Chapter Three
"She was crying?"
Valerie Toriello sat at the Sheffields' kitchen table, shaking her head in astonishment. But for once, there existed a genuine reason for the blonde's customary clueless expression.
"Yep," Fran validated, reaching for another chocolate chip cookie.
"Real tears?"
"Mmm-hmm," the brunette garbled through a mouthful. "Couldn't you just plotz?"
Val was completely bereft of words. While her friend attempted to revive her vocal chords, Fran went to retrieve the newly-purchased carton of milk to wash down the plate of cookies the pair had consumed. "You know what this means, don't you?" asked the nanny, shutting the door of the refrigerator and striding over to the cupboards.
"That Miss Babcock has fully-functioning tear ducts?" Val ventured, to which Fran's orbs twirled a three-sixty. "What? You just said she was cry-"
"Vaaal!" a rather exasperated Fran interjected as she rejoined her companion at the table. "It means that she's human! Oy."
"Ohhhhh. You know, all this time, I suspected that, but until now, I never had any proof."
"I know, I know. It's all so unnerving. I mean, you think you know someone . . ."
The two friends sipped from their glasses, then dabbed at their milk mustaches with pink paper napkins. Just as Fran was about to say something else, the kitchen door swung open and in stormed the youngest Sheffield sibling.
"Men!" Gracie snarled, plopping onto a chair and folding her arms across her chest.
Two pairs of eyes darted furiously about the room. "Where!" the duo demanded in unison.
"Nowhere. I'm talking about some dumb boy in my class. He's such a pest."
"Aren't they all?" Fran jibed, nudging Val playfully in the ribs. To Gracie, she said, "Tell us what happened, sweetie."
"Okay, just let me get settled first. I can't do this on an empty stomach." So saying, Grace snatched up the remaining cookie and sunk her teeth into it.
Leaning in Val's direction, Fran whispered, "Would you look at this? She's practically an honorary member of the Fine family. Remind me never to allow her and my mother in the same room again."
Val nodded in compliance, her golden curls bobbing up and down. "Gotcha."
"So, tell me about this boy, honey."
Having acquired Fran's penchant for loquacity, Grace proffered the long version. According to her, there was enrolled in the third grade a naughty nuisance named Toby – dubbed Toby the Tormentor by his prey – who seized every opportunity to taunt, tease, and humiliate his classmate.
As she recounted the day's events, the child worked herself into a fit of fury. When she finished, she pumped a fist in the air and enthused, "Let's pulverize him, exterminate him, tear him to shreds!"
Her nanny, on the other hand, perceived the situation through a very different lens. "Isn't that just precious? Gracie has her first admirer!" Fran gushed. She and Val proceeded to oooh and ahhh and awww.
Gracie scrunched her brow. Through squinted eyes, she stared at the women as if they had suddenly sprouted credit cards in the middle of their foreheads. "My first what?"
"Honey, relax. Toby doesn't hate you," Miss Fine explained. "He's doing all those terrible things to you because he likes you. It's a crush, puppy love."
Grace slumped back against the wooden rungs of the chair. She needed a moment to absorb this. Folding their hands on the table, Fran and Val waited patiently.
"Okay, so let me get this straight. Toby picks on me, calls me names, pokes me, shoves me, and trips me because he likes me?"
Two heads nodded in the affirmative. "Exactly. Those are all signs of affection," the nanny confirmed, then elaborated, "Sweetie, some people – guys in particular - have a hard time expressing their emotions. So, instead of just coming right out and telling you that he likes you, he has to find more . . . subtle ways to get his point across."
Gracie's brain continued to battle this out. But her thought process was interrupted when a sonorous sneezing sound punctured the air.
"Bless you," the tablemates harmonized.
Three pairs of eyes set in three flummoxed faces exchanged glances.
Niles entered, clutching a handkerchief to his runny nose. "Thank you," he snuffled through clogged nasal passages.
Fran shifted in her seat to study him. The poor man's condition had deteriorated considerably. "Niles! You should be in bed," the caregiver scolded.
"Yes, I should be, but I'm not," the butler groused, his sour mood evident in his tone. Padding to the refrigerator in fuzzy black slippers, Niles gripped the handle and yanked open the door with such force that Fran feared he had detached it from its hinges. Removing a carton of orange juice, the butler banged the fridge close and slammed the container onto the counter.
"Uh, why don't I get the glass?" Fran volunteered, scurrying to the cupboard. Envisioning Niles stomping the gossamer crystal to shards, as is the custom at Jewish weddings, she instead retrieved a plastic Scooby-Doo cup. "Here ya go." His friend handed it over, forcing a congenial smile.
The cup was half empty – or, as optimists such as Nanny Fine favor, half full – when the kitchen collective swelled to a party of five. The instant C.C. Babcock appeared, Fran's and Val's eyes glommed onto her like a wad of chewing gum to the underside of a sneaker. C.C. blushed fuchsia. The duo was looking at her as though Miss Babcock had committed the unforgivable fashion violation of wearing white post-Labor Day.
