Juicy Secrets

by Victoria Ashton

  Confessions of a Teen Nanny Juicy Secrets

  A Novel by Victoria Ashton

  To MFD—

  the first boy I kissed and meant it

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Frozen Hot Gossip

  Chapter Two

  Back in the Saddle

  Chapter Three

  The Deals

  Chapter Four

  Gotta Take This

  Chapter Five

  Moscow on the Hudson

  Chapter Six

  Totally Suspicious Behavior

  Chapter Seven

  Horse Sense

  Chapter Eight

  What’s Normal?

  Chapter Nine

  Parker’s Big Secret

  Chapter Ten

  I Know the Truth

  Chapter Eleven

  And it Only Gets Better

  Chapter Twelve

  Totally MIA

  Chapter Thirteen

  Don’t do Anything I Wouldn’t do

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charge it

  Chapter Fifteen

  Unsteady Gait

  Chapter Sixteen

  Making Plans

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Scam

  Chapter Eighteen

  Free Love

  Chapter Nineteen

  High in the Sky

  Chapter Twenty

  Lock and Load

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Center of Attention

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mission Accomplished

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  frozen hot gossip

  “Did you know that if you grind up a tiger’s hairs into a powder and give them to someone in a drink, they’ll die a slow, painful death of internal bleeding from undetectable lacerations?” eight-year-old Emma Warner asked Adrienne Lewis as they walked hand-in-hand through Central Park.

  “Emma, that is so gross,” Adrienne said. “Please don’t mention it over lunch with Liz, Heather, and David.”

  “Your endless capacity to avoid even the most basic confrontation never ceases to amuse me.” Emma sighed. “Another piece of evidence.”

  Adrienne rolled her eyes. Even though Emma was off-the-charts smart for her age, she still could be a huge pain.

  Adrienne looked across the broad expanse of Central Park, searching for her best friend on earth, Liz Braun.

  Liz and Adrienne had been friends since the second grade, and only since high school had they been separated for more than twelve minutes each day. With their mobiles and BlackBerries, the two girls were still inseparable—at least electronically. The one thing that brought them together face-to-face every day was the fact that they were both employed in the same building as nannies.

  841 Fifth Avenue.

  One of the legendary buildings in New York. The apartments started at $30 million, and you had to have ten times that in the bank to be accepted. The building was full of the city’s elite—most importantly, Adrienne’s and Liz’s employers.

  While Liz worked for Dr. Mayra Markham-Collins (known as Dr. M-C to the girls), a popular psychologist for children who made Dr. Phil look like a second-rate veterinarian, Adrienne worked for Catherine Olivia Warner (the COW), one of New York City’s most prominent socialites. The girls had spent the past year caught in the whirlwind of the lives of their bosses: expensive trips to Palm Beach and Aspen, parties with the rich and decadent, and long, long days with their totally warped offspring. The rich were different, the girls had realized, but as long as they were paying, and paying big, why not enjoy the ride?

  Adrienne waved at Liz and the two kids she took care of: David and Heather. David was adorable, Adrienne thought. A funny, sensitive five-year-old with an active imagination. Heather? Well, nine-year-old Heather was just sensitive and not particularly active.

  “Hey, there!” Liz said, releasing David’s hand for a second to wave to Adrienne. David bolted and ran to Adrienne, throwing his arms around her legs.

  “Adrienne!” he shouted with glee. “Give me a cookie!”

  Adrienne smiled. “I don’t have a cookie, David. I’m a nanny, not a supermarket.”

  David let go and stared at her skeptically. “I bet you do,” he said. “You’re just mean.” His face screwed up with tears.

  “This is his new trick,” Liz explained. “He learned it from Heather.”

  “Aha! Classic! David uses trust and affection to manipulate the subject,” Emma said, taking out a small red leather notebook from her jacket pocket. “Then he makes an unusual request, causing the subject to feel as if she would be denying him her affection by refusing his request. That is the hallmark of the manipulative sociopath.” She scribbled furiously. “Watch him, Liz,” she said, closing the Smythson notebook that read EVIDENCE on the front cover. “He could be a budding serial killer.”

