Annie French braided my hair today. Did you know the French have their own braids? It’s so cool!
Annie showed me how to make a bracelet out of embroidery thread. We’re going to make you one next.
Annie went and got a new batch of pictures today. She said we can put them in my photo album.
Annie helped me make up stories about the squirrels at the park. There was this one squirrel—his name was Gregory—and he was trying to steal nuts from this other squirrel named Susan because Susan had a better stash, but Gregory kept getting caught and Susan would chase him up the tree and yell at him in squirrel language.
I’m impressed, honestly. I’m impressed by the patience, the lack of screaming, and the fact that Annie has zero professional experience with children and yet she’s managed to exceed every desperate expectation I didn’t even know I had back in September.
Joe jogs ahead to rescue a bowl of candy from Lauren’s sticky grip. Allison slows her pace, the stroller wheels clicking rhythmically on the pavement. “You’re thinking about her.”
I keep my eyes on a nearby gargoyle. “What?”
“Annie.” Her voice is way too casual. “You’re thinking about her.”
“I’m thinking about how much therapy I’m going to need after Emma comes off this sugar high,” I lie. It’s a bad lie. Allison is always right, which is a personality trait I find deeply inconvenient.
She raises an eyebrow, smirking. “She’s lovely, Leo. The girls are obsessed.”
“She’s good with Emma,” I say, my voice clipped. “That’s the job.”
“Léonie! Annie is beautiful girl!” My mother materializes at my elbow.
Oh god. Here we go.
“Ma—”
“Why you not ask her for the date yet?”
“Because she’s my employee,” I say, my teeth grit so hard I might crack a molar. “It would be inappropriate.”
“Inappropriate?” My dad is on my other side now. Apparently, my personal life is a public forum. “You think your mother and I met appropriately? I was her boss at a restaurant. I tell her how to prep the moussaka, then I tell her she is the one.”
“That’s different. It was the fifties. Laws were suggestions then.”
“How is different?” my mom asks, waving a hand dismissively. “She is smart. She is kind. She is gorgeous—she would give me gorgeous grandchildren with the curly hair.”
“Ma, I’m not having this conversation.”
“And she knows the history!” my dad adds. “I mention the Parthenon, she knows about the Elgin Marbles. Very impressive brain.”
Joe loops back, grinning. “Oh, are we talking about how Leo’s in love with the nanny? My favorite topic.”
“I’m not in love,” I snap. “I barely know her.”
“But you like her,” Allison says. It’s not a question; it’s a diagnosis.
“She’s my employee,” I repeat, clinging to the professional boundary like a life raft.
“So?” My mother crosses her arms. “You fire her, then you ask her out. Problem solved.”
“I’m not firing her! She’s the only reason Emma isn’t wearing a cardboard box tonight.”
“Then ask her out and keep her. Who cares?”
I don’t need them to like her. I definitely don’t need them to love her, which they apparently decided to do within forty-five minutes. I’m already doing enough internal gymnastics trying not to like her myself. I don’t have the emotional or mental bandwidth for a complication this size. My life is a precarious stack of Jenga blocks, trying to balance work and a feral five-year-old.
But.
