Chapter 6 #2
“Annie.” Cori’s voice pulls me back. She suddenly jerks forward so fast she almost knocks over the container of lo mein, and she’s pointing at something in the Village Voice spread out between us on the floor, already stained with soy sauce and probably some sesame chicken. “Look!”
I lean in. She’s pointing at the childcare section, a domain I’ve avoided like a minefield.
NANNY NEEDED: Seeking responsible, patient individual for 4-year-old daughter. M-F, hours vary (typically 8am-5pm, some until 6pm). Flexibility required. $10/hour. Columbia University area. Experience preferred. Call Leo Roussos, 555-0147.
My brain, now a finely tuned instrument of financial despair, calculates instantly.
Ten dollars an hour is a princely sum in my new economy.
Forty to fifty hours a week. Four hundred, maybe five hundred dollars.
Rent, groceries, tokens—and a whisper of breathing room.
A flicker of a future that isn’t predicated on immediate ruin.
I gnaw at the delicate skin of my bottom lip, a childhood habit I thought I’d gotten rid of but apparently haven’t. “It’s a child. Like, a real, human child.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Cori’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Annie, ten dollars an hour is incredible! That’s like—that’s really good money.”
“I lack the fundamental qualifications of a nanny, Cor. I’ve never changed a diaper.
I don’t know any nursery rhymes. I’m not entirely sure I can even identify a four-year-old in a lineup.
” My voice pitches higher, edged with a panic that feels absurd even to me.
“What if they still need help wiping? I have…issues with that.”
Cori blinks slowly, as if processing a transmission from a distant, baffling planet. “Have you ever…interacted with a child? For more than, say, thirty seconds?”
“Define ‘interact.’” I wrap my arms around my knees. “I’ve been in the same room as them.”
“Did you ever babysit growing up?”
I shake my head, and she’s staring at me now with this expression of complete bewilderment, like I just told her I’ve never seen the ocean or eaten pizza or something equally fundamental to human existence.
I shake my head. The concept was as foreign to my adolescence as budgeting or public transportation.
The girls in my orbit didn’t babysit; we had babysitters.
An endless procession of au pairs and grad students and “mother’s helpers” who existed in the peripheral vision of our lives, tasked with keeping us fed and vaguely supervised while our parents attended to the serious business of being important.
Children, in my limited, curated exposure, were like exotic, poorly trained pets—prone to sudden noises, unpredictable discharges, and a distressing lack of regard for personal space.
I didn’t understand them. What do four-year-olds even do all day?
What do they like? Are they potty trained at four?
Can they hold an actual conversation or is it all just gibberish?
Do they still take naps? I genuinely have no idea.
“Wait, really?” Cori’s still staring. “You never babysat? Not even once?”
“Never.”
“That’s how I made literally all of my money in high school. Every weekend, sometimes weeknights too. That’s how I paid for my pointe shoes.” She’s shaking her head slightly, like she’s still trying to process this information. “I just—I guess I assumed everyone babysat.”
“My weekends were kind of…different?” I wave my hand vaguely in the air, trying to encompass all of it without actually having to say it out loud. The premieres and the parties and the standing around in whatever designer dress I bought with my dad’s black card that week.
“Right.” Cori’s voice softens, that particular tone she uses when she’s navigating the minefield of my old life.
“Okay, but Annie, it’s really not that hard, I promise.
Kids are just little people, you know? You talk to them, you play with them, you make sure they don’t, like, stick a fork in an electrical outlet.
Four-year-olds are actually pretty fun—they’re old enough to communicate what they want but they’re still young enough to think you’re basically magic.
And plus, they think a Band-Aid and a cookie can fix almost anything. ”
I stare at the ad. Columbia University area. The words conjure an image of solid brownstones, oak trees, intellectual calm. A world away from the frantic, creative scramble of the East Village. A place where people had families and routines and, presumably, a working knowledge of child development.
“What would I even do with a four-year-old for nine hours?”
“I don’t know, color? Read books? Go to the park?” Cori shrugs. “You’d figure it out. That’s basically what the job is, just figuring it out as you go.”
“What if she hates me?”
“What if she doesn’t? Annie.” She taps the ad with one finger, her nails painted a dark purple that somehow manages to look both elegant and a little bit punk.
