You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny Read Online Free PDF Page A

like. Ms. Chambers sat looking at some papers on the desk in front of her. I assumed she was waiting for me to respond.
    I paused a moment, then said, “Thank you. I hope that won’t be a problem.” If I lived here, I could ugly myself up a little. Maybe not wear any makeup; just wash my hair once a week. I guessed she hadn’t had to cover this part of the interview process with the current Grandma Moses.
    After I had given this woman the short version of the story I’d told Mrs. Foshay the day before, she began to rattle off a litany of rules and quirks that I would have to deal with. Standard-issue stuff. Except it wasn’t.
    For one, there was the refrigerator. It had a lock on it. All the goodies that Barbi and Ken did not have the willpower to resist were locked safely inside the colossal chrome Sub-Zero.
    “Who has the key?” I inquired. Two intelligent adults kept their own food in solitary confinement?
    “The chef does,” she explained helpfully. “The only time he opens it is to prepare their meals. They are both very strict about their diet.”
    “Does she ever beg the staff to open it in the middle of the night?” I had to know.
    The question got me a stern dip of her eyebrows.
    “Of course not. What kind of people do you think they are?”
    The kind of people WHO LOCK THEIR REFRIGERATOR! Why not just stock up on lettuce and bottled water and forget about security?
    “Now, back to the issue of your looks,” she continued. “You will, of course, be required to wear a uniform. Actually, it’s quite lovely,” she added, as if forestalling my protest that I would not be caught dead in a nanny habit. She pulled out a dress that looked like it belonged to Mary Poppins and displayed it to me proudly. Apparently, every member of the household was expected to work in costume.
    With that out of the way, she proceeded to tell me about the family. I would potentially be caring for one baby boy, their first child. “She will rely on you a great deal,” Ms. Chambers said delicately. “The month after Barbi had the baby, she and her husband left for a long vacation. You’ve had a lot of experience with infants, I’m sure?” I was still digesting the news of the parents’ sabbatical when I heard a man’s voice over the intercom. “I am done with my coffee,” he announced abruptly. Ms. Chambers immediately buzzed the staff to remove the offending coffee cup. She rang into several rooms of the mansion, broadcasting the urgent situation until she found someone to take care of it.
    A little more background on this family would have been helpful
.
    “Now, when you travel with the family in the convertible Rolls-Royce, you will always ride in the front seat with the driver and be in uniform. It is very important to them that when they are out for a drive, it is clear to onlookers that you are
the help
. Are there any questions so far?” she asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “Good. By the way, how is your health?” she asked.
    What?
I was not even nineteen years old, for God’s sake. How bad off could I be? Did she want to know about my menstrual cramps once a month and the fact that I dislocated my knee trying out for the track team in the eighth grade? The current nanny looked like she just emerged from an all-night bingo parlor with her portable oxygen in tow, and she managed to work here. How hard could it be?
    We wrapped up the interview, and I was politely escorted out past the huge mansion. I never did see the inside, or Barbi or Ken for that matter. Clearly I was not going to be Skipper.
    My second interview that day was with “a family in the entertainment industry.” The Ovitzes. I didn’t have a clue who Michael Ovitz was. I was actually a little disappointed when I didn’t recognize the name—I’d imagined someone like John Travolta. The nanny placement agency told me only his last name and that he was president of a big talent agency. I just heard a bunch of initials.
    Had I known that Creative