Chapter 28
Eleanor
If you had told me five years earlier that my next employer would be Greyson East, I would’ve called you a liar.
Heck, if you told me that a week earlier, I would’ve laughed so hard in your face that tears would’ve rolled down my cheeks.
But there I was, standing in Greyson East’s dining room, meeting his children for the first time ever.
Claire was a saint to me that Monday morning. She came over bright and early, ready to teach me the ins and outs of her granddaughters.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping me out,” I told Claire as she set the table for breakfast. “It means the world to me.”
“Oh, darling, it’s no big deal, and after all the nannies that have come before you, I feel like this is tradition. I’m just hoping you last a bit longer than the others did, that’s for sure. You know what they say—seventh time’s a charm!”
I laughed. “I don’t think people really say that.”
“Well, they should. Seven is a lucky number. So let’s meet the girls!” Claire then turned and hollered toward the back rooms. “Girls! Breakfast!”
Well, at least Claire seemed down-to-earth in an oversized house with too many rooms and not enough people.
“I swear, these girls are going to try to bully you into letting them sleep in. Don’t be afraid to pull them by their pigtails,” Claire said when no girls appeared. “Wait right here. I’ll be back.”
As she hurried off in the direction of the girls’ bedrooms, I took a deep breath.
Man, I was nervous. I’d never been nervous meeting my employer’s children, but this felt a bit different. I felt oddly unprepared.
“Grandma, I just don’t get why I have to go to school every week,” a little voice moaned and groaned as the speaker stomped her way toward the dining room.
As she turned the corner, she looked up to me.
“Who are you?” she asked before plopping down in front of her cereal bowl.
Lorelai was dressed in mismatched pajamas.
She was wearing the most vibrantly colored stripes and polka dots, and she had bright scrunchies in her hair.
On her back were huge butterfly wings. She looked like an old-school Rainbow Brite ad.
“That is your new nanny,” Claire explained. “Say hello, Lorelai.”
“Hello, Lorelai,” the little girl mocked, making me smile.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Eleanor, but you can call me Ellie if you’d like.”
“OK.” Lorelai shrugged and went straight into eating her food.
“After you finish your meal, you have to take a quick shower, OK, Lorelai? Because you can’t be late to school again,” Claire remarked, sitting in the chair beside her granddaughter. “Plus, unlike last week, you aren’t going to put up a fight about your clothing choices.”
“I just want to dress like a rainbow, Grandma. Let me live,” Lorelai groaned, shoveling the spoon into her mouth.
She had truly said the words Let me live. I almost died laughing.
“Where did you hear that from?” Claire questioned. “Let me live?”
“Karla said it to Dad the other day.”
“Sounds about right,” Claire remarked. “But as far as your dress code, we’re going to pick out some tamer clothes for you to wear today.”
“I don’t know what tamer means, Grandma, so whatever I pick out will be fine,” Lorelai stated matter-of-factly.
Claire moved in closer to me. “Lorelai is the brightest personality you’ll find in this place. She’s sassy, funny, and so easy to love, but boy will she push your buttons some days.” She turned to her granddaughter. “Lorelai, what do you think about Eleanor being your new nanny for a while?”
She held her spoon in the air. “Is she gonna let me wear whatever I want?”
“No, probably not,” Claire said.
“Will she let me eat chocolate chips for breakfast?”
“No, probably not,” Claire echoed.
“Will she color with me?”
“Yes,” I cut in. “I can do that.”
Lorelai shrugged and went back to eating. “OK, that’s fine.”
Coloring—that was easy enough.
Then from around the corner, I heard a grumbling sound.
Claire sighed. “Here comes Little Miss Sunshine.” She turned to me quickly and patted the chair beside her. “Here, Ellie, come sit by me, and remember, don’t take anything personally with Karla. She doesn’t mean it, even if she says it.” She paused. “Especially if she says it.”
“Grandma, I really wish you wouldn’t come stomping into my room like that.
It’s so annoying. Plus, I know how to wake myself up for school.
I’m not a child.” Karla grumbled as she turned the corner into the dining room.
Her limp was very noticeable, but I tried my best to not display any kind of reaction to it.
She was dressed head to toe in black, and her hair was still dripping wet from her shower, stringy and hanging in front of her face.
She mostly kept her head down, and when she moved to the table, she didn’t look up at anyone. She didn’t make one sound.
“Good morning, Karla,” Claire said, walking over to her granddaughter with Karla’s meal and kissing her forehead.
“Whatever,” Karla muttered. She inhaled her food quickly as we all sat there in silence for a moment.
“Karla, this is Ellie, the new nanny.”
She looked up at me slowly, and I felt like a complete idiot because I quietly gasped as she moved the hair partially hiding her face.
The scars . . .
Allison had prepared me for them, but still, I wasn’t prepared enough.
They were more intense than I could’ve imagined.
They ran from all directions across her skin, but the one that was most noticeable seemed to start at her forehead and slice across her left eyelid, which appeared to be swollen.
Her left eye had a red spot near her pupil that seeped into her potent blue stare.
I’d never seen anything like it.
God, her eyes were as cold as her father’s.
“Grrr,” Karla growled, clenching her jaw as she leaned toward me. My stomach knotted up, and I wasn’t quite sure how to react, so I just kept staring. Oh gosh. Staring was probably the worst thing I could do, because Karla kept growling. “Grrr! Grrrr!”
