You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny (31 page)

Debra took things such as the environment very seriously. If I’d been paying more attention, I could have guessed that from our first conversation. She based many of her personal decisions—what she bought, where she shopped, what she ate—on how it impacted the planet. No pesticides—not even when ants invaded my bedroom. Organic baby shampoo for Nolan. No disposable diapers. Once she tried them, in place of her standard cloth ones, when she and Nolan flew somewhere. When he got a horrendous rash, she researched what the absorbent material was made of and vowed to never use them again. And then one day she told me a story about her parents, who had just phoned to tell her about their harrowing flight from hell. Their plane had to make an emergency landing, and her parents feared their lives would end in a fiery crash landing. Standard operating procedure in such a situation is to dump all the excess fuel out of the fuselage before landing, which the pilots did. “Imagine all that toxic fuel polluting the air and landing all over everything, Suzy, can you believe it?” she asked. I couldn’t, but I was a little more worried about her mom and dad.

Debra mentioned that her cook had previously worked for Steven
Spielberg, and she said how funny she thought that was. I didn’t get it. She went on to explain how she thought it was her karma to have these people come to her—people who had been previously employed by someone she’d had problems with. I hadn’t known she’d had a falling out with the famous director. What was not to like about her? I wondered. I found her amazing. I never asked about the problems, but the cook’s stories about one of Spielberg’s children made Josh sound like an angel. It was kind of funny that two of the biggest moguls in Hollywood had essentially sent her their castoffs.

I hadn’t been working long at Debra’s when I caught a cold. She said that this would prevent me from getting up in the night with Nolan and that I would need to rest and take a lot of vitamin C. I couldn’t believe my ears—for more than one reason. First, it blew me away that she would even notice that I had a cold. Second, I was flabbergasted that she would suggest I lighten my workload so I could get over my minor illness quicker. I immediately called Mandie to report that my new employer had noticed I was blowing my nose a lot and was concerned about my getting enough sleep.

She laughed heartily into the phone, and then complimented me on the little comedy routine that I was trying out.

One morning, Debra abruptly announced that Timothy’s mother was coming to town to see Nolan, and she asked me to pick her up at LAX. We found a very sad daisy in the yard and pinned it on my jacket. Look for the girl wearing a flower, Debra told her mother-in-law. We giggled, realizing that the poor woman would have to be leaning right up against me to see the wilted thing.

The flight was due in at noon, so I got there a half hour early. I didn’t have any idea what this woman looked like, but I certainly knew how cute Timothy was. I’d just keep my eyes peeled for an adorable grandmotherly type. Between that and my little flower, I figured I wouldn’t have a problem.

At 12:15 the plane arrived, and I stood smiling, looking to catch the eyes of anyone who might fit the part. Hordes of people filed past me, but there wasn’t one woman who acted like she was looking for anyone.
Apparently, either I’d missed her or she’d missed the plane. I immediately called Debra, but the answering service picked up. This wasn’t like the Ovitzes, where someone always grabbed the phone. Debra preferred her privacy. She let the service take care of calls and dialed in whenever she felt like getting her messages. I told the answering service I was Debra’s nanny and that I was at the airport. I asked her to try to ring through to the house and she did.

The answering service of a very well-known actress believes anyone who calls? What if I was a reporter from the
Star?
The trick to contacting celebrities, I decided, was getting the private phone number in the first place.

But Debra didn’t answer the phone. I realized then that I had never actually
heard
the phone ring in the house, unless it was Timothy. He must have some special number.

Oh great, I am going to spend the entire day waiting
. I called the answering service back ten minutes later. This time the operator told me to leave a message, and she would see if she could get it to Debra sometime today.
Swell. Sometime today would be great for me!

“Tell Debra her mother-in-law did not get off the plane. Find out if she called,” I snapped into the receiver. The operator, hearing the frustration in my voice, tried patching me through again. This time Debra picked up.

“Hello, Suzy. Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m at the American terminal. She wasn’t on the plane.”

“That’s odd,” she said.

