You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny (20 page)

I rolled over to turn on the TV, just in time to watch Robin Leach profile yet another one of our recent dinner guests on
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
.

It reminded me of a story Mandie recently related.

A nanny named Sheila had a job similar to ours, and like us, she had a frequent need to blow off steam. Over coffee at Starbucks, Mandie had innocently asked what was troubling her, and Sheila was ranting about celebrities on TV talk shows. “Mandie, I just hate it when I see all those holier-than-thou stars lie in front of millions of people.”

“What do you mean, lie?” Mandie asked. “Lie about what?”

“About everything; their children, their lifestyles, their political causes!”

“What exactly are you talking about, Sheila?” This didn’t sound like a generic tirade. “Are you talking about someone in particular or all celebrities in general?”

“I don’t know about all of them, but I know about one for sure.”

“Who?” Mandie was on the edge of her seat now. “Which one? What did they do?”

“Mandie, I swear to you, I had to leave the house because the guy had
such a huge cocaine problem,” Sheila confessed. “Since I was doing some of the housework in addition to being the full-time nanny, I would occasionally help clean the bathrooms. More often than not, in the morning there would be a pile of white powder sitting on a hand mirror on the bathroom counter. When I realized what it was, I used a hand vac to suck it up.”

Mandie suppressed a snicker at the thought of hundreds of dollars’ worth of drugs being vacuumed up with a Dirt Devil.

“Oh my God—did he know you did it?”

“No, and I don’t care if he did know; it serves him right,” Sheila spat. “At least he never said anything, probably because he had so much of it all the time. What’s one small pile?”

“So who was it?” Mandie asked.

And Sheila told her.

“No way!”

“Yes. He was my last employer.”

“That squeaky-clean guy?” Mandie gasped. “At least that’s his investigator image on TV.”

“The very one,” Sheila confirmed.

“But, Mandie, it wasn’t just the cocaine snorting at home that got to me. It was watching him on a talk show. There he was, telling the understanding host about all the evils of drugs and how he was afraid it was going to influence his kids, living in LA, the drug capital of the U.S. Next he said he now had to move to the midwest to keep his kids from falling prey to its evil spell, blah, blah, blah. What a crock of shit!” Sheila cried angrily as she wiped her runny nose with a wad of napkin. “And to top it all off, they won’t let me see the children since I quit; they said it wouldn’t be good for the kids.”

After I heard this from Mandie, I realized that I had met or knew the nannies for most of the celebrities I saw in television interviews. And the mothers’ descriptions of their own homemaking and childrearing prowess were vastly different from what their nannies described. If any of their employees ever came forward with the truth about what the stars
really
did behind closed doors, they’d probably need to be placed in a Nanny Witness Protection Program—something Demi Moore’s nanny may have considered after she filed a lurid lawsuit that basically charged Demi with intimidating her in order to keep her around.

Tales like these have kept coming over the years, although they no longer shock me like they did then. There was the story of the hugely successful movie-star couple who made a point of always talking about how devoted they were to their two children. I knew for a fact that both kids were so lonely and disturbed by the complete lack of attention paid to them by either parent that they peed on the floor to get noticed—which certainly worked, since they were way past the potty-training stage. And then there was the daughter of a famous dead rock star and a certifiably crazy mother whose nanny actually wanted to adopt her because she feared for her safety when her mother was on a drug binge.

One of the most pathetic stories a nanny shared with me was of her director boss who had some sick need to reveal every graphic detail of his romantic liaisons with the actresses he worked with. She finally had to quit, even though she loved the children, because she felt too uncomfortable hearing about his extramarital affairs.

No, things certainly weren’t what they seemed on TV.

Stories like Sheila’s, however, propped me up in some weird way. Other celebrity nannies had it much worse. I merely had to deal with issues that were poignant, not prison-worthy.

Like bedtime. One night Judy said that she’d like to put Brandon to sleep.

Usually on the nights she was home, she and I worked together to get the kids down, but Brandon’s slumber fell to me. This division of labor was partly my own doing. Even when the two oldest and I had become violently ill with food poisoning a few weeks back, waking up the baby with our constant vomiting, I felt I had to persevere. Judy offered to put Brandon back to bed and get up with him when he woke up. She even said that I could get her out of bed if I needed her. I was taken aback by this unusual display of kindness. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so scared of her after all.

Yet I didn’t take her up on any of it. I was so afraid of being seen as a less-than-perfect employee that I said I was fine, that I could take care of it. And it also seemed like it would take more energy than I had to tell her how to heat his bottles in the night.

But this time she was doing it because she wanted to, not because I couldn’t.

“How do you do it?” she quietly inquired.

“How do I do what?” I replied.

“How do you put him to bed?” she asked. “Exactly what is your routine each night?”

This was so awkward.

“Don’t worry. He’s really easy. I’ll heat the bottle in the warmer for you,” I suggested, “then give it to him in the rocking chair. After that, you just put him in the crib, and then you pull his favorite blanket up over him.”

I looked around the room.
Oh crap
. Did she know how to put the side rail of his crib down? I’d better put it down so she wouldn’t be embarrassed. I could just come in after she leaves to put it back up.

“Sometimes I sing him a short lullaby before I turn out the lights,” I continued.

