Chapter 7 #3
Leo gestures to the couch and I sit, pulling the hem of my dress down slightly because it’s riding up and the last thing I need right now is to flash my future employer. Is he my future employer? I don’t even know what we’re doing here.
He takes the armchair, leaning forward, elbows on knees, his clasped hands a steeple of contemplation. The silence stretches, weighted by his gaze.
Finally, he speaks. “I don’t know if I like you very much.”
The frankness is a slap. My mouth falls open slightly but I recover, a defensive heat rising in my chest. “What makes you think the feeling is mutual?”
A faint, almost imperceptible shrug. “I never assumed it was.”
“Good. Then we understand each other.”
The ghost of a smile touches his lips—there and gone—a crack in the granite. “Whether I like you or not is irrelevant. Emma likes you.”
A disbelieving laugh escapes me. “That’s not true. She was interested in my camera, that’s it. She doesn’t know me.”
“Emma likes you,” he says again, shaking his head. “I can tell.”
“From a fifteen-minute interaction that included property damage and a crash course in reproductive health?”
“Yes.” He leans back slightly, running his hand through his disordered curls again, and I’m starting to think that’s a nervous habit. “Do you know what’s happened with the last few nannies I hired?”
“No.” I have a feeling I’m about to find out though.
“Well, with one of them, Emma locked her in the bathroom. She walked her in there under the pretense of showing her something, then shut the door and somehow managed to wedge a chair under the handle. She was in there for almost an hour before I got home.” He says it matter-of-factly, like this is just a normal thing that happens.
“The next, Emma cut her hair off while she was on a phone call. Not a trim. Shears from the kitchen. The woman had to get a pixie cut.”
My hand flies to my own hair.
“And the one after that,” he continues, “Emma threw a plate at her head during lunch. It shattered against the wall. Could have seriously hurt her, though. She’s stronger than she looks.”
Horror roots me to the spot. “That…that little girl did all that?”
“That little girl in there,” he confirms, and he looks so deflated, so worn down. “Among other things. Biting. Hitting. Screaming so intense we’ve had neighbors complain. The behavioral issues have been…a lot.”
“Why?” The question is automatic, essential. “There has to be a reason why.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I see the internal debate—how much to reveal to a stranger, an antagonist. Then, a sigh and a surrender. “My ex-fiancée walked out on us six months ago, Emma’s mom. She left one morning and we haven’t heard from her since.”
The air leaves the room. Oh. The puzzle pieces slam into a devastating picture. A mother’s abandonment. A father’s parade of replacements. A child’s world, atomized. Of course she’s furious.
“Anyway,” Leo says, pulling me back to the present, “none of them have gotten through to Emma the way you did today. Not a single one.”
“I didn’t do anything, though,” I protest, because I genuinely don’t think I did. “I just…talked to her.”
“Exactly.” He leans forward, his gaze sharpening.
“You didn’t condescend. You didn’t perform patience.
You stated a boundary—‘these are my things’—and you gave her a path to dignity—‘help me pick them up.’ You engaged her curiosity instead of punishing her anger. You saw the child, not the problem.”
“I was flying by the seat of my pants! I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Then your instincts are good.” He pauses, his eyes searching mine. “She picked up your things. She helped you. That’s a currency none of the others earned in weeks.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just sit there, clutching my purse in my lap like it might anchor me to reality.
“And the camera,” he adds, a note of something like wonder entering his voice. “You didn’t just explain it to her. You shared it with her. You included her. You treated her like a person.”
“She is a person,” I say, simply.
“I know that.” His voice is quiet, edged with a pain he normally keeps sheathed. “But to a scared, angry child, being treated like one can feel like a miracle.”
The water runs in the bathroom. A child’s off-key singing drifts down the hall as we sit in the strangest interview of my life.
“So,” I say, when I can bear it no longer. “What are you saying?”
I watch the internal war play out on his face—professional caution versus desperate need. I see the exact moment the latter wins, a decision made against his own better judgment.
“I’m offering you the position,” he says. “If you’re still interested.”
I just stare at him. I was completely prepared to leave here and go home jobless.
I was already mentally preparing myself for the very real possibility that I’d be homeless by the end of the month, asking Ernie if he had any extra space in his sleeping bag or if he could teach me any of his showtunes.
“Just like that?” I hear myself ask.
“Just like that.”
“You don’t want to—I don’t know—make sure I’m not an escaped felon or something? Do a background check?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are you a felon?”
“Well, I did do six months in Rikers for aggravated assault, but it was a misunderstanding. The guy really deserved it.”
“Christ.” Leo actually covers his face with both hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms like I’m giving him a migraine.
I snicker. “I’m joking. I’m not a criminal. I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket.”
He drops his hands and looks at me like he’s reconsidering this entire decision. “You’re not helping your case.”
“Sorry. Nervous humor. It’s a problem.”
“Clearly.” But there’s something almost amused in his expression again, that tiny hint that maybe, possibly, he doesn’t find me completely intolerable. “Are you actually interested in the position or are we wasting each other’s time?”
“No—yes. I mean yes, I’m interested. Very interested.” I’m clutching my purse so hard my knuckles are probably white. “I need this job.”
“Alright.” He shifts, adopting a posture of brisk efficiency.
