Pause.
“Did I not mention those before?”
Shit. Consider mentioning pregnancy brain.
“We have two or three, usually. Just seasonal work. Depending on what’s going on at the farm. We need as much help as we can get!”
But why didn’tyou—
“Pregnancy brain!”
The filming for Natural Dinner ran late. All throughout the house, moods went sour. Shannon and I started bickering over how to do the overhead filming, and then our bickering wasted ten precious minutes of afternoon light, causing us to rush, which then led to further bickering, then the older kids’ homeschooling lesson ended fifteen minutes earlier than usual because Nanny Louise apparently didn’t feel like providing a comprehensive education for the day, and all of a sudden the kitchen was filled with incessant whining, the boys arguing with Clementine about what to play before dinner, and the nannies—who were, the agency had assured us, the absolute cream of the crop, but sometimes made me feel like I was paying full-time prices for part-time work—were just sitting there on the couch scrolling on their phones while a world war was waged over the tiny Scottie dog game piece in the Monopoly set. (The only board game allowed in our house, by explicit demand of my father-in-law. It was important, Doug said, for children to learn the value of a free market as soon as possible.)
The nannies. Oh, the nannies! They tended to veer toward uselessness during this time of the day. From Nanny Aimee, I expectedas much. She was a dumb girl from Los Angeles with a perfectly symmetrical face, capable of keeping the kids alive, and not much else. But from Nanny Louise, who was five years older than Nanny Aimee and had a master’s degree in education, I expected more. She was like family to us.
Did you just say your nannies are like family?
Silence.
I’m sure you can understand that there’s a long and controversial history of white women calling the people who worked for them“family.”
Longer pause. Soft, knowing smile.
No. That’s not right.
Soft,unknowingsmile.
Better.
“Next question, please!”
“Ladies, can I speak with you for a moment?”
The nannies looked up from their phones.
“Clementine has been using someone’s phone unsupervised,” I said. “She asked me what a tradwife is today.”
“Well,” Nanny Aimee said, then paused.
I trained my smile on her. “What?”
“I mean.”
Another pause. She looked like a Muppet with a gummed-up jaw. I resisted the urge to step forward and work her mouth open myself.
“We’ll be more careful moving forward,” Nanny Louise said. She gave Nanny Aimee a sharp look, the visual equivalent of a kick beneath the table, and Nanny Aimee nodded. “Yep,” she said. “Won’t happen again.”
I took a deep breath, sighed my anger out. “Can you both handle dinner prep tonight? I was thinking about making a little trip to Target.”
In my periphery, Clementine perked up.
Right on cue.
It was a rare gift of decadence, when I took the girls with me to the Super Target thirty minutes away. At the Starbucks inside the store, Clementine ordered a Frappuccino with extra whipped cream, and I bit my lip about having so much caffeine and sugar this late in the day. I got Jessa and Junebug each a cake pop and an apple juice, and then a nonfat decaf cappuccino with oat milk for myself. I tried to limit these trips to once a month; usually Nanny Aimee went out to pick up our groceries for us. But it was nice, even for me, to come here occasionally and float along beneath the mind-numbing fluorescence—though I will say it amazed me that so many people came here on a weekly basis. Spending more than thirty minutes at Target made me feel like I was nursing a cavity.
As I pushed the cart slowly down the main aisle, the girls trotted forward and behind me in haphazard loops, hopping from distraction to delightful distraction. The jewelry stands. The clothing racks. The shelves of body lotion in colorful packaging, tangerine and persimmon and bubblegum pink.See how good the little things can feel, girls? See how thrilling a sugar high can be if you choose it consciously, after so many days ofcareful—
“Natalie?”
