I tear the check out along the perforated edge and hand it to her. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” She takes it, folds it neatly, and tucks it into her purse—a brown leather bag with a distinctive Coach logo stamped on it. Not a knockoff either, I can tell from here. The leather’s too nice, too well-maintained. It makes me wonder again about her background. Why someone with a designer purse is taking a nanny job that pays ten dollars an hour.
“You survived your first few days,” I say, and I’m not entirely sure why I’m still talking except that it feels weird to just stand here in silence. “That’s more than the last couple managed.”
“Should I get a trophy or something?”
“I’ll look into it. Maybe a plaque. ‘Survived Emma Roussos, October 1994.’”
She laughs again. “I’d hang that on my wall.”
“Right between your Employee of the Month photo and your Perfect Attendance certificate?”
“Bold of you to assume I’ve ever gotten perfect attendance for anything.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Too late to fire me now.” Her smile turns slightly mischievous. “Emma likes me.”
Before I can come up with a response to that—and she’s right, Emma does like her, which gives her way more job security than she probably realizes—Emma comes running back out, her rain boots on the wrong feet and her jacket half-zipped, practically shaking with excitement. “I’m ready! Let’s go!”
Annie’s already putting her own jacket on, a black rain jacket that looks relatively new, and she’s gathering her purse from where she left it on the counter.
“Have fun, you two,” she says, zipping up her jacket. “And Emma? Don’t let your dad talk you into renting some boring documentary about brains.”
But Emma’s not moving toward the door. She’s standing there frowning, looking between me and Annie like something doesn’t make sense.
“You’re not coming with us?” she asks, and her voice has gone small.
Annie shakes her head, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I think your dad would probably like to spend some time with just you tonight, Em.”
“He doesn’t care!” Emma protests immediately, and then she whips around to look at me. “Do you? Can Annie come with us?”
“I’m sure Annie has some wild weekend plans of her own,” I say, which is probably true. She’s in her twenties, living in New York City. She probably has friends to meet, places to be, things that don’t involve spending Friday night with her boss and his four-year-old.
But Emma’s eyes are welling up with tears now, her bottom lip trembling, and I can see the meltdown coming from a mile away.
“I thought we were going together,” she says, and her voice is shaking. “You said we were going to do fun stuff and I thought—I thought Annie was coming, too.”
She turns back to Annie, those blue eyes huge and watery. “Do youreallyhave wild weekend plans?”
I can tell Annie wants to laugh—I can see it in the way her mouth twitches—but instead she crouches down to Emma’s level, her hands on her knees.
“Emma, sweetie, I should probably go home—”
“No!” Emma stomps her foot, and it’s loud enough that I wince. “I want you to come! Please?Please please please?”
“Emma,” I start, but before I can figure out what I’m going to say—before I can tell her that Annie’s off the clock, that we can’t just demand she spend her free time with us, that this isn’t appropriate—I hear myself saying something completely different.
“Annie can come. If she wants. If she doesn’t have plans already, but if she does that’s totally fine and we completely understand, it’s Friday night and you probably have better things to do than watchThe Little Mermaidfor the hundredth time—”
I’m rambling. Why am I rambling?
“See!” Emma’s grinning now, bouncing on her toes again, crisis averted. “He said you can come! Youhaveto come now!”
Annie’s eyes flick from Emma to me, and I can see the uncertainty there. She’s been put on the spot, which isn’t fair to her, but part of me wonders if this could be an opportunity to actually talk to her. To find out who she is beyond the person who takes care of my daughter. She’d only stay for a movie and pizza, maybe an hour or two total. How bad could it be? She’s chewing on the inside of her cheek, a small furrow between her brows.
“Are you sure?” she asks, looking at me. “I don’t want to intrude. I can just go home, it’s really no problem—”
