You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny (9 page)

During one of my first weeks on the job, Michael’s protégé, Jay Maloney, called me at the house. Michael had given Jay his seats for a Lakers game that evening, but Jay was unable to use them and casually suggested that I take them. When I gathered up my courage and asked Michael if it would be okay, he said, “Sure. Why don’t you take a friend?”

I couldn’t believe his generosity. Finally, a chance to get out and see the city. I had never been to an NBA game before. Since I had no friends within a thousand-mile radius, I asked if I could take Delma. Michael looked perplexed, but he agreed. He gave me the tickets and a VIP parking pass.

Ecstatic, Delma and I headed off on our adventure in her old car. When we arrived at the arena, a parking valet appeared at the door, ready to whisk away our carriage. I didn’t have a clue how to handle the protocols of power, LA-style. So, did this guy need a tip? How much? Now or later? My last experience at a big venue had been when Ozzy Osbourne played in Portland. My friend Amy and I had hiked the North 40 between the parking space and the coliseum because we didn’t have enough money to pay for stadium parking. I had certainly never encountered a valet at a sporting event.

Delma giggled, getting right into the spirit of being a big shot. I’d found a friend. I’d fine-tune parking protocol later; for now I gave him a whopping $2.

It got even better inside. Our seats were directly behind the visiting team—the Seattle Super Sonics were sweating on their bench not a foot from our faces. I didn’t even care that I didn’t know any of the players. Delma spotted the TV cameras right away and spent the rest of the evening checking out who the crews were filming—Jack Nicholson, as usual. We were only ten chairs away! I peered at the camera every time it pulled back for a crowd shot. Was I making a splash in Cottage Grove?

Our seats came with our own server, who came by several times to ask if there was anything we wanted. I was overwhelmed with all the questions running through my head: If I’m holding the ticket, does he think
I’m
someone important? Or can he spot an imposter?

We never did order anything because we were too embarrassed to ask if it was complimentary, and we only had $8 between us. Oh well. It was fun to have the perks of power, even if they were just borrowed for the evening. And my short-lived ascension into status that night at the Lakers game turned out to have a lasting benefit. From that day on, I knew the exact location of Michael’s seats. Years later I would be very grateful that I could tune in to Lakers games and try to catch a glimpse of the children. But for now I was happy just sitting in the front row.

My lessons on the ways of the wealthy continued.

Next up, art.

As Michael was leaving for the office one Friday morning, he told me that some deliverymen would be arriving that afternoon with a large painting from his friend’s art gallery in New York. The dealer, who sold Michael a great deal of art, was always treated as an honored guest when he came for overnight visits, sleeping in the luxurious guest suite just off the upstairs gallery.

All I had to do was show the deliverymen into the sitting room and tell them to hang the painting on a particular wall. Judy was going to be gone all day, and it was Carmen’s day off, so Michael made it clear that it was my sole responsibility to handle this important matter carefully. I had no idea how much the painting was worth. My only frame of reference was one of the small paintings in the family room. Carmen had told me it was worth $750,000. This definitely required my full attention. The thing was probably worth more than most people in Cottage Grove would make in a lifetime.

Since I grew up in a place where it was customary for most men over the age of fifty to start almost every sentence with “Well, I reckon …” it is not surprising that my father’s idea of art was the bowling trophy he won back in ’69 for bowling a perfect three-hundred game. It also doubled as our living room clock. My mother’s art collection consisted of a snowman that my sisters and I had made for her from one of those yarn things you hook—the kind that’s on the square burlap, and you match the yarn with the painted pattern. My personal art collection included a framed picture of Jon Bon Jovi that I special-ordered through
Teen
magazine and kept on my dresser.

Michael must have called six times that day, nearly every half hour, wanting to know if the painting had arrived. No, it had not. I didn’t even go outside the house for fear I’d miss the delivery. Finally, a truck appeared at four in the afternoon, and I buzzed it in the front gate. Two men approached the front door carrying a wooden crate that was about six feet long. I could see the package through the wooden slats, covered in butcher paper. I immediately led the men into the sitting room, where they began tearing the crate apart with claw hammers. When they finally pulled all the butcher paper off, there was yet another piece of solid black paper wrapped tightly around the painting.

