The Manny. Holly Peterson
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HOLLY PETERSON
The Manny
For Rick My life source.
Contents
Chapter One: Wheels Up!
Chapter Two: Morning Sickness
Chapter Three: The Waffle
Chapter Four: Everyone Knows That
Chapter Five: Is There a Manny in the House?
Chapter Six: Time to Talk Turkey
Chapter Seven: The Manny Makes his Debut
Chapter Eight: Nannies Are So Much Simpler than Mannies
Chapter Nine: Exposed!
Chapter Ten: Wherefore Art There, Fabio?
Chapter Eleven: Rotten Eggs
Chapter Twelve: The Big ‘Get’: Be Careful What You Go For
Chapter Thirteen: Backstage Sitters
Chapter Fourteen: Kidnapped!
Chapter Fifteen: Boundaries, Boundaries
Chapter Sixteen: Sartorial Situations
Chapter Seventeen: A Job Well Done
Entr’acte I
Chapter Eighteen: That Whole Style Thing
Chapter Nineteen: Say it Ain’t So
Chapter Twenty: More than just a Manny
Chapter Twenty-One: Winter White-out
Chapter Twenty-Two: Table Talk
Chapter Twenty-Three: Day of Reckoning
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Other Side of the Tracks
Chapter Twenty-Five: Clashing Cultures
Chapter Twenty-Six: Epic Snow Job
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Morse Code for Big Trouble
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Cool-Down Period
Chapter Thirty: Hold on to Your Birthday Hats
Chapter Thirty-One: The Boudreaux Bombshell
Chapter Thirty-Two: Wild Life
Chapter Thirty-Three: A Funny Thing Called Fear
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Belle of the Ball
Chapter Thirty-Five: Grown-up Time-out
Entra’acte II
Chapter Thirty-Six: Return Engagement
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Rude Awakening
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Resolution
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise
Copyright
About the Publisher
If you want to see rich people act really rich, go to St Henry’s School for Boys at 3 p.m. on any weekday. Nothing makes rich people crazier than being around other rich people who might be richer than they are. Private school drop-off and pick-up really gets them going. It’s an opportunity to stake their claim, show their wares and let the other parents know where they rank in the top .001 per cent of the top .0001 per cent.
A cavalcade of black SUVs, minivans and chauffeured cars snaked its way up the block beside me as I raced to my son’s after-school game. I’d skipped another meeting at work, but nothing was going to keep me that day. Gingko trees and limestone mansions lined the street where a crowd gathered in front of the school. I steeled myself and waded into a sea of parents: the dads in banker suits barking into their phones and moms with their glamorous sunglasses and toned upper arms – many with dressed-up little darlings by their sides. These children played an important role in their parents’ never-ending game of one-upmanship as they were trotted out in smocked dresses, shuttled from French tutor to Cello class and discussed like prize livestock at a 4-H Fair.
Idling in front of the school, with his tinted rear window half open, a cosmetics giant read about himself in the gossip columns. His four-year-old little girl watched a Barbie Fairytopia DVD on the small screen that dropped down from the ceiling of the vehicle while he finished the article. The nanny, in a starched white uniform, waited patiently in the front seat for him to inform her it was time to go inside.
A few yards down the block, a three-and-a-half-inch green lizard heel was reaching for the sidewalk from the back of a fat, silver Mercedes S600. The chauffeur flashed its yellow headlights at me. Next I saw a brown tweed skirt jacked up on a shapely thigh, ultimately revealing a thirty-something woman shaking out her honey-coloured hair while her driver sprinted like a madman to get her arm.
‘Jamie! Jamie!’ called Ingrid Harris, waving her manicured hand. Dozens of chunky gold bangles jangled as they slid down her arm.
I tried to shield my eyes from the glare. ‘Ingrid. Please. I love you but no. I’ve got to get to Dylan’s game!’
‘I’ve been trying to reach you!’
I ducked into the crowd, knowing she would come after me.
‘Jamie! Please! Wait!’ Ingrid caught up to me, leaving her driver behind to contend with her two boys wailing from their car seats. She let out a huge breath as if the fifteen-foot walk from the Mercedes to the kerb had taxed her. ‘Hooo!’ Remember this is a crowd that touches down on actual pavement as seldom as possible. ‘Thank God you were home last night!’
‘No problem. Any time.’
‘Henry is so in debt to you,’ said Ingrid.
The burly chauffeur carried each of her younger boys in one graceful arc from their car seats to the kerb, as if he were placing eggs in a basket.
‘The four Ambien. Henry was going hunting with some clients for five days, it was wheels up at 10 p.m. to Argentina and he was crazed!’
‘Jamie.’ Next, voice I loved. My friend Kathryn Fitzgerald. She commuted from Tribeca and she was wearing jeans and French sneakers. Like me, she wasn’t one of those people who grew up on the Upper East Side and