Huh? I’d been inside the home for all of two minutes and was already confused.
Judy glanced back and gestured for me to follow her. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”
Passing from the kitchen through the formal dining room toward the living room, I stopped dead in my tracks. My God, my mother would die if she saw this. The photos hanging behind the elaborate wet bar looked like a spread in People magazine. Barbra Streisand, posing with Michael. There was Michael with Michael Caine, Michael and Judy with Tom Hanks, and Michael with Jane Fonda on the set of a movie. My mouth hung open as if I was a tourist.
I remembered that the personnel director at CAA had warned me that celebrities, such as Paul Newman, came over to the house frequently. She had asked me if I thought I could maintain my composure, and I had assured her I could. I closed my mouth. I vowed to stay silent, almost stoic, during my tour. I hoped I was projecting casually, I, too, live in a home where it is commonplace for Charlie Sheen to stop by for dinner.
“Susan, you can follow me this way,” she said, her voice snapping me back into the moment.
“Um, Mrs. Ovitz,” I said, gently touching her arm, “uh, it’s Suzy.”
So much for trying to be mature and use my full name, Suzanne. I thought I would be taken more seriously if my name didn’t conjure up the image of a ditzy cheerleader, but at least Suzy was my actual name.
As I followed her, I noticed that there was art on practically every wall. Perhaps not in the bathrooms or in the kitchen, but we moved so fast it was hard to tell. I had never seen so much art. She told me that there was even a gallery on the second floor above the family room. I didn’t recognize any of the artists, except one. It looked like a real Picasso.
The country bumpkin inside me was screaming, I have never been in a house like this! My friends lived in homes with fake fur covering the toilet seats and blue water in the toilet bowl. A nice kitchen boasted plenty of frozen pizzas, Kool-Aid, and Cheetos. The only art collection I had seen up to that point in my life belonged to my friend Missy’s dad. His John Wayne memorabilia filled their entire family room. I think his spittoon even had the Duke’s picture on it.
“As you can probably see, Michael is one of the foremost art collectors in the country,” Judy said, picking up one of the small animal ceramics and holding it up to the light. “Michael got this in Africa. Have you ever been on a safari, Suzy?”
Oh, sure. Two of my friends can’t even get cable television because their houses are on gravel roads too far away from the main highway. But we frequently jet off to the African savannah.
It wasn’t until much later that I would see this question as an early warning sign I hadn’t heeded. It was the first evidence that the wealthy and famous, at least this wealthy and famous, didn’t have a clue about how the rest of the world lives.
As the guided tour continued, we passed a young Hispanic woman in a starched white uniform. She and I exchanged smiles, but there was no introduction. Judy rattled off the schedules of the entire staff and added that I would have Saturdays and Sundays off. How many people did it take to manage this house? I’d seen at least six so far.
She took me upstairs to show me the room I’d be staying in. Located between the children’s rooms, it was spacious and neat, with twin beds covered in matching peach-colored bedspreads. The cream-colored carpet had suffered quite a bit of wear and tear from live-in employees, but the room had its own TV. Even better, its own bath! At home, my two sisters and I had shared one bathroom. This was heaven.
In the midst of my glee, Judy asked me to come back to the living room for a talk. She began asking questions about my family and, in particular, about my mother, since Judy knew she had flown into town with me.
Then she insisted upon meeting my mother.
I stared at her, perplexed. Was that necessary? I was almost nineteen years old. I was grown-up enough to pick a job on my own. Did she want to gauge me better by viewing my mom? I felt a little like a foal that was being purchased—and the buyer wanted to check the teeth of the mare.
After a stilted exchange in which I explained that I wasn’t going to get my mommy and bring her back for this job interview, she ushered me into the room of Brandon, her newborn baby. As we walked in, Michael was telling his son Joshua to leave the baby alone. Apparently, the six-year-old was trying to pick his baby brother up out of the crib. Next to Michael stood three-year-old Amanda. These children could have modeled on magazine covers. They were gorgeous, just like their mother. Josh was very blond, almost a towhead, and Amanda had long beautiful hair, a perfect natural mix of blond and brown—the color women all over LA paid hundreds of dollars trying to duplicate.
