Nanny Confidential

by Philippa Christian

  I decided pretty quickly that any reality star who says their show isn’t staged is lying. Even if other shows are only half as stage-managed as Alysha’s, that still means there’s a fair amount of fakery involved. They tell certain people to make certain comments; they set up phone calls and scenarios where you ‘bump into’ long-lost friends and relatives. Some of these relatives aren’t even really related to the star but are actors hired to play a part.

  ‘Do you know that my daddy has stick-on hair?’ The conversation around the kitchen table halted as Cherry made her announcement without even looking up from her colouring book.

  Alysha and her producer had been debating whether or not a film crew should be sent to India, where Sir Cameron was currently working. So far, the only cameo he’d made in the show was a two-minute Skype conversation, where he’d said ‘Hello’ and then the screen had frozen. He didn’t seem keen to take part and had even banned the film crew from stepping into his study, which only made them more keen to do so.

  ‘It will seem more real if he appears in the show,’ argued the producer. ‘Otherwise it might look like you’re hiding something and viewers will grow suspicious.’

  That’s when Cherry had decided to pipe up with her revelation about her daddy. Luckily, she was distracted when her red crayon snapped in half (hashtag ‘preschool problems’) and the adults quickly glossed over the subject and moved on.

  I didn’t blame Sir Cameron for setting boundaries to protect his privacy. I was actually surprised that Alysha was letting a television crew inside her real home, instead of renting another property to film in. When a celebrity is photographed ‘at home’ it often isn’t really where they live at all. A lot of reality television stars just hire a mansion, put some family photos on the mantelpiece, move the pets in and pretend they’ve lived there for years—despite the fact their kids don’t know the way to the bathroom.

  It seems like lying comes second nature to some starlets, who are so desperate to impress that they fabricate entire layers of their lives. I know one wealthy housewife who is a notorious storyteller. She told all her friends that she was an FHM model. When they asked why none of her photos were on the internet, she claimed her husband had them all taken down. She also claimed to have ordered five Bentleys, which were mysteriously never delivered, and that she had been an Olympic downhill skier. The clincher was when she said the Molton Brown was coming to her Molton Brown–themed birthday party . . . until someone pointed out that Molton Brown is not actually a person, just a product name.

  However, Alysha had decided she wanted to be ‘authentic’ and allow cameras into her real home. This was funny because in every other area of her life she was happy to fake it. I happened to know that her new Chanel handbag was hired at a cost of $1000 a week, because she couldn’t get to the top of the waiting list to buy one. She had fake hair, fake eyelashes and fake nails; even her age was fake.

  She’d even hired a ‘social media ghostwriter’ who now updated her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds for her. I felt sorry for Alysha’s fans who were excited to get a reply from a soap star, not realising that it wasn’t actually her writing back to them. Instead, Alysha’s social media accounts were managed by a 25-year-old technology graduate called Crystal, who had turned down a job with NASA to work with Alysha. ‘It’s only for a year until I pay off my student loan,’ Crystal told me. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much I get paid for writing a few Facebook posts.’ She’s previously handled the Twitter account of an actress from Gossip Girl, so she was used to tweeting like a celebrity.

  It really is amazing how much of your life can be outsourced when you have an unlimited budget at your disposal.

  I was just thankful that the children were being kept relatively out of the pantomime and hadn’t been included in any of the scripted scenes. They were more like extras than cast members and were filmed running around in the background, but weren’t the focus of the film crew’s attention.

  ‘You might face a backlash if the kids are too involved,’ I’d overheard Alysha’s lawyer warning her. ‘You won’t come off favourably if you’re seen as exploiting them for ratings.’ Alysha knew this was true, as she was friends with a British model who’d come under fire for putting her children at the centre of a reality TV show. She didn’t want to risk the same criticism.

