Now that she was basically fed, and we could go on our way, I locked the door behind us and we made our way to the car.
“Am I going to have to stay at the nursery when school lets out?”
“I don't know Donna. I'm trying to figure something out now. Hopefully I will find another nanny like Maria that will stay with us and she will be around all the time. Then you will get your sleep and omelets like you're used to. You know that if I could make something better, I would.”
She scrunched her face up at me for the third time this morning and I knew that it was her indelicate way of telling you that I couldn't cook. It certainly wasn't something that I didn't know. Somehow, I had burned pop tarts before and she didn’t even want me toasting them for her now. She said they were better cold, then burnt.
I sighed to myself and started off towards the day care center she was going to at the moment. I felt like I was failing all the way around. I was never around Donna anymore because all I did was work. The last three weeks, I had been falling behind at work and I’d actually forgotten a client’s name in court. I had to get a nanny in soon, or everything was going to fall apart around me. Then everyone would know that I wasn’t holding up as well as everyone thought.
The drive was about ten minutes and the breakfast was gone by the time we got there. She wasn’t happy to be going, that much was clear, but neither was I. With Maria, I could leave an hour later, and I didn’t have to wake up a little dictator in the process. She didn’t have a snooze alarm, so that was my job and it wasn’t one that I liked.
I gave her a kiss goodbye and I waved to Melinda. The owner was standing in the doorway and she greeted Donna. My daughter was still sullen, but she was starting to warm up. I was the one that got the attitude. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I didn’t have time to think or feel. I had to get to work or the fast track that I had to partner was going to dissipate.
Work was a bother, but it was also a good way to forget about everything for a while. I didn’t have to worry about life, just cases. It was easier for me when it was other people’s lives in my hands instead of my own, as strange as that was to say.
When I got to work my assistant was already there and she already had a little stack of post-it notes. I knew that every single one of those notes was going to be a name and a number that I was going to have to call back. The number of hours that I was supposed to bill was ridiculous and it was hard to do it when I had to be home with Donna. There was no way that I was going to be able to do this much longer if I didn't get a live in.
“Tell me that I got some good ones in there too?”
“Well if you were talking about that nanny service, they said that they didn't have anybody at the moment they could do a live-in.”
It was a third time that I've been told the same thing. Apparently, since summer was coming up, everyone had already pre-booked nannies. Most of the time it was just in summer that people wanted the nannies to begin with. It wasn't something that I knew in the beginning of course, but as it was becoming impossible to find one, I had learned a thing or two.
“Anything else?
I looked at her with hope and Sandra just kind of shook her head a little bit to say that there wasn’t.
“I don't know, but if you get any from that online service, do you want me to send it through?”
I told her that I did, because that was more important than any of the other conversations that I was going to have today. I wasn't going to hold my breath, I learned not to, but at the same time I was still holding out hope.
The day was starting as most of them did, and I rubbed my hand through my hair. I wished now that I’d gotten another cup of coffee before I came in, but I was thankful that somebody had started a pot in the break room. I grabbed a cup and went back to my desk, sure that I was going to have to sell my soul to get a babysitter for the summer.
The phone rang in front of me and I just ignored it. There wasn’t sound, only a red light that continued to blink for a moment.
“Sir, there is someone on the line from that website. She is asking about the nanny position.”
“Send it through Sandra.”
I wasn’t going to get my hopes up because they had been dashed so many times before, but I couldn’t help it creeping up. I had to get a break sometime, right?
Chapter 4
Ashley
I had to wait almost ten minutes on hold before a man picked up. I had almost hung up, but I was too busy in the fridge making breakfast to really care about it all that much. I finally settled on a cheese omelet and went outside to pick some green onions that I had growing in a pot by the door. When he said hello, it was loud, and the booming voice made me jump enough that I dropped my onions.
“Shit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, I uh, dropped some green onions for an omelet. I can’t believe I did that.”
“You are making an omelet?”
I said that I was. Anything to get him off of the fact that I had just cursed. It was the first thing that I’d said to him and I was fairly sure that it wasn’t the sort of impression that I’d wanted to make. I was trying to convince him to let me take care of his child after all.
“Most mornings. Sorry about cursing. I really don’t, all that much.”
“Only when you drop onions?”
He had a bit of humor in his tone and I smiled to myself, “Apparently.”
“So, you were calling about the job I hope?”
“Yeah, I was just wondering if it was still available. I am looking for something over the summer, so that I can finish paying tuition for the next semester. I go to college over at the University in town. But by your job posting, it didn't really give a lot of information, so I was just calling to get a little bit more of what the job entails, and how much it pays.”