“Joshua, I’m not going to tell you again,” Mr. Ovitz said. “Put the baby down and meet Suzy.” Joshua turned, shot me a disinterested look, and once again started to reach into the crib.
“Amanda, this is Suzy,” Judy said. “We think she’s going to be your new nanny.” She’s still thinking about it? I guessed my final test was to win the approval of the kids.
“Hi, Amanda,” I offered. She smiled shyly as she hid halfway behind her mother. “Hello, Amanda,” I said again, peeking around Judy. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Okay, on a scale of one to ten, I just scored a 5.5. Maybe. My last chance would be with the baby. I walked up to the crib.
He was the most adorable human being I’d ever seen. Despite the fact that his brother had been antagonizing him, he was attempting a grin and was gurgling happily. I reached down, picked him up, and cradled him in my arms. He fit perfectly. Bliss.
This was clearly my ideal family; a newborn baby to care for, a busy household with three children, and a full-time housekeeper.
“He’s absolutely adorable,” I said as I turned and faced Joshua. “Here, Joshua, sit in the rocking chair. This is how to hold your brother.” I gently placed the baby into his arms. “Make sure you always cradle his head like this.” I tucked a pillow under the arm that propped up Brandon.
Michael and Judy stood back, watching. They seemed pleased. Finally, Judy said, “Do you have any questions?”
My mind went blank. Blank. Blank.
“How do you feel about spanking?” I finally blurted out. What did I just say?
There was an awkward moment of silence, and then Michael said in a loud voice, “Oh yeah, I beat them all regularly.” Then he let out a quick laugh.
Oh God. I’d meant to say something like, It’s just that I don’t want to work for a family that uses spanking as a punishment. I don’t agree with it.
But I didn’t say that. I didn’t ask about what discipline strategies they did use with the children. If any.
And I certainly didn’t ask about a contract, how many hours I would work each day, what I would be responsible for, or how I would be compensated for overtime. I didn’t even ask if I would be offered health insurance.
I didn’t ask anything.
Looking back, they must have thought I was more than a little naive when that was the only question I could come up with. But it probably wasn’t an oversight that they didn’t mention a contract, either. I fit the part that they were casting perfectly. I was a trusting, small-town girl whose only concern was for the well-being of their children. Money, working conditions, who cared? After all, when you have servants, it’s nice to believe that they work for you mainly out of a desire to devote themselves to your comfort. It removes any pressure for equality or respect.
Michael said they would like to hire me right away. He wanted to know how long I planned on staying with them, and I told them I could commit to two years. They seemed happy with that. Michael told me he didn’t like turnover because of the impact on the kids. Their cook had been with them for seven years, and he hoped she would stay forever. I was really glad that he realized how hard it must be on his children to have people come in and out of their lives. I didn’t stop to think that there might be a bit more to the story of the cook’s tenure. Judy ment
ioned that their last nanny was a young girl who decided after two months that she just wasn’t cut out for the job, but I didn’t let that bother me, either.
Michael told me to call his office when I got home, and they would make arrangements for my flight back. What a nice offer. I was so pleased with the position I had found. Going to Northwest Nannies Institute was such a great idea—all of the classes had really assisted me in becoming a “professional.”
I had so much to learn.
I don’t think many people really have an understanding of what it’s like to be a working mother and not have the money to pay for the child care you want. I’m not a role model. I’m a very, very rich woman who has the luxury of endless supplies of help.
