Oh  ...my  ...God

Sarah cracks her front door open to the extent the chain will allow, revealing flannel cloud pajamas and a pencil holding her blond bun in place. "Okay, half an hour-that's it. I mean it, thirty minutes. I'm home to cram for my orgo final, not sort through the Xes' dirty laundry."

"Why did you schlep yourself all the way back into the city to study?" Josh asks as Sarah unlocks the chain and lets us into the Englund family's front hall.

"Have you ever met, Jill, my roommate?"

"I don't think so," Josh says, taking off his jacket.

"Don't worry-you're not missing much-she's a theater major and her 'final' is performing five minutes of her life for the heads of the department-throw your stuff on the bench-so she's constantly standing up in our room, saying 'Dammit!', and sitting back down. I mean, how hard is it to sit and read a magazine for five minutes?" She rolls her eyes. "Do you guys want something to drink?" We follow her into the kitchen, which still has the same yellow daisy wallpaper that it did when we were in kindergarten.

"Sing Slings." I request Sarah's speciality.

"Coming right up," she says, stretching to pull a cocktail shaker and sour mix out of a high cabinet. "Have a seat." She gestures to the long green table by the window.

"It would be much cooler if this were a round table, like we could be the Knights of the Panty Roundtable," Josh says.

"Josh," I say, "the panties aren't the focus right now-the letter is-"

"We have a round coffee table in the living room," Sarah offers.

"We are totally doing this at a round table," Josh decides.

"Nan, you know the way," Sarah says, handing me a bag of Pirate's Booty. I lead Josh into the living room and plop down on the Persian carpet around the coffee table. Sarah follows with a tray of Singapore Slings. "Okay," she says, carefully sliding the tray onto the coffee table. "The clock is ticking-spill it."

"Let's just see the goods," Josh says, taking a sip.

I reach into my backpack and pull out the Ziploc baggie, along with Ms. Chicago's letter, and lay them ceremoniously in the middle of the table. We sit in silence for a moment, staring at the evidence as if they were eggs about to hatch.

"Man, it really is a fucking panty roundtable," Josh murmurs, reaching out toward the bag.

"No!" I say, slapping his hand. "The panties stay in the bag- that is the one condition of the Round Table. Got it?"

He folds his hands primly in his lap, sighing. "Fine. So, for the edification of the court, would you care to review the facts of the case?"

"I found Ms. Chicago practically hanging out in Mrs. X's bed four months ago, and then, all of a sudden, I received a letter at my home-"

"Exhibit A," Sarah says, waving the letter.

"Which means she knows where I live! She's hunted me down! Is there nowhere for me to hide?"

"It's so over the line," Sarah confirms.

"Oh, does Nan have a line?" Josh asks.

"Yes! I have a line. It's drawn right across Eighty-sixth Street. They cannot come to my home!" I feel myself starting to get hysterical. "I have a thesis paper to write! Exams to take! A job to find! What I do not have-is time. I cannot be running around NYU with Mr. X's mistress's underwear in my bag. I cannot be juggling their secrets on a full course load!"

"Nan, look," Sarah says gently, reaching around the table to put her hand on my back. "You still have power here. Disengage. Just give it all back and call it a day."

"Give it all back to who?" I ask.

"To the skank," Josh says. "Mail that shit back to her and let her know you don't want to play."

"But what about Mrs. X? If this all comes out and she finds out I had the panties and didn't tell her-"

"What's she gonna do? Kill you?" Sarah asks. "Put you in jail for the rest of your life?" She holds up her glass. "Send 'em back and quit."

"I can't quit. I don't have time to look for another job and my Real Job-at whatever school I can convince to hire me-won't start till September. Besides"-I open the bag of cheese poofs, finished with my bout of self-pity-"I just can't leave Grayer."

"You're gonna be leaving him at some point," Josh reminds me.

"Yeah, but if I want to stay in his life I can't end on bad terms with her," I say. "But you're right. I'll send this stuff back."

"And look, that only took us twenty minutes," Sarah says. "Which still leaves ten minutes for you to run my orgo flashcards with me."

"The fun never stops," I say.

