You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny

by Suzanne Hansen

  I began to worry that I’d be staring at that toilet paper for the duration of the flight—my stomach was doing loops the whole time we were in the air. I wasn’t feeling well, at all, but I managed to keep it together on the plane. After we landed, despite my nausea, I helped to load the more than twenty pieces of luggage back into the limo and then unload it at the Eisners’ house. But then I started to feel clammy, and queasiness rolled over me like a tidal wave. I chalked it up to the flight and told myself it would go away shortly if I could just make it to a chair to sit down for a few minutes. But by the time everyone was inside the house, I knew there was something much worse going on. This was not going away. I realized that in addition to starting a menstrual meltdown of nuclear proportions, I must have picked up some sort of flu.

  I stumbled into the bedroom that Brandon and I had been assigned, but it was only a minute before I heard my name being called. When I emerged, Mr. Eisner and his mother were standing in the hall, and they both did a double take when they saw me. My face shone white as a sheet, and I was sweating profusely.

  “My goodness, Suzy, you look awful. Are you okay?” Mrs. Eisner asked.

  “You should lie down,” her son said. I started to answer them when I saw Judy standing in the hallway with a confused expression on her face that said, What are you talking about? I didn’t notice anything wrong with her.

  I quickly went into the bathroom and locked the door, and I overheard Judy complaining about the less-than-pristine conditions of their quarters. The place was a sprawling, indifferently decorated, semirustic vacation home. It was a relaxed place, for kids and dogs and skiing—the kind of environment that seemed to make this very controlled family ill at ease.

  But even that couldn’t distract me very much, and within seconds I was lying on the freezing tile floor in the fetal position. I knew Judy didn’t have time for me to be sick, and I figured her denial autopilot was kicking in. She was just like her husband in that way; sometimes she didn’t seem to have a lot of sympathy for her employees. I could just hear her: We didn’t come all the way to Aspen to have to adjust our fun to the physical limitations of the help. I heard Michael in the hall loudly asking, “Where’s Suzy? Where’s Suzy? We’ve got to get going.” I was in so much pain that I couldn’t muster the strength to answer. I knew Brandon was asleep in his crib. If they’d just leave, I could go lie down in bed and I might recover. I was in too much pain to muster up a response. I just kept silently wishing they would go away: Leave, leave, leave. Please, just let me recover in peace.

  “Where’s Suzy?” I could still hear him shouting on the other side of the door with the kids answering in unison, “I don’t know, Dad. Let’s go!”

  Finally, mercifully, I heard the front door open and close. The house grew empty and silent. When I did manage to grab the doorknob and pull myself to my feet, I found that everyone had left—except for Brandon, who was lying in his crib, quietly playing with his feet. Had they really all just left without knowing where I was? Why didn’t they take the baby with them? What if I was seriously sick and couldn’t watch him?

  Then it hit me. They really didn’t notice me enough to see that I might have my own needs. I felt very, very alone.

  By the next night, whatever disease I had contracted had passed through me like a bad winter storm. The cramps kept me company for the next two days, but I could cope with that. Once I emerged from my room, I discovered that people were scattered all around the enormous house. The Eisners’ oldest son was in the kitchen with his girlfriend. She was an heiress to some famous fortune and was more self-absorbed and aloof than anyone I’d ever met. I don’t think she uttered more than a few words during the entire trip that didn’t have some reference to her family’s wealth. I had to give her credit for coming up with inventive ways to squeeze in references to her financial stature, regardless of the topic: the snowfall outside, her night’s sleep, the way she salted her potatoes. Hers was a most unusual talent, honed to an impressive degree. All right, I couldn’t stand her.

  On our third evening in Aspen, the entourage traveled to Goldie Hawn’s house for dinner. Brandon and I stayed home since they would be out late. The Eisners’ nanny stayed home, too. He seemed like a nice enough guy, short and fairly quiet. But I had met very few male nannies—mannies?—and I was more than a little intrigued by him.

  After making polite conversation for a short time, I sheepishly asked, “Uh, can I get your opinion on something?”