—Rosie O’Donnell
chapter 3
small town girl
Perhaps I need to back up a bit. Just a year earlier, I’d had no post–high school plans. My entire existence had transpired quite peacefully and uneventfully in Cottage Grove, a town tucked away in a remote corner of Oregon where the highlight of a typical resident’s week was bingo at the Elks Lodge with a $250 pot. The best way to picture Cottage Grove is to imagine a cross between Dodge City in the 1800s and Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show. It was a place where almost every young boy dreamed of owning a four-wheel-drive truck with a rifle in the gun rack, and most of the girls hoped for a boyfriend who fit that description. When we finally got our first fast-food restaurant, there was so much excitement that six hundred residents showed up at the school gymnasium to compete for a position that would have them saying, “Would you like to supersize your meal today?”
I didn’t want to pursue that line of work, but what to do? Where to go?
Graduation day was looming. Some of my friends had busily applied to various colleges over the past year. I had been at my best friend Kristi’s house when she filled out the paperwork for her father’s alma mater, Stanford. I had just hoped to God her parents wouldn’t ask me where I was going, because I hadn’t applied to any colleges, much less “the Harvard of the West.” Fortunately, they didn’t ask me about my plans. I think it was just understood that it was a topic better left untouched, given my pretty much total lack of interest in academics. You might say I had pursued a degree in social studies.
My high school experience had, unfortunately, pinnacled with my election as homecoming princess of the sophomore class. My grades were always fine (that wasn’t so difficult) and the times I lugged any homework home were few and far between. But keeping up on who was dating whom was my greatest motivation to go to school every morning. I was considered the go- to girl for any and all dish at Cottage Grove High. Great fun, but not exactly a college prep course load.
I began to rack my brain for career ideas. Nothing. My guidance counselor, luckily, noticed that I hadn’t signed up to take any college entrance exams and handed me an application to a nanny-training program in Portland, the big city, almost 150 miles away. Nanny school sounded like the perfect plan—why hadn’t I thought of it? I had been babysitting since the age of nine and had worked for several families for years. I loved being with children. I’d be like Mary Poppins. Northwest Nannies Institute, my counselor explained, had just opened and was one of only a handful of nanny-training schools in the country. I took it as a good omen that it was located so close to me.
Along with the application and a small processing fee, NNI asked for three letters of recommendation, which I easily provided from families for whom I’d been working for half my life. They also requested an essay entitled “Why I Want to Be a Nanny.” That was a breeze—suddenly I was bursting with lofty aspirations, eager to provide the privileged toddlers of the world with the most devoted and loving attention. Besides, the tuition was reasonable, and my parents were more than happy to pay for my four months of “higher education.”
A fat letter arrived in our family mailbox in April. The envelope bore a rich gold logo embossed in the upper left corner. NNI. I stared at it for a moment. I sounded out the initials in my best upper-class British accent—“ehn, ehn, eye.”
“Congratulations,” the enclosed letter began. “Your application has been accepted. You have been selected to attend the Northwest Nannies Institute as a fall enrollee.”
I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I’d been a bit worried about the criminal background check. No, no felonies, just a dismal driving record, which they were fortunately willing to overlook. My rap sheet included four speeding tickets in the two short years I’d been licensed to drive. Okay, it was actually five citations, but they removed one from my record because I attended an all-day driver’s safety course. That had been quite an eye-opener. As the members of my class of multiple offenders introduced themselves, I realized that I was the only student in the room who didn’t have a prison record. After class, the teacher reviewed my poor driving history. She said she had never before counseled a teenage girl who had good grades and was on the rally squad. Unlike the other lead-foots there, she told me gravely, my chances for eventual life success were as high as fifty-fifty.
Surely she was kidding, but if she had known about the institute, I knew she’d have rated my chances a lot higher.
Just the thought of attending a school that looked like Harvard or Yale intrigued me. The elite training would certainly launch me into a different life, working for a well-to-do family with adorable children. My ever-positive mom caught my feeling of excitement and put her Cottage Grove spin on it. “Just think, Suzy, you’ll probably live in a mansion, just like Pamela Ewing on Dallas!” She was sure that my down-to-earth influence would even spare my future employers some of the grief that had so fascinated her during the show’s run.