“Can I rock him a little after he has his bottle?” she inquired.

“Yes, of course you can rock him,” I said, looking at Brandon. “He loves to cuddle.”

I left mother and child alone, my mind whirling. I felt so sad for her. She didn’t seem confident about meeting the needs of her own baby, but I knew she could do a fine job. She just didn’t know it because she had given all the responsibility—and joy—to others.

Did having a nanny mean living with this kind of uncertainty about your own kids? Michael seemed to have it, too. He stopped by the nursery nearly every morning to kiss Brandon good-bye, but one morning he stood there quietly with me for a few moments. When he reached toward Brandon to hold him, Brandon nuzzled into me.

Michael sighed. “Do you think he knows I’m his father?” he asked reflectively.

“Well …” I paused. “Yes … I think he does know.”

“I’m not sure he does,” he replied, leaning over and kissing Brandon.

I watched him walk down the hallway like he usually did, as fast as possible, the lower half of his body moving while the upper half remained motionless and in control. I could only imagine all the thoughts running through his head, the lists of the “important” things
that he needed to accomplish that day. I felt gloomy standing there clutching Brandon. It occurred to me that Michael barely knew his own children. He revered them as the most important thing in his life, and I had no doubt that he would do anything for them. Yet he barely laid eyes on them for more than a few minutes during the workweek. And since he wasn’t a part of their everyday lives, he hadn’t really learned how to play with them. He wasn’t the type to take Joshua fishing or to the batting cages, to play tea party with Amanda, or to take Brandon on a walk. He hired people for this kind of activity, so the kids wouldn’t miss anything.

But what were the parents missing? Did the hired help not actually help anybody at all?

One evening after Joshua and Amanda fought terribly at the dinner table and were sternly sent to their rooms to cool off, Michael and Judy started discussing their kids’ behavior while I helped Delma clear the dishes. Judy offered her thoughts, and then Michael expressed his opinion. He then asked me why I thought Joshua was so often unruly and prone to outbursts. Surprised to be consulted, I added my two cents’ worth.

“I think Josh is such a perfectionist that he gets frustrated when things don’t go perfectly for him,” I ventured. “He has such high expectations for himself.”

“I don’t think that’s it at all—” Judy began.

“Shut up!” Michael said coldly, setting down his wineglass.

I looked down, embarrassed for Judy and for him. It was the first time I’d ever witnessed anything but their chilly, formal interactions.

“Suzy, would you go on?” he asked. “I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

Oh, great. This was really gonna help my relationship with Judy
.

“Um, well, he is a really bright kid. I think his brain is working much faster than his six-year-old writing skills are able to display on paper. I just try to give him plenty of quiet time while he’s doing his homework so he can work at his own pace and not have outside distractions. I also think—”

But then Judy rolled her eyes and interrupted me to lean across the table and buzz Carmen for some more pepper.

The one thing I
had
made very clear when I took the job was that I needed to go home in June to attend my uncle Skinny’s birthday party.

Thank the Lord. I was more than overdue for a break from my day-to-day responsibilities and from the whole LA scene in general, and I longed for a place where I understood the rules and rituals. And I couldn’t wait for some time alone to recharge my batteries.

But from the moment I stepped into my parents’ car at the airport until the time I left three days later, my so-called vacation was spent answering one question: “What are they like?” That’s all anyone wanted to know, along with the occasional inquiry about me: “How does it feel to be a nanny for the stars?”

Technically, I had to explain, I’m not a nanny for the stars. My employers weren’t actors, and anyone outside of LA who didn’t subscribe to the
Hollywood Reporter
didn’t know the Ovitz name. So, I would say patiently that my employer was the guy who was important to the people
we
think are important. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by their curiosity. My letters and phone calls home had described my experiences talking to the likes of Barbra Streisand and John Travolta,
and star power seemed magnified by distance. In Cottage Grove, people’s imaginations made the wattage even brighter.

By the third day of my visit, it almost seemed easier to go back to work than to tell one more story. But one of the guidance counselors at my high school had asked me to come in and speak to the students on Career Day, and I felt I owed her. Besides, I’ve never been one to pass up a chance to talk.

Girls packed Mrs. Pittman’s computer room, wanting to hear all about the “Hollywood Nanny”—or, rather, the people she’d met. They had the same question as everybody else: “What are they really like?” I wanted to explain to them the reality of my life, but I realized that I couldn’t publicly admit how demeaning my job really was. And I certainly couldn’t confess all the negotiation mistakes I had made. I saw in their eyes that rubbing elbows with legends was glamorous beyond belief, so that was what I talked about. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I did touch on the craziness of my household, carefully dodging any description of my duties. I told them how it was difficult to get them to buy new clothes for the baby, while vacations on private jets were as common as changing socks. I recounted how little things like losing a Barbie doll’s shoe were cause for uproar and accusations.

I began to feel a bit like a celebrity myself, laying claim to my proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. A reporter from the local paper interviewed me, and the
Cottage Grove Sentinel
ran the story next to an awful picture of me. It appeared that I was looking off into a faraway galaxy, contemplating the meaning of nannyhood.

Boy, is fame funny. The position that equaled servitude and low status in Hollywood had made me a hometown star.