Christmas Nanny

Chapter 1

Maren

It was the box on the kitchen counter labeled ‘Maren’s crap’ that broke me.

I’d been keeping my shit together all week.

All. Week. Even though I led the pack of people most justified to have no amount of ‘shit together’ in any way, shape, or form.

I’d been taking regular showers, keeping my hair semi-acceptable in a messy bun, and traded in my pajamas for sensible sweats.

For Liv. Because none of this was her fault.

Then this fucking box…

Tears came as the tan line on my finger mocked me, but I went ahead and scraped butter over my burnt piece of toast like a person whose heart was still whole. I was gonna miss this toaster. Always heavy on the toastiness no matter what setting we tried.

A choked-up laugh got caught in my throat and I swallowed it down with a generous helping of carcinogens.

If anyone was to blame for this unfortunate turn of events it would be me.

I was the dumbass who believed him when he said he’d never felt this way about anyone before.

I was the idiot who blubbered (fucking bawled like a baby, with snot and everything) through a pathetic ‘yes’ when he asked me to be his wife.

“You’re crying into your toast again.” Liv said it more as a matter of fact than any cause for concern. Her days of sympathizing were over, it seemed.

Her philosophy had always been: seventy-two hours to feel through it, then suck it up and move the fuck on. She was this way with breakups, deaths, anything, and it left me both in awe and terrified of her resolve.

By my calculations, I was on hour ninety-two, and therefore overstaying my welcome on her last nerve.

She stood there with a bag of hallway-closet-trash in one hand, damp cloth in the other, and impatience written all over her face. Her beautiful, dimple-chinned face that had been laughing at my stupid jokes over breakfast for the past three years.

The lump in my throat grew three sizes.

“Why don’t you just burn it all down while you’re at it?”

She rolled her eyes with the severe lack of empathy that only a bestest friend in the whole universe could get away with. “Why don’t you help me get the last of this shit packed before the movers show up?”

I stared through the hatch in the kitchen (and my tears) to where her boxes were all neatly stacked in the living room. The stack was steadily building. The time drawing nearer.

“Everyone I love betrays me eventually.”

“Oh, brother.” Liv dropped the trash and jumped onto the counter, blowing the bangs from her eyes with a puff of air. The look on her face said she was listening, but wouldn’t be entertaining any more of my wallowing.

“You wanna know what’s worse than being on the wrong side of budget cuts at work?” I wallowed anyway.

“War, incurable diseases, entire species driven to extinction by–”

“Getting dumped by your fiancé two weeks before your wedding day,” I sniffled. “Wanna know what’s worse than that?”

Liv’s tone didn’t falter. “At the risk of repeating myself… War, incurable dis–”

“Being homeless.”

“Oh, my God, Maren, you’re not homeless.” She threw her hands in the air, frustration grinding the end of her sentence. “We have a few more days before we have to be out of here, and I promised you could stay with Jonathan and me if you haven’t found a place by then.”

“You and Jonathan,” I echoed, turning back to her. “It was so easy for you to just up and leave me. Why would I follow you over there?”

“The only reason I made any plans to move in with him in the first place was because you up and left me, remember?”

How could I forget? It had only been ninety-two hours and forty-seven minutes, after all.

The laugh that came out of me was dark and bitter. Like my soul. “How does a BU graduate with a steady job and bulletproof ten-year plan become… me, here, now? Three years from thirty and nothing to show for it.”

Exasperated, Liv hopped off the counter to rifle through an open box next to the refrigerator. “I was gonna wait until our last day to give you this but– here. To prove that you don’t have nothing.”

She whirled round and brandished a long, slim gift bag that she thrust toward me. It was covered in multi-colored balloons, likely recycled from some other birthday party we hosted here in a happier time.

The state I was in, I didn’t see how alcohol was gonna help me. But I took it anyway. Even forced some semblance of a smile. That is, until I saw the bottle inside.

“Screw-top rosé?”

“Because how else will you know how much I love you, huh?” Her excitement was both unwarranted and unwanted. “I bought it for you to have on the first night in your new place. To ring in the next chapter.”

It was the cheap kind. Shitty enough to snuff out the last glimmer of hope hanging on for dear life inside of me. What next chapter? All my plans had fallen to shit, and I didn’t have a clue about how to pull it back.

