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Having a job where you must watch someone else’s kid is one of the most emotionally tiring jobs one can have, especially if you like the kids, let alone the parents. My job gives me the feelings and joy of motherhood, but I also have to experience the heartbreak of stepping to the side when their mom is around. I don’t get to raise these kids my way, instead I am forced to follow the rules set forth by the parents who are too pre-occupied to oversee parenting themselves. The rewards are great though. You get to create amazing memories that these kids will have because of the activities and gifts you do together, along with the life lessons and personalities you get to see develop in real time. My job was good. I was lucky to have a family that cared as much as they could about my well-being, despite having me work almost 60 hours a week to accommodate their schedules.

The one thing I didn’t realize being good at my job would be a topic of gossip. You see, something else rich people like to do is brag about what they have, and others don’t. I didn’t realize just how brag-worthy it was to find a nanny who your kids love and have fun with. Apparently, I’m a hot commodity. The Sables, the family I work for, love to talk about the things I do for the kids; creating a fairy village for them to find on a weekend hike with their mother; taking them to museums and art installations; making sure their birthday was on theme to the girls wants. Angie Sable loved being there for moments she can share with her kids… and her other followers on social media. It doesn’t matter that I did all the set-up, she loves to take the credit for the kids. But that’s okay, so long as the kids are happy, I’m happy.

I take the kids to pre-school every morning. Drop off is also the grownup’s chance for a quick meet-up on their way to work. You’ll see moms trying to finish eating a bagel while hugging their kids; dads on their Bluetooth ignoring their kids want for a goodbye hug; and the nannies, who like to gather after drop-off for a brief conversation that isn’t about Elsa or Peppa Pig.

“Well, I got the boot, so you might not see me here again.” Gloria said, informing the group of the news she received this morning.A few gasps, and an eyeroll, fluttered around the group. I put on my shocked face. Angie likes me, and when your boss likes you, they tend to tell you all the gossip they get from the other parents., Gloria doesn’t connect well with her employer’s two kids, Brayden and Danica Moreno, which was strange because I hung out with the three of them once a week.

Our girls did pee-wee soccer together so we would get together before practice. I always thought Brayden and Danica liked Gloria well enough. Gloria’s employer though… she would always hear from Angie how much I do, and she was getting tired of her nanny not going beyond the job to set up moments, like Angie’s social media stuff

“I’m really sorry to hear that, I know you’ll find another job soon.” I said, giving her a side hug.

“I know, but I cared about those kids.” Gloria said. Everyone began comforting her with sympathetic back rubs and hugs, “You’ll stop by so just give them a hug for me sometime, will you?” Gloria asked me.

“Sure.” I said, realizing the kids probably won’t understand why I’m doing it.

A couple of weeks have passed by, and I don’t hear anything from the Moreno family about us coming over before soccer practice, and we don’t see Brayden or Danica at practice. I don’t know if they are going to be nanny-less for a while or if they stopped doing extra-curricular activities. The Moreno parents drop their kids off late to school the next couple of weeks, so I’m assume they just don’t have another nanny ready yet. Angie doesn’t give me any hot scoops, neither does the pre-school nanny crew have any idea of what is going on.

Monday has rolled around, and I’m exhausted from a nice weekend of relaxation and a few glasses of tequila-mixed substances. I park at the private pre-school for the wealthy and turn to notice Brayden running up to me for a hug. “Caroline!” he calls out with his cute three-year-old voice, just behind him I see Danica holding the hand of a woman I don’t recognize.

“Brayden come back!” Danica yells across the parking lot. Brayden hugs my leg; I assume he’s happy to see me after being late all last week and missing our greetings. Danica, however, is hiding slightly behind the lady while holding her hand, which is unusual for her. She usually walks to class with Marissa, the oldest of my girls. Shirley, the youngest, wiggles her feet as she is waiting to get out of the car seat.Brayden lets go of my leg as the lady with Danica comes closer. I’m slightly distracted from all the commotion of Brayden and getting the kids out of the car for school that I don’t really get a good look at her. She looks like she’s wearing a lot of beige. A beige knitted long-sleeved coat over what looks like a baggy white shirt. I notice her beige headband flat on her black, slicked back, hair. Her bangs cover one eye, so I don’t get a good look at her face. She smells like sweet moth balls; it’s strange. I don’t think most people remember what moth balls smell like

