by
Aimee
(aimeed@earthlink.net)
In the middle of a crowded concourse in Los Angeles International Airport, CC stood on her toes trying to catch sight of one small, lone figure in the crowds of passengers emerging from the Air France plane. "Niles, do you see her? I can't find her. Make sure she doesn't get lost." At last she spied bouncing golden curls and called, "Fifi! Over here!"
CC, remembering the lessons Fran had once taught her in relating to the child, knelt down to receive Fifi's enthusiastic hug. CC hadn't changed so drastically that she actually liked kids as a whole, but this little vixen had long since shoved her way firmly into CC's heart with Babcockesque determination.
"Aunt CC! I missed you so much. I brought you presents."
"Good, because I've got a few surprises for you." CC hadn't actually thought to get Fifi anything, but she figured a shopping trip would fit the bill adequately. "Now, there's Niles. Go say hello."
"Hi, Uncle Niles," Fifi said shyly, testing the new way of addressing him since his marriage to her aunt.
Niles picked her up and held her. "Fifi! We're so glad you're finally here. Look, I have a little present for you." He set her down and pulled a tiny pink box out of his pocket.
Fifi opened it, and cried out in delight. It was a bracelet made of linked gold kitty-cats. "Thank you!"
CC nudged him. "When did you -- "
Niles elbowed her hard. "Are you hungry?" he asked Fifi. She nodded. "It's no use asking your Aunt CC if she's hungry, she's always hungry these days."
"I'm eating for two!"
"You mean, the two of you are eating for twelve." Niles slung Fifi's bag over his shoulder, and he and CC each took a hand and they started toward the baggage claim. "So what do the three of you want for dinner?"
"I want a salad, and my daughter wants steak. Fifi?"
"Hot dogs!" Fifi said.
"I think we can manage that," said Niles.
"And cheesecake?" CC asked hopefully.
"You would cheat on me with another man's cheesecake?" Niles asked in mock horror.
"Not if I'm getting enough at home," CC said pointedly. "Of course, if you prefer I can just do the Sara Lee brand. Then I'd be cheating on you with another woman's cheesecake."
Niles sent her a warm smile over the top of Fifi's head. "Can I watch?" he asked.
Fifi shook her head in confusion. "Why would you want to watch her eat cheesecake?"
"You're right," Niles agreed. "I'd much rather have a piece myself."
"Niles!" CC hissed in disbelief.
"I don't get it," he said mournfully, looking distastefully at the yellowish mess in the pie pan. "I did exactly what I always do. The only difference is, I let you use the measuring spoons and the mixer. I even measured everything before I gave it to you to put in."
"I told you I'm not Julia Child. I can't cook. I've never been able to cook. Before we were married, I either ordered take-out or threw something in the microwave until it turned gray."
"I am in physical pain at the sight of this object you think is a cheesecake, and you're not helping. Woman, you're a curse." Niles shook his head in amusement.
CC smirked. "But I'm amazing in the sack." She grabbed a spoon and before Niles could stop her, dug in. "Mmmm!" she said enthusiastically. "It looks wrong, but it tastes right." She got up and got some strawberry jam out of the cupboard. She globbed a big spoonful into the pie plate and sampled it. "Go see if Fifi's done in the bath," she said. "This is not to be missed. I think we've invented cheese and strawberry pudding!"
Niles made a hideous face, but before he could summon Fifi, the girl entered clad in a little lavender nightgown and matching robe.
"Come over here!" CC waved her spoon at Fifi. "I really think I might have some potential as a chef. I just invented something new."
"I thought we were having cheesecake."
"We're having cheese and strawberry pudding."
Just then, two nasal voices and a British one came from the other side of the kitchen door. Fran and Sylvia breezed in both talking at once, and Maxwell followed with his hand massaging the throbbing vein in his head.
"You may not plant a tie-dyed garden," he roared.
Fran and Sylvia just looked at him and continued plotting.
Then Sylvia spotted the cheesecake.
CC lunged to throw herself across it, but it was too late. Sylvia swooped down and drew a finger through it. "Mm, good," she said. "A little mushy." She rummaged in a drawer until she found a straw, then stuck it into the cheesecake and began to suck. CC's "pudding" was no more.
CC looked at Niles imploringly. "I'll go get you a Sara Lee," he muttered. "But I just want you to know, I feel like I'm pimping." Suddenly she got a speculative look on her face. Niles started to grin wickedly but quickly assumed a poker face. She coughed and did the same.
Only Fifi heard what he said over the sound of Fran talking, Maxwell shouting, and Sylvia sucking. As Niles threw on his jacket and started for the door to go find a cheesecake, Fifi tugged on CC's sleeve. "What's pimping?"
"It's something Niles used to do to make extra cash before he married me," CC told her absent-mindedly, her mind on the most wonderful new fantasy she'd just thought of to try with Niles. But she really had to stop saying things like that in front of the rugrat.
