"Hi, this is Alexis at the Parents League. I'm just calling to follow up on the uniform guidelines we sent over . .." The blond woman volunteering behind the reception desk holds up a bejeweled finger, signaling me to wait while she continues on the phone. "Yes, well, this year we'd really like to see all your girls in longer skirts, at least twenty inches. We're still getting complaints from the mothers at the boys' schools in the vicinity... Great. Good to hear it. Bye." With a grand gesture she crosses the word "Spence" off her list.
She returns her attention to me. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Can I help you?""I'm here to put up an ad for a nanny, but the bulletin board seems to have moved," I say, slightly confused as I've been advertising here since I was thirteen.
"We had to take it down while the foyer was being painted and never got around to moving it back. Here, let me show you." She leads me to the central room, where mothers perch at Knoll desks fielding inquiries about the Private Schools. Before me sits the full range of Upper East Side diversity-half of the women are dressed in Chanel suits and Manolo Blahniks, half are in six-hundred-dollar barn jackets, looking as if they might be asked to pitch an Aqua Scutum tent at any moment.
I tune out the officious, creamy chatter of the women behind me to read the postings put up by other nannies also in search of employment.
Babysitter need childrenvery like kidsvacuumsI look your kidsMany years workYou call meThe bulletin board is so overcrowded with flyers that, with a twinge of guilt, I end up tacking my ad over someone else's pink paper festooned with crayon flowers, but I'm only covering daisies and none of her pertinent information.
I wish I could tell these women that the secret to nanny advertising isn't the decoration, it's the punctuation-it's all in the exclamation mark. While my ad is a minimalist three-by-five card, without so much as a smiley face on it, I liberally sprinkle my advertisement with exclamations, ending each of my desirable traits with the promise of a beaming smile and unflagging positivity actitude.
Nanny at the Ready! Chapin School alumna available weekdays part-time!
Excellent references! Child Development Major at NYU!
The only thing I don't have is an umbrella that makes me fly.
As I walk down Park Avenue the August sun is still low enough in the sky that the stroller parade is in full throttle. I pass many hot little people, looking resignedly uncomfortable in their sticky seats. I chuckle to myself at the child who waves away the offer of a juice box with a flick of the hand and a toss of the head that says, "I couldn't possibly be bothered with juice right now."Waiting at a red light, I look up at the large glass windows that are the eyes of Park Avenue. From a population-density point of view, this is the Midwest of Manhattan. Towering above me are rooms-rooms and rooms and rooms. And they are empty. There are powder rooms and dressing rooms and piano rooms and guest rooms and, somewhere above me, but I won't say where, a rabbit named Arthur has sixteen feet square all to himself.
I cut across Seventy-second Street, passing under the shade of the blue awnings of the Polo mansion, and turn into Central Park.
Pausing in front of the playground, where a few tenacious children are trying their best despite the heat, I reach in my backpack for a bottle of water-just as something crashes into my legs. I look down and steady the offending object, an old-fashioned wooden hoop.
"Hey, that's mine!" A boy of about four careens down the hill from where he's been posing for a portrait with his parents. His sailor hat topples off into the patchy grass as he runs.
"That's my hoop," he announces.
"Are you sure?" I ask. He looks perplexed. "It could be a wagon wheel." I hold it sideways. "Or a halo?" I hold it above his blond head. "Or a really large pizza?" I hold it out to him, gesturing that he can take it. He's smiling broadly at me as he grasps it in his hands.
"You, silly!" He drags it back up the hill, passing his mother as she strolls down to retrieve the hat.
"I'm sorry," she says, brushing dust off the striped brim as she approaches me. "I hope he didn't bother you." She holds her hand out to block the sun from her pale blue eyes.
"No, not at all.""Oh, but your skirt-" She glances down.
"No big deal," I laugh, dusting off the mark from the hoop. "I work with kids, so I'm used to being banged up.""Oh, you do?" She angles her body so her back is to her husband and a blond woman who stands off to the side of the photographer holding a juice box for the boy. His nanny, I presume. "Around here?""Actually, the family moved to London over the summer, so-""We're ready!" the father calls impatiently.
"Coming!" she calls back brightly. She turns to me, tilting her delicately featured face away from him. She lowers her voice. "Well, we're actually looking for someone who might want to help us out part-time.""Really? Part-time would be great, because I have a full course load this semester-""What's the best way to reach you?"I rummage through my backpack for a pen and a scrap of notebook on which I can scribble down my information. "Here you go." I pass her the paper and she discreetly slips it in the pocket of her shift, before adjusting the headband in her long, dark hair.
"Wonderful." She smiles graciously. "Well, it was a pleasure to meet you. I'll be in touch." She takes a few steps up the hill and then turns around. "Oh, how silly of me-I'm Mrs. X."I return the smile before she goes back to take her place in the contrived tableau. The sun filters through the leaves, creating dappled sunshine on the three figures. Her husband, in a white seersucker suit, stands squarely in the middle, his hand on the boy's head, as she slides in beside them. |