Live Fast Die Hot (4 page)

“We need to hire Debora for at least four months,” I insisted. I needed to prove to Debora not only that we were as financially secure as Hollice, but that I was way more fun and totally more right for the role of Medea in our senior-class play.

“You want a stranger in our house for four months?”

“What's the big deal? We already have one that's staying for eighteen years,” I said. “ ‘Of all creatures that can feel and think, we women are the worst treated things alive,' ” I moaned, channeling my best mid-Atlantic dialect.

“Isn't
Medea
about a woman who hates her husband and kills her kids?” Jason finished peeing, then traipsed into the bedroom and turned on a golf game.

“And her husband's name was Jason. I would have been brilliant!” I blocked the television and took a long, drawn-out dancer's bow, then pretended to drink a vial of poison, which had nothing to do with the plot of
Medea
and everything to do with showcasing the “Special Skills” section of my résumé that listed my proficiency in mime. Sid watched from a makeshift pillow crib in the center of our bed, clearly picturing what his life would be like if Hollice were his mom.

Jason consented to keeping Debora on for an additional ten weeks, less because he agreed with me and more to increase his odds of never seeing me mime again.

I was quickly learning that a baby is a gift that requires a million other gifts. No matter how prepared you think you are, you are missing at least a dozen vital basics.

“Where are his pajamas?” Debora rummaged through Sid's drawers, confused. It was Sid's first real bedtime in his nursery and the only thing he had on was a diaper and an umbilical cord.

“What do you mean?”

“The baby needs something to sleep in.”

“Don't we just swaddle him? I didn't know they made baby pajamas.”

“Yes, he
has
to have clothes to sleep in,” she said, like a worried social worker talking to a teen mom. “And you also have to buy a bathtub, a bottle warmer, some diaper-rash cream, crib sheets, storage bins…”

The list went on and on. I was the least prepared parent she'd ever worked with, she said with an uncomfortable laugh. She told me she'd spoken to her best friend Uzo about the situation during a break that afternoon, and they were going to pray for me on their Tuesday-night prayer hotline. I envisioned her and Uzo on their hands and knees, weeping to Lord Jesus to save Sid from the certain doom that would come from having a mother who was too dumb to know what baby pajamas were and was still hiding a stripper pole in the garage.

Uzo was Debora's good friend who she never shut up about. She also happened to be Beyoncé's baby nurse.

“She's been a celebrity baby nurse for years,” Debora said, pulling a bag of kale out of the fridge to make a green drink she'd read about in
Us Weekly.
“She gets paparazzied all the time. You've definitely seen her in all the magazines.” Debora beamed. The blender begrudgingly chewed up the copious amounts of ice, almond milk, and bananas as Debora stared at me, waiting for some sort of kudos for the fact that she drank smoothies.

It weirded me out how wrapped up in the fame game my baby nurse was. I understood a hairstylist caring about celebrity—a trainer, even a chef. But a fucking baby nurse? Was there anyone in Los Angeles not trying to jockey their way into their own reality show? Debora was a churchgoing woman, a disciple of the Lord, a woman who told me at least twice a day that she could communicate with angels. But even Debora couldn't resist the siren song of Bravo Andy.

Hollice had taken to texting me daily, checking in. She was over-the-top sweet, asking when she could come over and meet Sid. She'd never been to my house before and I was more than a little hesitant to have her over. I didn't know how I would handle being around her. In high school I had always left our interactions feeling depressed and inadequate. I was afraid even now to hear about what new job she had or what cool friends she was hanging out with. Also I looked like shit. I'd just had a baby and was twenty pounds overweight, with nipples the size of rice cakes.

I told Hollice that I would love to see her! That I couldn't wait! But that, sadly, Jason was experiencing postpartum depression. I suggested we touch base again in a few weeks, hoping her super-glamorous lifestyle would sweep her out of town and prevent our meet-up from ever actually happening. It wasn't that I disliked her. I just wanted to prevent myself from getting hurt or possibly deciding to change Sid's name to something flashy and attention-grabbing like “Afrika” to ensure he'd be more famous than her kids.

“Hollice might stop by in a few weeks to say hi,” I casually mentioned one morning as I loaded Sid into his car seat. We were going for a routine doctor's visit in West L.A. and Jason had asked Debora if she wanted to join us. We didn't know how not to. Leaving her in the house alone all day just seemed rude.

Debora had been at our house just under a month at that point, and she was already way too comfortable with us. It wasn't all her fault. Jason and I didn't know how to say no. Neither of us had grown up with “staff,” and bossing an older black woman around the house just felt a little too
Gone with the Wind.
So instead of treating Debora like an employee, we treated her like a houseguest. I stocked the house with everything she liked to eat: berries, tortilla chips, coconut water. I bought her a bathrobe and a down comforter. I even let her borrow my car when she needed to run errands. Some people know how to handle obvious codependents like Jason and me, and they would have likely compensated for our lack of boundaries by enforcing boundaries of their own. But others tend to take advantage of our hospitality and end up controlling us completely.

I can't deny that part of why I let it happen was to ensure that Debora enjoyed her stay with me more than she did her stay with Hollice.

“Can we eat at Mr Chow?” Debora chimed in from the backseat as we made our way to the doctor. “Uzo always gets to go to Mr Chow.”

Mr Chow was a high-end Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills that I hadn't eaten at since the early nineties. Once a notorious hotspot to see and be seen in, Mr Chow had in recent years become little more than a tourist trap (with great lettuce cups) and a standard stop for every TMZ tour bus.

“Maybe…” I said, annoyed, looking at Jason from the passenger seat. I'd spent enough time around her to realize that whenever Debora really wanted to get her way, she'd throw a little Jesus talk into her negotiating.

“The Lord Jesus is telling me I gotta get me some Mr Chow! Because the Lord was not liking what you fed me last night.” She paused, reading a text on her phone, then continued, half-focused. “The only kind of sushi I can do is a Californian roll.”

Not only was Debora strangely manipulative, she was always on her phone. And aside from the handful of times I'd heard her wiring money to a relative in Atlanta, she was usually gossiping with Uzo.

Uzo was the Queen Bee of the baby-nurse world. She was the Heather with the red scrunchie. She had an army of lower-level baby nurses she'd farm jobs out to when she deemed them unworthy of her time. Uzo seemed like a self-obsessed fame whore. And though she'd unequivocally signed a nondisclosure agreement with her current employer, she didn't mind bending the rules to divulge secrets, especially if it allowed her to brag about a fancy new trip or a restaurant she'd tried. Debora worshipped Uzo and wanted everything she had. This included “the three
b'
s.”

“My goals are simple,” she said, sucking down garlic prawns at Mr Chow after our appointment. “I want a Bentley, a black card, and a Birkin. Then I'll know I've made it.”

I didn't own a black card, nor a Bentley, and I most definitely didn't own a Birkin. With prices ranging anywhere from ten to two hundred grand, a Birkin was an outrageously priced handbag typically reserved for Park Avenue princesses. Out of principle, I couldn't imagine myself ever buying one. But I did take note when someone around me had one. Carrying a Birkin is like the female version of walking into a locker room with a monster-sized dick. Eyes turn in your direction; perceptions shift. When I see a Birkin on the street, I eye it the way I do a girl who's prettier than me. It's a mixture of jealousy, lust, and begrudging respect. I try to guess if the owner bought the bag herself or if she's just letting someone else's husband come in her mouth. If she looks at me, I smile. I even offer my help if needed. No matter how hard I try to fight it, I'm disarmed, subservient, and mildly depressed.