“Come along Brayden, lets leave these nice people alone,” says the lady.I’m about done getting them out of the car seat. I go to introduce myself, but as soon as I look over, she is already walking off. Brayden gives me a wave, but the girls grab my hands and walk. I smile as he turns away. As the nanny gang congregates, I didn’t see the nanny leave. A few minutes of stagnant conversation about the latest episode of “Love is Blind” and relationship stuff, and no one has said anything about the new nanny. I plan to check my phone in the car to ask Angie about the new nanny, instead I see her walking across the parking lot. She has a similar height to me, which is weird, I’m nearly five-eleven. I can’t make out any new facial details because of the distance, but I do see her getting into a dull brown van, which is not the normal ride the Moreno’s had Gloria use when driving the kids

I go back to the house to continue my workday. Once I’m done with the chores, I take a break at home, which was down the road, usually I just stay for a bit of lunch, but it’s been a rough morning, and I need extra time. I eat, relax, and head back to the house to pick up the Sable’s family van for the girl’s safe transportation. Since I’m always there early, and my spot isn’t near the front of the school, I know I won’t have an issue with parking. There is nothing special about my spot, no shade, it’s in the middle of the lot, next to a small island, its position is not near the exit, making it difficult for a quick getaway. It is just always there.

Or so I thought.

The beige van is parked in my spot. That’s awkward. I don’t know why someone would want that spot, especially since there were so many better options. No one parks this far back unless the parking lot is full, and most parents wait in line. Picking up kids at 2:00 PM isn’t a lunch break I’d enjoy.

As I look at her from my van, I notice something off. She is motionless, as if she were in some trance state. I can’t see her eyes because her hair is blocking the view. I try not to stare directly at her in case she does see me looking. From what I can see, she is still wearing those same light brown colors; she almost blends in with the car’s seats if only for the jet-black hair. I sneak some glances at her without her knowing, but I don’t see anything more than I did the previous time. When I see Ms. Donovan, Marissa’s teacher, leading her students out, I get out of the car and start walking towards the school.

As I start walking, I hear the car door close behind me from across the street, the same spot the nanny was at. I keep my pace; I don’t want to look back because I don’t feel like drawing attention. I turn my head and focus my attention on the cars waiting in line, but I notice something in the reflection of the cars. The Nanny’s pace is the same as mine, in fact, she’s doing the same thing I am.. Her focus feels like it’s on me, but it’s almost like she is copying what I’m looking at. I slow my gait down, so does she. I don’t know how weird this is looking to anyone else, if anyone actually pays attention to two random nannies in an impromptu foot race, but this is extremely uncomfortable to me.

The school isn’t far away; however, it feels like I should have already been to the front of the school. It’s as if the cars are never ending. I turn to the right again, seeing reflections of the nanny walking a lot closer. Actually, she’s in the middle of the street now, staring right at me. The grimace on her face looks contorted and angry, like her face was sewn together wrong. The worst thing is… I get a clear view of both of her eyes. They are two vacant holes surrounded by pure white, but not like its shiny, more like you recently purchased a set of bleach white veneers. Her hair… it’s shorter, a lot shorter; she looks like she cut it… like my hair? I’m absolutely sure it was not like that a few minutes ago. I experience a gut-wrenching turn in my abdomen, and I want to fall over from the pain; my brain feels like it’s spiraling, and I want to pass out.

I immediately picked up my pace, focusing my attention on the school only to see I’m still near nowhere near it. I don’t want to stop or even look behind me now because none of this seems real, but my legs are getting so tired like I’ve been walking for hours. I can’t take it anymore, my head feels like it’s being beaten in a boxing match and I’m about to hit the canvas. What do I do?

“What do you want!?” I shout as I panic, spinning around to confront the abnormal woman following me, only to find no one there. Two hands grab my hands, causing me to shriek and spin back around, falling over Marissa and Shirley.

“Caroline, did we scare you?” Marissa asks, with a look of shock while Shirley smirks seeing me on the ground. She thinks it’s a joke.

“Oh sweetie, why are you over here? I am supposed to come to you.” I ask Marissa.

“We saw you, and you weren’t moving, you were just turned around, so our teacher walked us to you.” Marissa said. I didn’t even notice that Ms. Donovan was with them. I turned to look, but the brown van was gone.

“Are… you okay Caroline?” Ms. Donovan asks.