  “What’s that?” He looked curious. Maybe he was warming up.

  “Judy suggested that I could date the oldest Eisner,” I said, embarrassed as the words tumbled out.

  Paul busted up laughing.

  It wasn’t that funny.

  “Now wait a minute, Paul,” I blurted in self-defense.

  “No, no. I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just that we nannies are at the lowest level in the pecking order. In fact, I don’t know if we’re actually in the order. There is no way in the world that an Eisner would date a nanny. Just wouldn’t happen. They don’t mix with the hired help.” Then he stood up and left the room, laughing to himself.

  Obviously, I still had more to learn about the social ladder of the wealthy. But maybe Judy did, too. I thought she had actually been sincere in her suggestion, which she had mentioned to me twice. Maybe she meant it as a compliment to me? Or maybe it just seemed like he and I were close in age, and she hadn’t even considered the other dimension. I had always thought Judy had an air of slight awkwardness about social status and wondered how comfortable she really was with her wealth. I’m sure she never thought, growing up, that she would be married to a man worth millions. Maybe she thought it was just a fluke, something that even a nobody like me could blunder into.

  The conversation with Paul put voice to some feelings that had already been brewing. Being treated like I was invisible much of the time was beginning to take a toll. I was getting more and more attached to the children, but the way our relationship was structured made things confusing for both them and me. The subtle communication—the one that Joshua was already picking up—was that I cared for them because I was paid to. It didn’t matter that my love and affection for them was authentic. I was beginning to see that the wealthy saw the position of nanny as one that was decidedly low status and easily replaceable.

  Paul was right. I’m just the hired help. Even if I’m ten times more attractive and fun than Miss Prissy, it doesn’t matter. I’m simply not in the same league. I’m not even playing the same sport to be able to join the league. My problem is that I don’t like hearing the truth. Paul was just trying to tell me what my “place” was. He seems to have accepted his role in the Eisners’ family. Something weird he shared was that Mrs. Eisner seemed to have the standard practice of asking every guy she interviewed if he was gay. The nanny before Paul had warned him about this and had suggested he “not take it personally.” I’ve decided to apply that logic to my situation. I just have to keep reminding myself that my employers aren’t my friends and that it’s not personal. Why am I complaining? I’m working in the job of my choosing, and I’m being paid better than most nannies: Buck up, Suzanne! And scrounge around for some Advil in the medicine cabinet.

  Michael was the only one who was actually going to ski the next day, but we all traipsed out to the slopes and took the gondola ride to the top. There at the summit stood a man taking family pictures of everyone in their colorful and expensive ski gear. Judy approached him and discussed the price of a group photo. When she returned, she asked if I could wait over on the side while they had their picture taken. She said they wanted “just family” in the picture.

  “Yes, of course,” I answered, mentally rolling my eyes. Yes, I understand that you do not want the nanny in your family photo album.

  Then they all started taking off their ski jackets and caps and piling them on me to hold. “Suzy, I’m glad you’re here,” Judy said as she walked toward the photographer.
“You make a good coat rack.”

  The whole trip made me feel like the Griswolds’ Aunt Edna in Vacation, strapped to the top of the family truckster on the way to Wally World. When we finally got back home, I immediately talked to Mandie, who had just returned from a trip to New York with the Goldbergs. She said some guy named David Geffen and his friend Carrie Fisher had been with them on the plane. She recognized Fisher as Princess Leia from Star Wars but didn’t have a clue who the guy was. She had him pegged as some sort of record producer. He spent time chatting with her about the kids and turned out to be quite nice, so we both surmised that he couldn’t possibly have been anyone very important. Bigwigs don’t waste their time visiting with nannies.

  Leave it to the girls from the country to be wrong again. We didn’t recognize the name of Geffen, the biggest music mogul of our time.

