Work for Hire

by Margo Karasek

  With Julian, I had no contact at all; no face-to-face exchanges, no telephone conversations, nothing—not even an e-mail. As Mrs. Lamont’s assistant, he was surely in sunny L.A. with her, surrounded by beautiful tanned women.

  But, then, there was Lisa.

  The perky redhead liked to bounce in for a quick chat during almost every tutoring session, flashing her short skirts, killer stilettos, and abundant bosom. She would give me “friendly” pointers, mentioning that Gemma would need more “hands-on” help with her schoolwork and that Xander’s writing would probably need significant editing before it could possibly be submitted for a grade that would reflect his true capabilities. Her points, of course, were moot: although it was already two weeks into school, Gemma had not had a single homework assignment, and Xander’s English teacher had yet to assign an essay. Nonetheless, Lisa persisted with her advice, so much so I wondered whether she still fancied herself the nanny. She certainly always seemed to be at the house, around the children or in her own room, located right next door to Gemma’s, though never when I actually needed her—like now. How she found the time to assist Mr. Lamont was beyond me.

  I disconnected the phone and retried the doorbell, not really anticipating results, but what the hell.

  Suddenly, the door was yanked open.

  Gemma.

  “Oh my gosh, Tekla,” she blurted out as she hopped from foot to foot, her head bopping like a Jack-in-the-box and her grin broad.

  Gone was the cautious teenager of my first visit. The two yelping dogs, tails wagging and tongues lolling, quivered behind her.

  “I’m sooooo sorry. I’ll totally try to convince Maman to give you a key when she gets back. I mean, like, you’re totally trustworthy.”

  She grabbed hold of one dog—Dior—as it charged at me.

  “‘Cause, like, Xander’s always playing the guitar, and I often have my iPod on, so we, like, totally can’t hear you when you get here.”

  Well, that explained it. Xander’s electric guitar was his latest hobby. He liked to play it loud, if not necessarily well.

  “No problem,” I offered as I stepped into the foyer.

  The dog broke Gemma’s grip, ambushed my leg and happily slobbered all over my jeans. The second beagle—the smaller Coco—followed.

  “Coco, Dior, down,” Gemma giggled as I pushed the dogs away. At least they no longer aimed for my crotch.

  “Though it is well past seven,” I pointed out as I wiped dog spit from my jeans. “You should have been expecting me.”

  Gemma pursed her lips and stared down the floor.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. Then she peeked at me from underneath downcast lashes and giggled again—clearly unimpressed by my sternness—before she hopped towards the stairs.

  “But guess what?” she stopped abruptly on the third step and swung her body to face me, her shoulder-length hair flying around her head. “I actually have homework today!”

  I waved her stray hair away and paused, one foot on a step. What was this? For the past fourteen days, my time with Gemma had gone as predictably as clockwork. Per Mrs. Lamont’s precise instructions, I always met with Gemma first. I arrived in her room. Gemma brought in the only extra seat available on the entire floor, a miniature rocking chair she had saved as a souvenir from her “childhood.” She squeezed into the rocker, and I took over her desk chair. I asked after her schoolwork, and she revealed she had none. As I began to rack my brain for something to do to justify a $150 charge, she would launch into some variation of this monologue: “Oh my gosh, Tekla, you won’t believe what happened after school today. Like, Gabe asked me out … As if. Everyone knows I’m saving myself for the prince. But I won’t tell you which one. That will be a surprise. Though you have to promise not to give any interviews about me after we marry … I don’t want to do the Diana thing … Daddy says Gabe’s ‘nothing,’ even if his father owns some major construction firm. Nobody who’s anybody does that anymore … Daddy says Gabe’s dad can’t possibly make more than millions, even if he does own a house in the Hamptons. I don’t even think they have an American Express black card, though Gabe says his dad promised him a Bentley for his sixteenth birthday … Daddy says I should stay away from Gabe, that he doesn’t know how Gabe was admitted into Xander’s school. He thinks their standards must be lowering if they let just anyone in … And, oh my gosh, Tekla, Daddy promised to take me to London for Thanksgiving since I hardly get to see him anymore. Maybe we’ll even stay at Buckingham Palace since Daddy is good friends with Prince Charles. He, like, manages his money or something. That should be fun, though Maman doesn’t want to go. She says the British are boring. Daddy says we’ll take his private jet there. That will be soooo much better than last year’s school trip to London. They made us fly commercial and coach! Daddy wanted me to fly by jet, but the school said I should fly with my classmates, and they said I couldn’t fly first class because then all the other girls would want to but the teachers didn’t have the money, so no one would be able to supervise us. Daddy was so mad he made the school put him on the Board of Directors, so you know that won’t happen again. Why should the students be punished? Like, those seats were sooooo uncomfortable … ”