  I’d been told to keep the children out of the house as much as possible between 3 and 6 p.m., the time when the sunlight was the most flattering for filming. This wasn’t hard because the children’s social calendars were busier than Paris Hilton’s in the nineties, with afterschool clubs, birthday parties and press events to attend. They were on the VIP list for the opening of every toy store, junior sample sale and kids-movie premiere in the city. I had to set up an online calendar for each of them just to keep track of where they should be and, as their surrogate parent, I also had to attend all of the activities. In Hollywood, even the baby classes where adults sit in a circle and sing nursery rhymes tunelessly with their babies in their laps are often called ‘Nanny and me’ rather than ‘Mommy and me’.

  The children never really complained about their schedules, because they didn’t know any different, and all of their school friends were equally busy. However, I constantly felt guilty as I shipped them between appointments. I think young children need rest, structure and stability, not press conferences and photo opportunities.

  I do not think it’s healthy, on a Tuesday evening, to chauffeur a six-year-old straight from school to a hair salon to have an ‘up-do’ before a charity fundraiser. However, try telling this to Alysha, who is determined that one of her children will be mentioned in TIME magazine’s list of the ‘50 youngest philanthropists in America’.

  As well as late-night events there were also early-morning gatherings. Every day, on the way to school, I had to stop off at Starbucks. This was a ritual shared by all of the girls’ classmates, who each had Starbucks credit cards they could just swipe at the counter. ‘It will make them more alert for their lessons,’ explained Alysha, although I put my foot down when it came to giving them caffeine. Currently, the fashionable drink for schoolgirls was a babycino made with frothed almond milk and sweetened with agave nectar. It was a bizarre sight, seeing a cafe full of children chugging down their ‘coffee’. Many of them looked as tired and stressed out as businessmen.

  I could tell the constant presence of the reality film crew was taking its toll on Goldie when one morning she asked me to supersize her Starbucks order. The previous evening she’d had a triple-whammy of activities, going to pony club, then an etiquette lesson and then a yoga class, and hadn’t got home until midnight.

  As we queued at the counter she pulled at my shirtsleeve and looked at me with wide eyes. ‘Lindsay, I just don’t think I can function unless I have an espresso pronto,’ she cried dramatically. ‘And pleeease can you make it a double’. I was having a deja vu moment, as her mother had barked the exact same order at me the morning before. It’s amazing how impressionable kids are at that age.

  ‘Do you actually know what an espresso is, sweetie?’ I asked gently. ‘It’s a drink for grown-ups and will probably make your tummy feel sore.’

  She stared at me as if I was keeping something from her. ‘But Mommy says it’s magic,’ she said questioningly. ‘When she’s grumpy she just needs to drink out of one of her teeny tiny cups and she’s happy again, and doesn’t even need to eat lunch.’

  At this moment I could have attempted to explain the science behind caffeine, but I doubted Goldie would understand it until she was a few years older. Instead I opted for the nanny’s last resort—a little white lie. When we got to the counter I ordered Goldie a babycino but asked for it in an espresso cup, to fool her. After one sip she perked up instantly and began bouncing around the room, bumping her cup against her classmates, and saying ‘Cheers’ in a fake British accent.

  I felt guilty that I had indulged her with a placebo, but it could have been worse. As we left the cafe
, one of Goldie’s school friends was standing outside sucking on a lollypop stick. Her mother was barking into her mobile phone, with a cigarette hanging from her fingertips.

  •

  I make it my mission to try to inject some normality into the kids’ lives—although this can be easier said than done at times. They spend so much time around adults, participating in age-inappropriate activities, that I see it as part of my job to balance it out. How do children outside the Hollywood bubble enjoy themselves? What does their playtime look like?

  The problem is that, even when I try to engage the kids in low-income fun, it somehow always ends up with a Hollywood twist. The day we set up a lemonade stall was the perfect example.

  ‘When I was a little girl I used to sell homemade lemonade from the end of my parents’ driveway every weekend,’ I told the little girls as we squeezed lemons into crystal jugs (Alysha doesn’t allow plastic crockery in the house, as she has a phobia of picnics. Really. She says there’s no way to sit flatteringly on a picnic rug). I was pretty pleased with myself for coming up with the Sunday activity. I had visions of the girls handing out lemonade cups to people in passing cars in exchange for fifty cent coins. It would be a lesson in the value of money, and the fun that can be had when you work hard.