Fifi was already in bed and the Sheffields had taken their argument elsewhere by the time Niles returned. CC was awaiting him in the kitchen, wearing considerably less than she was when he left.
CC threw the cheesecake carelessly in the cupboard and took his hand. "You know, I'm not all that hungry at the moment," she said.
"Just a moment, my non-domestic nympho, that needs to go in the freezer."
"Niles, do I look like I care?" she asked tenderly, putting his lips to better use than talking.
CC's mind was less on the fate of Sleeping Beauty than on whether her empire-waisted evening gown disguised her condition. She was forced to conclude, as she smoothed peach chiffon over her once-flat abdomen, that at this point nothing was going to conceal her condition.
Beside her, Fifi was bouncing up and down in her chair. "Aunt CC, can I borrow the little binoculars? I can't see the dancers on stage."
"Opera glasses, dear, not binoculars," CC corrected absently, smiling down at the sparkling eyes of her little niece.
Fifi took the opera glasses CC handed her and leaned forward over the railing of their box seat. As Tchaikovsky's lush score poured over them in waves, Fifi studied the ballet dancers below them on stage. She seemed hypnotized by the fluttery gowns and graceful movements
Beside CC, Niles smiled at the two women. His wife contentedly rubbed her stomach and basked in the music, never having been a huge fan of the ballet itself. Fifi, on the other hand, wiggled and jumped to her feet and sat back down and whispered comments continuously. It was a good thing he and CC had secured a box, Niles reflected, watching the girl's enthusiasm. If they were in the dress circle, they'd have been kicked out long ago. He had no doubt that tomorrow would bring endless pleas for dancing lessons and pink tutus.
In the car on the way home, Fifi clutched a program in one hand and curled up in the backseat to go to sleep. Watching her, CC was reminded of the baseball game three years ago, of those first uncomfortable pangs of maternal feeling. She'd tried to fight Fifi as hard as she'd tried to fight Niles, but it was just impossible to be indifferent to someone who looked like you, worshipped you, and insisted on hugging you with hands grown sticky from making you a lopsided cake.
Now she was to have a child of her own. She had worries, fears, hopes, and vulnerabilities she'd always sworn to avoid. How would she, a career woman with a specialty in "tough" learn to be one of those gentle creatures called "Mommies," who she imagined smelled of baby powder and were always soft and patient? How would she know what to do with a baby if not pass it on to a nanny?
Yet Fifi, even though she liked her nanny, resented being passed over by her man-crazy mother, and CC knew the feeling. Having Fifi visit was forcing her to examine just what kind of a mother she wanted to be.
CC hung up the telephone with a worried frown and hurried downstairs to find Niles.
He was out by the pool working on his tan. CC dropped down beside him, openly admiring him. "I just got off the phone with DD," she said, making dancing little circles on his chest with her fingertip.
"Is everything all right?" Niles shifted restlessly under her touch, taking her hand and kissing each of her fingertips.
"Yes." CC paused and tried to remember what had troubled her so. "She just called to mention that she's changed Fifi's flight plans. She says there's no sense in Fifi flying back to Avignon for just a few days, so DD's sending her straight to London for school."
"Boarding school?" Foreplay forgotten, Niles sat up and took off his Ray-bans. "I thought she had a nanny."
"Fifi is seven," CC said defensively. "That's later than you usually get kicked out of the nest in my family. Isn't that what happened to you and Maxwell?"
"I was ten, and it was miserable. I missed my mum something horrible. The food was nasty, the teachers were too strict, and we got our behinds paddled for everything. Isn't that what was like for you?"
"Nobody spanked me 'till I got married, sugar." CC drew her nail up and down his forearm.
Niles grinned. "And believe me, it was long past time. But seriously, didn't you hate it?"
"That depends. If I say I did, will you do it again?"
Niles groaned. "I mean school, not spankings! And yes."
CC grinned. "Doesn't everybody hate rules? Okay, yes, you're right, it was horrible. The food sucked, the teachers were terribly strict, and don't even tell me about suffering until you've had to walk up and down a staircase with a book on your head to give you good posture. We were supposed to be on perfect behavior twenty-four seven."
"See?" he said accusingly.
"On the other hand," she added, "There were payoffs. No parents, no nannies, they can't watch a hundred and fifty girls every second, and when we got older, there were contests to see who could make time with the gardeners." Suddenly her eyes popped wide open and she looked guiltily at him.
Niles didn't see it. He was reminiscing fondly, "Yes, we had that competition with the public-school girls from town. . . Oh my God! Fifi!"
They looked at each other in horror.
"I was in New York," CC protested. "She'll be in England. It's different."
"I was in England, and believe me, the only difference is the dreadful climate in England, which gives a chap even more reason to warm up to a girl!"