  She’d prattle like that for the entire hour and my head would spin. Royalty? Private jets? Boy, I sure wasn’t in Brooklyn anymore.

  The first time Gemma mentioned her aspirations of becoming a princess, I had snickered: What young girl didn’t have Princess Kate fantasies? But then, these people actually knew royalty. They were friends with them. And I was a daughter of a mere diner owner, far lower than Gabe’s construction dad.

  Still, the routine had worked out great. I came. I listened, my eyes occasionally glazing over with boredom; after all, there were just so many princess fantasies an adult woman could tolerate before her brain rebelled. But, best of all, I got paid.

  But now we would have actual homework to complete.

  “It’s math,” Gemma reported as she started up the stairs again, bare legs flashing. She had on her school uniform, a white polo shirt and a tiny navy skirt with the bottom so short I caught glimpses of underwear. Gemma was wearing a thong, no less.

  And just when did uniforms become this miniscule? In Catholic school, the nuns always made sure our skirts reached well past the knee. Now those skirts barely covered the buttocks.

  “Uh, Gemma,” I trudged up the stairs after her. “Do you mind pulling down your skirt? I can see your unmentionables.”

  “Sorry,” Gemma giggled. She grabbed hold of the skirt and pulled its material tautly around her bottom. “Why don’t you go first?”

  “Good idea,” I agreed and walked past her. “So what exactly are you doing in math?”

  “Mixed numbers,” Gemma called after me as I got to her room.

  I turned my head to comment but found, except for the two dogs who pranced in after me, the space empty.

  “Gemma, where are you?” I called, my voice bouncing off bare walls.

  In a moment she strolled in, a Louis Vuitton bag in her hand. It was an exact replica of mine except hers, no doubt, was real.

  “Here,” she extended the bag towards me. “For you.”

  “What?” I responded, stunned.

  “The bag,” Gemma said. “Maman got it at her last shoot for me, but I already have the same one. So I thought you might like it since, like, you use that other one.” She indicated the fake hanging on my shoulder.

  “Gemma … ” I didn’t know what to say. My heart swelled. What a sweet, generous child. “I can’t. It’s too expensive. But thank you for the thought.” My fingers itched to touch the bag’s leather. A real Louis Vuitton!

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” Gemma placed the bag on the table and sat in her rocker. “Maman gets these things for free, from the designers, all the time. I have tons of them. And Maman said I could give it to you, like as a signing bonus.”

  “Oh, all right then,” I sighed in pure pleasure. I plopped in a chair and clutched my ne
w treasure. “If you’re certain.”

  Who was I to say no, especially if Monique got these things for free.

  Except an annoying voice in my head kept pointing out the timing was suspect: it had arrived just as Gemma got her first major assignment …

  Gemma searched through her schoolbag—a massive Fendi hobo—and shoved a single sheet in my direction. “Here. That’s the homework. I’m totally confused by the math. The teacher told us to change the mixed numbers on the sheet into fractions. I hate fractions. I just don’t get them.”

  I eyed the sheet. As far as I remembered, teachers usually covered fractions in middle school.

  When Gemma seemed content to sit and just stare at me, I handed the sheet back to her and asked, “Well, aren’t you going to do them?”

  “But,” she said as she reached for the paper, clearly surprised by my question, “I told you I don’t know how.”

