(I own nothing!)
I stare at the building in front of me. This was where I was supposed to be working?
I glance back at the post-it in my hand. Yep, this was the address. But what sort of job would have me working at someone's house?
Walking up the front steps, I take a closer look. I feel like I've been here before… I ring the doorbell.
*BRIIIING!*
The door is thrown open and standing on the other side is a frazzled looking woman, her hair falling from what should have been a neat bun, and her clothes disheveled.
"Thank God you're finally here!" She grabs my arm and drags me inside. "I swear I thought the agency had forgotten to send you!" She pulls me through the house till I'm standing outside a door.
"They're in there. I'd be careful if I were you, the last one the agency sent had a mental breakdown because of them." What in the world sort of job did Saito line up for me? She pushes open the door.
"James? Phillipa? The new nanny is here." Nanny? Saito had gotten me a job as a nanny? I look at the two kids on the floor. Their backs are to me but I feel like I know from them somewhere and their names are familiar. But then they turn to look at me and I realize that I have never seen these kids before in my life.
Funny, from the back I could swear I had seen them before… Odd.
They look up at me with big blue eyes, so familiar but so different at the same time. Their eyes flit over me, taking in and examining me. I feel like a bug in a jar.
"Well I'll just leave you guys to get to know each other." I almost beg her to stay, but before I can open my mouth she has vanished into the recesses of the house.
"Hi," I try to sound friendly and not like I'm nervous, which I am very much so. "My name's Ariadne."
They blink.
"What's your names?"
They blink again. And then I feel calm for some reason and an immense need to pick them up and cuddle them. I believe my mother called them estrogen rushes, when a girl goes from nervous around kids to full mommy mode.
"Well if you won't tell me, then I'll just have to give you new ones, won't I?" I smile and can see a small flicker in their eyes.
"Let's see…" I point at the older of the two, a girl about the age of five. "I think I'll call you…Thing 1 and your brother here" I point at her brother who is about the age of two, "Thing two."
The girl giggled. "That's not our names!"
"I know they're not, but if you won't tell me your names, I'm going to have call you them." I say in a falsely resigned voice.
"You're funny."
"I try."
"I'm Phillipa and that's James." Those names…why do I feel like I know them?
"You're pretty, Awia- awiad." I look down at the boy, James according to his sister; his face is screwed up in concentration. "I can't say it." His eyes start to tear up.
"It's okay. You and Phillipa can call me Ari. Only my really super-duper special friends get to call me that. And thank you it's not every day a girl gets a compliment from such a gentleman, James." I ruffle his hair. "Tell you what, if you two clean up your room and make your beds, we'll go to the living room and build a fort."
"A fork?" James asked his eyes wide.
"A fort, James, a great big one, with secret tunnels and hidden rooms." I watch as their eyes go wider and I try not to laugh at the wonder in their eyes.
"We've never made one before." I fake gasp in shock.
"Well, we'll just have to remedy that." I place my hands on my hips. "After we clean your room." The kids groan and I laugh.
On the other end of the house the doorbell rings. Rosa opens the door, to see a young girl with blonde hair standing on the other side with a large tote bag.
"Hi, I'm Grace. I'm here for the-"
"Ah, Mr. Cobb said that you'd be here. He's in his study waiting for you. This way please." Rosa leads her to the study and knocks.
"Who is it?" A voice echoes out from behind the door.
"The girl you mentioned is here for her interview."
"I didn't know there was to be an interview."
"Well, you have to understand that with the type of work Mr. Cobb does it is important to make sure that you're up to scratch." Grace briefly wonders what she was getting into, but the door opens and she walks inside. The man shuts the door behind her and moves to take a seat behind the large oak desk, motioning for her to sit. The silence that ensues is awkward to say the least.
"My name is Grace Porter." The man merely arches an eyebrow, his icy blue eyes staring through her. "I have my résumé here with me if-"
"I don't need to see it. What I want you to do," He turns and opens a desk drawer, pulling out a pad of paper, and plucking a pen from a cup on his desk. "Is draw me a maze that takes two minutes to draw and one to solve."
Grace picks up the pen and paper and stares at it and then back at the man behind the desk.
"You start…Now." Slowly Grace drew.
"Stop." Reaching over the desk he plucks the pad from her hand and looks at it.
"What the hell is this?" He holds up the picture of a puppy.
"Well I couldn't think of a maze so I drew a puppy instead." The man closes his eyes.
"Okay, let's try this again." He hands her back the pad. "A maze this time, if you please, Ms. Porter."
And again when the two minutes are up he takes the pad and examines it. There sitting on the page next to the dog, smiling up at him, is a little kitten.