“Wait. Wait a second. Maybe this is her. She might have gotten past me and …” I put my hand over the phone and squinted at a woman with large brown eyes and light brownish gray hair, talking on the phone next to me.

“Say her name and see if she turns around,” Debra suggested.

“Um,” I stammered, “what is her name?” I couldn’t believe I forgot to get that crucial information. Debra told me.

“Maryline. Maryline,” I said as loudly as possible without shouting. The large woman ignored me.

I spotted another possibility. “This might be her. This woman’s a classy dresser, with beautiful skin and silver gray hair,” I reported.

No answer, just an immediate throaty laugh.

“Oh no, Suzy, I don’t think she’s the one, keep looking. Look, call me back in ten minutes. I’ll call her house and find out what happened.” Ten minutes later, I called and got the answering service to patch me through.

“You’re right,” Debra said. “Her husband said she didn’t get on that plane, but she’ll be on flight 456. It’s due in at four. Do you mind waiting?”

“Oh, uh, no, um, no problem,” I responded, in a tone that was definitely lacking in enthusiasm. “When did she plan to notify you of her change of plans?” I was miffed on my own behalf as well as for Debra. Didn’t Maryline realize someone was waiting for her? What if it had been Debra and Nolan? Maybe she just thought there was a limo on call, but she had to know that wasn’t likely.

Contrary to popular belief, movie stars don’t usually send limos to pick up people at the airport. Most of them send employees, in their personal cars, as chauffeurs. Well, except for Sally Field, who sent a limo to pick up Tammy at LAX when she returned home from visits to Oregon. Why did I always have to remember Tammy’s good fortune at the worst times? I repeated my mantra I’d begun chanting whenever I talked to Tammy:
Bitterness is not becoming. Bitterness is not becoming
.

There was no mistaking Timothy’s mom at four o’clock. She carried a strapping black purse, and, well, let’s just say she looked like she had worked outside most of her life and didn’t wear any sunscreen.

“Hello, Mrs.—”
Oh, crap. I don’t know her last name
. Debra said she had been married several times, so I knew it wasn’t Hutton. I kind of mumbled my way past her last name. “You’re Tim’s mother, aren’t you? I’m Debra’s nanny, Suzy. So nice to meet you.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, pointing toward the floor and leaving my outstretched hand floating in empty space. “Can you carry that bag for me?”

I looked down to see an enormous red leather bag. How did she cram it in the overhead compartment? Then I lifted it. My God, what was in there?

“We’ll have to go to baggage claim for the rest,” she said as I struggled toward the escalator with her.

The rest? How long did she plan to stay?

“Grab that black one; that’s mine,” she directed as the luggage whirled by. “Oh, oh, that big one with straps, that’s mine, too.”

“There. I think that’s it,” she said as I pulled a fourth suitcase off the conveyor belt. “Where are you parked?”

“Uh, maybe I should go get the car and bring it up to the terminal,” I gasped, trying to keep the baggage upright.

“Good enough. Why don’t you hail that skycap?”

He brought the luggage out to the curb, where she elegantly settled on top of the pile of suitcases, lit up a cigarette, and took a deep drag.

By the time I wheeled my Celica up to the doors, she was on her second cigarette. Oh no. What was I going to do? Was she planning on smoking in my car? It still smelled brand-new. I despised the smell of smoke just about as much as I hated those ankle-biting dogs.

I had made a lot of progress during my year in LA. For heaven’s sake, I was now
netting
$400 a week. But I still couldn’t bring myself to be assertive about anything that involved confrontation, especially with the chain-smoking, yellow-fingered mother-in-law of my new boss.

Mentally kicking myself, I even took the change out of my ashtray when she lit up her third cigarette. I immediately rolled down my window. She left hers up. My nausea grew. I tilted my head toward the fresh air for the excruciatingly long ride back to Malibu.

As soon as we got back and unloaded her piles of luggage, I dashed back to my car. Maybe the damage could be reversed. I rolled down the other window, put one fan in the front seat and one in the back. I wiped down the ashtray with a rag soaked in Pine-Sol, left the doors wide open, and kept the fans running until it was time to go to bed that night. Our guest, meanwhile, was banished outside to indulge in her forty-year habit, which she did quite frequently. She showed up in the driveway soon enough and watched my frantic efforts with a small grin.