“Where do you want it, miss?” one of them asked.

“Over here. See, those two hooks are all ready for it.”

At that point, I expected the men to tear off the final cover, but they just lifted the art up by the sides and carefully and slowly hung it on the wall. Why hadn’t they uncovered it? Had they been told to leave it that way? Perhaps Michael wanted it to be a surprise at an upcoming dinner party. He must be planning a grand unveiling. He would make a big todo about pulling off the black cover, at which point he would expound on the virtues of his newest acquisition.

Four nights passed and still no grand event. The suspense was killing me—why didn’t they unwrap the damn thing? To add to the mystery, Michael had a railing installed in front of the masterpiece, protruding out about three feet. I’d heard him telling Carmen not to let the girls (referring to all adult women in the house) touch it, dust it, or breathe on it. Right, I got it. But why keep it wrapped up? I couldn’t figure it out for anything. Of course, I didn’t want to appear the country bumpkin that I was by asking anyone.

Finally, one night I overheard a discussion about the painting. But how could they talk about it without seeing it?

Ohhhhh
.

The art wasn’t covered by
anything
. It was just a large black painting! No scene, no contrasting colors, no nothing. Just a canvas of black. I inspected it more closely and discovered that there were three separations, with black fabric wrapped around each panel. Could there possibly be three different “shades” of black? I know, ridiculous. It made no
sense to me. I glanced at it from time to time during my stay, hoping something would click in my brain, but it never did.

I figured the “artist/fabric wrapper” who put this piece together must have had some phenomenal talent, imperceptible to all but the very wealthy.

By March I felt like I had a handle on some things. Although Amanda didn’t consider me her new best friend, at least she wasn’t chucking stuffed animals at me anymore during her tantrums. And Brandon’s contagious smiles were constantly puffing out his model-perfect chubby cheeks. No colicky screamer for me, thank goodness, unlike one of the poor nannies I befriended at the park. She always had dark circles under her eyes and looked haggard, though she was near my age. The only way she could calm the colicky baby she cared for was to strap her into the car seat and perch the whole thing on top of the running clothes dryer. She was always afraid the baby would overheat, but the parents were grateful that anything worked and refused to look for any other solutions. She spent a lot of time in the laundry room.

But I was still struggling with other things. I could handle the long hours, but I realized what was really bothering me: how seriously my employers took everything. Sure, Delma and I would giggle over the panic that ensued when we couldn’t find one shoe from a Barbie that Amanda hadn’t played with in weeks. But the family seemed sincerely riled up over such matters. I got the distinct impression that to them, life was a chore. They seldom cracked smiles. A far cry from the Hansen household, with parents who had often led three girls in pretending they were the Jackson Five in concert. Complete with spoons for microphones. I had a hard time imagining my new employers rocking out with their kids.

And I kept flubbing up Judy’s orders. They seemed impossible to follow. For example, the kids ate dinner at six sharp. On the rare occasions Michael made it home in time, they wanted the staff to be as invisible as possible while the five of them shared some much-needed family time. Invisible, of course, except that someone had to feed and take care of Brandon. Which I wasn’t sure how to do without being seen.

And as much as I told myself not to, I missed Ryan. Blond, with a naturally muscular build, Ryan looked a little like Matthew McConaughey. He was a year younger than me, still a senior in high school. I was always the more mature one, the overprotective, overly responsible adult, and Ryan played the part of wild bad boy. I think he had a hard time seeing beyond his family’s legacy as timber fallers—I wondered if in some ways he didn’t have many dreams for himself beyond graduation. We were clearly heading in different directions and emphatically not together. But I really didn’t want him to date anyone else. Did I want to date anyone else? No one had really caught my eye since Josh Evans dropped me off.

It probably didn’t matter; I had no free time, anyway. Maybe a story I’d heard from a British nanny who lived five doors up the street said it best: her five-year-old charge went to sit on Santa’s lap and promptly told him that all he wanted for Christmas was a date for his beloved nanny. He thought she needed a boyfriend and Santa might be able to help.

