Chapter 7
ANNIE
The hallway up here is nothing like my building.
The carpet is this deep burgundy that looks like it’s actually been vacuumed recently, possibly even shampooed, and the walls are painted a warm cream color without a single crack or water stain in sight.
There’s crown molding, and the lighting is soft, coming from these brass sconces that look like they belong in a hotel.
When I arrived, there was a doorman named Stanley who was wearing a uniform and tipped his hat at me and asked who I was here to see.
When I told him, he called up to the apartment via intercom to announce me as if I were someone important instead of a desperate twenty-five-year-old who’s running out of money and options.
The elevator worked and was clean inside with mirrors that weren’t covered in smudges or scratched with people’s initials.
It’s a building where functioning families seem to live—families with steady incomes and dental plans and living wills.
I got here alone. The solo subway journey—transferring from the 6 to the 1 at 42nd Street, emerging into the crisp, academic air of the Upper West Side—feels like a fragile, hard-won credential.
For ten minutes, I loitered in the tastefully appointed lobby, studying a landscape painting to calm my racing heart. It was a small victory, but mine.
To anyone else, taking the subway alone probably seems like nothing. But for me, right now, it feels like proof that maybe I can actually do this. Maybe I can figure out how to live in this city. Maybe this interview will go well and I’ll get the job and everything will start falling into place.
Maybe it’s a good omen.
I fish the lip gloss out of my purse—just a clear one, nothing dramatic—and swipe it across my lips again, pressing them together.
My bangs are behaving for once, the rest of my hair falling straight and smooth a little past my shoulders instead of doing the weird frizzy thing it’s been doing ever since I got to New York.
I’d broken down and bought a hair straightener last week—a decent one from a beauty supply store on Broadway—because this humidity is absolutely kicking my ass and I refused to iron my hair on an ironing board like Cori does.
She swears it works just as well and saves money but I watched her do it once and almost had a heart attack thinking she was going to burn the apartment down or catch herself on fire.
Okay. Deep breath. You can do this.
I knock on the door, three quick raps, and then immediately hold my breath like that’s going to help anything. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, that whooshing sound that happens when you’re anxious, and then I hear footsteps. Big, heavy footsteps getting closer and closer by the second.
The door swings open and a man appears. A very tall man.
He has to be at least six-three, maybe six-four, and he’s built in that way that suggests he probably played sports in college but hasn’t in a while—broad shoulders and muscular, but not Brad Pitt muscular.
He’s wearing dark jeans and a cream colored henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and he has dark brown curly hair that’s a little too long.
It’s been styled back in a way that would probably be annoyingly attractive if I wasn’t already mentally freaking out.
But it’s his face that makes my brain stop working completely.
I know that face.
Strong jaw and nose, one that might be called Roman or Greek, with a slight bump in the bridge. Full lips. Really full lips. And there’s a crease in the bottom one, right down the middle, like someone pressed their thumb there when he was made and it stayed.
I’ve seen those lips before. I’ve seen them twisted in anger while their owner was literally yanking me out of a taxi by my ankles.
His brown eyes go wide at the exact same moment mine probably do.
“You!” we say in unison.
Oh my God. Of course. Of course this is my luck! Of course the one person in this entire city of eight million people that I’ve managed to have a hostile interaction with is the person interviewing me for the one job I desperately need.
“What are you doing here?” he demands, and his voice is just as deep as it was on the phone, but now there’s no warmth in it, just pure disbelief mixed with what I can only describe as undiluted horror.
“I’m—I’m here for the job interview,” I manage, even though my brain is screaming at me to run, to just turn around and leave before this gets worse.
“You’re Annie?” He says it like an accusation.
“You’re Leo?” I shoot back, because apparently when I’m panicking I get defensive.
“This is a joke.”
“Oh, unfortunately, I’m completely serious. I called about the nanny position? We talked last night?” My voice is going up at the ends like I’m asking questions, which I hate, but I can’t seem to stop it.
“I know we talked last night.” He’s staring at me like I’m a particularly unpleasant surprise, which, fair, because that’s exactly how I’m looking at him, too. “You’re the crazy woman who stole my cab!”