On the last day of school, Kristi and I passed by a large piece of butcher paper posted in the hallway:
SENIORS
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AFTER GRADUATION?
BEN BANGS Colorado State
CRAIG JENKINS Drink beer all summer, then go to Southern Oregon State College
DREW BIRDSEYE Play drums for a heavy metal band
SHAUNNA GRIGGS Pacific University
SCOTT CATES Go water-skiing
ALAN GATES Drive the boat that Scott is skiing behind
TAMI THOMPSON Move as far away from this town as possible
JENNY HECKMAN Beauty college
MISSY CHAMBERS Work at the Hard Rock Cafe
AMY MCCARTY Follow Ozzy around on tour
KRISTI KEMP University of Oregon (Go Ducks!)
SUZY HANSEN NNI
NNI. That sounded dignified and respectable. I prayed no one would ask me what the letters stood for. I hoped they would think it was a small college in Northern Nebraska. Or maybe the National Neuropathy Institute? I’m not sure why I cared about what other people thought, since my hometown had a low percentage of college-bound seniors, anyway. I just didn’t want my career plans to seem like a joke to my fellow classmates, sophisticated bunch that we were.
At the end of the summer, I packed my bags and bid my parents a tearful good-bye as I waved from my little Toyota. Roots ran deep here, and many of the kids in my graduating class had attended nursery school with me. I had never been away from home for any extended period of time. A hundred and fifty miles was beginning to feel like fifteen hundred.
I followed my directions to the home of the family that NNI had arranged for me to stay with. They were welcoming, but that first night I barely slept; skittish butterflies danced in my stomach. It felt just like my first day of school in fourth grade when I had carefully laid out my new school supplies alongside my Wonder Woman lunch pail.
The drive to the institute early the next morning took less than twenty minutes. First I passed through the heart of the financial district with all of its imposing, shiny new buildings, then through a part of town with shorter and older buildings, and finally to an area that looked decidedly underwhelming. Maybe I was lost. Perhaps I had to go through this area to get to where the stately institute lorded over the lush countr
yside. I unfolded the map again, checked the address on the letterhead, and continued to scour the numbers on the sides of the buildings. There must be some mistake. Where in the middle of all this concrete was my beloved institute?
I reached the cross street that appeared in my directions, slowing down to peer at a strip mall that resembled prison barracks. In the middle of the block stood a two-story stucco building, which I can best describe in architectural terms as one long beige box stacked on top of another. It was surrounded by a 7-Eleven (which looked like it might have been the very first one in the franchise), a “beauty” parlor, a shabby dry cleaner, and a low-rent Chinese takeout place.
Clearly I must have mixed up the directions. Maybe I’d read the address wrong? A hundred thoughts raced through my mind as I pulled NNI’s letter out of my purse one more time. Aha! Maybe I was on the northeast side of Portland by mistake, not the northwest. But no. To my dismay, I read the address, 2332 Northwest Broadway, on the letterhead, then turned to the identical tarnished brass numbers on the side of the building.
I desperately wanted to turn my car around and drive straight back to Cottage Grove. (Well within the speed limit, of course.)
But I had come this far; the least I could do was investigate a little further. After all, I told myself, I could always go home and enroll in dental hygiene school. I had considered this once, until my mother commented that she thought it would be gross to look in peoples’ mouths all day. If she couldn’t see the good in it, I reasoned it must be terrible. Yet, suddenly, a career in dental decay was looking more appealing—and there would always be plenty of business in my hometown, because most of the men never left the house without a big wad of chewing tobacco and a chew cup.
I began to climb the concrete steps to the second story, and all my earlier excitement drained away. At that moment I could not possibly have imagined that in four short months I would be flying to Los Angeles, going on interviews with some of the wealthiest people in the country, and becoming the highest-paid nanny to graduate from NNI.
You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny Page 4