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Izzy

Being a nanny is not a cush job. Absolutely not.

It is a serious business that demands care, focus, and know-how.

You have a huge responsibility. As the nanny, you are in charge of the most precious, sacred, and meaningful part of someone’s entire existence—their children.

You can’t just kick back and coast through the day.

Oh no, no, no. To be a high-caliber nanny means being on top of your game, always on your toes, eyes everywhere—back of your head, top of your head, you name it, you must have eyes on the prize.

But it’s more than just being watchful. This is a job that requires great skill, caring, the compassion of a saint, and most important, cunning.

Naturally, a prerequisite of a quality nanny is to love the company of children.

This is not something that can be faked.

Children possess an uncanny ability to sniff out inauthenticity, so joy for the job must be genuine, and should emanate from the nanny like sunbeams on a cloudless day.

But love is not enough to guarantee success.

To provide one’s charges with age-appropriate experiences, a quality nanny must also be familiar with the stages of childhood development.

After all, the CDC (that’s correct, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—that’s how important this profession is) publishes guidelines, so there’s no excuse for ignorance.

And while organization, self-motivation, and sound judgment are mandatory for the job, a nanny must remember to keep a level head at all times. Unfortunately, emergencies do arise.

It is advised to keep a stocked first-aid kit in your car and a smaller one in your shoulder bag. And don’t be afraid to use 911—you’re not a miracle worker.

Now, it goes without saying that your references must be impeccable.

Never burn a bridge. Remember, fire can easily spread, burning you instead.

And above all else, a nanny must always be honest. Trust is everything in our trade.

The family is counting on you, so please be up-front about your experience, qualifications, and abilities.

Which is precisely why I shouldn’t be a nanny.

You see, I’ve never done this job before.

I never even babysat in high school. Everything I know about being a nanny I’ve learned from Google and watching Mary Poppins so many times I have the whole movie memorized.

I’ve filled a notebook with my research so I could absorb the information and embody my new persona with as much authenticity as possible.

In a way, I’m like a method actor. If I think I’m great at my job, pretend to be in charge, project utter confidence, then everyone will believe it.

I’m not lazy, so my new employer doesn’t have to worry about that.

As soon as I could legally work, I had a job bagging groceries at the supermarket where my father was the store manager.

I’m in college now, a journalism major heading into my sophomore year.

My new boss knows my age—I can’t hide that—but he thinks I’m studying early childhood development.

That’s far more nanny-like than journalism.

He certainly wouldn’t be pleased to know that I don’t really like kids, and I’m pretty sure I have zero maternal instinct.

Well, maybe not zero. I just don’t feel a need to become a mother.

Children are annoying, loud, and full of snot.

I’m not a big fan of messy eaters, either, or drool, and forget diapers.

Luckily, the five-year-old twins I’m going to look after are beyond that stage. I definitely can’t deal with babies.

But I do need this job, and for a very good reason—though not one I can be honest about, which is why I had my roommate (and best friend) pretend to be my last employer.

When the call came for a reference check, I listened in on the conversation with the father and his girlfriend, who’d be joining us on vacation. It helped that Meredith is a theater major. She was brilliant on the phone.

“Oh, Izzy is simply the best,” she crowed. “Our youngest, Gabe, had a speech impediment, and by the end of the summer, you’d think he learned his English in England .”

Okay, that was over the top, but they were impressed.

“And Sylvie couldn’t have loved Izzy more.”

Sylvie? I mouthed to Meredith. To this day, I don’t know where she got that name.

“She’s our picky eater, and just the other day we went out to dinner and she had sushi —honest to God, sushi!

And even more shocking than that—she actually liked it.

I swear to you, before Izzy came into our lives, we couldn’t eat at a restaurant that didn’t serve elbow macaroni bathed in butter sauce. ”

My eyebrows shot up. I was nervous she was overselling me, but Meredith, who every guy on campus has a crush on because she’s cuter than a teddy bear and as tough as a Navy SEAL, held up a hand to assure me all was under control.

The rest of the conversation sped along because these people were desperate. They had a vacation coming up and their nanny had left them high and dry. No reason given.

After the call ended, Meredith voiced her concern. “You don’t know a thing about this guy.”

“I know his name is David Dunne. I looked him up online—he has no criminal record and he has kids. How bad can he be?”

Her look was telling. “You’re a journalism major who loves crime shows. I think you can answer that question.”

She had a point, but I couldn’t back out now. I had set up a Google Alert for Lake Timmeny, hoping for a scenario just like the one that hit my inbox. It was the chance of a lifetime, a paid one at that.

“I’m not worried,” I assured her. “You know I need this job.”

