Episode 3 – My Fair Nanny
"For the last time," said Madame Alexa, emphatically shaking her frizzy head, "I see no tall, dark, handsome – nothing in your future!"
CC's face fell as she withdrew the palm which the fortune-teller had been reading. "I knew hiring you was a bad idea," she muttered. "Catch me letting Nanny Fine throw another party here … "
Niles took the opportunity to glide over in her direction with his drinks tray, knowing how much she appreciated a glass of something at moments like these.
"Please excuse her," he told Madame Alexa. "The estrogen hasn't kicked in yet. Dom Perignon, Miss Babcock?"
"Very funny, Butler Boy." CC snatched up a glass and downed it in one go, like a whiskey shot.
Alexa cackled. "Oh yeah, my cousin Tom – I mean Thomasine – had that problem too. Would you like your palm read too, Mister?"
"No, thank you."
"He already knows," CC interjected, with a cackle of her own and a dig at Niles' ribs. "A lifetime of playing housewife to your employer, how about that?"
"You wish you could," Niles retorted, smiling smugly into her face.
Alexa watched them like a spectator at a tennis match, her straw-colored curls under the green headscarf whipping back and forth. Her eyes gleamed behind their spectacles.
"Wait!" she called dramatically, holding out one hand while covering her eyes with the other. "I see something … my Inner Eye is opening … why, Miss Babcock, I see you in white satin with your hair up, surrounded by candles and roses! You're dancing with a gentleman … aww, you look so happy, the two of you!" She caught CC's hand again, not to read her palm, but for a congratulatory squeeze.
"Really?" CC's mouth fell open, surprise almost obscuring delight in a way that might have made Niles pity her if he hadn't been hanging on to Alexa's words as well. It was all nonsense, of course … just a fortune teller's spiel as Miss Fine would say, but still …
"Tell me," CC whispered, her blue eyes fixed hungrily on the older woman's face. "Who is he? What does he look like?"
Alexa pointed one long-nailed finger at Niles – who was neither tall, nor dark, nor especially handsome, who wore his most self-effacing navy blue suit and carried a tray of drinks like the domestic he was.
"Just … like … this!" she declared.
CC dropped Alexa's hand like a hot coal and jumped to her feet.
"You've got to be joking," she and Niles chorused.
Alexa showed them her most mysterious smirk and did not answer.