Josh leans over to give me a hug. "Don't sweat it, Nan, you'll be fine. Hey-let's not overlook the fact that you guessed Ms. Chicago's panties would be black lace thongs, like, months before we found 'em. That's gotta be a marketable skill."

I empty my glass. "Well, if you know a game show on which I can turn that into ready cash, lemme know."

I survey the disheveled piles of books, highlighted photocopies, and empty pizza boxes strewn all over my room that I've accumulated since I got home from work Friday. It's four A.M. and I've been writing for forty-eight straight hours, which is significantly less time for my thesis than I allotted myself. But, short of leaving Grayer to care for himself in the apartment, I didn't really have a choice.

I glance over at the brown manila envelope that's been resting against my printer since The Panty Roundtable a week ago. Taped and stamped, it only remains to be ceremoniously deposited in a mailbox after I deliver my thesis in four hours. Then Ms. Chicago and NYU will be well on their way to becoming a distant memory.

I grab another handful of M&M's out of the quarter-pound bag. I probably have all of five pages to go, but can barely keep my eyes open. A loud snore erupts from behind the screen. Fucking hairy pilot idiot.

I stretch my arms out to yawn, just as another guttural snore punctuates the silence, sending George darting with intense purpose across the room and diving into a neglected heap of dirty clothes.

I'm so tired I feel like my eyes are filled with playground sand. Desperate to regain some semblance of lucidity, I step carefully around the debris to locate my headphones and plug them into the stereo. I pull them onto my head and crouch down to spin the tuner until I find thumping dance music. I rock my head to the rhythm, turning the volume up until I feel the beat make its way down to my lucky turtle socks. I stand up to dance around in the small radius allowed me by the headphone cord. Bongo drums fill my ears and I shimmy wildly amid the books, eyes closed, willing my adrenaline to perk me up.

"NAN!" I open my eyes and slightly recoil at the sight of Mr. Hairy in a T-shirt and boxers, one hand carelessly scratching in his shorts. "WHAT THE HELL? IT'S ALMOST FOUR IN THE MORNING!" he bellows.

"Sorry?" I slide the headphones off my ears, noticing that this action does not decrease the volume. He points exasperatedly at the stereo where my floor show has unplugged the headphones.

I lunge for the off button. "God, sorry. My thesis is due tomorrow and I'm so tired. I was just trying to wake up."

He stomps off to the other end of the studio. "Whatever," he grumbles into the darkness.

"As long as you're comfortable!" I mouth silently in his direction. "As long as you're happy, sleeping here even when Charlene is flying all-nighters from Yemen! As long as my rent-paying-utilities-paying-can-only-get-to-the-bathroom-during-daylight-hours self is not disturbing you." I roll my eyes and head back to the computer. Four hours, five pages. I grab another handful of M&M's; let's go, Nan.

The alarm wakes me at six-thirty, but it requires quite a few bleeps and one very disgruntled "WHAT THE HELL?" to raise my weary head off the pillow. I look at the clock; sixty minutes of sleep in forty-eight hours ought to do me just fine. I uncurl from the tight fetal position in which I passed out mere seconds ago and reach down to pull on a pair of jeans.

Pink light spills in through the open window, illuminating the disarray, which looks as if librarians came over and partied very hard. The computer hums loudly, mixing with the chirps of birds outside. I lean over the chair and wiggle the mouse to get past the screen saver and click Print. I click again on OK, appreciating that my computer feels compelled to check in with me at least twice regarding all major decisions. I hear the Style Writer run its warm-up swipe and shuffle groggily off to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

By the time I return not a stitch of progress has been made. "Jesus," I mutter, checking the Print Monitor to see what's In the Queue. A message pops up on the screen to notify me that Error Seventeen has occurred and that I should either reboot or call the service center. Fine.

I press save and shut down the machine, careful to pull out the disk on which I saved the five-thirty A.M. version. I restart as instructed, while pulling on boots, tying a sweater around my waist, and waiting for the screen to light up again. I check my watch: six-fifty. One hour and ten minutes to shove this behemoth under Clarkson's door. I press a myriad of buttons, but the screen remains dark. My heart pounds. Nothing I press can cajole my computer back to life. I grab the disk, my wallet, keys, the Ms. Chicago package, and run out of the apartment.