"Fifi's only seven. It'll be years before she's in that phase."
"True," he agreed, relieved.
"When I was seven, all I ever did was gorge myself on sweets and learn to say naughty words in French." CC laughed dismissively, then froze.
"Fifi!" they gasped in dismay.
CC curled up her legs on the sofa and said casually, "Maxwell?"
"Yes, CC?" He looked up a little impatiently from his work, glancing at her over wire-rimmed glasses.
"What school does Gracie go to?"
"The public one. Don't you have about five or six years before you need to think about that?" Maxwell smiled at this evidence of maternal feeling from the woman who once claimed that child actors gave her hives.
CC's jaw dropped. "Your child goes to a public school? What on earth are you thinking?"
Maxwell pulled off his glasses. "The public schools in Beverly Hills are excellent, in fact just as good as the private schools. Besides, this is the nineties. What does Gracie need with walking up and down a staircase with a book on her head?"
CC frowned thoughtfully. "Maxwell, this is just a thought. Nothing is written in stone, and I haven't even talked to Fifi about it yet. But how would you and Fran feel about my inviting Fifi to live with us and go to school here instead of being sent to England for boarding school?"
Max contemplated the thought. "That would be five children: Gracie, Fifi, the twins, and your child. Well, we've got plenty of room. If Fran doesn't object, I suppose we could try it for a bit and see what happens."
"A trial period! That's a wonderful idea! We'll invite Fifi to spend a semester here, and if it works out, we'll tell her she may stay. DD probably won't care as long as Fifi's out of her hair."
Fran, Max, Niles, and CC took Fifi out for a special dinner two days later. Sylvia and Grace were looking after the twins.
Fifi's weeklong visit was drawing to its close. Her flight to England was only two days away, and school started in a couple of weeks. She played idly with her food, barely touching a bite.
CC nudged her. "What's wrong, sweetie?"
"Nothing." Fifi didn't want to talk about it in front of everyone.
"Are you looking forward to going to school?"
Fifi considered her words carefully. "I guess," was the best she could do.
Niles patted CC's hand. "Let's tell her."
CC nodded, and as Fran and Max looked on tenderly, CC said, "Fifi, I just talked to your mother, and there's something I want to ask you."
Fifi's head snapped up. "Yes?" Maybe, with any luck, Aunt CC would invite her to come for Christmas. Mama was always so busy.
"Would you like to stay here and go to school?"
Fifi brightened. "Could I come see you on weekends sometimes?"
CC laughed. "You don't understand. Niles and Fran and Max and I want you to live with us and go to school during the day."
Fifi gasped. For a second, she was too shocked to speak. Then, eyes full of tears, she jumped from her chair and crawled up on CC's lap. She cried softly against CC's shoulder. "I want to!" she sniffled. "Can I really? I'd be so much help, I promise. I could help with your baby."
CC rubbed her back. "Of course you can stay. I'd intended to send you to the public school, but your mother won't hear of it, so we'll just send you to a private school nearby and you'll live at home with us and go to your mama on vacations."
CC's lap was shrinking rapidly due her expanding stomach, and Fifi found that there wasn't enough room to take up residence there for long, so she was passed to Fran. "Sweetie, we're so glad you're going to live with us," Fran told her kindly. "Now the first thing we'll do is go buy you some new clothes."
CC cleared her throat. "I will be overseeing the shopping," she said sternly. "No child of mine will be wearing anything that was bought for ninety percent off at Loehmann's! And of course the first thing we must do is go to the school and get you registered and buy your uniforms."
Fifi was used to CC's stuffiness by now, and didn't mind it a bit. Aunt CC might act all stern and strict, but she was such a softy when it counted.
On Fifi's first day of school, CC broke a promise she'd made to herself years before: that she'd never become one of those annoying camera-happy parents. She shot half a roll of film of Fifi in various poses, dressed in her little plaid skirt, starched blouse, and blazer.
"Now darling, I want you to come straight home from school today. We have an interview at a dancing school at four for your ballet lessons."
Fifi kissed CC and ran out the door to the waiting car, her shoes clicking on the sidewalk.
Niles stood beside CC on the verandah as they watched the limousine pull out with Fifi in the backseat. "Are you sure we shouldn't have gone with her?"
CC rolled her eyes. "Niles, you are such a softy. We can't overprotect her, she'll grow up fearful and weak. Besides, I only had the kitchen send along enough breakfast for her and her two bodyguards."
Niles had given up breakfast-cooking duties in order to spend longer hours in bed with his wife, but no one seemed to be able to cook to his standards. "You mean, those dried-up old cinnamon rolls and runny eggs and -- "
CC waved a hand dismissively as she headed for her office. "No, I let her have the rest of the Sarah Lee for breakfast."
Niles' howl of outrage could be heard all over the house.
The End
Back to Fan FictionBack to The Really Unofficial Nanny Home Page