Lovers by Judith Krantz Read Free Book Online Page A

with a great full-time, live-in nanny you wouldn’t have to do all the scut work, and just look at you … Why don’t you get another nanny if she can’t handle it?”
    “She can, Gigi, she can. Nanny Elizabeth’s the best in the West, and I’m afraid I may be driving her crazy because I won’t let her do everything. But if I don’t feed the boys, and burp them and change them and put them down and get them up, they’ll end up thinking she’s their mother, not me. This is the most important time of their lives, crucial time, Gigi, and if I miss it I can never get it back. Did you know that if people grew at the same rate as babies do in their first year, we’d all be about a hundred and eighty feet tall? So you see …” Billy’s voice trailed off at the thought of the immensity and importance of her task.
    “But, Billy, twins … Aren’t you
supposed
to have help with twins?”
    “In theory, of course, but the people who decided that never stopped to think that one twin could end up not getting as much maternal attention as the other. I can’t risk that. They’re four months old, a very impressionable age.”
    “Personally,” Gigi said, prudently suppressing a smile, “I don’t remember anything about being four months old.”
    “You think you don’t, but everything that happened made a difference.
Everything
, believe me.”
    “No doubt, but it’s too late now. Listen, Billy, there’s something I want to tell you …”
    “Gigi, it’s more important for you to listen to me now. There’s something you’ve really got to understand before you have children yourself.”
    “I’m not planning any, trust me.” Gigi allowed herself a giggle at Billy’s new piece of bizarre thinking, since it was directed at her.
    “You never know, and unless I make you realize the truth this minute, there’s a chance that I might not remember, because people forget the first months of their children’s lives the way they forget childbirth … having them is already a blur.” Billy spoke in a voice that a prophetess might envy. “Now listen carefully.
Babies are a lot smarter than anybody realizes.”
    “Okay, okay, I’m sure they are, especially Hal and Max, but, Billy, I came to …”
    “Gigi, how do you think babies
control
you?”
    “Huh?”
    “Control. They can’t talk, they can’t walk, but they control you. I’ll bet you haven’t the slightest idea of how they do it.”
    “You can’t leave them alone and you won’t let the nanny do it, so you
think
they control you,” Gigi said, trying to restore reason.
    “Wrong!” Billy sat up. “That’s just what everyone says, because they know nothing, nothing!” Her voice lowered to an intensity that made Gigi lean forward in amazement.
“They control you with their eyes, yes, just their eyes!”
    “Sure, Billy,” Gigi agreed quickly. Like purple aliens from another planet, spaceship residents visiting in the middle of the night, of course they did. Hal and Max controlled reckless, impulsive, billionairess Billy Ikehorn with their wondering baby eyes. Should she make an immediate excuse to leave the room and phone Spider, she asked herself. Did he not realize how totally obsessive Billy had become—just obsessive, or was it really crazy? Or did her weirdness seem natural to him, since the twins were his first children too?
    “I can tell that you don’t believe me,” Billy said, brushingher hair back in a gesture too tired to be impatient. “Just bring me that blue book over there on my desk, the one that’s open.”
    Gigi hastened to do as she was told.
    “Thanks,” Billy said, trying to find a particular page in the book, which was entitled
The Interpersonal World of the Infant
. “Now listen. This is about what happens during the first three-to-five month period in a baby’s life, and that’s exactly where the boys are. Are you paying attention to me?”
    “Yes, Billy.”
    Billy looked at her sharply to make sure.