  “No problem.” I rolled my chair close to Gemma’s, removed the sheet from her numb hand, placed it on the desk between us, and scanned the surface for a pencil. “I’ll show you how. It’s really easy.” I pointed at the first question. “You just take the bottom number of the fraction, called the denominator, and you multiply it by that big number in front—called the whole number. Then you add the top number of the fraction, called the numerator, to your answer. You keep the denominator the same as in the mixed number and use the new number as the fraction’s new numerator. And you’re done. So, like in this first question, they ask you to convert 1½ into a fraction. So you take the two from the denominator and multiply it by the big number one and what do you get?”

  I glanced up at Gemma. She slouched down in her seat and pouted.

  “Come on, Gemma. I know you know how to multiply two by one. So what’s the answer?”

  “Two,” Gemma mumbled.

  “Excellent,” I grinned. “And now you only have to add the one from the numerator to your two. And what is that?”

  “Three,” Gemma mumbled again.

  “Excellent,” I nodded. “So that means that 1½ converted into a fraction is three-halves. And that’s your answer.” I scribbled the number on the sheet. “Simple. Now you try the next question.”

  I handed the pencil to Gemma. She took it, but refused to look at the sheet.

  “That’s not how I did my homework with Lisa,” Gemma complained. “I don’t know why you’re making me do this when I already told you I don’t know how.” She threw the pencil on the table and looked ready to cry.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Lisa always did the problems for me,” Gemma explained, her face mutinous. “She was my little helper, and she said that math wasn’t my subject but everyone knew I was smart. And that’s what you’re supposed to be too, my little helper. So why aren’t you helping me?”

  My jaw dropped.

  “I am helping you,” I cried, stung by the implication I wasn’t doing my job. “I’m showing you how to do the problems. Then I’ll check over everything you did to make sure it’s right.” My brain scrambled for another alternative Gemma would find more palatable. “Or, if you want, we can do the problems together. But if I just do them without you, how are you going to remember what to do on the test? Homework problems are supposed to help you prepare for tests and quizzes.”

  Gemma perked up in her seat. “Don’t worry about that; they always give us take-home tests. Lisa did those too. I have an A in math.”

  Take-home tests! How the hell was I supposed to handle this? I didn’t want to do all the work for her, but I didn’t want to lose a $150-an-hour job either.

  “Okay,” I said. “How about if I do the next problem for you, but you watch, and then when you think you know what’s going on, you take over. How’s that?”

  “Fine.” Gemma agreed. She twirled a strand of black hair around her finger and giggled.

  I reached for the pencil and got started on the next problem. Gemma reclined in her seat, math apparently forgotten.

  “Oh my gosh,” she gushed. “Did I tell you what happened after school today? You won’t believe it. Josh asked me out! As if I would ever go out with some guy whose father is a musician, even if he does have a bunch of Grammies … ”

  An hour later, I completed the math sheet—alone—and Gemma was still gushing.

  “ … Then Pam said we should get Josh to take us all out to the movies, that it would serve him right,” she prattled. “Though I think maybe Pam has a crush on him herself. Do you think?”

  I ventured a glance up from the sheet. I was nearly done re-checking the work.

  “You’re right,” Gemma continued. “She probably does like him. The nerve!”

  “Okay, Gemma,” I said, and cut off her monologue. Time to get back to serious business. “The math is finished. Do you have any other homework?”

  Gemma snapped her mouth shut. “No. That’s it.”

  “Great,” I got up from my seat. “Then we’re done.”

  “Oh, o … kay,” Gemma stammered. “I still haven’t told you about Anthony, but I guess you have to meet with Xander.” She followed me out of her bedroom. “Though, oh my gosh, Tekla! I completely forgot to tell you, Maman is coming back from L.A. this weekend! Isn’t that great? Maybe she’ll take me shopping, or we’ll go to dinner or something. If she has time, that is. What do you think?”

  I paused and looked back at Gemma. Mrs. Lamont was coming back to New York. That meant one thing.

  Julian was coming back with her.

  I grinned at Gemma, all annoyances forgotten.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe she will.”

