. We do everything together. Shop, travel, entertain in each other’s homes. You’ll love them, and you’ll meet their nannies too. You’ll have some friends here in Paris, and you just arrived!”

Yay.

I want to backtrack on accepting Frenchie’s dinner invitation, but I don’t see how I possibly can. So, I follow her out the door and into an Uber because, as she explains, she never takes the Metro, and I suffer through dinner with five women who are exact carbon copies of her.

She does pay for my meal, though.

46

LUCY

My first couple days nannying for Frenchie and her kids go fine. She’s given me a map of which parks I’m allowed to take her children to, although she’s expressed a strong preference for Parc Monceau, which is pretty fancy.

Of course.

It has a children’s playground and I don’t hear anyone speaking a word of English. I can finally practice my French.

That night, while I’m packing up my stuff to move from my Airbnb to my new room at Frenchie’s, my WhatsApp trills.

It’s Tyler. Again. It’s early in San Francisco. Like five a.m. early. Although who knows where he is. I know the hockey season is winding down, but I guess they still have a few games per week.

I haven’t spoken to him since I left, but I’m thinking that since I have a plan and a gig, it’s finally okay to say hi without breaking down in tears.

“Tyler,” I say after I accept the video call notification.

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