  “Well,” Liz replied, “we know he’d kill for cereal!” She grinned. David’s affection for junk food was well known, even though his mother refused to allow him to eat anything other than soy products. “Emma,” Liz added, “what are you writing?”

  “This is my evidence journal,” Emma explained. “I keep track of everything now.”

  “Did Oprah tell you to do this?” Adrienne asked. Emma was completely obsessed with Oprah.

  “Who watches Oprah anymore?” Emma sneered. “I am a devotee of CSI.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I grew up.”

  “I see.” Adrienne raised an eyebrow, as Emma stashed her notebook in her coat pocket.

  Liz and Adrienne watched the kids amble just ahead of them as they left the park and crossed Fifth Avenue.

  Walking over to Lexington, the group made their way to Serendipity 3, the fabulous hangout near Bloomingdale’s, famous for its frozen hot chocolate. An old soda fountain and gift shop, Serendipity was the cool place for kids to go during a day of shopping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Its frozen hot chocolate was a New York institution.

  “Hi there, Emma,” chirped the man behind the reservation desk. Emma Warner, although only eight, was recognized throughout much of the Upper East Side.

  “Hi, Reed,” Emma said. “We want the downstairs corner booth.”

  “Kelli Huntington just sat there,” Reed said. “I’m sorry.”

  Heather turned to Liz with fear in her eyes. “Don’t make me go in,” she begged. “I hate Kelli Huntington.”

  “But, Heather—” Liz started.

  “I would like to sit at my regular table, Reed,” Emma continued. “Ask Kelli to move.”

  “Emma, I really can’t—”

  “Reed,” Emma explained in a condescending tone Adrienne had heard Emma’s mother use many times before. “I have a birthday party every year. I have one hundred kids. If I decide to have my party at your restaurant this year, that would be an awful lot of frozen hot chocolates….” She smiled patiently.

  “We do have a bigger table upstairs where the Huntingtons might be more comfortable,” Reed said, knowing when he was beaten. The Warner money always won out.

  “Thank you, Reed,” Emma said, smiling sweetly.

  “Thanks, Emma,” Heather whispered, obviously relieved.

  “Do you sometimes think that we nanny for Martians?” Adrienne asked, as the five kids slipped into “Emma’s table” in the rear of the downstairs dining room, under a low-hanging Tiffany lamp.

  “They’re definitely different,” Liz admitted, picking up a menu though knowing that they would all have foot-long hot dogs and frozen hot chocolate. When the frozen hot chocolates arrived, everyone plunged in with the long straws.

/>   “That was a great party Tamara had,” Liz said to Adrienne. “Too bad there isn’t another party this weekend!”

  “You got that right,” Adrienne said. Last Saturday, Adrienne and her pals had partied long into the night with wild dancing and massive amounts of takeout food at Tamara Tucker’s apartment on the Upper West Side. It was the first time since their breakup that Adrienne had seen her ex-boyfriend Brian Grady outside of school. What had made it even more significant was that the party had a Valentine’s Day theme—Adrienne’s first Valentine’s Day solo in two years. At first she’d been afraid she’d get all weepy, but instead she had laughed, danced, and scarfed down delicious veggie dumplings. “That party rocked.”

  “For you,” Liz said, giggling. “I don’t think it was so cool for Brian. He was totally mooning over you.”

  Adrienne grinned. “So you noticed, too?”

  “Please. He may have dumped you first, but now the tables are seriously turned.”

  “No joke,” Adrienne agreed. “I never thought it was possible, but I really am so totally over him.”

  One month ago, Adrienne would never have been able to even imagine feeling this way. That was when her boyfriend of two years had dumped her for the glamorous celebutante Cameron Warner—Emma’s seventeen-year-old half sister. Adrienne was shocked, hurt, and humiliated.

  “It’s great to hear you say that,” Liz said. “I was pretty worried about you there for a while.”