“Well, I didn't really know how to put it. I was told that if I put full-time nanny, it was going to look bad. They are hard to find this late into the summer. So, what I'm really looking for is a live-in nanny at least for the month and a half that my daughter is out of school. Right now, I'm taking her to a nursery at 6 o'clock in the morning and it really isn't working out. We had a live -in before, but I think Maria had to go back home to South America and I doubt she will be back.”
“So, you only have one daughter?”
“Yeah, Donna is eight.”
“From the amount per hour I was figuring that you would have a lot more kids. Is that a type-o? Twenty dollars an hour?”
“That is the rate and that would be a twenty four hour a day payment. I would give you some days off and you could do what you wanted to the rest of the time you would be here. Room and board is obviously included, so you could really put a dent in your tuition pretty quickly over the summer. I don’t know what the rates are anymore.”
I couldn't believe what he was saying and for once, Denise was right. I would have never thought that somebody could make that much money taking care of one kid. I felt like there was a catch and I wasn't sure what it was yet. But at the end of the day, I started doing the math and I knew instantly that this was the job that I needed.
“Wow, that is a lot.”
He chuckled and for some reason I really liked the sound of it. He had a deep voice and he didn’t take himself too seriously.
“So you work a lot then, I take it?”
“Yes, all the time at the moment because I’m up for partner. Once that happens, I won’t have to work near as long. I’m hoping that I can get it by the end of the summer.”
“You’re a lawyer?”
He agreed that he was and at least it started to make a little sense. If he was a lawyer, he was making a lot of money an hour, but it still seemed like a lot. It felt like it was too good to be true and I really hoped that it wasn’t. Denise had been so sure that it would all work itself out, but I hadn’t been. I was hoping now that her insane positivity was right. Maybe I was going to find tuition without having to
ask someone for the money. Or even worse, take a semester off until I had it together. That was the worst thing that I could think of.
“So, I am very interested in the job. Would you like to meet somewhere so I can give you my resume?”
“That won’t be necessary. I need a live-in as soon as possible and you can make omelets. There really isn’t more that I need to know. I will do a background check of course. When can you start?”
It was all happening too fast and I wasn’t even sure what the job was going to entail. He was rushing the situation, but if he needed a babysitter, I didn’t see how he could get around it.
“Tomorrow?”
“That would be great. We start at six in the morning, so if you could get here before that, it would be great.”
I didn’t mind getting up early, but that didn’t leave me a lot of time to pack some things and get my affairs in order. I hadn’t even thought about Duane, but now he was walking into the room and I knew that he wasn’t going to like it. He was going to want to sneak over and play, but that wasn’t going to be able to happen.
“Who are you on the phone with?”
I put my finger to my lips to tell him to shut up. I didn’t want him running his mouth in the background. He really didn’t have any sense in the morning.
“Okay, sounds great. Just give me your address and I will see you in the morning.”
I wrote down the address that he gave me and tried to block Duane from looking over my shoulder. He wasn’t helping matters at all.
I got off the phone and shoved him. “What are you doing? Couldn’t you see that I was on the phone?”
“Why do you have Frank’s address?”
“Frank?”
“Yeah, Cassello. He is one of my neighbors.”
“He needs a babysitter and wants to pay a lot for it. I need the money for tuition, so I am going to go over there for a job.”
“Oh.”
I could tell that Duane wasn’t too happy about it, but that was most likely because he wasn’t going to get all of my attention. He was a bit too much sometimes and it got me thinking that maybe we needed this little break from each other. I know that I did.
“Why do you say it like that? Is he not a nice guy?”
I could tell that he wanted to tell me that Frank was horrible, but he couldn't. That was all I wanted to know, and whether he liked it or not, I had to do what I had to do to get my tuition. Unless the little girl was a complete terror, an idea that I thought might be possible, it would still be worth it. It would be better than having to take time off or even worse asking my boyfriend for the money. I hated owing anyone and even though Duane was always trying to give it to me, it was the last thing I wanted to do.
“I'm not saying that he's a bad guy, but there's a lot of whispers about him. He is never home and when he comes home, it is very late at night, and he leaves early in the morning. I don't think anyone actually knows what he does.”
“He told me that he's a lawyer and he's trying to make partner. He's hoping to make partner by the end of the summer, so that is probably why he is working so much.”
“You seem to know a lot about him for somebody that you just talked to on the phone.”
There was something in his voice that sounded almost like jealousy and that had me wondering what was going on. When I envisioned Frank from his deep voice, I knew that he was older obviously, and I would have bet that he was gray haired and probably in his late forties. What in the world would Duane have to be jealous about?
“We just talk for a minute or two and of course I'm going to ask what he does for a living. I would have to move in with him, so obviously I want to know what I'm getting into.”
“Are you really going to move in with someone that you don't even know?”
“I don't know, it's $20 an hour and he pays for me to be there twenty four hours a day. I get Sunday off. I don't think that I'm going to find anything better. That job alone will make sure that I have tuition and rent money for the next term. To me, that's worth it.”
