The Nannies by Melody Mayer Read Free Book Online Page A

girl said, oozing attitude. She snaked an arm around the boy’s waist from behind.
    Bitch.
    “Is there a main shutoff outside, at least?” Esme asked the guy.
    He shrugged. “No idea.”
    “Excuse me.” Esme squished past the couple and went outside to locate the water line that fed into the house. She quickly spotted the old-fashioned crank and twisted it, but it didn’t budge. Another hard spin made it give way. Several revolutions later, the water to the house was off.
    Next she went back inside to search for supplies to clean up the disaster she’d created. When she got back to the bathroom with her arms full of ancient copies of the
Los Angeles Times,
the handsome guy and his golden girlfriend were gone, thank God. But almost as bad: Mr. Goldhagen and his wife stood there. Esme’s heart dipped to her crap-covered sandals. What if she got her parents fired because of this screwup?
    “I’m really sorry about the mess,” Esme began. “I made sure the water valve was closed, but . . .” She glanced down at the sewage. “I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Mr. Goldhagen said. “We’ve already called a pro. One of the neighbors told us this toilet hadn’t been used since Cary Grant owned the place.”
    Cary Grant. An old movie star, though Esme was fairly certain she’d never seen any of his movies.
    “Anyway, Esme,” Mr. Goldhagen went on. “The reason we wanted to talk to you is . . . my wife noticed how good you are with our kids.”
    “Selina’s giving them a bath,” Diane added. “When I peeked in, she told me that the girls keep chattering on and on about their new friend, Esme.”
    Esme smiled. “That’s sweet.”
    “And obviously you’re bilingual,” Mr. Goldhagen said. “Which is key. So, we were thinking you might like to spend more time with the girls. We’d pay you, of course. Sound good?”
    Not really. Yes, the twins were cute. But they reminded her too much of her cousin Jacqueline. And she already had a job doing tattoos in the Echo. Why would she want to change?
    “I don’t think so,” Esme said. “Thank you for asking.”
    “Are you sure?” Diane asked. “Because I was thinking of putting a job listing up at UCLA and USC: Bilingual nanny, five hundred a week, plus guesthouse and use of a car.”
    Esme was lucky if she cleared two hundred dollars doing tattoos. “Did you say five hundred dollars a week? To look after the girls and clean your house?”
    “Oh no, no cleaning,” Diane assured her.
    “You’re interested,” Mr. Goldhagen surmised.
    “Maybe.”
    “Then let’s take it one step at a time,” Diane suggested. “What if we do a two-week trial? That way, we can all see if it works.”
    Esme hesitated. It was so overwhelming—one minute the police were barring her and Junior from the estate, and the next she was offered a job. “What happens with school, in the fall?”
    “Well, if things work out, we’ll arrange your hours around classes,” Diane said. She turned to her husband. “I guess she’d go to Bel Air High School.”
    Mr. Goldhagen nodded. “You probably wouldn’t want to leave all your friends. You could always drive back to . . .”
    “Echo Park,” Esme finished for him, realizing that her parents’ employers weren’t exactly sure where their employees lived. “We live in Echo Park.”
    The prospect of choosing Echo Park High School over Bel Air High School almost made her laugh. The only school friend she’d miss would be Jorge. There would be no hardship in leaving behind detectors and gang wars and drive-bys on school property.
    Diane tented her fingers. “You’d live right here. With a functioning toilet, I promise. We’ll give you a cell, and one of the cars so that you can get the girls where they need to go. The Audi, Steven?”
    Mr. Goldhagen nodded. “The Audi.”
    A cell phone
and
a house
and
an Audi
and
five hundred dollars a week? She had to be dreaming. There had to be a