Page 14 of Worst Nanny Ever
“I did, but he didn’t really answer me. We’re basically strangers. I guess I have a new aunt and a grandmother, too, but they’redefinitelystrangers. We’re going to meet them at Christmas,but I’m not sure how much I’m going to like them. His mom has a scary stretched-out face, plus she sent me a bunch of picture books that are for toddlers.” He sighs. “Travis doesn’t like me.”
“Totally not true,” I say, feeling an ache for him. He’s so little, tucked into his bed. “I can tell he’s crazy about you.”
“I drive him crazy, that’s for sure,” he says with a huff.
“Yeah, but I think Travis only gets himself wound up about people he cares about. Otherwise, he wouldn’t bother, you know? Has he brought you to any of his band performances?”
“No,” he scoffs, “and he won’t. Travis says it’s for adults.”
“What about to his after-school program?”
He sticks out his lip. “They’re all middle schoolers. I’m too young to go. But Mrs. Applebaum says I practically read at a middle-school level.”
“Did you tell him you want to go?”
“I told him it was dumb that he wouldn’t let me.”
Men. The failure of communication starts early. “Would you like me to talk to him for you?”
“Would you?” he asks, his little face transformed by happiness, and I feel my heart swelling.
I hold out my fist for a bump, and he reciprocates. “Consider it done, little man. Are you good to go to bed?”
We completely ignored Travis’s two pages of instructions.
Okay, I’ll be honest. We didn’t just ignore them; we made them into paper airplanes and had a competition with them. Ollie’s was way more aerodynamic, and it surprised neither of us when he won by a long shot. We also made a supersized batch of slime and got it all over the armchair. I turned the cushion over, and we threw away the evidence.
“Yeah, but Hannah?”
He pauses, giving me the kind of look that makes people donate fortunes to sad dog-rescue charities. “Would you be mynanny? I know you’re not really a nanny, but you’re my only friend. Uncle Rob’s nice, but he’s Travis’s friend, not mine. Sophie, too. I want someone who’s mine.”
Well, stick a javelin in my heart and call me a kebab.
“Your dad hasn’t asked me about that,” I say, feeling a bit like a jerk for saying it, even though it’s technically true. Travis is obviously struggling to make inroads with Ollie, and it won’t help if Ollie sees him as the only obstacle to his goal.
“He’s going to ask,” Ollie replies. “I think he’s desperate. He doesn’t know what to do with me.” He’s quiet for a second. “Travis thinks I miss my mom, and I guess I kind of do, but the person I really miss is my nanny. Nanny Rose is the only one who cared about me. My mom doesn’t even like it when I call her Mom.”
“Do you think your old nanny would move to Asheville?” I ask, temporarily excited by the idea.
He shakes his head. “She writes me letters, and she says she’ll come visit sometime, but she just had her first great-grandchild. Can you imagine? She’s in her seventies. Maybe eighty. I think her traveling days may be done.”
Inspiration strikes, and I feel like a genius. Sophie’s next-door neighbor is this gorgeous woman in her eighties who runs a tea shop, and she’s in a club with three other delightful elderly women. They’ll fawn all over Ollie and make him feel loved, no question. “I have some friends you’d love. We’re gonna get with them, pinky promise.”
I extend my pinky, and he hooks it with his, shaking.
“But what aboutyoubeing my nanny?” he asks, so hopeful it hurts.
I hadn’t intended to tie myself down. This time was supposed to be about figuring out what I’d like to do with my life, about detaching my tether from my brother and having fun—accepting weird jobs and unexpected opportunities. But the way he’s looking at me…
“I’m not saying no, and I’m not saying yes,” I tell him. “We both know I’m not a real nanny like Nanny Rose. I’ll bet she had one of those magic bags that always held the right amount of snacks and sunscreen and water, and she probably made color-coded schedules and did laundry and stuff, right?”
He nods.
“I’m not like that. I enter rooms and forget why I went in, and I’m pretty sure your dad would have a heart attack if he ever saw my apartment. It definitely doesn’t look like this place.”
“This place is boring,” he says, puffing his lips out.
“I totally get why you’d feel that way, but hey, your dad’s a drummer. That’s pretty cool. Don’t you like listening to him play?”
