I was okay. I still had a face. And I had forty-three cents left to my name.
Simina was right. When I got home, I noticed my skin was tender but not as bad as I expected, given the burning sensation I’d experienced. What I didn’t know was that the chemical was supposed to penetrate the first two layers of skin. I might have rethought that $190 expenditure had I realized that little fact. I had been expecting moisturizing and toning, certainly not second-degree burns. She had given me a special lotion to use once in the morning and once at bedtime to ease the discomfort. It must’ve been pure Novocain, though, because after I smoothed it on, my entire head went numb, and I began slurring my speech. I decided to use it only at bedtime.
The next day, Grandma Ovitz happened to be visiting. She remarked on the nice pink glow I had, asking if I’d enjoyed my facial. I told her yes, it had been quite an experience and left it at that. On the second day when I woke up and faced the morning mirror, I jumped back in horror. My entire face was peeling more dramatically than the worst sunburn I’d ever had. I looked like I’d survived a fire. By that night, I was shedding complete layers of skin, like a rattlesnake in August.
I couldn’t keep my hands from peeling it away in large sheets. Underneath lay yet another layer of hot red skin just waiting to dry out and scale away like the previous layer. I began to panic. It didn’t help matters when Judy told me I looked like I’d just escaped from a leper colony. Terrified, that afternoon I drove back to the salon and approached Simina.
“Oh my God, Miss Sue-zah-na. You have touched your face, haven’t you? You’re not supposed to pick at it,” she said, as if it was my fault that my entire face was molting. How could I not peel it? It itched terribly and for the most part fell away on its own, anyway. I just wanted to keep the flakes off my clothes and off the furniture. Simina had no further advice other than to keep using the lotion and keep my hands off my face. I slunk home feeling defeated. How did people in LA look so put together all the time?
Skin-peel fiasco!
It’s now the fourth day, and my skin is still very blotchy, something like a Guernsey cowhide. I had no idea it would take so long for all these layers to slough off. It seems like the lady could have given me just a tad more info on what to expect. I know they say you have to suffer for beauty, but the ratio of torture to aesthetic enhancement is pretty steep here, not counting the humiliation factor.
And to top it off, Judy informed me that she was considering getting a facial, but now never plans to make an appointment at that salon if there’s any chance she’ll turn out looking like me.
Note to self: Get more information before allowing anyone to paint me with a chemical you can buy at a local auto-supply store.
I’d had enough adventure for the time being, so I wasn’t too sorry when Michael and Judy decided to go away the next weekend. Grandma and Grandpa Ovitz came to stay and help out as they generally did when the kids’ parents left town, just in case of an emergency. That Saturday evening, we had one.
Earlier in the day it became clear that Brandon felt sick, and by nine o’clock that night his temperature had skyrocketed to 104.2 degrees. I hadn’t seen many fevers that high before, and Grandma Ovitz and I decided we needed to call the pediatrician’s office. The on-call doctor told me to bring the baby straight to the emergency room, and he would meet me there. Grandma stayed at home with Joshua and Amanda while Grandpa drove Brandon and me to the hospital. (I wondered if Grandpa was remembering our last trip to the ER. Thank goodness my head had healed.) Brandon was burning up, but oddly enough, he smiled and cooed at me. When we got to the ER, the doctor was just arriving and was busy helping find a seat for a woman who appeared to be straight off the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. He looked about Doogie Howser’s age, and I could hardly contain my irrational rage. Focus, buddy! On the baby, not that Victoria’s Secret model, who I might add is probably just dating you because she thinks you’re worth big bucks.
The doctor ushered us into a small examining room and took Brandon from me. He felt the glands in Brandon’s neck and forehead, and then felt the top of his head. “Here,” he said, “feel this.” He put my hand on the top of Brandon’s head, over the soft spot that every baby has.
“Is this normal?” he asked.
