Chapter 10 #2
“See?” Emma’s pointing at the photos spread across the table, bouncing on her toes. “We found almost everything! Look, that’s the yellow taxi, and that’s the pigeon—he was eating a hot dog, Daddy, a whole hot dog!—and that’s the fire hydrant on our street, and that’s the big tree in the park…”
I lean over the table, scanning the photos. There’s one of Emma holding an ice cream cone, her face covered in chocolate ice cream and rainbow sprinkles, grinning at the camera with pure joy.
“I added ice cream cone to the list,” Emma says proudly.
“That wasn’t on the original list,” Annie says, and there’s amusement in her voice.
Emma giggles. “It was really good ice cream.”
I pick up another photo—this one clearly taken by Emma based on the angle, pointing upward, slightly blurry. It’s Annie making this ridiculous cross-eyed face with her tongue sticking out, and despite myself, I smile.
“That’s one of my favorites,” Emma announces, leaning against the table to see which one I’m looking at.
“Maybe I should keep that one,” Annie says. “As evidence of my excellent facial expressions.”
“No way!” Emma’s laughing now. “That’s going on the fridgerator!”
“Refrigerator,” I correct automatically.
“That’s what I said. Fridgerator.”
Close enough.
There’s another photo of Annie, this one different from the silly one.
She’s sitting on a bench in Central Park, and the composition is actually decent—Emma must have been standing back a bit, taking her time with it.
Annie’s wearing a denim dress over a white turtleneck, brown boots, and her hair is half-up in one of those claw clip things that women always seem to wear, the ones that look like they’re barely holding on but somehow never falls out.
There’s a colorful scarf draped over her shoulders, and she’s smiling at the camera—not a posed smile, but something genuine and unguarded.
She’s pretty. I mean, I knew that objectively, in the same way I know the sky is blue or that coffee is better than tea. But looking at this photo, seeing her like this—relaxed, happy, completely at ease—she’s more than pretty. She’s actually stunning.
Her smile shows rows of perfectly straight teeth that probably cost her parents a fortune in orthodontics.
Her lashes are long and dark, framing eyes that I still can’t decide are brown or green.
They’re some combination of both, shifting depending on the light.
She has this slightly upturned nose, a defined jawline, high cheekbones.
And there’s something about the way she holds herself, even sitting on a park bench, that suggests she came from money.
It’s in her posture, the way her hands are folded in her lap, the quality of her clothes even if they’re casual.
Which brings me back to the same question I keep having: who is she, and why is she here?
“That’s a good one,” Annie says, and I realize I’ve been staring at this particular photo for longer than is probably appropriate.
I look up and she’s watching me, something unreadable in her expression.
“Emma was practicing her photography skills,” she continues, pointing to the photo with a manicured fingernail—nude polish, short and practical. “She has a good eye.”
“I’m gonna be a photographer when I grow up,” Emma announces, like this is now a settled fact, her entire future career decided at age four based on two days with a disposable camera.
“Is that right?” I ask.
“Yeah! I can’t believe people get to do this stuff with cameras all day and it’s their real job. Like, they just go around taking pictures of things and someone pays them money? That’s the best job ever! I could totally do that!”
Both Annie and I laugh at that, at the pure enthusiasm in her voice, the way she makes it sound like she’s discovered some long lost secret to happiness.
“Wait until you find out about being a food critic,” Annie says. “People pay you to eat food and then write about whether it was good or not.”
Emma’s eyes go wide. “That’s a real job?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, I’m doing that instead.”
“You’re four,” I remind her. “You have time to decide.”
“I’ve already decided. Food critic and photographer. I’ll do both.”
“We have an ambitious girl on our hands,” Annie says, and she’s still smiling. “I like it.”
I clear my throat, reaching for my briefcase where I left it by the door. “Em, you want to go to Blockbuster? Rent a movie for tonight?”
Emma squeals—actually squeals—and pumps her fist in the air like she just won something. “Yes! Can we get The Little Mermaid again?”
“You can get whatever you want.” I pull out my checkbook from the inner pocket, clicking my pen. “Go get your shoes on and your jacket. It’s still raining out there.”
She’s gone before I finish speaking, a small hurricane of excitement hurtling down the hallway. Her bedroom door slams, then opens, then slams again. Drawers open and close. Something falls over.
I start writing Annie’s check, filling in the date, the amount. Only a couple day’s worth of work, but I told her I would pay her each week. It feels like I should be paying her more, honestly, given how much she’s done, but this is what we agreed on.
“So the last couple days have been okay?” I ask, not looking up from the check. “She hasn’t done anything to scare you off yet?”
Annie laughs a little, and it’s a nice sound. Genuine. “It’s been good. No major meltdowns. Just some minor ones, but those were no biggie.”
I glance up at her, still writing. “Emma talks about you when you’re not here.”
One of her eyebrows goes up. “Does she tell you I’m secretly a witch who makes her eat vegetables?”
I smirk. “No. Quite the opposite, actually. According to her, you’re basically perfect.”
“Well, that’s a dangerous precedent to set.” She’s smiling though, like she’s pleased.
I tear the check out along the perforated edge and hand it to her. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” She takes it, folds it neatly, and tucks it into her purse—a brown leather bag with a distinctive Coach logo stamped on it.