  I’d been to the market that morning and bought a huge tub of lemons, smuggling in a bag of sugar—the white stuff is forbidden in this household. Alysha spent every Sunday morning cocooned in a full-body detox wrap in her bathroom (her ensuite has a sauna, sunbed and oxygen chamber in it). I hoped that would keep her busy until we’d mixed up the sugary cocktail. Unfortunately we were delayed after Cherry squirted lemon juice in her eye and I had to make her a pirate’s eye patch out of the back of a cereal box to cover it. She didn’t actually need it; her eye was fine, but she’d never miss any excuse to get dressed up. Of course, the fancy dress sesh soon spiralled. Goldie wanted to wear her Ninja Turtle costume, and Lavender screeched for her Elmo bodysuit (a genuine Sesame Street costume used on the show that Alysha had bought for $3400 at an auction). The other children opted for their tried-and-tested onesies.

  ‘Right, little ones, let’s hit the road,’ I said, when we were suited and booted. At Cherry’s request I was wearing a Pippi Longstocking outfit, with a wig that had long, stiff plaits that stuck out the sides of my head. Move over, Daphne Guinness!

  As our gang of characters headed back into the kitchen I was greeted by the sight of my boss, still wrapped in her detox mask, which had hardened to a green shell. I’m not even sure how she’d got herself into an upright position, seeing as she didn’t seem able to bend her knees or elbows.

  ‘Mommy, are you playing dress-up too?’ cried Cherry, excited by the rare opportunity to actually play with a parent. Alysha ignored her. I saw her eyes—the only part of her visible beneath the bandages—flick in my direction. ‘Lindsay, what the hell is going on here?’ she exclaimed, ‘Why do my children look like they’ve just escaped from a mental asylum?’

  I gestured to the pile of lemons. ‘We’re going to have a lemonade stand outside the front of the house,’ I explained. ‘I thought it would be a good . . . teaching opportunity.’

  I can never predict how my boss will react to certain situations. When I’m sure she’ll fly off the handle she often stays calm, and when there’s really no reason to be tricky, she can turn into King Kong. I once tried to map her mood swings on an iPhone app, but even a high-tech algorithm couldn’t find a pattern.

  If I could have seen her face beneath the detox mask, I’m guessing she’d have looked thoughtful. When she eventually answered she surprised me. ‘That’s a fantastic idea,’ she cried. ‘It’s just the kind of wholesome content we need for the reality show.’

  Of course, the show. It was all about the show. Obviously. But at least she hadn’t put a blanket ban on the activity. ‘Sounds good, Alysha,’ I replied. ‘I’m just going to grab a wooden crate from the garage to use as a table and then we’ll be ready to go.’

  I should have known it was too good to be true. Alysha’s idea of wholesome fun was a little more high-end than I’d envisioned. ‘Oh no, that won’t do,’ she said. ‘I’ll give Tilly a call. She can design a lemonade stand for you.’ Tilly was Alysha’s interior decorator, who was as much a permanent feature of the house as the furniture she had purchased. The Appleby household was like her Golden Gate Bridge—as soon as one level was redecorated, she started all over again.

  ‘That’s a very kind offer, but I don’t think it’s really necessary.’ I tried to be as polite as possible. ‘All we need is somewhere to rest the lemonade jugs. I can just lay a tablecloth over the box. It’s what I always did when I was a little girl.’

  I realised too late that I shouldn’t have mentioned my own childhood, as it just acted as a benchmark for Alysha to upstage. ‘Oh but, Lindsay, this isn’t some wilderness town in Australia,’ she said. ‘This is Hollywood. We have slightly higher standards. Do you really think cars here will stop at a box by the side of the road?’ Well, yes I did, when that box had six adorable children standing next to it. But you have to choose which battles to fight in my game, and this wasn’t one of them.