Several days later, Debra announced she was going out with a friend to a movie for the first time since Nolan’s birth. This was one movie-star mom who most certainly hadn’t parked her son with help as soon as he was born, jetting off to a movie set or rafting trip. She treated this first separation almost ceremoniously.

This was a big deal for me, too. Okay, a huge deal. I was a nervous wreck. I’d fed Nolan finger food before, but never a bottle. What would
I do if I spilled the six ounces of precious breast milk she had pumped and frozen? There was no formula in the house. No way was I going to interrupt Debra’s first evening out, no matter what. I was beginning to see why the other name for mother’s milk is liquid gold.

When I finally managed to defrost the bottle and bring it to the living room intact, Mrs. I Still Had No Idea What Her Last Name Was sat in a large chair near the fireplace, cradling Nolan and staring at me. Did she sense my trepidation? Was she judging me? Carefully, I put the bottle down on a table beside the couch. Then I crossed the room and reached out for Nolan, silently. She held him out to me as if to say,
Are you sure you can handle this?

But Nolan relaxed in my arms and smiled at me. This anxiety was ridiculous. I’d fed babies a thousand times. When I finally eased the bottle into his mouth, he sucked furiously, and I began to relax.

“Don’t you think you should switch sides?” Maryline said a few minutes later, breaking the glorious silence.

“Excuse me?”

“That would make it more like you were Debra, and she was switching boobs,” Maryline offered. She did have a point. I knew Debra took breast-feeding seriously because she had joked with me that she was planning on weaning Nolan when he was eighteen … years, that is.

But should I risk it? What if I dropped the bottle? I went for it anyway. Thank God he drained the bottle. Maryline beamed, Nolan gurgled gently, and I was so happy.

Debra came home much earlier than expected, upset and out of sorts. Some teenagers had thrown bubblegum into her hair from the movie theater balcony where she’d gone to see the latest blockbuster. She thought it was a karma thing, a sign that she shouldn’t have left Nolan. A lot of things were karmic to her. Maryline, unexpectedly an expert at removing gum from hair, found the peanut butter and got rid of the Bubble Yum. I felt bad that Debra’s big night out was cut short, but she didn’t seem to mind.

She was thinking only of Nolan. She was thrilled that her son had done so well.

One of the best things about Debra was that I could so easily identify with her. She didn’t care at all about gowns or looking glamorous. She didn’t artificially enhance her appearance or her attitude; what you saw was what you got. Nolan mattered to her more than anything, and I had a feeling that one day I would be just as devoted to my kids. And then, well, we had the same approach to the open road. One day we passed a California highway patrolman on a motorcycle, and Debra slammed on the brakes, saying that she had to slow down because if she got one more speeding ticket, her license would be suspended. Now that’s my kind of gal: one misdemeanor away from public transportation.

Actually, the scant attention she gave her wardrobe shocked even me, queen of the jeans and T-shirt ensemble. Sometimes she would wear her pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, kicking it up a notch to a sweat suit when she went out—a ratty, high school gym-type thing, not designer activewear. Her attire never got much fancier. She didn’t want to go to red-carpet events or wear couture.

One afternoon, she asked me to go with her to Beverly Hills, and when I saw her outfit, I actually thought about declining. Then I
realized I must have been gaping the way the Ovitz family did when I wore that ridiculous white jumpsuit. Putting it plainly, Debra resembled a gypsy. Her skirt sported three tiers: one purple, one red, and one green with small jingle bells lining the hem. Her top might have best been described as fluorescent tangerine. She didn’t care, but
I
did. I wanted to send a recon ahead to shoo away any photographers just waiting for a picture to paste prominently on one of those when bad clothes happen to good people pages. I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t afford great clothes. Her style was loose and free, almost hippielike, and she just seemed to prefer stuff that looked vaguely like remnants. Maybe it was an environmental thing?