  “Me, too,” Adrienne admitted. “But I’m great now. No guys stressing me out.” She glanced over at Emma, Heather, and David. They were all busy with the markers and paper Liz had brought with her. “How’s Parker doing?” Adrienne asked her friend quietly.

  Liz shrugged.

  Parker Devlin and Liz had been seeing each other for a few months, and Adrienne had never seen Liz go for a guy the way she was gone over Parker.

  “What happened?” Adrienne asked. “You have that look again. Whenever you scrunch up your face, I know you’re upset.”

  “Nothing. Nothing happened,” Liz confided. “I guess that’s the problem. With Parker, it’s hard to tell where things stand. It’s just that he hasn’t been around much this week. And he wouldn’t come to Tamara’s party with me.”

  “Maybe he’s busy with school,” Adrienne suggested, although she seriously doubted that was the case.

  “Probably. But Parker is always busy with something. We have these really great dates—and then he drops off the planet for several days. I mean, don’t you think he’d want to spend his time with me?” Liz said. “I want to spend all my time with him. He’s so hot!”

  “Guys are totally different from us,” Adrienne said.

  Liz nodded. “And rich guys are way different. Parker and Cameron aren’t like normal kids.”

  Adrienne nodded. She had learned that the hard way, becoming friends with Cameron Warner. Cameron was Satan in a Dolce & Gabbana skirt. In her sixteen years growing up in New York City, Adrienne had never met anyone as manipulative and evil as Cameron.

  “You should talk to Parker. Find out what’s up with him,” Adrienne told her friend.

  “I couldn’t do that,” Liz said. “He’d freak.”

  “What then?” Adrienne asked. She slurped the last of the massive frozen chocolate drink.

  “I guess I’ll deal with the agony of not knowing what my boyfriend is up to the only way I know how.” Liz’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

  Adrienne laughed and signaled the waiter over. “My friend needs a hot fudge sundae. Low on the ice cream, high on the hot fudge. We need emergency chocolate therapy here!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  back in the saddle

  Crash!

  The next afternoon, Liz Braun jumped at the sound of something large falling in the kitchen of Dr. Markham-Collins’s ultramodern apartment. She quickly stepped out of the way as Heather raced from the kitchen.

  “I didn’t do it!” Heather shouted as she dashed past Liz down the hall.

  Liz hurried into the kitchen to assess the damage. A toppled trash can lay on its side, and it had knocked over the bottle recycling bin. Organic fruit and vegetable juice bottles rolled around on the floor. Other than that, the room was empty.

  “You didn’t mean to do it, Heather,” Liz called loudly, “but you did do it.”

  Liz sighed and tossed the bottles back into the blue bin, then re-righted the trash can. “I thought I was the nanny, not the housekeeper,” she muttered.

  As she gathered up spilled garbage, she noticed a pile of mail mixed in with the limp sprouts and soy-carob brownie wrappers.

  “These should go in the paper bin,” she muttered. Liz plucked out the mail—all brochures, she noted—trying to figure out how they had all wound up in the wrong bin. Dr. Markham-Collins was a recycling maniac.

  She glanced at the brochures: STAGECRAFT MANOR, Liz read. THEATER CAMP FOR THE SHY AND RECLUSIVE CHILD. CAMP BUCK-EM-UP. DAY CAMP FOR THE DEPRESSED PRETEEN. Liz shook her head. Poor Heather! she thought. She’s not the most confident kid, but honestly! “Camp Buck-em-up”?

  No wonder Heather had tossed this stuff in the garbage—it’s where crap like it belongs. The camps sounded like the Sixth Level of Hell for Heather, who was shy and nervous on her best days. Dr. Markham-Collins, Heather’s overbearing and social-climbing mother, had just made things worse. For a woman who made her living by understanding and helping children, Dr. M-C was totally clueless when it came to her own.

  Liz dumped the mail back into the trash. We’ll let this one slide, she thought, tipping the trash can so that the brochures dropped down toward the bottom.