I could tell that Duane wasn't so sure about it. I think that he hated the idea of me moving in with some guy, but still, I was thinking about the old man in my head and I couldn't see what the problem is.
“I don't like this Ashley. I don't want you living with somebody else. I have told you before that I will give you the money. You don't have to do this.”
“I don't want your money Duane. I've told you this before. It would just make it weird and I don't want to do it.”
“So, you would rather live with some guy?”
He was getting mad and I was getting frustrated. Why did he see that this was something that I had to do? It wasn't like I had a choice. There was no other job that I was going to get that was going to make this kind of money, unless I work two or three waitressing jobs simultaneously. I don't see how else anything was going to work.”
I would rather that my parents pay my tuition like they promised, but that's not going to happen. So yes, this is what I'm going to have to do.”
Chapter 5
Frank
I told Donna that I had found a live-in and she was excited. I was nervous because I'd never even met her, and I was supposed to leave my daughter with her five minutes after we met for the first time. I had checked references, done a background check, but you still never knew about somebody. I was hoping that I didn't get some weird feeling like I had with a couple of the other people I’d talked to. For some reason though, I didn't think that I would.
Donna was just happy that she wouldn't have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and I can't blame her. I didn't even want to get up that early and I was a grown up, which made it clear why I had to do, what I had to do. Donna did not, and she was getting sick of it very quickly.
It was the last week of school, so at least today they wouldn’t be around each other all day. I figured that I was going to find out today if Ashley was going to work. I had a feeling that it would, backed up with no credible evidence, but maybe it was just a positivity me that was trying to show through.
When I went to bed at night, it was the first time in a long time that I went to sleep right away. I was no longer worried about what was going to happen. It was all that I'd worried about it since Maria had left, everything else had been pushed to the back of my head. The things that I couldn’t let go of. Before this night, this one blissful night ,I didn't think of any of it. All I thought about was the next day and the fact that I didn't have to harass Donna at five o'clock in the morning to get up. It killed me every time I had to do it.
***
Just because Donna didn't have to get up that early, didn't mean that I didn’t have to, but at least I got an extra half an hour in the morning to sleep. Not having to get her up and make her pop tart and take her to nursery, I was going to be able to get just a little bit more sleep anyways. But of course, I was so used to getting up so early that my body woke up before the alarm clock went off anyways.
When I heard the doorbell go off at six in the morning, I rushed to the door because I didn't want it to wake Donna up. Of course, me shaking her and saying her name over and over again didn't seem to do the trick, so hopefully I was safe.
It was at that time that I had a toothbrush in my mouth and I was holding it between my teeth as I open the door. The paper was in my hand, I was trying to read up on the main headlines before I took off to work. Not only was I supposed to do my job and everything else that it entailed, but I was also supposed to go out with clients and I had to have something to talk about.
I dropped the toothbrush out of my mouth when I finally opened the door. Ashley was not at all what I expected, especially since the last time that I had interviewed somebody, they were over sixty years old. Ashley was young, beautiful, and not at all what I’d imagined coming over.
She had this weird look on her face, obviously because I had just dropped the toothbrush out of my mouth and I probably look like an idiot. All I coul
d hope for at this point was that I didn't have toothpaste foamed up around me like I had rabies.
“Hi, Frank, right?”
I bent down to pick up the toothbrush and I had a wet toothbrush and a newspaper, so I couldn't really shake the hand that was offered out. Instead I just nodded my head inside and opened the door a little wider so that she would follow. I had to go wash this off of my face, rinse my mouth and then I could speak to her. I don't know what I was thinking when I answered the door that way.
I knew what I was thinking though, I didn't figure there was going to be some hot blonde at my door at six o'clock in the morning. She had sounded so mature on the phone, but the girl in front of me looked like a party girl. I was confused, and I wasn't sure which way to go with this.
After I got in the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out, threw the toothbrush away and set the paper down, I went out to the dining room where she was standing. She looked awkward and I could see her eyes were looking around the house. At this point, she could be casing the place for her boyfriend for all I knew. I was starting to see how little I knew about Ashley when my mind started working. I didn't get a bad vibe from her, but at the moment all I could really recognizing myself, was that I was horny as hell and I didn't know how to talk to her. What was I supposed to say?
“Sorry about that. Guess I should have finished before I answered the door.”
“It’s no problem, really. It is really early and I'm surprise that you are as together as you are. I didn't even have time to brush my hair before I left this morning.”
I don't know if she was just humble bragging or not, because she was gorgeous. Her hair was long, and it hung down midways on her upper arm, and while it was messy a little bit, it just made her look like she had just gotten out of bed the way she looked. That for some reason, was even harder on my system, then a made up girl on the street.
Seducing The Nanny Page 2