The Manny. Holly Peterson

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СКАЧАТЬ five and the baby, Michael, is two. And, well, Dylan’s the one I mentioned to you already.’

      ‘I remember.’

      ‘He’s a little out of sorts these days. His father is gone all the time, and though I work three days here, sometimes I have special projects that bleed into the rest of the week. And sometimes I have to travel. And my son needs a male figure to kind of peel him off the floor. That’s the one thing I’m sure of. Little boys worship older guys who pay attention to them.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘And so, he knows a little chess, he loves to read and draw, but the sports thing is not working and …’

      ‘So you want me to work on the chess with him? You gave me an awfully high figure on the phone. That’s a lot of money for just chess.’

      ‘It’s really like, come in the afternoon, mostly at pick-up time, which is 3 p.m.

      And work with him.’

      ‘Work with him how?’

      ‘Well. He’s nine. Not, like, work.’

      ‘OK, then you mean homework.’

      ‘Yes. Definitely. But also much more than that. I mean, he needs someone to play with him.’ In my head I was thinking, just make him better, please just get him liking himself again. Suddenly I felt my eyes begin to sting and quickly picked up his résumé to hide my face.

      ‘I mean, you have a master’s in computer science, and you’ve taught skiing. You worked in this textbook company. That’s a family business?’

      At this point in the interview, I learned the following: he was twenty-nine years old, turning thirty in December. He grew up in the suburbs of Denver, studied four years at Boulder before joining the workforce, mostly for his dad in his educational printing operation. He’d gotten his master’s degree in computer science at nights.

      When I asked for more details about his Homework Helper idea, I began to see how creative the idea really was. He was so impassioned by it that I honestly got lost halfway through, but I didn’t let on. He’d moved to New York because he’d made headway testing Homework Helper in the New York City public school system. And, like many Internet start-ups discover after the initial excitement, there were some major kinks in the program. He had a few more tenuous months in the red ahead of him. Plus he had graduate school loans to pay off.

      I had started to understand why this guy didn’t have a more traditional career in place – he was entrepreneurial, a bit of a risk-taker. What did the long wavy hair signify? Was this a mountain dude ski bum who’d enjoyed the slopes a bit too much after college or was he just someone who didn’t ruthlessly climb career ladders? I couldn’t peg him, though I hung on his every word. As he spoke, I studied his prominent cheekbones and large blue eyes. He looked like someone who would take command of any situation, though there wasn’t a bureaucratic bone in his body. I felt he was responsible and trustworthy right away, if a little bit of a screw-up on the career front.

      Then I told him everything I could think of about Dylan, about the basketball meltdown, about how he’d pulled back from some of his friendships at school, and my fear that things would get worse.

      ‘And what about his father, if you don’t mind me asking? Are they close?’

      ‘Sure they are.’

      ‘Does his father play chess with him? What do they do together?’

      Phillip hadn’t sat down on the floor with Dylan since he was three years old. ‘Well, on weekends, we all have lunch together, or my husband might take him to a movie. Phillip very much wants him to become a life-long reader, so they lie on the couch and read about airplane engineering or something. You know, Phillip’s a lawyer, he’s gone most of the week. He sees the kids for breakfast and just before bedtime, maybe once or twice a week.’

      ‘Do they go to the park on weekends or anything?’

      Phillip hated playgrounds. And he wasn’t one to stroll around the park and enjoy the nature. ‘Uh, sure, they’ve been to the park together. I mean, it’s not like a regular thing they do.’

      ‘So you live, like, a block from the park and you have a nine-year-old boy and it isn’t a regular thing?’ He smiled. ‘I mean, I’m not criticizing here, I’m just not getting …’

      ‘No, Dylan goes to the park with his friends all the time – or, well, he used to.’

      ‘OK, but not with …’

      ‘No. Not with his father. Like ever.’ I wondered if he’d ever come into contact with a Grid lawyer before. I tried to imagine the loop going on in his head at that moment – something about spoiled kids and how much parents like me and Phillip were messing them up.

      I needed a break. ‘And where are you living, Peter, if that isn’t too personal?’

      ‘I share a loft with two guys in Brooklyn, Red Hook actually. You know it?’

      ‘I, I know Brooklyn, yes.’

      He grinned. ‘I can’t really see you in Red Hook.’

      I had to grin back. His irreverence charmed me. For the first time during the interview I felt myself relax. ‘Well, actually, I have a lot of friends who live in Brooklyn.’

      He didn’t look convinced. The burgeoning working-class Red Hook and the toney, yuppie Brooklyn Heights – where I really do know some people (vaguely) – are continents apart.

      ‘So what do your roommates do?’

      ‘One wrote a novel that got great reviews, but he had to bartend because even good books don’t make any money. So he got a job working for a hot literary agent at InkWell Management. The other is the teacher in the public school system. The one I was subbing for. He’s consulting on my program.’

      ‘So each of them have pretty set career paths.’

      ‘I guess so. But you’re offering more than they make.’

      ‘So is the salary more important than a set career path?’

      ‘I’m on a set career path. Listen, are you trying to convince me not to take this job?’

      I put my tough reporter hat on. ‘OK, let’s talk turkey.’ I took a sip of water. ‘You’re living in this year’s hip new Brooklyn neighbourhood, even I know that. You’re personable, smart and well educated, and of course I’m not trying to scare you off. But I need to know how you feel about working in someone’s home when your friends are becoming teachers and agents? Would that be …’

      ‘Be what?’

      ‘You’re almost thirty. Do you mind taking a job like this?’ I crossed my fingers under the desk. ‘In a household with kids?’ I hated saying that out loud, reminding him he was a guy with a graduate degree on an interview to become a Park Avenue nanny. But I also didn’t want him ditching us after a week when he realized what he’d agreed to. ‘I mean, not that it isn’t, you know, substantive; some consider it a calling to work with kids … have you ever even heard of the term “manny”?’

      ‘No. СКАЧАТЬ