  Mandie’s trips were always more eventful than mine. Her family was friends with Kurt and Goldie, too—she’d flown with them once back from New York. She described them as surprisingly normal. While they were flying, Kurt made sandwiches for the kids, and Goldie led sing-alongs for everyone. I tried to imagine Michael asking everyone on the plane, “Did you want mayonnaise (without hydrogenated oils, of course) on your sandwich?” and then Judy breaking into a round of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Imported Beer on the Wall.”

  Somehow, I just couldn’t see it.

  I hope I’m not failing as a parent in order to be a professional woman. It’s a very difficult balance, but it’s something I am fighting for.

  —Uma Thurman

  chapter 11

  LA confidential

  I found it pathetic that Mandie and I never had a shortage of tales from the cribs.

  “Wait. Before you start, I have a question,” she said one night.

  “Shoot. What is it?”

  “You had to put in your own phone line in your bedroom, right?”

  “Uh-huh; it’s separate from the four lines on their phone,” I reminded her.

  “Well, when I moved in, Mrs. Goldberg said I didn’t need to install my own phone, that I could just use hers. So now at the end of every month she goes through and marks all the calls that are mine so I can pay her back. The problem is, she makes these little comments when we settle up, like ‘You talked to someone for an hour and a half.’ ”

  “Why don’t you tell her, ‘Yes, I did. I like to have contact with the outside world’ ”? I asked. “Are you saying that she goes through your bill and highlights all your calls? Bet those 5 minute calls to Missoula really set the missus back. What does she say? There’s one for 43 cents.… Oops there is another one, Bozeman, Montana.… Oh, here’s a real whopper: $6.28 to Helena. Glad I caught that one.”

  Mandie interrupted me. “I am not kidding.”

  I couldn’t hold myself back. “All righty then, I’m glad your reimbursements to them are keeping them out of the welfare line. Have you guys had your government cheese delivered this week?”

  It didn’t help that her employer just had a tiny stained-glass window installed in one of the downstairs bathrooms. Price: $15,000. But poor Mandie got more personal payroll deductions than legitimate IRS with-holdings.

  I was happy to listen to the poor girl’s woes—and even happier that I was doing so on a phone line I paid for myself.

  Besides, I needed to talk to her, too. I was dying to tell someone about the thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes that a personal shopper had brought to the house. I could not believe my eyes when the van pulled up and two men hustled in, rolling racks of couture creations for Judy’s consideration. A beautifully dressed saleswoman, wearing a suit that cost more than I earned in a year, went through each dress with her, writing down her selections in a tiny notebook with a Montblanc pen (who knew a pen could cost $500?). No wonder Judy didn’t shop much—the stores came to her!

  By now I had spent so much time around the house that my world had narrowed, and these little scenes gained importance. I had no perspective. I was always on duty, and my workdays were endless. I knew I deserved at least half the blame, and that only made me angrier. I was furious at myself for never mentioning a contract and for never discussing how many hours I would work or what my responsibilities would be.

  I’m learning that there is no “after work” for me. No dinner plans with friends, no movie nights. Isn’t there some employment statute that says you get two fifteen-minute breaks and an hour lunch during an eight-hour day? I guess it doesn’t apply to nannies. What is the rule for a 16-hour day? Maybe you get four fifteen-minute breaks and a two-hour lunch. Are there even any California labor laws for people who LIVE at their jobs?

  Mandie and I thought we needed to end our pity party and expand our nanny world, so we signed the little ones up for a Gymboree class in Santa Monica. A little more interactive than the neighborhood park, Gymboree brought together babies of a similar age to play, sing songs, and socialize. And then the parents—and nannies—could socialize, too.

  Mandie and I listened, bemused, as one mother laughingly told a group of her friends how her nannies had to pass the “ugly” test.

  “I go to Bob’s office for the very first interview to check them out.” She chortled. “The fatter and uglier, the better. You can’t be too careful these days, you know.”

  I didn’t know then, but I do now. Robin Williams ended up divorcing his wife and marrying his nanny. And Steven Seagal named his daughter after a nanny he later had another child with. Maybe the paranoid wife had a point.

  “Suzy,” Mandie said, keeping an eye on Ellie tumbling nearby, “you’ll never believe this, I finally met Mel Gibson in person!”

