Page 10 of The Nanny Next Door

"That sounds like my cue, then," I sighed, rolling up my sleeves. I tried to steel my nerves, tell myself this couldn’t be harder than an intense board meeting or acquiring a new company to fuel the Pierce empire. But I wanted nothing more than to beg for help with baby Jamie as I told my assistant, "You can go now, Holly. Get some rest. You've earned it."

Holly didn’t need to be told twice. She practically sprinted out of the apartment, murmuring a hasty “good luck” as she went. I couldn’t blame her. My place, usually a sanctuary of calm and order, had transformed into something out of my own personal worst nightmare.

I followed the sound of the cries to the guest room, where Jamie lay in a newly-purchased playpen, red-faced and wailing. He looked so small, his tiny fists waving in the air as if protesting the injustice of the world. Something thudded painfully in my chest.

"Alright, Jamie," I muttered, reaching in to scoop him up. "Let's see what the problem is."

He quieted slightly as I held him, his large blue eyes locking onto mine with a mixture of confusion and expectation. This was uncharted territory for me. Handling multi-million-dollar deals was one thing, but comforting a baby? That was a whole different ball game. I hadn’t even been around someone this young since I was just a kid myself, when Whitney had been born. I tried to bounce Jamie the way I’d sometimes done with his mother when she was small, but Jamie started to fuss again, squirming uncomfortably in my arms.

Child rearing, it turned out, was not like riding a bike.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” I asked him quietly as if he’d answer me, bouncing him more gently and trying to find a better rhythm. “Hungry? Wet? Bored?” I could relate to the last one. Jamie responded with a hiccup and a renewed bout of crying that had a headache forming between my eyes.

"Okay, let’s approach this logically," I muttered, more to myself than to my crying nephew. "First, we rule out hunger." I scanned the room, locating a bottle of formula that Holly had prepared. With an awkwardness that felt almost comical, I positioned Jamie in the crook of my arm and offered him the bottle.

To my relief, he latched on immediately and began sucking greedily. I felt a small surge of triumph. "See, this isn't so bad," I said a bit more confidently. "You and me, Jamie, we're going to get through this."

As he drank, I watched him, thinking back over the day. "You know, I had a very interesting meeting today," I began telling the little guy, more to fill the sudden silence than anything else. "A lunch meeting, in fact. You should know now, Jamie, that I despise lunch meetings—not productive in the slightest. A complete waste of everyone’s time. But Felipe Rojas is a good man, and I figured I should hear him out.”

Jamie grunted, his small fists coming up to grip either side of the bottle as if he needed more. I changed the angle at which I held it, and he seemed pleased with it. Maybe he liked hearing me talk, too.

“Anyway, this one wasn’t bad. I met your new nanny. Her name is Lila. She seems competent, sweet… and very, very pretty."

Jamie’s eyes found mine as he continued eating. Did he understand what I’d said? That I was breaking my own rules of professionalism by thinking of Lila Dawson this way?

Of course, it was absurd to discuss this with an infant, much less to feel judged by his unknowing stare, but it felt oddly therapeutic. I continued, "Not that her looks matter, of course. Business and pleasure don’t mix. Another important lesson for you from your Uncle Aaron. You should really be writing these down."

Jamie’s eyes started to droop, his tiny body relaxing against mine, and I carried him over to a leather chair at the side of the room, lowering myself into it carefully. For some godforsaken reason, I kept talking. My attempt at giving the little guy a bedtime story, maybe.

"Speaking of business, you wouldn't believe the kind of mergers we’re looking at this quarter at my company. It’s really big stuff, Jamie, especially if this deal with Rojas and Kramer works out as well as I’ve hoped. This is the kind of thing that could change the entire landscape of the industry. Hell, the world." I worried for a second that I shouldn’t have sworn, even in a tame way, in front of the baby. But when he gurgled in response, I took that as encouragement to continue. "We're talking about strategic acquisitions, leveraging assets… real fascinating stuff."

Soon, Jamie finished the bottle, and despite my ineptitude and his clear fight against sleep, I placed him over my shoulder to burp him. I remembered enough to know that was the next step, at least.

"But enough about that. You’ve got your own milestones to hit, don't you? Crawling, talking... I bet you'll be running the world in no time." It was practically gibberish at this point, but I could have sworn the quiet words were soothing him, and it had to be good for language acquisition, right? I recalled Lila mentioning something about that in one of her perfect interview answers, and a sudden thought hit me that I wished she were here already, fulfilling this role for my nephew so I could get back to work. She’d do a better job than me, that was for sure.

I gently patted Jamie’s back until he let out a small burp, then settled him back in my arms. Again, he looked up at me, his eyes wide and curious. In that moment, I felt a strange connection, a sense of responsibility that went beyond anything I’d experienced in the boardroom. The same flicker of familial loyalty that had led me to where I was in my career—I’d first started wanting to make money to care for myself, to care for Whitney, to care for our poor mother who’d never had a chance in this world. Inconvenient as he was, this little guy, Jamie, was family, too. The next generation of Pierces.

“Maybe I’ve got some sort of paternal instincts after all,” I muttered. For a second, I could have sworn Jamie’s tiny mouth opened into a wide smile. But just as I was starting to feel confident, a faint sound came from his other end, along with a distinct, unpleasant smell.

Oh, Christ.

"Alright, Aaron, don’t get too cocky," I muttered, heading toward the changing table Holly had paid for with my credit card.

Changing a diaper was a lot more complicated than it looked. By the time I was done and it seemed like damn near an hour had passed, both Jamie and I were covered in baby powder, and I had a newfound respect for anyone who did this on a daily basis. At least I’d avoided being covered in bodily fluids—this time, at least. Once Lila was here, she could deal with all of that mess.

"There," I said, securing the last tape on the diaper at last. "Good as new."

By some miracle, Jamie was out like a light the second I laid him down on his brand-new, high-end baby mattress. I lingered by his crib at first out of fear that he’d wake and start screaming again, and then out of something like determination. As I watched his tiny chest move up and down, up and down with slow, sleepy breaths, I ruminated on his childhood. The ways in which history was repeating itself—brought into the world by an unstable, too-young mother who had no business birthing a child and clearly lacked the love and safety such a small creature needed to thrive. At least he had his uncle’s money to fall back on. All of the state-of-the-art equipment at his disposal. He’d never want for anything, at least materially.

And with the help of his new nanny, Lila Dawson, lover of children and human ray of sunshine sweetness, maybe the rest would fall into place.

7

LILA

First day jitters never got easier, and knowing that I would be working right next door to the job I’d had to abruptly quit may have made it even worse. But at least as I boarded the same subway train that would have taken me toward the Mayhews’ brownstone, on my way to my first day of work for Miles and Olivia Kramer, I knew I’d be stepping into a gig that would be much, much more bearable than the last.

Mr. Kramer was paying me a sum with more zeros behind it than I probably deserved. And it also didn’t hurt that he was gorgeous—the kind of man I maybe wouldn’t recoil from if he tried to hit on me a la Reggie’s gross dad.

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