  And maybe Julian will finally call me.

  THE WORDS, “HEY, TEKLA, how’re you doing,” greeted me as I walked into Xander’s room and headed for the desk.

  Except for a huge Pink Floyd poster plastered to the wall above the bed, the room was an exact replica of Gemma’s. Xander laid sprawled on the bed, strumming his electric guitar, a vintage 1960s red Gibson that must have cost a small fortune. Blessedly, the amplifier was off.

  “Hey, yourself. And I’m doing well,” I answered.

  Xander, like his sister, still wore his school uniform, but unlike Gemma’s micro-mini, Xander’s khaki slacks, red tie and navy blazer—with Harding Academy’s initials monogrammed in gold thread on the left breast pocket—bordered on Republican conservative. The getup, however, lost some of its starchiness on Xander’s lanky body. His tie was askew. The left tail of his white dress shirt hung down the front of his slacks, and Xander’s mop of black hair flowed over the blazer’s collar. The Prada loafers he probably wore to school had been abandoned by the bedroom’s door. A musky stink of socks permeated the room.

  “And how are you?” I asked, still disbelieving this was the same Xander I had met during Mrs. Lamont’s forced lunch.

  Xander’s attitude had undergone a complete one-eighty once I started coming regularly to his house. No longer a silent, sullen, difficult-to-talk-to teenager, Xander was friendly, if somewhat reserved. He actually talked to me, about school, his music and film aspirations. He asked about law school, my life outside NYU, and sometimes my views on social politics. He listened to my tirades against capital punishment, the inadequacy of funding for public education and economic disparities. He looked up current events and asked questions about the justice system or the gap between the rich and poor. He offered counter-arguments. He wasn’t as chatty as Gemma, but then, he actually did have homework for us to work on—in math, science or history—almost every evening.

  “Cool.”

  Xander stopped fiddling with the guitar, sat upright and rested the instrument against the bed’s edge. A bright red pimple fought to break through the skin of his cheek. He scratched at the surface. I winced. His hands couldn’t possibly be clean.

  “But, dude,” Xander said. “We got an English essay due next Wednesday.”

  I bit back a groan and momentarily shut my eyes. Not him too.

  It seemed today
was going to be filled with firsts, because although Xander had homework virtually every night, he never had to actually write more than a word for any particular assignment. All his homework questions were fill-ins, multiple choice or matching. I remembered Lisa had mentioned he needed extra “editing” with his writing. That warning couldn’t portend good things to come.

  “Really?” I said, pretending enthusiasm. Then I reached for a kitchen stool near the door. Xander must have brought it up just for me when he came in from school.

  I placed the stool near Xander’s chair and waited for him to take his seat. Then I sat—no, plopped—on mine. The stool barely measured above six inches. It was more of a footrest, really. Sitting, my knees reached my chin and my head hovered in the vicinity of Xander’s shoulder. I looked like Alice, trapped in the rabbit’s hole, both too large and too small. Xander chuckled at my predicament, his grin as wide as the Cheshire cat’s, but remained in his chair. He, unlike Gemma, never volunteered his seat for my benefit. I smiled back at the joke. Xander, clearly, liked being a prankster.

  “What’s it about?” I asked.

  “Originality in the creative world.”

  Xander leaned back in his chair and positioned his sock-clad feet, ankles crossed, on the desk right in front of my face.

  “Dude.” I parroted Xander’s favorite word, scrunched my nose and waved a hand to ward off the stink. Fun and games notwithstanding, I drew the line at smelly socks under my nose. “Get your stinky feet out of my face. And what about originality in the creative world?”

  “Sorry,” Xander grinned, clearly not at all sorry. He dropped his feet to the floor, pushed his chair away from the desk and rolled back towards the guitar. He reached for the instrument, placed it in his lap and began fiddling with the strings again. “Mr. Dandridge wants us to write about whether we think anything in, like, the arts or literature is original anymore. It has to be at least five hundred words. He made us start the essay in class today. I think the sheet is somewhere on the desk, if you want to look.”