That was true. Meredith is one of the very few people aware of my story. She understood what I was doing, and more important, why. “There must be a reason the last nanny left them so suddenly. You are walking into a potentially dangerous situation with blinders on,” Meredith warned.

“His girlfriend will be there. Another woman in the house should put your mind at ease,” I suggested. Mer’s look told me she wasn’t buying it.

Now that I’ve been out of school for a few weeks, back home living with my mom, Mer’s words keep tumbling in my head, anxiety nipping at me.

I examine the suitcase on my bed one more time.

It’s all packed. Socks. Shoes—sandals, sneakers, and hikers, probably overkill.

Same with the bathing suits (packed three).

I’m bringing an excess of hair products to tame my mane of curly light brown hair.

In middle school I was anointed the unfortunate nickname Frizzy Izzy, a self-explanatory moniker that stuck with me through high school graduation.

I’m as ready to go as I’ll ever be. All my clothes are very practical, nothing too revealing.

I’m just about ready to leave to meet David for the drive to the lake when the smell of frying eggs and bacon draws me into the kitchen.

My mother’s standing at the stove, cooking up a storm.

She gives me a cheery smile. My heart swells with love.

I don’t like keeping things from her, but she’d worry.

She always worries. We’re close in a lot of ways, but my mom’s anxiety often discourages me from being open with her.

She’s still wearing her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, her hair tucked behind her ears.

She’s in her fifties, but has an ageless look with her pixie face, short-cropped blond hair, sweet little nose, and a bright, loving smile.

Oversize glasses, the same dark frames she’s had since I was a baby, magnify her sparkling blue eyes.

Outwardly, she radiates the pleasant charm of a down-to-earth Vermonter.

She has friends, a good life here, but I know what others don’t. Sadness lurks beneath the surface. She thinks she does a good job of hiding it, but I can see through her mask. It’s not the divorce that’s responsible for dimming her glow, and we don’t have money issues.

It’s the memories reflected in the family photos hanging on the wall in our living room that continue to haunt her dreams.

“Izzy, hon, do you have time to eat before you go?”

She knows I’m leaving for a couple of weeks, and I know a gently disguised order when I hear one.

I plop myself down on a seat at the same kitchen table where I did countless hours of homework.

Mom’s already got a place setting for me.

I take a sip of orange juice that she’s poured into my favorite glass from when I was little—a blue tumbler I thought looked like a sapphire.

I wouldn’t drink my juice unless it was poured into the sapphire glass—such a bratty kid.

I wonder if the twins I’ll be watching will be equally annoying.

I get the sense that Mom picked that glass on purpose.

She doesn’t like that I’ll be away with people she doesn’t know.

It makes her uncomfortable. Mom likes order.

She wants everything to be as predictable as a tide chart.

The hearty breakfast and my childhood dishes are her way of saying that she’s still holding on to me, even as I’m slipping away.

I get it. I’m her only child. She wants to protect me from the monsters she knows exist in the real world. I can’t bring myself to tell her that sometimes I hear her cry in her sleep. I try to put her mind at ease.

“Everything is going to be fine, Mom. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Nobody, but nobody, could worry about nothing better than my loving and devoted mother, Lauren Greene.

The corners of her mouth crinkle with concern as she plates my eggs. “I know, honey. I didn’t even say anything.”

She has a defensive lilt to her voice, an upward trill that all but confirms my suspicion. “You didn’t have to.” I smile up at her, hoping to convey how much I appreciate her love and caring, though I wouldn’t mind punctuating it with an eye-roll emoji if I could.

“I’m nineteen years old,” I remind her. “I can take care of myself.”

She does the eye roll instead. “Two weeks in Burlington all on your own is a lot. Are you sure the newspaper has housing arranged for you? I really would like a phone number of someone I can call in case of an emergency.”

“I am that someone,” I insist. “And everything’s arranged, Mom, just relax. Who knows, maybe I’ll even meet a cute guy, so I won’t be all alone.”

And I’m sure I will. I just don’t tell my mom that the cute guy is only five years old.

“Like that’s supposed to ease my mind.”

Mom kisses the top of my head, and I take in her familiar fragrance. If I could bottle up that apricot scent, I’d put it on whenever I’m in need of a warm embrace. But for these next two weeks, I’ll be on my own.

I glance at my phone discreetly, nervous I’ll be late for the car ride to the lake. Mom can’t provide a lifeline during this venture because I’ve told her I’m attending a prestigious two-week journalism internship at a Vermont newspaper my mother knows and reads.

“We gotta go. I don’t want to miss the bus,” I say.

But there is no bus. I’m being picked up by a man I’ve never met, to be driven to a lake I’ve never been to, in a car I’ve never seen.

I hate that I have to lie to my mother as well as to my new boss.

I’m usually an honest person. Lying is not something I do easily. But some secrets are too dangerous to share.