Page 73 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Downstairs, the landlady had her favorite TV show on, two women arguing about a third woman who was not in the room with them. It came up through the boards, and Lucy had never once figured out who any of them were.

She had turned the chair sideways to the window on the first day and left it that way. She had the elastic in her hands. On, and off, and on again.

At half past ten, somebody knocked twice, and then a third time, and then Mira said her name through the door. Lucy put the elastic in her pocket and got up.

She went down past the landing window. She saw Mira’s car at the curb. Both Mira and Anjali were standing outside the door. Milo wasn’t with them. It took a week of arranging to get Anjali anywhere without Milo.

"You didn't say you were coming," Lucy said as she opened the door.

"We wanted to surprise you. Sit down," Mira said, and sat on the bed, which put her knees against the drawers.

Anjali sat on the cane chair, which just left the boxes. Lucy stayed standing by the door with her back against the frame.

"You sent me a text. ‘The job ended, I'm at the room, I'll call you,’" she recited. “But you never called.”

“I was going to.”

“What happened?”

"It just ended, and I left," Lucy said. "Nobody did anything terrible to me."

Anjali took two containers out of the sack and set them on the drawers.

"That's a deflection," Mira said. "And you've had it washed."

Nobody laughed. Mira had been saying that to her since college, and one of them had always laughed. Lucy stood in the doorway and waited to find out which one of them it had been.

"I put my name back in at Ashworth on Monday," she said. "It's the slow part of the year, though. Nothing happens until the schools break for the summer."

"And what else?"

Lucy didn't answer that.

"Lucy."

"I keep thinking about whether anybody's shutting her closet door." She caught her own hands moving and put them behind her. "It has to click. She won't go to sleep if it doesn't click."

"That's not what I asked you about."

"I know it isn't."

"What are you doing about work?"

"Nothing," Lucy said.

"It’s been fifteen days," Mira said.

"She said she'd write me a letter," Lucy said, after a second. "For a reference. It hasn't come yet."

"Have you called and asked her for it?" Anjali said.

"No."

Mira set both hands on her knees. "I'll cover the rent here until you're working. Pay me back whenever you can. No pressure."

"No," Lucy said.

"All right." Mira looked at the wall over the bed.