I could see, though, that Joshua wouldn’t be such a matchmaker. He hadn’t warmed up to me at all. And it was only getting worse.

Michael’s parents, David and Sylvia, came in from the Valley to stay at the house for a couple of days while Michael and Judy were out of town. I was feeling much more confident about my duties, but I was happy to have them there nonetheless. I liked Grandma and Grandpa Ovitz the minute I met them. Grandpa Ovitz was quiet, with a small potbelly, but you could tell the wheels in his brain were always turning. (Carmen told me he had some sort of job in the wine business.) Sylvia Ovitz was the caricature of a Jewish mother, and she had a heart of gold. She wore sweatshirts with rhinestones and sequins sewn all over them. She talked constantly, which drove Grandpa to his silences. The only time he really seemed to respond to her was when they argued. They would get caught up in an exchange that was like an old-time comedy routine. “Don’t start. I’m telling you, don’t start with me.” It was clear they couldn’t live without each other.

The night after Judy and Michael left, I walked into the kitchen after dinnertime to see what Joshua was doing. I found him sitting atop the
center island all alone, playing with an entire stick of butter, which was beginning to get very soft. He had dropped the messy wrapper on the floor. I picked it up.

“Joshua, don’t eat that,” I scolded him. “You can’t eat butter all by itself.”

“Yes, I can!” he said loudly.

“No, you can’t!” I responded just as loudly, breaking one of my own rules:
Don’t engage in a shouting match with a child
.

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t!”

“Yes, I can.” His voice was getting louder and more imperious.

This was crazy. I was acting like a six-year-old myself. I had to do something.

I put my hand around his wrist and began to wrestle the stick from his hand, forgetting my other rule:
Always be smarter than the child
. When he jerked his hand away, yelling, “Let go of me, you idiot!” a big dollop of the greasy stuff flew through the air and stuck to the side of his face.

“I hate you. You gooooot b-b-b-b-uuuttter on me!” he screamed as he started crying. Then he threw what was left of the yellow mass at me. A huge chunk lodged in my hair.

I had somehow started a food fight with a six-year-old. I had to get control here.

I didn’t do it quickly enough. Grandpa Ovitz heard the commotion and came in to inquire about the ruckus. I told him I had discovered Joshua eating a stick of butter and that he had thrown it at me, to which Joshua piped up, “But, Grandpa, she threw it at me first.”

Right. Grandpa Ovitz looked at the butter on Joshua’s face, then turned to see the clump in my hair. How to explain my way out of this one? Though Grandpa Ovitz had a gruff exterior at times, he was a very kind and caring man. Still, I was mortified when he gave me a you-should-know-better look as he wiped Joshua’s face with a dishcloth.

Foolish didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I just couldn’t find the words to explain that I had not purposely splattered his grandson with fat.

To make matters worse, Grandpa Ovitz said, “Perhaps you should take a time-out, Suzy. I’ll talk with Joshua.”

Take a time-out?

My face flushed. Could you ever reprimand a nanny in a more demeaning manner? And yet part of me was glad to get away from such a frustrating child. Perhaps it wasn’t such bad advice.

By then it was past eight o’clock at night. I had already put Brandon to bed, and I knew that Grandma Ovitz would take care of Joshua and Amanda. Maybe I could use the time to really relax. I went to my room and put on my bathing suit, wrapped myself in a robe, and went outside to the pool. A simple rectangle set far away from the house next to a cabana and the workout room, the pool seemed like a shining oasis right then. I had never had the time to get in it before, and I thought a little exercise would be a good antidote to my anger. I’d swim a little, float in the eighty-five-degree water, and rinse the last of the butter out of my hair.

The pool wasn’t huge, but a great slide made up for it. I decided to take the plunge on my stomach headfirst.
Aaaaagh!
The slide was slicker than I had anticipated, and I zoomed off the end, hurtling through the short length of the pool like a torpedo launched from a nuclear submarine. I hit the bricks on the other side of the pool deck at about fifty miles per hour, or so it seemed, and immediately began to sink like a big hunk of concrete.