“Yeah, just lost in a thought.” I say, turning around. “Thanks for waking me up.”

“No worries, you were just breathing really hard just now so I thought you might be having a P-A-N-I-C A-T-T-A-C-K.” Ms. Donovan spells out the words so the girls wouldn’t know one of adulthood’s greatest joys.

“A Picnic Tack?” Marissa doesn’t know what was spelled.

“Nothing for you to worry about, let’s get in the car.” I say, shoveling the girls in. “Ms. Donovan, really quick moment if you have one.” I put the girls in the car seats and turn on the air conditioning and my phone so they can watch cartoons. I approach Ms. Donovan and ask, “Do you know anything about Brayden and Danica’s new nanny?”

Ms. Donovan shakes her head. “I don’t, but the kids seem fine, better actually. Danica doesn’t act up as much in class, and Brayden is still his happy little self. Why do you ask?”

Since I don’t want to tell her something as absurd as ‘she stole my parking spot,’ I decided to drop it. “That’s good, just wanted to know. Gloria was a friend, so I wanted to make sure the kids were okay.” I replied. We leave shortly after. A normal final stretch of work later, I have a normal night at home with my partner and our pets

The next day I leave my break slightly early to drive to school even earlier than I normally do. I hate cutting into my own time to get a parking spot, but it’s the principle of the matter. Pulling into the parking lot is less of a struggle since people in the car line haven’t started piling in just yet. As I pull into the parking lot and make my way to my spot……

The freaky nanny van is already there.

She somehow got here earlier than me, like she predicted my move. I wait in my car, seeing the spots all around her anomalous van open. Do I ignore this? It’s just a parking spot, but it’s so weird because that it’s my spot.I’ve parked there for years, not that she knows that.

I parked directly across from her van. I’ve never had bitch in my blood, so I want to get a good look at this person. I turned off my car and stared at her. I can see her clearly now that I am directly across from her, but I immediately noticed something I never thought possible. She looked like me.

Not like a perfect replica, but she is wearing the same style of clothes I wear, not the beige she was blending in with. The haircut is identical to mine, no longer the long black hair with a beige headband, but a short blonde bob cut, same volume, same red tinted lips. Her eyes… Still unreal. I swallow my spit; I want to get the fuck out of here now and wait in line. As I turn my keys to get the van back on, her van starts up. I tilt my head and lock eyes with her, and she mimics the tilt back.

“This is too Insane.” I say to myself. I unbuckle my seatbelt and maneuver out of the car. I don’t want to fight, but I need to know what this person’s malfunction is. I approach the window; she doesn’t move anything but her head. She’s watching me the whole time, dead-eyed, as she rolls down her driver’s side window and stares at me with her dead ivory white eyes. There is a back recess pit centered in the white of her eyes.

“W… What are you doing?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” She replies.

“You’re freaking me the fuck out, why are you dressed like that, why are you parking in my spot?” I couldn’t take it; I blurted out what was I was holding back.

“Well, my employers said you were the best example of a nanny they had met before, but you weren’t available to watch two families.” She said., She probably heard all this from the Moreno’s. Thanks to Angie for her braggadocio attitude. “So, I decided to mimic you.”

“Mimic?” I ask with a confused look on my face. I look closer. She isn’t sitting in the car; she’s formed to it. Her shirt looks attached to the leather seat. She leans forward, and worm-like tendrils appear. I’m not looking at a person, I’m looking at something unreal.

“If I’m going to be the best for my kids, I need to know how the best operates.”I avert my gaze from the seat and back at her face, which is now contorted beyond words. Just then, the back door of her van opens, and long tendrils come out, wrapping around my neck and arms. I pull myself back to get away, I reach the back side of the van as the tendrils stretch out.

It starts pulling me in. I grab onto the car antenna only for it to melt into the car exterior, causing me to lose my grip. It’s choking me now and I’m starting to lose consciousness. I pull hard on the tendrils but another one grips my leg, causing me to fall to the floor. I hit my head on the ground… hard. My vision begins to blur as I notice something on the back of the van. It’s an ad, like one an old taxi would have on the back of the trunk. I can barely read it as I start to black out, but I make out the words, “Nanny for hire, the best in Austin guaranteed.”

There was small text at the bottom of the advert that I could barely make out, but the last thing I read is “Will provide own transportation. Rated #1 Nanny vehicle.”