I nearly choked. “Seven thousand-and Annika makes a hundred forty a week?”
Maizie explained that the fee covered interviews, psychological evaluation, translating references, airfare, and training in child care, CPR, and first aid. The host family was interviewed too, their house inspected and their references checked. An au pair was less an employee than an instant teenage daughter, and the girls weren’t in it for the money but for a year in America. “Otherwise,” Maizie said, “you may as well hire a nanny. Which my husband now says we should have done. But I feel like she’s coming back. I just do.” She straightened a yellow bath towel embroidered with “Annika,” then pulled it off the rack, saying, “She should at least come home to clean towels.”
It still seemed there was something missing here, something we should be doing. “If she’s not in trouble, why hasn’t she called anyone?” I said, thinking about the gun. “Her mother, for instance. Why not leave a note for you?”
“What if she’s doing something she thinks we’d disapprove of?” Maizie switched off the bathroom light and leaned against the wall, cuddling the bath towel. “I don’t know what’s happened to her. But I know what I wish, and that’s that she comes walking in the back door at dinnertime, asking what smells so good.” Her voice trembled a little. “Emma keeps asking about her.” She looked at me and cleared her throat. “You might want to check with Glenda, the au pair counselor. Come, I’ll get you her number.”
Glenda Nacy worked at Williams-Sonoma, a housewares store in the Westfield Shoppingtown Promenade, farther into the Valley. I decided to go there rather than wait for a return phone call, which Maizie warned me could take a while. Glenda was a volunteer, she explained, although why anyone would volunteer to supervise foreign teenage babysitters was something Maizie had wondered about all year.
I found my way to the mall and to Glenda Nacy, a sixtyish woman in orthopedic shoes with lipstick on her front teeth. As I explained my mission, she stocked packs of potpourri on a display table alongside boxes marked “Snowflake Spice Balls,” spreading the scent of ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. This was the kind of store I avoided these days, a sensory reminder that I had no husband, no children, and no cooking skills. Glenda offered me a cup of hot apple cider and said, “I can’t give you much time. My boss puts the kibosh on personal business during shifts. She’s off-site, but if she comes back, ask me about crockery.”
“I won’t take long,” I said. “I’m just wondering if you filed a police report on Annika.”
“Oh, that’s not for me to do. I’m the community counselor. That would be up to the agency, Au Pairs par Excellence.” She pronounced it “Ah Pairs per Excellence” as though there were nothing French about it. “The moms-the host moms, I should say-they’ll call me instead of the agency, because I have a personal relationship with them and the girls. Then I contact the agency, so that’s how that works.” She was, to hear her describe it, a combination mediator, interpreter, tour guide, and spiritual adviser.
“So you really got to know Annika,” I said. “Any idea where she might’ve gone?”
“Well, golly.” Glenda reached up for a silver cheese grater from a well-stocked wall display, and began to rub the handle with her apron. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to discuss this or anything, being a volunteer.”
“Discuss what?”
“You probably should just talk to the agency.”
“Glenda,” I said, “I’m not anyone. I’m not an investigator or the police or-. I design greeting cards. Annika’s my friend, and I just want to make sure-”
Glenda glanced over my shoulder and, with a forced cough, handed me the cheese grater, then handed me two more. I turned. Coming through the door was a woman considerably younger than Glenda and much better dressed.
“I think three should do you,” Glenda said, in a bright, salesperson voice. “Fine, coarse, and ribbon. And what else do you need for your dinner party?”
“Uh-” Deception came as easily to me as sheep shearing. “Oh. Crockery?”
“Right this way.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Now listen. Why don’t you just give a call to Martin, he’s Southern California regional director-”
“I promise I won’t quote you or anything,” I whispered back. “I’m just curious about what you thought of Annika. I mean, she’s been here almost a year now, and as the den mother-. I’m sorry, what did you say your title is?”
“Community counselor.”
“As community counselor, you must know her better than Martin, unless-. How big’s the community?”
Glenda perked up at this. Big, she said. She was responsible for L.A. and Orange County. However, only three au pairs currently inhabited the community: Annika in Encino, Britta in San Marino, and Hitomi in Palos Verdes. Hitomi had a nice setup, a whole guesthouse, which she deserved, Glenda felt, for caring for two sets of twins. Each month, Glenda organized a Sunday excursion. “Like picnics or Magic Mountain, and we have all sorts of fun and the girls tell me how things are going.”
“And how were things going with Annika?”
“Well, she never complained. This is Wedgwood transferware, called Highgrove, after Prince Charles’s country estate,” Glenda said, picking up a plate. “Dishwasher safe.”
“Oh… good.”
“Too ritzy? The Emile Henry, then.” She pronounced Emile “E-meal,” like something you’d eat online, and spoke loudly. “The Auberge collection, inspired by the simple, warm restaurants found in French country inns. Feel that roaster. Go ahead, handle it.”
I picked up the roaster, big enough to house a turkey, as the well-dressed woman moved past us through a door marked “Employees Only.” Glenda replaced the plate and took the roaster out of my hands. “If anyone had cause for complaint, it was me, not that young lady.”
“Annika?” I said. “You had problems with her?”
“The excursions. She was late to Cinco de Mayo because of working at some food bank. She skipped Knott’s Berry Farm due to a TV program she got involved in. So I sat her down and I said, Look, this is not optional, the excursions are mandatory, you’re here to have cultural experiences. Next thing you know, she’s volunteering at a pet shelter. The girls are not supposed to work themselves to the bone. They put in forty-five hours a week with child care, and their studies on top of that. But that wasn’t the worst.”
“What was the worst?”
Glenda raised her voice. “It’s the latest, a nonstick tapas pan, eight and a half inches. Once you get it home, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it.”
The well-dressed woman had emerged from the Employees Only door and was checking merchandise fifteen feet away.
“I don’t actually cook a lot of tapas.” This was an understatement. I used my oven for storing paper grocery bags. The pilot light was out. “So what was the worst?” I whispered.
“That young lady was boy crazy. I see it all the time, the girls want Disneyland and Starbucks and American boyfriends. You can’t blame them, but you have to be strict.”
“Gosh,” I said. “How many boyfriends did she have?”
“Well, just the one, that I know of. But she talked about him to the others all through the Lotus Festival. Didn’t think I was listening, but I keep tabs, because whatever one girl is up to, the others think they need to be doing it too.”
“Did the Quinns complain about the boyfriend?”
“No.” Glenda pursed her lips. “We discourage letting the girls have a boy up in their room, but if the host family allows it, our hands are tied. They’re lovely people, the Quinns, but they don’t keep tabs. Mrs. Quinn especially, she thinks Annika is just perfect, but teens need tough love, is what I tell my moms and dads.”