  The children were rightfully disappointed when I had to explain that we, sadly, wouldn’t be playing lemonade stand today, because we needed to wait a week for a stall to be designed and constructed so that we didn’t bring down the tone of the neighbourhood. I appeased them by freezing the homemade lemonade into sorbet, which we guzzled in front of the TV that evening. It also meant that, by the following Sunday, they were more excited than ever.

  As for the lemonade stand, well, Tilly had certainly gone all out. Although that might have been because she charged $450 per hour. She’d built a mini cafe facade with an oak wood frame and a white-and-red striped canopy. It had a vintage lemonade dispenser, like you’d see in an old sixties diner. She’d even found—or custom-made—a neon sign that read ‘Pop Stop’ and ran on a generator that was also connected to a bubble machine. The lemonade stand looked like it belonged in Disneyland, especially when it was manned by six kids in fancy dress outfits.

  The TV producer had dispatched a cameraman to hover around us. He didn’t seem too pleased that he had to video our entrepreneurial escapades rather than watching the Dodgers game the rest of the crew were glued to in their trailer. But he soon perked up when our first customer arrived, ten minutes later. As the Jaguar with the blacked-out windows slowed down and pulled over at the side of the road, the children jumped up and down excitedly. Phew! I’d had a secret fear that nobody would stop for them. We’d set the price per glass at $1.50, but famous people can be ridiculously frugal when it comes to opening their wallets. It’s partly because they get so much given to them for free and partly because they rarely carry cash, particularly loose change. If it’s not a hundred dollar bill, it’s not worth anything to them.

  The sun was shining in my eyes, so I didn’t clock our customer’s face until he was directly in front of the lemonade stand. I faked a cough to hide my gasp. It was James Bond! Not that he was in character, of course, but it was one of the actors who had played him. (I won’t say who, but let’s just say he’s my favourite Bond of them all.) The children were totally clueless as to the identity of their star customer. They were just excited to be given attention.

  ‘You should have two glasses. No, have three. Have four!’ sang Harlow, thrusting empty plastic cups into the hands of the Oscar winner.

  ‘Hang on, girls,’ I stepped in before she could hand over the whole packet of cups. ‘The gentleman probably just wants one glass. He probably isn’t that thirsty.’ But I had underestimated the power of a seven-year-old with puppy dog eyes, as Harlow stared up at her customer. ‘But it tastes like sunshine,’ she bleated, ‘and we made it all by ourselves . . .’ Wow, this girl knew how to do the hard sell.

  ‘Well, in that case, how can I refuse?’ I was amazed when Bond (sorry, that’s how I’ll always think of him) pulled his wallet from his p
ocket and took out a stack of notes. ‘How much for an entire jug? Or how about a hundred dollars for the whole lot?’

  The girls were over the moon. A part of me wanted to protest. It seemed like easy money for barely any work. Wasn’t I meant to be teaching them the satisfaction of toil and struggle? Oh well, I consoled myself, maybe it’s just a different lesson, on the generosity of strangers.

  As 007 drove away balancing the jug between his knees (‘I’m a neighbour so I don’t have far to go. Don’t worry!’) I was just thankful I’d bitten my tongue and not made a ‘shaken not stirred’ reference. Alysha would have killed me if that had been caught on camera. The cameraman had perked up considerably. ‘Well, that was a good cameo,’ he laughed. ‘That’s a wrap. I’m going back to the trailer. You’re not going to top that customer.’

  That evening, as I watched Harlow squeeze the hundred dollar note through the slot in her piggy box (she’d decided to keep it ‘safe’ for her sisters), I thought back to my own childhood, when Will and I would run our own lemonade stand. The most we ever made in a day was $19.65 and we were over the moon, counting silver coins into one-dollar piles. This was a different world, and maybe I just had to accept that. A world where interior decorators design lemonade stalls and 007 makes it a sell-out.

  The girls had decided that next time they wanted to sell cupcakes instead. I made a mental note to start practising my red velvet recipe in case Martha Stewart happened to drive by.

  •

  ‘Will, it’s me,’ I squealed excitedly into the phone.

  It’s a silly thing, but I always get a warm feeling when I call Will and say ‘It’s me’. I love having someone in my life who recognises my voice immediately.