“Monday through Friday. Typically eight to five or six, but my schedule at Columbia is erratic—labs, seminars, committees. Flexibility is non-negotiable. Emma has preschool Tuesdays and Thursdays, nine to twelve, at Broadway Presbyterian. You’ll have those mid-morning blocks free.
There’s the library, cafes. The apartment is yours if you prefer. ”
I nod, absorbing the map of a new life.
“Around the house, it’s pretty straightforward,” he continues.
“Make sure Emma eats—breakfast, lunch, snacks, whatever she needs. Clean up after meals, keep the kitchen relatively tidy. I’m not expecting you to deep clean or do laundry or anything like that, just basic tidying as you go.
Take her to the park, to the library, wherever she wants to go within reason. Keep her entertained, engaged, safe.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll pay you ten dollars an hour.” He pauses, probably waiting for me to object, but honestly that’s more than good enough for me.
“Plus I’ll give you money for subway tokens at the beginning of each month—call it thirty dollars, that should be more than enough.
And my family owns a Greek restaurant, Roussos, down in the East Village.
If you and Emma ever stop by for lunch or dinner, they’ll take care of you. No charge.”
Free food. That’s actually huge. I’m already mentally calculating how many times a week I can reasonably show up at this restaurant without seeming desperate or weird.
“She does ballet on Wednesdays,” he adds. “Four to five at the studio on 110th Street. And sometimes she likes to go to the Museum of Natural History—she’s obsessed with the dinosaurs. There’s a good playground on 108th that she loves. And she loves the children’s section at the library on 115th.”
He’s rattling off all of this information like he’s reading from a list he’s memorized, and I’m trying to keep up, trying to commit it all to memory even though I know I’m going to forget half of it the second I leave this apartment.
“I have a calendar on the fridge,” he says, like he’s reading my mind.
“Emma’s whole schedule is on there—preschool, ballet, everything.
And all the emergency contact numbers are there too.
My office number at Columbia, my parents at the restaurant, my sister Maria who also works there, the pediatrician, poison control, all of it. ”
“Okay.” My head is spinning a little. This is real. This is actually happening. I’m going to be responsible for a tiny human being who throws plates at people’s heads and locks them in bathrooms. “Okay, I can do this.”
Can I do this? I have no idea. But I need to be able to do this, which means I will figure out how to do this, even if it kills me. Or if Emma kills me first.
He watches me, that analytical gaze dissecting my resolve. “Do we have an agreement?”
I think about it for exactly three seconds. I think of my barren bank account. Of Emma’s face, alight with wonder at a simple camera. Of the chance to prove I can build something here, from nothing.
“We have a deal,” I say. “On one condition.”
His eyebrows go up. “What condition?”
“Even though we don’t like each other—and I think we’ve established that we don’t—we can’t act that way in front of Emma.
She’s already dealing with enough without having to navigate tension between the adults in her life.
” I pause, making sure he’s listening. “And you can’t be all micromanage-y about everything.
I know you’re going to want to be, I can already tell, but you hired me to do this job so you need to let me actually do it.
You can’t hover or second-guess every decision I make or call me every five minutes to check in. ”
“I wouldn’t—” he starts to protest.
I just stare at him.
He sighs, running his hand through his hair again. “I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“Fine.” He stands up, extending his hand toward me like we’re closing a business deal, which I guess we are. “Deal.”
I stand too, reaching out to shake his hand, and his grip is firm and warm and his hand completely engulfs mine.
We’re standing close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him, close enough that the smell of him fills my senses again.
For just a second we are simply two people, anchored by a handshake, the past and future a silent charge in the space between us.
Then he lets go and steps back, and I can breathe again. “Can you start Wednesday? My parents have her covered the next couple of days,” he says.
Wednesday. That’s three days away. Three days to mentally prepare myself for this, to read whatever books exist about taking care of four-year-olds, to convince myself that I’m not going to completely screw this up.
“Wednesday works,” I say, surprised by how steady my voice sounds.
“Eight o’clock. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be.”
“Good.” He walks me back toward the front door, and I can hear Emma singing something in the bathroom, some song I don’t recognize, and it makes me smile. “I’ll see you Wednesday, Annie.”
“See you Wednesday, Leo.”
I step out into the hallway, and he closes the door behind me, and I just stand there for a moment, staring at his door, trying to process what just happened.
I got the job.
I actually got the job.
I want to scream or laugh or maybe cry, but instead I just start walking toward the elevator, my heart racing, my hands shaking slightly as I press the down button.
Stanley tips his hat at me when I walk through the lobby, and I wave back, trying to act like a normal person instead of someone whose boss who literally dragged her out of a taxi by her ankles two weeks ago.
The subway ride home passes in a blur. I keep replaying the whole morning in my head—Emma dumping my purse, the tampon conversation, the camera, Leo offering me the job just like that. By the time I’m climbing the stairs to my apartment, I’m smiling so hard my face hurts.
I burst through the door and Cori looks up from where she’s stretching in the living room, still in her dance clothes.
“Well?” she demands immediately. “How did it go?”
“I got the job!” I squeal, and saying it out loud makes it real, makes it true.
Cori screams and launches herself at me, wrapping me in a hug so tight I can barely breathe. “I knew it! I fucking knew it! I told you it was meant to be!”
I hug her back, laughing, the sound foreign and bright in our small, messy space. For the first time since I arrived in this city, since I severed the tether to my old life, I feel the ground firm beneath my feet. It’s not safety. It’s not even certainty.
But it’s a start.