Resolving to ignore them, the tall blonde averted her gaze. Obstructing her line of vision, however, was the man who had accused her of attempted murder. C.C. glowered; she could feel her blood pressure skyrocketing by the second.
"If looks could kill," Fran murmured, "he'd be laying in a puddle of . . . OJ." The nanny worried that the word "blood" might induce nauseating, nightmarish images in the mind of eight-year-old Gracie.
She erred in her thinking.
"Can I do the chalk outline?" the child chirped, displaying a bit too much enthusiasm for Miss Fine's liking. At Fran's frown, the child rushed to defend herself. "Hey, is it my fault you let me watch all those crime shows on television? You're the responsible adult here; I'm just a kid."
Before the brunette could reply in rebuttal, Niles spoke. "Miss Babcock, I-"
"You what? You hate me? You despise me, detest me . . . you loathe me with every fiber of your being? Is that what you were going to say?"
"No, I-"
"Because that's exactly how I feel about you," C.C. barked, voice tainted with venom.
Niles exhaled slowly and set down the beverage container. Advancing towards the infuriated female, he tried again. "Miss Babcock, please, I'm sorry for-"
"Keep your grimy, grubby little germs away from me, Butler Boy!" And with that, the boiling blonde pivoted on her spiked heels and marched out the door.
His conciliatory efforts unsuccessful, Niles heaved a sigh of resignation. The butler then picked up his cup, replaced the orange juice on its proper shelf in the icebox, and forced his ailing body to ascend the back stairs.
"What's with them?" asked a baffled Gracie. "They're acting even more abnormal than they normally do."
"Well, it all started with a tub of vapor rub," Fran began.
As the aspiring Louella Parsons prepared to launch into gossip mode, the entrance to the kitchen opened a fraction. A bleached blonde head emerged and inquired, "Is the human contagion gone?"
"All clear," Val responded.
"Good." As soon as Miss Babcock re-entered, she embarked on a tirade-cum-tantrum. "Ugh! I abhor that man!" C.C. fumed as she paced back and forth, her heels clacking noisily on the polished linoleum. "I could just wring that big, fat neck of his!" Seething with rage, the businesswoman proceeded to simulate the strangulation.
While C.C. ranted and raved and ranted some more, Grace ruminated on what Fran had told her earlier regarding boys and their so-called subtlety. If the businesswoman purportedly hated the butler, and the butler allegedly hated the businesswoman, that could mean only one thing . . .
"Niles and C.C. must really have it bad for each other!" Gracie observed, basking in the brilliance of her deduction. The mention of both names in one breath interrupted Miss Babcock's budding scheme to eliminate Niles from the land of the living. Fearing that she and not he would become the woman's first victim, the child hastened to explain. "Well, Fran says that-"
But Fran did not intend for her words of wisdom to be imparted on the curious, furious C.C. The nanny clamped a palm over Gracie's mouth, halting the flow of words that was sure to land Miss Fine in scalding hot water. "Uh, Fran says that it's time for Gracie to take a nap."
Adamant on uncovering the truth, Miss Babcock gently removed the appendage. Bending forward to look Maxwell's daughter in the eye, C.C. curled her lips into an insincere smile and affected a sugary-sweet tone. "Sweetheart, tell Aunt C.C. what Nanny Fine says."
Grace's fair-skinned face blanched and she gulped audibly. "Um . . . um . . ."
Val rushed to the rescue – or so she thought. "Fran says that when you're really cruel to somebody – you know, the way you treat Niles and vice versa – you don't really hate them. You just don't know how to express your true feelings in a healthy way. So, instead, you try to kill each other. Personally, I'm a lover, not a fighter. But, that's just me."
"Vaaaaal!" Fran looked as though she was on the verge of a conniption. "Would you make like Edith Bunker and stifle!" she growled. "Not one but two cases of diarrhea-of-the-mouth? What is this - an epidemic!"
In spite of the upbraiding, Nanny Fine was quite impressed that her best friend had successfully strung together a series of coherent sentences. Gee, I wonder what's in those cookies. Or maybe it's the milk, she pondered as her brown orbs continued drilling holes in Val's skull.
Avoiding Fran's glare, Val's eyes gravitated to the surface of the kitchen table. In a meek, apologetic voice, she mumbled, "I was only trying to help. I mean, it's obvious they're in denial . . ."
The comment transformed Miss Babcock into a laughing hyena, her shrill cackle piercing the threesome's eardrums.
Leaning across the table, Grace whispered to the pouffy-haired pair, "I don't get it. What's so funny? I think Val has a good point."
At that, Miss Babcock's ears – and eyes - twitched. "Please, I can assure you-" The next word to pass through C.C.'s crimson-colored lips should have been "Gracie," especially since just moments earlier, Fran had addressed the child as such. But the businesswoman had always regarded Maxwell's offspring as three spoiled nudnicks and, therefore, had never taken the time to learn their names. As a result of her indifference, she was forced to compromise. "I can assure you, darling, that I am not in deNiles."
With a smirk of self-satisfaction, C.C. Babcock strutted out of the kitchen, her chin tilted skyward, her posture exuding false confidence.