Page 35 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition

Her face falls. “Alrighty, then.”

I have no idea why I just snapped at her, other than to hide the fact that my answer is ‘yes, fucking yes.’

“I ran the dishwasher, so I’ll put the dishes away and go to my room. Don’t forget to use the essential oil diffuser. The kids spent a lot of time deciding which ones to use.”

She leaves before I can apologize or get up to grab her, press her up against the wall, and kiss her. I want to do both of those things, but tonight I can only do one ofthem. I fling the fuzzy blanket off me and rub my scalp vigorously to wake myself up. I barely know her, but already there is so much that I want to do with this woman, and all I can do is apologize to her.

“Sorry,” I say, as I enter the kitchen.

She doesn’t look up from stacking the clean plates on the counter. “You don’t have to apologize.” She forces a smile. “My Austin Powers imitation isn’t half as good as yours anyway. Good thing I’m not trying to be an actor.”

“Yours is better than most,” I say as I transfer the plates to the cupboard. “You ever consider acting?”

“Don’t even joke about that,” she deadpans.

She continues removing dishes from the dishwasher and handing them to me so I can put them away. We’re quiet for a good minute. Until I can’t stand how comfortable and right this feels anymore.

“I hope you find time to do your perfume thing while you’re here. I mean, I’ll make sure you do. You won’t have to pick up the kids every day. I’ll start taking some meetings here and there, and I’ll have to do ADR at some point, but…”

“What’s ADR?”

“Automated Dialog Replacement. You’ve heard of looping?” She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “Where I have to re-record certain lines of dialogue if the sound got messed up on location or whatever. For the film I just shot. In Maine.”

“The one with the script you loved and got paid scale plus ten for.”

“Right. Anyway. Set up your Etsy shop. Do whatever you need to do for you.”

“Actually, your ex-wife has asked me to design a scent for her. She told you that, right?”

“Oh yeah. That’s official?”

“She said she’ll have her lawyer draw something up.”

“Yeah. She says stuff like that a lot.”

“She’s, uhhh, she’s nice. She’s very pretty. Obviously. Do you miss being married?”

“To her? No. Not at all. But I do miss being married. I mean. I think I’d like being married to someone I actually…you know…”

I glance over at her. She’s got a confused look on her face. “No. Someone you actually what?”

I clear my throat. “I mean, it’s not something I want the kids to know.” I lower my voice. “We got married because she was pregnant.”

She looks so surprised and maybe relieved to hear this. “Oh. I did not know that. Does Nico know that?”

“Yeah. He was one of the few people who knew she was pregnant before we got married.”

“Wow. I guess he can be really discreet when he wants to be.”

“I wouldn’t have made him my best man if he weren’t.” I don’t like talking about this with her. “So what are your plans? Your perfume plans? What would the sweet smell of success smell like for you?” I really fucking wish I had not just said that. I don’t know why, but now that she’s the nanny, I just feel like Old Dad Guy around her. Horny Old Dad Guy, if I’m being honest.

“Well,” she says, grinning and clearly finding it hilarious that I just said something so lame. “I want to set up my own niche perfumery. Grow a client baseand reputation through Etsy, and then set up a separate online store and then a brick and mortar. And then hopefully more of them.”

“Instead of working for like…Chanel?” The only kind of perfume I can think of.

“I mean, that’s another way to go, obviously. And it would be a steady paycheck. Ultimately, it’s more important to me to have my own company and create natural, nontoxic fragrances. But if I were to take a job at one of the major perfume houses, I would get a lot of valuable experience and connections.”

“And where would those major perfume houses be? Paris?”