I jog up to Second Avenue, both arms waving over my head to hail a cab. I leap into the first one that languorously pulls over, trying to remember where, in the maze that is NYU's campus, the computer center is located. For some reason I have been unable to commit most campus locations to memory and suspect some Freudian connection between logistics and my fear of bureaucracy is responsible.

"Uh, it's off West Fourth, um, and Bleecker, I think. Just head in that direction and I'll tell you when we get close!" The driver takes off, braking sharply before each light. The streets are pretty empty, save the street cleaners whirring past and the men in suits and overcoats disappearing, briefcase first, down subway steps. Why this paper has to be in at eight A.M. is utterly beyond me. Some people get to mail in their final papers. Oh, who am I kidding? If that were the case, I'd just be in a frantic cab ride to the post office.

I hop out of the taxi on Waverly Place, taking the disk, my wallet, and keys just as a girl in a shiny outfit and smeared makeup shoves me aside to get in the cab. I catch the unmistakable whiff of a long night out-beer, stale cigarettes, and Drakkar Noir. I am comforted by the reminder that my life at this moment could be worse- I could be a sophomore doing the Walk/Cab Ride of Shame.

It's a little past seven-fifteen by the time I find my way, almost by smell, to the main computer center on the fifth floor of the education building.

"Need to see your ID," a girl with green hair and white lips mumbles from behind a large Dunkin' Donuts cup clutched at chin height. I riffle through my wallet a moment before remembering that the card she's referring to currently sits at the bottom of my backpack, upon which George is probably peacefully asleep.

"I don't have it. But I just need to print something out; it'll only take five minutes, I swear." I grip the counter and peer intently at her. She rolls her heavily kohled eyes.

"Can't," she says, pointing halfheartedly at the list of rules printed out in black-and-white on the wall behind her.

"Okay! Okay, here, let's see, I have my sophomore ID and ..." I tug cards madly out of their leather slots. "Um, and a library card to Loeb. See, it says 'senior' on it!"

"No picture, though." She flips through her X-Man comic book.

"PLEASE, I am begging you. Beg-ging. I have, like, twenty-eight minutes to get this printed and handed in. It's my thesis; my entire college career hangs in the balance here. You can even watch me while I print!" I am starting to hyperventilate.

"Can't leave the desk." She pushes her stool back a few inches, but doesn't look up.

"Hey! Hey, you, in the ski hat!" A stick-thin boy with a name tag dangling from the chain around his neck glances over from where he lounges near the Xerox. "Do you work here?"

He saunters over in blue patent leather pants. "Wants to print, but doesn't have ID," the help desk girl informs him.

I reach out and touch his arm, stretching to read his name. "Dylan! Dylan, I need your help. I need you to escort me to a printer so that I can print out my thesis, which is due, four blocks from here, in, like, twenty-five minutes." I try to breathe steadily in and out while the two confer.

He eyes me skeptically. "The thing is... we've had some people coming in to use the center for their own purposes. Not students, I mean, so .. ." He drifts off.

"At seven-thirty in the morning, Dylan? Really?" I try to get a handle on myself. "Look, I can even pay you for the paper. I'll make a deal with you. You watch me print and if TOGETHER, you and me, we generate anything other than a thesis paper you can throw me out!"

"Well..." He slouches against the counter. "You could be from Columbia or something."

"With a sophomore ID from NYU?" I wave the plastic card in front of his face. "Think, Dylan! Use your head, man! Why wouldn't I just print up there? Why would I come all the way down here to sneak past you and your partner if I could just waltz into the computer lab three feet from my dorm room, all the way uptown! Oh, God, I do not have another minute to argue with you two. What's it going to be? Am I going to fail out of college and have a cardiac arrest right here on the linoleum or are you two going to give me FIVE FUCKING MINUTES AT ONE OF YOUR GAZZILLION FREE COMPUTERS?" I pound my keys on the countertop for emphasis. They stare at me blankly while Patent Leather Pants weighs the evidence.