“I didn’t steal your fucking cab,” I hiss, keeping my voice low because we’re still in the hallway and I can hear doors and movement from other apartments. “I was in it first! You’re the one who physically dragged me out of it like some sort of maniac—”
“You were taking forever to get out—”
“I was getting in! Because it was my cab! It takes more than two seconds—”
“I had somewhere I needed to be—”
“Oh, and I didn’t? I’m so sorry my existence inconvenienced you—”
“Daddy?” A small, sweet voice calls from inside the apartment. “Who’s at the door?”
We both freeze. Leo’s jaw tightens and he closes his eyes for a brief second like he’s praying for patience, and I realize with a sinking feeling that I’m trapped. I can’t flee now. Not without making this even more awkward than it already is.
He opens his eyes and glares at me, and I glare right back, neither of us willing to break first.
“We are not finished,” he grates out, the words low and venomous.
“Oh, I think we are.”
“Get in here.” He steps back, jerking his head inward, an order not an invitation.
I want to leave. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to just turn around, get back in that elevator, go home to my tiny apartment and start circling ads in the classifieds again.
But my feet, the traitors, are moving me forward anyway, carrying me past him into the apartment, because what choice do I really have?
I need this job. I need any job. My pride is currently a luxury I can’t afford.
I step inside and he shuts the door behind me with a firmness just shy of a slam.
I stand in the entryway of his apartment trying not to think about how my entire morning—my good omen, my successful solo subway trip, my carefully chosen outfit and freshly straightened hair and perfectly glossed lips—has just completely collapsed in ruins around me like a pathetic house of cards.
My heart sinks as reality washes over me.
There’s no way he’s going to hire me now—absolutely no way in hell.
I’m going to have to go back home and tell Cori it didn’t work out, and then I’m going to have to spend another week combing through the Village Voice looking for jobs I’m not qualified for, sending my paltry resume into the void, hoping someone, anyone, will take a chance on me.
Back to square one.
I’m so busy catastrophizing that I almost don’t notice the little girl who’s appeared in the hallway, watching us with serious eyes.
She’s beautiful. Like genuinely, startlingly beautiful in that way some kids are, where you can already see what they’re going to look like when they grow up.
Blonde curly hair that falls past her shoulders and these rosy pink cheeks that make her look like she just came in from playing outside even though we’re inside.
Where her father is all dark features—dark hair, dark eyes, that olive-toned skin—she’s the complete opposite.
Her eyes are a shocking, cerulean blue, fringed by pale lashes.
She has his lips though, those same full lips that sit in a natural pout, and she’s tall for four, all long gangly limbs that she hasn’t quite figured out how to control yet.
There’s something almost angelic about her, something cherubic and sweet, like she should be painted on the ceiling of a church somewhere.
I set my purse down on the end table near the door, my hands shaking slightly, and the little girl looks up at her father.
“Who’s this?” she asks, and her voice is higher than I expected, still carrying a little-kid lilt.
Before he can formulate a dismissal, I step forward—not too close—and lower myself into a slight crouch, bringing myself to her level. I extend my hand, a formal, adult gesture in this bizarre circumstance. “Hello. I’m Annie. And you are?”
She ignores my hand, her gaze fixed on Leo. “Is she the new nanny?”
I look at him, too, waiting for the axe to fall. He drags a hand through his hair, and the weariness on his face deepens, etched into the lines around his eyes.
“Em,” he says, and his voice is softer now, gentler. “We talked about this. You have to have a nanny because I have to work, and you can’t—”
But Emma’s already moving, walking right past me to the end table where I just set my purse down, and before I can process what’s happening, she pushes it off the table with both hands.
The thud is shockingly loud. The contents erupt in a chaotic diaspora: my wallet spewing receipts, a constellation of subway tokens, keys, makeup, and—mortification blooms hot in my cheeks—a tampon, which rolls to a stop near Leo’s foot. My disposable camera lands with a plastic clatter.
Everything clatters across the floor, loud in the sudden silence, and I just stand there in shock staring at the mess.
“Emma!” Leo’s voice is a whip-crack of frustration.