This was it. The moment I turned into the cynical, angry female lead in every 90s romcom.

Except, it’ll just be a boring drama chronicling my rooftop gardening or whatever.

There’d be no love interest sweeping me off my feet.

No soulmate waiting to clumsily spill their freshly ordered coffee all over my crisp white shirt on the sidewalk.

No magical eye contact or spark that foreshadowed the epic romance to follow.

“We should TP his house later,” I said in a tone so manically delightful it scared me.

“What?”

It was absurd. The most ridiculous idea in the world. That didn’t stop me from fantasizing about it, though.

“He’s in Bora Bora with the love of his life, and won’t be back ‘til Tuesday after next.”

“Maren…”

“Logan International, 12:45PM.” I had the flight memorized. I also knew the hotel they were staying at. The room they were in. Had spent hours on a 3D tour of it online, and imagined them fucking on every available surface.

“Oh, God.”

“Terminal E…” My voice grew softer. “Gate 12...”

Liv groaned and snatched the bottle of rosé. “I’d much rather get to the bottom of that bottle with you. Come on, Eeyore.”

We went to the living room where she whipped up a comfy wallowing hole with some stray scatter cushions. A look and finger jab in my direction, and I dropped onto the one closest to me.

“This is what’s gonna happen–” With an impressive display of graceful coordination, she sank to the floor and cracked the bottle at the same time. “You’re gonna get started on this, and I’ll contact those leads for apartments I found.”

She thrust the bottle at me and without another word, pulled out her cell phone.

“No glass?”

“Drink,” she commanded, fingers furiously tapping away. “Enough is enough.”

I knew her long enough to know which battles were worth fighting, and this wasn’t one of them. The first gulp was rank and I grimaced through the onslaught of bubbles stinging my throat. But hey, at least I wasn’t crying anymore.

This development was the one that pleased Liv the most, and she leaned closer to show me an ugly studio apartment.

“The rent’s good, and it’s only a five-minute walk from Jonathan’s place.” She’d forgotten she was done with me, her pleasant, problem-solving persona now taking the wheel. “Close to the Green Line, but not close enough that you’ll–”

A train passed right at that moment, drowning out the rest of her sentence. We waited for it to pass, the thunderous rumble rattling the windows as it went.

“I’m gonna miss that sound,” I mumbled into the bottle and took another sip.

Liv scoffed, and helped herself to a long sip too. “Give me a break. We’ve been here for three years, and for three years you’ve complained about the damn trains going by. Reply to the ad, and get the apartment, for the love of God.”

“How am I gonna pay for it?” I took the bottle back and cradled it against my chest. “I’ll need a job to pay rent, or have you forgotten?”

“Which brings me to this.” Liv closed the tab on her phone to pull up another she’d apparently saved.

I scanned the job ad.

“A nanny?”

“Just read it,” she said, and held her phone closer.

I didn’t read it. “I have a degree in early childhood education from one of the best schools in the state. I was head of my department–”

“At a school that’s been shut down,” she cut in. “Just… read it, please. You’re a kindergarten teacher; a talented one. You’re perfect for it.”

I slumped back against the couch behind me, and took another long swallow of the gross rosé. “How did I get here? I had it all figured out. My whole life plan. It was perfect.”

“This job’s perfect.”

“I said no, okay?” Her persistence riled me up, and it came out harsher than I intended. But I couldn’t give a fuck about my tone when my fiancé left me and I lost my job all in the same week. “I’m a teacher, Liv. Not a nanny.”

“What you are is unemployed and almost homeless.” She checked me with that no-bullshit look of hers. Then she swapped the bottle in my hands for her phone. “You’re gonna apply, and I’m gonna watch you do it.”

“Infinity student loans and debt from a wedding I’ll never have,” I grumbled. “I’ll have to babysit for a hundred years to get my head above water.”

“Maybe not,” Liv said, wincing through a bitter sip. “Look at the bottom.”

She was right. In the field marked ‘salary’, the poster had written Pays handsomely and it prickled my senses just enough to give me pause. Because if this nanny gig was handsome enough, I might be able to chalk it up to a brief detour before getting my life back on track.