"Yeah ... Okay. But if it's not your thesis then ... I'm going to have to rip it up," I am already way past him, disk jammed into terminal number six, clicking Print like a madwoman.

I slowly emerge from the deepest of sleeps, pulling my sweater off my face to check the time. I've been out cold for almost two hours. Too tired even to make it to Josh's, somehow, in a total fog, I found this stanky couch in the far corner of the Business School lounge where I could finally give way to my exhaustion.

I sit up and wipe the drool off the side of my mouth, getting a lusty gaze from a man highlighting his Wall Street Journal in a chair nearby. I ignore him and pull my wallet and keys from where I had stored them for safekeeping, under my butt in between the orange cushions, and decide to treat myself to the fancy coffee from the gourmet espresso shop.

As I walk down LaGuardia Place spring is in full bloom. The May sky is warm and bright and the trees in front of Citibank are thick with buds. I smile up into the cloudless sky. I am a woman who has taken this place by the horns and made it! I am a woman who will, against all bureaucratic odds, probably graduate from NYU!

I take my five-dollar cup of coffee to a bench in Washington Square Park, so I can bask in the sun, resting against the shiny black luster of the wrought-iron bench. There are few people in the park at this hour, mostly children and drug dealers, neither of whom can disturb my reverie.

A woman strolls over to the bench across the way pushing a toddler in a plaid stroller and clutching a McDonald's bag under her arm. She sits, rolling the child to face her as she unwraps two Egg McMuffins and passes one to the stroller. The pigeons cluster around my feet, pecking at the brick. I have an hour before I have to pick up Grayer; maybe I should window-shop for a cute little sundress, something to wear in the warm summer nights to come as I sip martinis with H. H. on the Hudson.

I watch the woman pull another container out of the bag and mull over how lovely hash browns would taste right now, gazing absentmindedly at the little backpack hanging loosely on one of the stroller handles. Yes, hash browns and a milk shake, maybe chocolate. My eyes trace the pink border of the cartoon on the front of the backpack. Little pear-shaped figures. All in different colors with shapes on their heads. They are all... I squint to make out their names ... They are all Teletubbies. I spit coffee in a good three-foot projectile in front of me.

Oh, my God. OH, MY GOD. I struggle to breathe as the pigeons jitter away. Flashes of Halloween, the dark limo ride home, the mink held close around Mrs. X's face, Grayer racked out beside me. I remember Mr. X snoring and Mrs. X talking and talking. Chattering on and on about the beach. I am in a clammy sweat. I put my hands over my forehead, trying to piece together the memory.

"Oh, my God," I say out loud, causing the woman to grab her food and stroll quickly to a bench closer to the street. Somehow I have managed to suppress for the last seven months that I sat in the back of a limo and agreed to go to Nantucket with the Xes, that too many vodka tonics actually made me request that she "bring it on."

"Oh. My. God." I pound the bench with my fists. Shit. I mean, I do not, do not want to live with them. It's bad enough here in the city where I can go home at the end of the day. Am I going to see Mr. X in his pajamas? His underwear? Are we even going to see him at all?

What would she possibly be hoping for? A little family vacation? Are they going to thrash it out over the hooked rug? Beat each other senseless with canoe paddles? Put Ms. Chicago up in the guest house? Ms. Chicago-

"FUCK!" I leap up, patting myself down. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." I have keys, I have coffee, I have a wallet. "I have no fucking envelope." I jerk in about five different directions as I run through the last two hours and the multitude of places I could've left it. I sprint back to the coffee place, the orange couch, Dr. Clarkson's mailbox.

I stand, wheezing and sweaty, in front of the computer center help desk.

"Look, man, you've gotta clear out or for real we're gonna have to call security." Dylan tries to sound authoritative.

I can't speak. I'm sick. I was trying to have integrity. Instead, I'm the girl who stole eight hundred dollars and a pair of dirty underwear. I'm a felon and a freak.

"Dude, I mean it, you better get out of here. Bob's on the noon shift and he's not nearly as cool as me." Noon. Right. Gotta go grab Grayer and drag him to Darwin's birthday party.

