From Lawyer to Nanny

Chapter 12

C H A P T E R  12

I had attempted to fix the raggedy mop that was my hair after it became an unruly mess thanks to Violet's bubble bath incident attack. I also had given a silent funeral to my silk blouse that would never recover from such a traumatic incident. It's a hard knock life.

 I was sitting in the kitchen looking at the schedule Valerie had given me and frowned. I was completely behind schedule. I was still trying to figure out what excuse to give her about not completing her tasks but Aaron and the twins walked in interrupting my thoughts.

 "Kids, go downstairs and watch a movie, I'll call you for lunch." Charles told them. I took a deep breath. The Parks might as well just pay Charles for all the work today because he was becoming the new nanny.

 I tried to avoid having to make conversation with him by looking over the schedule for the millionth time but I could feel his eyes on me.

 "You feel like telling me your name now?" He asked.

 "Never."

 "Why not? I think Gwen's a beautiful name that should be shared," He said. I faced him.

 "How do you know-" I started to ask suspiciously but then I realized.

 "The twins." He smirked. I nodded. "Well, my name's-"

 "Charles, I know. We've already been over this. Your name's Charles, Valerie's brother and you're a pipe guy. Cool." I acted as if I was totally interested in Valerie's schedule to avoid making eye contact with him.

 "Call me Charlie, please. Charles makes me sound like I'm an English Prince. And I'm not a pipe guy, I'm a mechanical engineer. I just know how to fix pipes and so instead of making my sister pay, I figured why not give her the service for free."

 "How sweet." I replied sourly. I really had no time for this. I was completely behind schedule. It was 2:30 and at this time the kids should be outside playing soccer in the front yard, which explained the mess that the lawn was. Instead, they were going to be having lunch, I was over an hour behind schedule. Valerie was going to murder me. I got up and searched through their fridge to find something to make the kids for lunch. I looked through their freezer and found a frozen pizza. Hopefully that would do.

 "Look, I know we got off on the wrong start but come on, wasn't this hilarious? Valerie's going to cry when she hears this," he smiled.

 "No way, Jose! You can't tell Valerie! She'll fire me!" I tell him seriously.

 "She's my sister, trust me, she'll find this hilarious too."

  "It's my first day and I really need to make a good impression, please don't ruin this for me." I plead with him. He looks a bit surprised.

 "I wouldn't dare," he smirks and leaves and to go call the kids for lunch while I set up the table.

                                                                            ***

"Were home!" I heard a voice yell. After having watched an episode of Arthur with the kids while Charlie kept working on the pipes we all walked upstairs. At the front entrance of the house, Adam and Valerie stood, removing their shoes. They smiled when they noticed us.

 "I see you've met Charlie," Valerie smiled at me.

 "Yep," I responded awkwardly. I didn't know what to say.

"Everything go according to plan?" Valerie asked me. If only she knew... There were barely five things that went according to her plan.

 "Yep," I responded awkwardly again, "Everything went smoothly," I respond, I can see Charlie giving me a knowing glance from the corner of my eye.

 "I knew you we made a fantastic choice in hiring you! I can't hear the kids fighting like they normally do." Adam chimed in. I could tell Valerie wore the pants in their relationship, she seemed to deal with these things more than Adam.

 "Now that you're officially the new nanny, here's a spare key to our house." Valerie handed me a small silver key and I carefully tucked it into my purse. "We leave for work early in the morning on certain days and we don't like for the kids to answer the door for safety reasons so we'd feel more comfortable if you had your own key so you're able to get into the house."

 "Oh! Thank you!" I beamed. I couldn't believe they already trusted me that much to give me my own key to their house.

 "Of course when you're done working here, you will have to return it." Adam added.

 "Yes, of course." I agreed still trying to process that fact that things were turning around nicely for me. Now all I needed was for the kids and Charlie to keep their mouths shut about me assaulting Charlie with a foam baseball bat, and everything would be great.

 "Perfect! Looks like we'll see you tomorrow," She smiled brightly.

 "Of course! I'm just going to go say goodbye to the kids" I smiled back.

 I went down the hall and into their room to say goodbye and found them continuing their game of Candyland.

 "Hey guys!" The kids turned towards me. "I've got to go now, but how about we keep what happened today, a secret?" I asked.

 "What's in it for us?" Aaron asked suspiciously. Since when do 8 year olds negotiate? I wondered.

 "Two boxes of Smarties," I quickly came up with.

 "Tomorrow?" Aaron.

 "For sure,"

 "Pinky promise?" Aaron stuck out his pink and I stuck out mine and we shook on it.

 I left their room and walked over to the front entrance to put on my shoes just as Charlie was putting on his, getting ready to leave.

 "Nice meeting you Gwen," Charlie smirked.

 "Same," I replied and nodded at him, trying hard not to really acknowledge him. This day had just gone horribly and I blamed him. He opened the door and his mouth and paused for a moment as if he had something to say but then shook his head and closed them both.