“Karla Marie, knock it off this instant,” Claire snapped at her granddaughter, yet Karla didn’t pull back.
“Grrr! Hisssss! Grrrr!” she hollered, keeping her eyes locked on me.
“Karla, that’s enough,” a stern voice snapped, making my stare move from Karla to her father. Greyson stood in the doorframe wearing his suit and tie with a coffee tumbler in his hand and his eyes on his daughter. “Quit it.”
“I’ll quit when she stops staring at me like I’m a fucking freak of nature,” she snapped.
“No, I wasn’t . . . you aren’t . . .” I started, my voice shaky as ever, but Greyson cut me off.
“Watch your language,” he scolded, and she gave him the most dramatic eye roll I’d seen in quite a while. Truly I hadn’t known eyes could roll so deeply.
“Sorry, Father,” she mocked, standing up from the table. She grabbed her bowl of cereal. “Since I used bad language, I should be banished to my room until it is time to be driven to prison by my servant.” And with that, she left.
Greyson didn’t look my way once, and I didn’t know why I expected him to do such a thing.
He walked through the dining room toward the kitchen.
From my seat, I watched him pour more coffee into his tumbler before he turned around and walked across the space.
He didn’t speak as he walked back through the dining room.
“Bye, Daddy! I love you!” Lorelai said, to which Greyson replied, “You too.”
Then he was off to work.
“I’m sorry about Karla. I won’t lie, she’s going to be the hard one,” Claire remarked.
“I can’t blame her for her hardness. She’s been through more than most, but for the most part, she’s physically handling her changes well.
She’s adapted to moving around quite quickly and is pretty self-sufficient.
Now, on the emotional front, there’s a bit of struggle.
Don’t let her exterior throw you, though.
She may act tough, but our Karla has the gentlest heart.
She just gets hurt easily. Don’t take her moods personally. She’s working through a lot.”
I smiled. “Aren’t we all?”
Out of nowhere, Lorelai looked up from her breakfast and turned my way. “Hey, Ellie?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sure I can’t wear my pajamas to school today? I’m really comfortable, and I think I’ll learn better with them on.”
I laughed. “Probably not, but I can help you pick out an outfit if you want. And then while we’re in your room, maybe you can show me some of your best artwork.”
Her eyes lit up, and the biggest smile in the world filled her face.
That smile Greyson was missing?
The one I’d once known?
It lived on the lips of his daughter.
“OK! Come on!” Lorelai said, leaping up from her seat. She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off to her bedroom to pick out an outfit.
Well, at least not all of Greyson’s children were completely underwhelmed by my existence. One out of two was good enough odds for me.
* * *
When it was time to get the girls off to school, I was thankful that Lorelai was so chatty; otherwise, the car ride would’ve been extremely silent and awkward.
Faithful Lorelai talked and talked and talked about everything and nothing at all while Karla’s head was down and in her phone.
Her hair was no longer wet, but she’d straightened it, and it hung directly in front of her eyes, blocking her face.
A pair of shockingly huge Beats by Dre headphones sat over her ears, and the nosy part of me wondered what she was listening to.
The logical part of me thought I should never ask, because I knew she would never tell me.
Unfortunately, my first drop-off was Lorelai, which left me in a car alone with Karla and her grimaces.
When we were about three blocks away from the high school, Karla hollered, “No! Stop here!”
I glanced back at her and raised an eyebrow. “What? Why?”
“No nanny has ever pulled up to the school and dropped me off in the past ten months.”
I laughed. “What? That can’t be true.”
“It is true. The last thing I need is to be embarrassed by having an adult drop me off in an expensive-ass car like a freaking ugly diva and then have everybody watch me limp into the building. It’s high school—everyone’s an asshole, even to the crippled girl.
So if you could please just stop the car,” she ordered, her tone filled with nothing but attitude and sass.
I pulled over to the side of the road and placed the car in park.
I felt bad for her, even though she would’ve hated my pity, but she was just so young and so .
. . angry. I didn’t know much about her because she seemed to mainly keep to herself—and whoever it was she’d been typing nonstop to online.
Even when I cleaned her room, there wasn’t much to tell me about the girl who lived in that space.
She didn’t have any posters, no books on her shelves, no personality.
The room was as cold and distant as the girl who lay her head there.
I wasn’t one to give up easily, though. I’d break through to Karla somehow, some way, even if it took forever and a day to do so.
As she began to climb out of the car, I turned to face her. “Listen, I know people in high school can be jerks, and if there’s anyone who is bothering you, you can talk to me. I can be your safety net,” I offered. “Or I can talk to the principal. Whatever you need, Karla, I’m here.”
She rolled her eyes so hard, I wasn’t sure if she’d ever see correctly again. “Can you not do that?”
“Do what?”
“Act like the ‘cool’ nanny. Listen, just because you work for my father, it doesn’t mean you get to act like you know me.
We’ve known each other for, like, two hours.
You’re nothing to me, and I’m sure it won’t take long for my father to find a reason to fire you too.
So don’t get comfortable. You’re just another temporary thing. ”
Without even another breath, she got out of the car and started off in the direction of school, leaving me sitting there completely dumbfounded.
Being a nanny might turn out to be harder than I’d expected with Karla East as one of the children. Being cutthroat was in her nature, and bruising easily was in mine.
We were in for quite a ride, that was for sure.