Not a knockoff either, I can tell from here.
The leather’s too nice, too well-maintained.
It makes me wonder again about her background.
Why someone with a designer purse is taking a nanny job that pays ten dollars an hour.
“You survived your first few days,” I say, and I’m not entirely sure why I’m still talking except that it feels weird to just stand here in silence. “That’s more than the last couple managed.”
“Should I get a trophy or something?”
“I’ll look into it. Maybe a plaque. ‘Survived Emma Roussos, October 1994.’”
She laughs again. “I’d hang that on my wall.”
“Right between your Employee of the Month photo and your Perfect Attendance certificate?”
“Bold of you to assume I’ve ever gotten perfect attendance for anything.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Too late to fire me now.” Her smile turns slightly mischievous. “Emma likes me.”
Before I can come up with a response to that—and she’s right, Emma does like her, which gives her way more job security than she probably realizes—Emma comes running back out, her rain boots on the wrong feet and her jacket half-zipped, practically shaking with excitement. “I’m ready! Let’s go!”
Annie’s already putting her own jacket on, a black rain jacket that looks relatively new, and she’s gathering her purse from where she left it on the counter.
“Have fun, you two,” she says, zipping up her jacket. “And Emma? Don’t let your dad talk you into renting some boring documentary about brains.”
But Emma’s not moving toward the door. She’s standing there frowning, looking between me and Annie like something doesn’t make sense.
“You’re not coming with us?” she asks, and her voice has gone small.
Annie shakes her head, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I think your dad would probably like to spend some time with just you tonight, Em.”
“He doesn’t care!” Emma protests immediately, and then she whips around to look at me. “Do you? Can Annie come with us?”
“I’m sure Annie has some wild weekend plans of her own,” I say, which is probably true. She’s in her twenties, living in New York City. She probably has friends to meet, places to be, things that don’t involve spending Friday night with her boss and his four-year-old.
But Emma’s eyes are welling up with tears now, her bottom lip trembling, and I can see the meltdown coming from a mile away.
“I thought we were going together,” she says, and her voice is shaking. “You said we were going to do fun stuff and I thought—I thought Annie was coming, too.”
She turns back to Annie, those blue eyes huge and watery. “Do you really have wild weekend plans?”
I can tell Annie wants to laugh—I can see it in the way her mouth twitches—but instead she crouches down to Emma’s level, her hands on her knees.
“Emma, sweetie, I should probably go home—”
“No!” Emma stomps her foot, and it’s loud enough that I wince. “I want you to come! Please? Please please please?”
“Emma,” I start, but before I can figure out what I’m going to say—before I can tell her that Annie’s off the clock, that we can’t just demand she spend her free time with us, that this isn’t appropriate—I hear myself saying something completely different.
“Annie can come. If she wants. If she doesn’t have plans already, but if she does that’s totally fine and we completely understand, it’s Friday night and you probably have better things to do than watch The Little Mermaid for the hundredth time—”
I’m rambling. Why am I rambling?
“See!” Emma’s grinning now, bouncing on her toes again, crisis averted. “He said you can come! You have to come now!”
Annie’s eyes flick from Emma to me, and I can see the uncertainty there.
She’s been put on the spot, which isn’t fair to her, but part of me wonders if this could be an opportunity to actually talk to her.
To find out who she is beyond the person who takes care of my daughter.
She’d only stay for a movie and pizza, maybe an hour or two total.
How bad could it be? She’s chewing on the inside of her cheek, a small furrow between her brows.
“Are you sure?” she asks, looking at me. “I don’t want to intrude. I can just go home, it’s really no problem—”
“It’s fine,” I cut her off. “Really. Emma wants you there, and honestly, she’ll be in a better mood if you come. Plus, you can help me negotiate which movie we’re renting. She always picks The Little Mermaid and I’m running out of ways to convince her to try something new.”
“I love The Little Mermaid!” Emma protests.
“I know you do, Em. We all know you do. The entire island of Manhattan knows you do.”
Annie’s still hesitating, and I can see her weighing it, trying to figure out if this is weird or inappropriate or crossing some line we haven’t defined yet.
“Come on,” I say, and I try to make my voice light, casual. “Unless you really do have wild weekend plans. In which case, by all means, don’t let us keep you from your…club-hopping? Raves? Whatever it is people your age do on Friday nights nowadays.”
She laughs at that and some of the tension breaks. “Oh yeah, my wild plans of eating ramen on my couch while watching TV. Very exclusive. Very glamorous.”
“Well, we can offer you pizza instead of ramen. Upgrade your Friday night experience.”
She looks at Emma, who’s giving her the most hopeful, pleading expression I’ve ever seen on a human face, and then back at me.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Sure. Yeah. Okay, I’ll come.”
Emma cheers and throws her arms around Annie’s legs. Annie smiles down at her, that same pretty smile from the park bench photo, while she pats Emma’s head in this absent way that suggests she’s already gotten used to Emma’s particular brand of enthusiasm.
I grab my keys from the hook by the door.
“Alright then,” I say. “Let’s go before Blockbuster runs out of copies of The Little Mermaid.”
“They’re not going to run out,” Emma says, rolling her eyes like I’ve said something ridiculous. “Everyone’s already bought the VHS, except for us.”
She’s probably right.