"STOP IT! I DON'T LIKE THAT!" Grayer screams, his face flattened into the metal rails that line the upper deck of the boat.

I crouch down to whisper in his assailant's ear. "Darwin, if you do not step away from Grayer in the next two seconds I'm going to throw you overboard." Darwin turns in shock to my smiling face. Good Witch/Bad Witch on three hours of sleep and out eight hundred dollars; kid, you don't want to mess with me today.

He falters a few feet back and Grayer, a red imprint running across his right cheek where it was pressed against the pipe, wraps himself around my leg. Grayer has only been the focus of Darwin's torture for the past few minutes, joining the ranks of fifty other terrorized birthday-party guests, held prisoner for the last two hours on the Circle Line Jazzfest Cruise.

"Darwin! Honey, it's almost time for your cake. Go on over to the table so Sima can help you with the candles." Mrs. Zuckerman glides over to us in her Gucci ballet flats and matching pedal pushers. She is a vision in pink and gold and, coupled with her multitude of diamonds, practically blinding in the afternoon sun.

"Well, Grayer, what's the matter? Don't you want cake?" She tosses her three-hundred-dollar highlights in Grayer's direction and leans against the rail beside me. I'm far too tired for small talk, but am able to put on what I hope is a charming smile.

"Great party," I finally muster, hauling G up onto my hip and out of harm's way, so he can look over my shoulder into the white-crested wake behind us.

"Sima and I have been planning it for months. We really had to put our heads together to top last year's overnight at Gracie Mansion, but I just said 'Now, Sima! Creativity is part of the special something you bring to our family, so go to it!' And I tell you, she has really done it." Screams emerge from the stern of the boat and Sima races past us, panic-stricken. Darwin follows closely behind, lunging out after her with a flaming Tiffany's lighter.

"Darwin," Mrs. Zuckerman admonishes him lightly, "I said to help Sima, not set her on fire." She laughs gaily, taking the lighter from him and clicking the top down. She hands it sternly to a red-faced Sima. "See that he doesn't run around with this next time. I shouldn't have to remind you that it was a gift from his grandfather."

Sima accepts the sterling silver box, without lifting her eyes. She takes Darwin's hand and pulls him delicately back to his cake.

Mrs. Zuckerman leans in to me, the gold Cs on her glasses gleaming. "I'm so lucky, really. We're like sisters." I smile and nod. She nods back at me. "Please give my regards to Grayer's mom and please be sure to tell her that I have the name of a great d-i-v-o-r-c-e lawyer for her. He got my friend Alice ten percent above her prenup."

I instinctively put my hand on Grayer's head.

"Well, you two have fun!" She tosses her hair to the other shoulder and walks back to the cake melee. I guess Mr. X's residence at the Yale Club has become common knowledge.

"So, Grove, ready for some cake?" I shift him to my other hip, straighten his tie and touch his cheek where the pipe imprint had been. His eyes are glassy and he's clearly as exhausted as I am.

"My tummy hurts. I don't feel good," he mumbles. I try to remember where I saw a bathroom sign.

"What kind of hurt?" I ask, attempting to define the nuances of motion sickness versus heartburn to a four-year-old.

"Nanny, I-" He moans into my shoulder before pitching forward to throw up. I manage to aim him over the edge so that the Hudson can receive the thrust of his vomit, leaving my sweater dripping with only about a third.

I rub his back. "Grover, it's been a very long day." I wipe his mouth with my hand and he nods his head into my shoulder in agreement.

Two hours later Grayer is holding the front of his pants and bouncing on his Nikes in the Xes' vestibule.

"Grove, please just hold it one more second." I give the front door a last shove and it finally gives way. "There. Go!" He runs past me.

"Oof!" I hear a thud. I push the door farther open and see Grayer sprawled on a pile of beach towels, felled by a Tracy Tooker box.

"G, you okay?"

"That was so cool, Nanny. Man, you should have seen it. Stand there, I'm gonna do it again."

"Yeah, no." I squat down to take off his sneakers and pull off his pukey windbreaker. "Next time you might not be so lucky. Go pe............