“No, no, of course not,” I answered. Brandon’s soft spot was bulging right out of his skull, though Brandon just kept smiling.
I was screaming inside. He was a doctor, and he was asking me? Did this clown just get out of medical school? We needed answers!
But then the doctor said that he was very concerned, and I started to get scared.
“He may have meningitis,” he said.
I knew that was a serious infection that involved the brain. Grandpa Ovitz and I stared at each other in fear and disbelief.
What should we do? What should we do? I felt very shaky.
“I’ve got to make a call,” the doctor said. I felt reassured that he was consulting with someone more experienced. He picked up the telephone, and Grandpa Ovitz and I listened intently. Apparently, this young doctor was just starting in the practice with the older pediatrician, the children’s regular doctor, whom I had met previously.
“Yes, Brandon Ovitz,” he replied. “No, you don’t have to come down here; I can handle it. Okay, if you insist, all right, good-bye.”
When the older doctor arrived, I began to relax a little. He must’ve seen cases like this before. But then right away he said, “This baby isn’t sick. Look at how happy he is.”
What? No!
The younger doctor disagreed with his mentor, and I felt my loyalties switch quickly back to him. How long has this old guy been around? When’s the last time he had a refresher course?
“I want to do a spinal tap,” the young doctor blurted out.
“Are you kidding? You know whose child this is, don’t you?” the older doctor responded.
“Yes, that’s why I want to call them right now and get permission.”
“They’re on vacation,” I said. “But I’ve got an emergency number.”
That’s when Grandpa Ovitz stepped in. “I’ll call Michael. Everyone just stand by.” After Grandpa talked to Michael, he handed the phone to the young doctor.
“Yes, Mr. Ovitz,” he said. “Yes, that’s right. I want to do a spinal tap, and I need your permission.” Silence for a second. Michael must have sensed how young the doctor was. “Well, uh, yes, Mr. Ovitz. Uh, me personally, I’ve done a hundred of them.” Then he handed the phone to me. Michael asked me for my opinion. What did I know about meningitis? I just told Michael that it didn’t look normal, that his soft spot was very swollen and that I’d never seen it like that.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can. We’ll try to get a plane out tonight,” Michael said. With that, the young doctor took Brandon down the hall. He brought along an assistant, who would be holding Brandon down while they put a needle into his back.
“It’s all in the holding down,” Doogie Howser explained. I pictured little Brandon stretched out under glaring lights while a young girl pressed down his tiny arms and legs and the doctor plunged a needle into his spine. I wanted to be there to soothe him and hold him. I tried to follow along but the assistant turned me back. I felt so bad for Brandon that I was getting a little nauseous.
Grandpa Ovitz and I fretted in the waiting room together. After we had been there about twenty minutes, the assistant came out and advised me to check on the other two children. “Have them touch their chins to their chests,” she warned. “If it’s painful or stiff, they may have the same thing.”
Worry threatened to overwhelm me. By then it was nearly 11 P.M. Carmen picked up the phone right away. “I can’t wake them up,” she said when I told her what to do. “It’s the middle of the night. It will be terrible.” She and I both knew that Amanda would scream for hours after being woken from a sound sleep in the middle of the night. “Please, Carmen, just do it. This is serious,” I told her. I call
ed back in ten minutes. Over Amanda’s wailing in the background, I heard Carmen saying they could move their heads just fine, with no pain.
After another ten minutes, a nurse came out carrying Brandon, and my heart did a tilt-a-whirl. He wasn’t smiling anymore and clearly had been crying a lot. He was stretching his arms out to me from all the way across the room. He needed me. He wanted me. I started to cry.
I crossed the room toward him and the nurse said, “No, no. We’re not done yet. He was crying and I wanted to bring him out here to let him know you were still here. We have some more tests to do, and the doctor wants to admit him.” And with that, she walked back through the swinging doors with Brandon’s cries echoing behind her. I tried to pull myself together as I sat in a heap, my face in my hands and Grandpa Ovitz’s arm around me.