  Suddenly the kitchen doors flung open, and Dr. Markham-Collins appeared framed in the doorway. Everything about her was larger than life. She was almost six feet tall, and today her unruly dark hair was held on top of her head by a series of children’s colored pencils. Her signature black-rimmed glasses were tucked in her capacious bosom, and a fuchsia shawl was draped over her right shoulder.

  Why does she always dress like a color-blind gypsy? Liz wondered. With all her money, Dr. M-C should be able to pull together an outfit that doesn’t make her look as if she’s a refugee from a circus.

  “Elizabeth!” said Dr. M-C, tucking another pencil in her hair. “Just the person I was looking for!”

  “Hey there, Dr. Markham-Collins, I was…”

  “Yes, yes, fine,” Dr. M-C said, talking over Liz. “Can you tell me where Heather is? I need to speak with her.”

  Probably hiding somewhere, Liz thought. She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “‘Don’t know?’” Dr. M-C repeated. She peered at Liz over her glasses. “What do you mean, you don’t know where my daughter is. What do I pay you for?”

  “She was here a minute ago,” Liz explained, “and I was just going to go—”

  “Heather!” Dr. M-C shouted, making Liz wince. Dr. M-C tended to bellow. Liz was surprised the windows didn’t shatter on a regular basis.

  Heather appeared in the doorway, trailed closely by David. David was a sturdy little kid with dark brown hair and big brown eyes. As far as Liz could tell, he was the most normal person in the household.

  “Heather, there you are, darling,” Dr. M-C boomed. “I have WONDERFUL news for you.”

  “What, Mommy?” Heather asked nervously. She glanced at Liz with fearful eyes. Both Liz and Heather knew that Dr. M-C’s so-called brilliant ideas were usually anything but.

  “I was speaking with Mitzi Huntington this morning,” Dr. M-C gushed, “and Mitzi said that Kelli is just thriving these days, and she has riding lessons to thank for it. She says that Kelli has just blossomed thanks to all the fresh air and exercise.”

  She bent down to look Heather in the eye. The little girl shrank into the corner. “I worry about you, darling. You’re so pasty and nervous all the time. What you need is a good dose of the outdoors, some healthy competition, and some solid discipline. Riding, it is!”

  “Riding what?” Heather
asked.

  “Why, HORSES, darling!” Dr. M-C stood back up and clapped her hands lightly. “Gorgeous, talented, horse-show horses!”

  “Do the horses sing and dance in the show?” David asked.

  “No, silly!” Liz said, grabbing David and tickling him. “Come on. You know better than that!”

  “Of course, he does,” Dr. M-C said testily. “David is an exceptionally bright boy.” She turned back to Heather. “In horse shows, the rider leaps over fences, jumps over hedges, races across muddy turf—all to show the skills of the horse and the rider.”

  “I-I don’t like horses,” Heather protested weakly. “They’re big, and they smell.”

  “Nonsense!” said Dr. M-C. “You’ll love it.” Now she addressed Liz. “This is the PERFECT activity for Heather to be involved in. The Devlins own a horse farm out in the country, now don’t they?”

  “I don’t know,” Liz admitted. Liz knew that Dr. M-C, as well as every girl in the New York City private school set, was still reeling from shock that Parker was into her. Actually, at times Liz couldn’t believe it herself. But she would never give her boss the satisfaction of admitting that she often had no idea how her own boyfriend felt about her.

  “Well, of course I know they do,” Dr. M-C said. “The Knickerbocker Junior Equestrian Competition is coming up. There is just enough time for Heather to learn to ride, get good at it, and win a silver cup at the Knickerbocker to reinforce the positive nature of her new activity.”

  This is such a bad idea, Liz thought. A horse show? With a kid who has never been on a horse?

  Liz knew the real reason Dr. M-C was pushing Heather into riding was the prestige of being part of the horse show and the horsey set. If Mitzi Huntington’s daughter rode horses, well, then Dr. M-C’s daughter would, too!