It's  Been  a  Pleasure

"Yo, lady!" I jolt awake. "Last stop-Port Authority!" the driver shouts from the front of the bus. I hastily gather my things together. "I wouldn't be trying to sneak on any animals again, girlie. Or next time you'll find yourself walking back to Nantucket," he says, leering at me over the steering wheel.

The puppy lets out a low growl of indignation and I stick my hand in the tote to quiet her.

"Thanks," I mutter. Fat gut.

Stepping down into the stench of the terminal, I squint in the brightness of the orange-tiled hallway. The Greyhound clock reads 4:33 as I stand for a minute to get my bearings. My adrenaline completely spent, I lower the tote to the ground between my feet and peel off my sweatshirt. The humid summer heat is already trapped in the tunnel, along with the stench of commuter sweat.

I walk hurriedly up to the street level to find a cab, past closed bakeries and newsstands. Outside the Eighth Avenue exit hookers and cab drivers await their next jobs while I let the puppy out on her string leash to pee by a sweating garbage can.

"Where to?" the cabbie asks as I slide in behind my bags.

"Second and Ninety-third," I say, rolling down the window. I root around in the plastic bags for my wallet and her brown furry head pushes its way out of the tote, panting. "Nearly there, little one. We'll be there soon."

"Bethune?" he asks. "I thought you said Upper East."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. Ninety-third," I clarify. As I open my wallet Mrs. X's check flutters to the floor of the cab. "Damn." I bend over to retrieve it in the darkness.

"Pay to the order of: Nanny. Five hundred dollars."

Five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars?

Ten days. Sixteen hours a day. Twelve dollars an hour. So, that's like sixteen hundred dollars-no, eighteen hundred-no, nineteen hundred!

FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!

"Wait, make that seven twenty-one Park."

"Okay, lady." He makes a sharp U-turn. "You're paying."

You have no idea.

I unlock the Xes' front door and carefully push it open. The apartment is dark and silent. I put the tote down and the puppy wriggles out of it as I drop the rest of my bags on the marble floor. "Pee anywhere."

I reach for the dimmer on the hall switch, bathing the center table in a taut circle of light. The spot lamp pours beautiful cold ripples through the cut-crystal bowl.

I lean forward and rest my hands on the glass top that protects the brown velvet swags. Even now, even as it's gotten this out of hand, I'm distracted from my thoughts of the Xes by the trappings of the Xes. And really, it strikes me, isn't that the point?

I pull back to see the two perfect palm prints I've left on the glass.

Walking determinedly from room to room, I switch on the brass lamps, as if illuminating their home will shed some light on how I could have worked so hard and been hated so much.

I open the door to the office.

Maria has stacked Mrs. X's mail carefully on her desk just the way she likes it - envelopes, catalogs, and magazines each in separate piles. I riffle through them and then flip the pages of her calender.

"Manicure. Pedicure. Shiatsu. Decorator. Lunch."

"Vice president in charge of bullshit," I mutter.

"Monday 10am Interview: Nannies Are Us"

Interview? I flip quickly back through the last weeks.

"May 28: Interview Rosario.  June 2: Interview Inge.  June 8:  Interview Malong."

They start the day after I said I couldn't make the drive to Nan-tucket because of my graduation. My mouth goes dry as I read the notes scrawled in the margin of that afternoon.

"Remember call problem consultant tomorrow.  N's behavior is unacceptable. Completely self-centered.  Providing poor care.  Has no respect for professional boundaries.  Is taking complete advantage."

I close the book, feeling as if I've been punched in the solar plexus. An image flashes into my mind of Mrs. Longacre's crocodile handbag resting by her feet under the stall partition in the bathroom of II Cognilio and something snaps.

I head to Grayer's room, throw the door open, and see it immediately - the stuffed bear that arrived on Grayer's shelf after Valentine's Day without explanation.

I pull it down, flip it around, and pull the back panel off to reveal a small videotape and control buttons. I rewind the tape while the puppy races across the room and into Grayer's closet.

I press record and place the bear on top of Grayer's dresser, shifting it around until I think I've set up the shot.

"I'm completely self-centered? My behavior is unacceptable?" I shout at the bear.

I take a deep breath, trying to channel my rage and begin again. "Five hundred dollars. What is that to you, a pair of shoes? A half day at Bliss? A flower arrangement? No way, lady. Now I know you were an art major, so this might be a little complicated for you, but for ten
straight days of unmitigated, torturous hell, you paid me three dollars an hour! So, before you wrap up a year of my life to be trotted out as an anecdote at the next museum benefit, keep in mind that I am your own personal sweatshop! You've got a handbag, a mink, and a sweatshop!

"And I'm the one taking advantage of you?"

"You have. No idea. What I do. For you." I pace back and forth in front of the bear, trying to formulate nine months of swallowed retorts into some sort of coherent message.

"Okay listen up. If I say 'Two days a week,' your response should be 'Okay, two days a week.' If I say, 'I have to leave by three for class.' This means, wherever you are-all those important manicures, those crucial lattes-you drop and come runing, so that I can leave-not after dinner, not the next day, but at three o'clock, pronto. I say 'Sure, I can fix him a snack.' This means five minutes in your goddamn kitchen. This means microwave. This does not involve steaming, dicing, sauteing, or anything at all to do with a souffle. You said 'We'll pay you on Fridays.' Now listen, genius, this means every one-last time I checked you were not Caesar, um, it's not up to you to rewrite the calendar. Every. Single. Week."

Now I am really rolling. "All right-slamming the door in your child's face: not okay. Locking the door to keep your son out when we're all home: also not okay. Buying a studio in the building for 'private time' definitely not okay. Oh, oh, and here's one: umm, going to a spa when your son has an ear infection and fever of one hundred and four? News flash; this officially makes you, not just a bad person, but like, officially, a terrible mother. I don't know, I haven't birthed anyone, so I may not be an expert here, but if my kid was peeing all over the furniture like a senile fucking dog-umm, I'd be just a tad bit concerned. I might, oh, you know, just on a whim, eat dinner with him at least one night a week. And, just a heads-up here, people hate you. The housekeeper hates you-the might-kill-you-in-your-sleep kind of hates you."

I slow down to be sure she gets every word. "Now let's review: there I was-innocently strolling through the park. I don't know you. Five minutes later, you've got me cleaning your underwear and going to 'Family Day' with your son. I mean, how do you get there, lady? I r............