Mate. Set. Match.

Chapter 2

Chapter Two- The Fundamentals of Caring

HELP WANTED

Live-in nanny for school aged child. Wolf Ridge area. Mature. Discreet. Experience preferred.

Child rearing around the world boasts a wide variety of customs and mores. In Africa they have a saying, it is said that it takes more or less a village to raise a child or more accurately some would say, a nanny. Personally, due to first hand experience, I'd agree with the former. However, my job description therefore inclines me to argue for the latter and thus, hopefully receive regular subsequent paychecks.

There are essentially three types of nanny gigs.

Type A, I provide "couple time" a few nights a week for people who work all day and parent most nights.

Type B, I provide "sanity time" a few afternoons a week to a woman who mothers most days and nights.

Type C, I'm brought in as one of a cast of many to collectively provide twenty-four/seven "me time" to a woman who neither works nor mothers. And her days remain a mystery to us all.

As a working woman herself, the Type A mother will relate to me as a professional and treat me with respect. She knows I've arrived to do my job and, after a thorough tour, will hand me a comprehensive list of emergency numbers and skedaddle. This is the best transition a nanny can hope for. The child sobs for, atmost, fifteen minutes, and before you know it bonding over Play-Doh.

The Type B mother may not work in an office, but she logs enough hours with her child to recognize it for the job it is and, following an afternoon of hanging around the apartment together, her kids are all mine for the second date.

The only thing predictable about training with a Type C mother is that her pervasive insecurity forces everyone to take the longest possible route to getting in sync.

Every season of my nanny career kicked off with a round of interviews so surreally similar that I'd often wonder if the parents were slipped a secret manual at the Parent Craft class to guide them through. This initial encounter became as repetitive as religious ritual, tempting me, the moment before the front door swung open, either to kneel and genuflect or say, "Hit it!"

No other event epitomized the job as perfectly, and it always began and ended in a lift nicer than most London apartments.

The walnut-paneled car slowly pulls me up, like a bucket in a well, toward potential solvency. As I near the appointed floor I take a deep breath; the door slides open onto a small vestibule which is the portal to, at most, a luxury office. I knock the door. Nanny Fact: he always waits for me to ring the doorbell, even though he was buzzed by maximum security downstairs to warn of my imminent arrival and is probably standing on the other side of the door. May, in fact, have been standing there since we spoke on the telephone three days ago.

The dark vestibule, was papered in some gloomy Colefax and Fowler floral, contains a brass umbrella stand, a horse print, and a mirror, wherein I do one last swift check of my appearance. I seem to have grown stains on my skirt during the train ride from London, but otherwise I'm pulled together with set floral skirt and some Gucci-knock off sandals I bought in the Village.

He is always wearing a suit, black with faint pinstripes running through the fine wool fabric, a classic, crisp white shirt, dark jeans, and perfectly knotted red tie. His black hair had a slight wave to it and was a bit long, curling at his nape. He always appeared to have walked straight out of a magazine. Not a wrinkle in sight, not a smidgeon of imperfection. In three years and umpteen interviews the I'm-dad-casual-in- my-jeans-but-intimidating-in-my-£400 shoes outfit never changes.