  I grinned. Mel was to Mandie what Tom Cruise was to me.

  “And I was such a klutz, I can’t believe it!” she moaned.

  Oh no. “What happened?”

  “Well, I peeked at the invitation list for the Goldbergs’ anniversary party that was on Mrs. Goldberg’s desk. Talk about a who’s who. I mean, everybody was on it, from Dolly Parton to Quincy Jones, and right there in the middle was Mel Gibson. Oh boy, I thought, I’m finally going to meet him. So I volunteered to let people in, kind of like a doorman. You know, so I’d get to shake his hand or something.”

  “So did ya?”

  “I’m getting there. So, I’m standing there, saying hello to Shirley MacLaine, Kelly LeBrock, Don Johnson—I could barely catch my breath. I was wearing that blue dress you like. Finally, after I’d let about forty people in, there he was. My God, he’s good-looking, even better than in the movies.”

  “So, what did you do, try to hug him or something?”

  “No, no. I started to say, ‘Hello, Mr. Gibson,’ but nothing would come out but air. Suddenly I was breathing like a Thoroughbred that had just crossed the finish line. I started to turn away, not wanting him to see me like that, and I fell head over heels across a chair and landed on my back with my feet in the air, minus one shoe.”

  “Oh my God.” I laughed.

  “I know, I almost died.”

  “Did he help you up?”

  “Not exactly. He started to, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. Goldberg looking very irritated, so I just scrambled up by myself. I wondered what he thought—or do you think he gets that all the time?”

  “I’m sure he’s used to it, Mandie,” I said consolingly. “Don’t worry about it. You handled looking like a starstruck moron the best you could. Thank goodness you didn’t inconvenience Mel. Margaret—oops, I mean Mrs. Goldberg—would have never forgiven you for that. And I hope you didn’t break the chair, because you know you would have had to pay for it!”

  “Oh, everything that goes wrong is usually my fault,” Mandie said. “Mine or Graciella’s.” Graciella was their housekeeper.

  “Yes, it’s good to have help to blame for every last little thing that happens,” I agreed. Mandie and I had already discussed many times the tendency within our respective families to blame the “help,” especially when anything was missing. Such minid
ramas occurred practically every other day.

  “You should have heard Judy going on about the car seat yesterday,” I said. “No one could find it, and she was freaking out. Gloria and Rosa and I kept patiently asking her if she was sure it hadn’t been left in one of the other cars, and she snapped, ‘Of course I’m sure! I think the gardeners took it. These people are always stealing from me!’ As if a gardener needs a car seat. Of course, an hour and fifteen minutes later it was found in Carmen’s car. Imagine that, in the car. She had taken Amanda to the store with her.”

  “Don’t get me started,” Mandie replied. “Graciella and I spent an hour looking for one of Ellie’s outfits the other day. Mrs. Goldberg was sure that the construction workers replacing the windows had taken it. ‘Leave it to them to steal from a baby!’ she told us. As if these guys would steal one little pink dress. It turned out to be in the diaper bag in the car.”

  We broke into a fit of giggles, the kind that release the built-up tension of weeks. We were still laughing as we left the Gymboree class with our charges in tow. Mission accomplished: kids tuckered out, nannies through with therapy.

  * * *

  One day I overheard Judy saying my name over the phone. I listened as hard as I could. “Oh yes, you’ll definitely need a nanny,” she said agreeably. “Mine is a lifesaver. I don’t know what we’d do without her. She’s like my right arm.”

  Her right arm??? My right arm about fell off.

  “She does more than just take care of the kids. In fact, just the other day she saw I needed to make lunch reservations at the Ivy, and she took it upon herself to call for me since she knew I was busy.”

  It was the kindest thing she had ever said about me. Our roller-coaster relationship had hit a new high. Now if only I could freeze it there, at the plateau. Later that night, Judy told me she’d spoken to Sally Field. She asked if I knew another nanny I could recommend—Sally was on bed rest, due to give birth in a few months.