"Ms. Porter, I afraid that you will not be getting this job. Rosa, will you please show Ms. Porter out?"
"Yes, sir." Grace is led from the house and the door slammed shut behind her.
"Geez, what's his problem? And what the hell does being a nanny have to do with mazes?"
Hilda listened to the plan her boss had laid out.
"But, sir, why did you lie to Mr. Cobb?"
"At no point did I lie. I did not ask Ariadne if she would be my Architect. And indeed an Architect is going to meet Mr. Cobb for an interview today. I just didn't tell him who." Hilda rolled her eyes. Her boss liked to manipulate and surprise people way too much. "Has she left yet?"
"Yes, sir, she left thirty minutes ago. She should have been there for about two hours now, sir."
"Good. And you didn't give her any clue as to what was going on?"
"No, sir."
"Excellent. Good day, Hilda." Taking the phone from her ear she hit the end call button.
"Crazy, manipulative bastard."
"Hilda," She jumped at the sound of her boss's voice. "The end call button is the other one."
"Yes, sir."
I stare at the masterpiece before me. These kids may have never built a fort before in their lives, but they were naturals. I turn and smile at them.
"Ready to go inside?" They squeal and dive inside, as I lunge and grab one of the sheets to keep the fort from falling on them. Slowly I crawl in after them, careful not to do any damage.
Then came the sound of muffled voices, but I was distracted by the kids asking if they could eat lunch in the fort.
I smile.
"Of course."
Cobb stormed through the house. Grabbing his coat, he walked to the front door, before back tracking and looking at the structure now standing in his living room, giggling.
"Rosa? What the heck is that?" he asks. Rosa pops her head in from the laundry room.
"That is the work of your new nanny. She is great with you helli- kids. I have never seen them take to someone so fast before. Would you like to meet her?"
"Later, I have some business to attend to." Cobb turns and walks out of the house.
I pop my head out of the fort.
"Rosa, was someone just in here? I thought I heard something?"
"It was Mr. Cobb." I freeze at the name and have to remind myself that there is more than one Cobb in LA. I shrug and crawl out of the fort to make the kids lunch.
I walk to the kitchen. Banana and peanut butter sandwiches sound good.
Cobb walks back in the house.
"I forgot my keys." He says as he passes the laundry room, and tries to ignore the 'of course you did' that echoes from inside.
I pop my head out into the hallway.
"Rosa, where is the," But no one was there. "Peanut butter?" Funny I could have sworn I heard someone.
I walk in to the pantry to look for the elusive peanut butter.
Cobb stalks into the kitchen.
"Where the heck are my keys?"
"They're in your room on your dresser!" The laundry room replied.
"Oh." He walks back out of the kitchen.
I walk out of the pantry looking around the kitchen, the peanut butter jar clutched in my hand. Okay now I know I'm hearing things.
I slather the bread with peanut butter and finish my masterpieces. I walk back to the living room and climb into the fort.
"Cool! You made the sandwiches look like our fort!" I hear Phillipa squeal.
Cobb walks back through the house and out the front door, not noticing a familiar scarf lying on the living room floor.
He drives to the park and sits on what Mal had called his thinking bench. It was where he went whenever he needed to think.
Finally he pulls his phone from his pocket to give his employer a large piece of his mind.
"Hello, Mr. Cobb. I take it you're calling about the interview?"
"Yes."
"I take it, it went well?" On the other end of the line Saito smirked and rested his feet on his desk.
"Oh, that is exactly the opposite of how it went. What the heck were you thinking? This girl is unmotivated and seemed to have no clue what she was doing!"
"You didn't have a problem the last time you worked with her."
"I have never worked with this woman before in my life!"
"Mr. Cobb, if you do not mind, I need to go." And with that Saito hung up and dialed Hilda.
"Hilda, what the hell is going on?"
I pick at my food too busy telling Hilda how wonderful the kids are to even focus on eating.
"I mean they are the sweetest kids I have ever met! But the oddest thing is I feel like I know them from somewhere." I stand and hand her back the plate, still mostly full of food, and walk to my bedroom. Crawling into bed, I think about the kids and what we're going to do tomorrow.
Hilda finishes cleaning the kitchen and picks up the phone to call her boss.
"Mr. Saito, I think I found the problem." She says wondering when her life became like an old soap opera.
Saito hangs up the phone and face palms.
How the heck did a simple plan go so wrong?
He leans back in his chair sighing. It would work itself out eventually.
His phone rings again for what feels like the thousandth time.
"Hello?" His face goes from passive to aggressive in seconds. "What the hell do you mean you can't find him?"