“You’re running out of money. I know you haven’t said it but I can tell, and this guy is offering ten dollars an hour for childcare, which honestly seems a little desperate to me. ”
“That doesn’t exactly instill confidence, Cori.”
“No, but think about it. If he’s desperate enough to offer that sort of money, he’s probably more willing to take a chance on someone without experience.
” She grins at me, a smile that makes her whole face light up.
“Someone exactly like you, who is very, very good at showing up with no idea what she’s doing. ”
She’s not wrong. I am desperate, and I do need money, and nine hours a day might not actually be as terrible as it seems in my head. Maybe.
“I don’t know anything about kids,” I say again, but even I can hear how weak it sounds.
“So you’ll learn. You spent three days learning how to make hospital corners for that hotel job you didn’t even end up getting.”
“That’s completely different.”
“How?”
I don’t have a good answer for that. On the TV, Rachel’s crying about something—her job, maybe, or Ross, it’s hard to tell—and Monica’s hugging her.
“What if I’m absolutely terrible at it?” I ask quietly, and Cori looks at me for a long moment, really looks at me.
Cori’s gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching. “Then you’ll be terribly employed. You’ll fail while making the rent. That’s a luxury you don’t have right now.”
Despite everything, I laugh. She has a point.
I pick up the ad again, the paper thin and already smudged with newsprint from where we’ve been handling it. Maybe I could actually do it. Maybe I could figure out how to keep one four-year-old alive and reasonably entertained five days a week. Maybe I’m not completely useless.
“You should call him,” Cori says.
“Right now?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s—” I glance at the VCR clock blinking green numbers in the corner. “It’s almost nine o’clock.”
“That’s not that late, especially not for New York.
And if this guy is desperate enough to be offering fifteen dollars an hour, he’s probably still awake, probably sitting by the phone hoping someone—anyone—will call.
” She fetches the cordless phone from its cradle, its antenna extended like a tiny, hopeful flag.
“Come on. Worst case scenario, he doesn’t answer and you leave a message. ”
Worst case scenario, I sound like a complete idiot and he never calls me back and I add it to my growing collection of failures in this city, this place that was supposed to be my fresh start and instead feels more and more like evidence that I don’t actually know how to do anything useful.
But best case scenario—best case scenario I get a job, I make rent next month, I stop lying awake at three in the morning doing calculations in my head about how long I can stretch two thousand dollars if I only eat one meal a day.
I take the phone from her.
“Okay.” My heart’s beating too fast, that fluttery panic feeling I get before interviews. “Okay, I’m doing it.”
Cori grins and takes another bite of lo mein. “That’s my girl.”
I dial the number before I can change my mind, my finger shaking slightly as I press each button.
The phone rings on the other end and I count them without meaning to.
Once. Twice. Three times. Maybe he’s not home.
Maybe I’ll just get an answering machine and I can leave a message and buy myself some time to actually figure out what I’m going to say—
“Hello?”
His voice is deep and a little rough around the edges, like maybe I’ve interrupted him in the middle of something or maybe that’s just how he sounds. For a second I can’t make my mouth work, like my brain has completely disconnected from my body.
Say something. Anything. Words are a thing humans use.
“Hi,” I finally manage, and I can hear how nervous I sound, how young, like a kid calling about her first job. “I’m calling about the nanny ad? In the Voice?”
“Oh, that’s great,” he says, and there’s this pause where I can hear something in the background—maybe a TV, maybe music, I can’t tell. “Thanks for calling. Can I—sorry, what’s your name?”
“Oh. Right.” God, I sound like an idiot. “It’s Annie. Annie Collier.”
“Hi, Annie.” There’s something warm in the way he says it, like he’s actually glad I called and not just going through the motions. “I’m Leo. As you probably saw in the ad.”
“Right. Leo. Hi.”
“So the position is for my daughter, Emma. She’s four.
My schedule at Columbia is…chaotic. Teaching, lab work, committee obligations that feel designed to torture the morally weak.
Some days end early, some stretch into the night.
I need someone from roughly eight to five or six, Monday through Friday, with the understanding that flexibility isn’t a perk, it’s the job description.
” He pauses, and I can hear him exhale, a soft, tired sound.
“I know it’s not ideal. I’m transparent about that. ”