I decided to call my old friend Mandie from nanny school. I’d probably be waking her up in Montana, but I really needed to hear a friendly voice. She did her best to reassure me that everything would turn out all right.
Grandpa Ovitz and I waited for what seemed like hours until another nurse came and escorted us to the children’s ICU ward. When we walked in, Brandon’s foot was all bandaged up with IV tubing, and he was lying in a horrible, cold, cagelike steel crib. The poor, sweet little guy. I asked if I could hold him, and they said yes, as long as I was careful with the IV line.
By then it was way past midnight, and I told Grandpa Ovitz to go home and wait for Michael and Judy; I would stay the night. I couldn’t stand the thought of little Brandon being alone in that awful place, in that awful crib, even if he fell asleep, which he didn’t do for another two hours. I held him on my lap with his chest on mine for the rest of the night.
I woke up at five in the morning, stiff from scrunching up in a chair like a cat curled on a small stool. I think I’d slept a couple of hours. Brandon was still sleeping on me when his parents arrived around eight o’clock. Judy rushed up to me and kneeled down in front of my chair, taking Brandon from my arms. I felt so bad for her because Brandon immediately squirmed around and began crying and reaching for me. Judy looked into my eyes with an expression I’d never seen on her face and gently handed him to me.
I wanted to cry all over again.
“Oh look, he wants Suzy,” she said quietly to Michael. “Why don’t you go home, Suzy. It’s been a long night, and we can stay with him now.” Her voice was gentle.
I rested my cheek on Brandon’s soft hair and cradled him against me until he stopped whimpering. When I looked up, she was still looking at us with soft eyes. In that moment, a wave of genuine compassion and empathy filled the space between us. And it came from both directions.
Although I did not want to leave him, I knew I needed a break. I went home and slept most of the day. Judy said Carmen and Delma could watch the kids, and I was grateful. I had a new appreciation for being in my own bed. When I called the hospital and checked in around 5 P.M., Judy said they hadn’t gotten the test results back yet and that she had hired a private duty nurse to come in and take care of Brandon. My heart sank when she said that he had been crying a lot because he wasn’t used to the nurse.
The next morning when I returned to the hospital, I finally heard some good news: the test results showed that Brandon did not have viral meningitis, only a bacterial infection. His temperature had gone back down to 99 degrees, and they were getting ready to discharge him.
When I got home, there was a large bouquet of beautiful flowers sitting on the foyer table with a card addressed to me. I opened it immediately. It was from Mandie.
Dear Suzy,
I am thinking of both of you. I know how much the children mean to you. I hope Brandon is okay, and I hope you’re holding up.
Love, Mandie
For about the fourth time in two days I broke down in tears. At about that moment, Michael came in and saw me sitting at the foot of the stairs, holding the flowers in my hands.
“Who are the flowers from?” he asked nonchalantly.
“From my friend Mandie.” I sniffed.
“What for?” His face showed no emotion.
“Because I’ve been having a hard time about Brandon,” I mumbled. I was actually a little embarrassed that I was so upset and he seemed to be taking it in stride.
Michael continued to look at me blankly.
Hello! This was traumatic for me! I wanted to shout. Didn’t he get it? I loved his son. I couldn’t believe he didn’t know that this was difficult and that I had been very scared.
But he didn’t seem to understand. He paid me to take care of his kids but not to fall in love with them.
I did that on my own.
I’m very hands-on. It’s important to me that my kids know that I’m their mommy and the nanny isn’t.
—Toni Braxton
chapter 9
beauty shop
I’d been working for only a few days when Judy had commented, “I hate it when the baby wants to go to the nanny instead of me.” In the ensuing months, though, I saw that she managed to let this go. It seemed so sad to me that Judy accepted such events as the price one had to pay for having a nanny. She must have believed she had to give up some of the joys of motherhood just because she had the resources to hire help.
But some things she didn’t want to give up. One morning I was feeding Brandon rice cereal after the older kids had gone to school. Judy walked in, took one long glare, hands on hips, and said, “What are you doing?”
I attempted an answer. “Uh, I’m feeding—”
“Don’t you think I should be informed that he is eating solid foods?”
I swallowed. “Um, when we were at the pediatrician’s office the doctor said Brandon could start on rice cereal mixed with formula.”
“Well, whatever. I am the one that should be feeding him his first bite.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, handing her the plastic bowl and baby spoon. I was scared to tell her that I’d been following the pediatrician’s orders for the past two weeks. Didn’t she already know that? But she was right, a mother should be the one to give her child the first bite. I left the kitchen silently, feeling incredibly awkward, and went upstairs to change Brandon’s crib sheets.
When I came down the stairs with a basket of dirty laundry, I saw Judy’s Mercedes leave the driveway. I walked into the kitchen and found Carmen wiping cereal from Brandon’s face.
Did Judy feel left out of Brandon’s daily schedule? I didn’t know what to do. I knew she wanted to be involved in Brandon’s life, but I had always been responsible for feeding him. Maybe I didn’t see my job description the same way my employer did.
I sure could have used a Standard Operating Procedures manual.
I knew that Amanda and Joshua, like many other children with live-in nannies, had already experienced their fair share of caretakers before I arrived on the scene—the image of Leticia waiting in front of the gate flashed in my mind. By the time I joined the household, they had learned to protect their feelings: they didn’t want to lose another friend, so they did their best not to make one. But I hadn’t been prepared for them to treat the time they spent with me like a dentist visit. The kids I babysat in Oregon had seen it more like a trip to a toy store.
I knew Joshua and Amanda could be affectionate; I had seen their excitement when Kristi visited. Once I decided to kill two birds with one stone—I tried to emphasize the fun in making new friends like Kristi by getting the kids involved in an after-school activity. As a babysitter, games and art projects were my stock in trade, but I had found it hard to entice these kids away from the TV and the huge selection of videos. I set up the table in the family room with construction paper, glue, and glitter. They designed cards for Kristi while I wrote their words down in a letter. Despite a few skirmishes over the glitter, they had a great time. Josh loved to make rainbows, and Amanda lost herself in the glue sticks.
It wasn’t unprecedented for Amanda to have such fun. Sometimes we got along famously, dressing up in costum
es as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or princesses and doing silly dances to Raffi tunes. We played “telephone” and “baby” and “guess what I think.” She was an adorable moppet. But often, right in the midst of our fun, some tiny thing would set her off. She wanted the kind of crackers she’d had at school; she wanted to watch Cinderella instead of playing on the swings; she couldn’t find her Malibu Barbie. She would then scream and wail and throw things, both hers and mine, long past the point of exhaustion.
One day Amanda spun out of control because her mommy was leaving. She flew out of the house after her mother, kicking and screaming. She was three; she knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t getting it. There was no end to her frustration and fury. She screamed, she kicked, she cried huge gulping sobs. I started to carry her to her room, but she wiggled right out of my arms and almost fell down the stairs. I think she was scared that she wasn’t able to control her angry little body, and neither could I. So we just stopped there on the steps, and she sobbed more quietly. I finally sat down below her and looked up at her sad, wet face.
“Amanda, I am so sorry you’re upset and having such a hard time,” I told her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, for the very first time, and plopped her heaving body onto my lap.
A turning point? I hoped so. Amanda soon announced that she wished I was her mommy. I could have taken it as a sweet compliment if it hadn’t been during dinner when her actual mother was sitting next to me. I was mortified, and I figured Judy was, too. It was bad enough that Judy thought Brandon preferred me, but Amanda had actually said it out loud. NNI hadn’t provided a script for this situation. The best thing I could come up with was, “Oh, honey, I’m too young to be your mommy.”
You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny Page 11