How To Untie Her Shoes

Celine does not know what to call herself. She is somewhere between an au pair and a tutor with limited hours. She hates the title nanny and even au pair because she thinks it unbecoming for a thirteen-year-old to have either one. Admittedly, thirteen is a difficult age that defies categorization, caught somewhere between adult and child. Celine’s job description was straightforward enough: a writing tutor who also was to pick up Eva from school and make sure homework assignments plus some extra writing got done three afternoons/evenings a week. It took her all of two minutes on her first day to figure out this was going to be more like breaking a colt and teaching adulthood and serving as general chauffer and being a big sister to a lonely rich girl.

On a break from homework, they bonded over Legos, of which Celine had just inherited a plentiful random assortment from her landlady’s client. Eva had been diagnosed with ADHD, but Celine could see no sign of it when Eva was on a Lego project. She could sit for hours and persevere through long fruitless searches for just the right piece. The girl is strong-willed and practical, Celine thought. She will get far, whether or not she becomes a master writer. Then Eva demanded that Celine fetch the charger for her iPad from two feet away. But not if she does not learn she is longer thirteen months old. Initially, while still getting familiar with Eva, Celine complied in order to observe and evaluate. Soon, however, she started calmly demanding that Eva say “please” respectfully when she wanted something brought to her. After a few more weeks, Celine started saying, “No, you can get it yourself.” The ensuing histrionics were met with more calm and somewhat amused refusal. “I could indeed get it for you and it is not that I do not want to. But you need to learn to think ahead and bring your backpack and charger where you are going to need them before you get settled in with the dog on your lap.” The “dog in the lap” excuse drove Celine crazy. She knew plenty about dogs, and at a kennel she was the one called on to calm them down if a sensitive procedure had to be done on a conscious dog. She did not particularly like the canine species and she hoped her future husband would be allergic to dogs, but Eva’s dog was cute. Celine knew she was a minority population (especially in this upper crust of society) in believing and feeling that humans were of greater dignity than dogs, which meant that if someone needed to be slightly inconvenienced, it was the dog. The semi-napping pet obviously did not care deeply about being removed from Eva’s lap and placed on a cushion while dog-mommy used her legs for locomotion for the space of ten seconds. The best part of the farce was when Celine herself had the dog in her lap and Eva, lounging with her homework in bed, asked her politely to retrieve something two feet away for her. Celine was sorely tempted to say, “I have the dog in my lap, I can’t!” But all she said was, “No, you can get it. I was not hired to be your slave. Being mature means doing what you can and should do for yourself and not asking others to do it for you, nor doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.” 

This lesson was all the more sincerely delivered because an hour earlier Eva had attempted to take her shoes off and her left shoelace was not compliant. Frustrated, she waved her shod foot at Celine and begged her to help free her. Celine was aghast. And speechless.

“You are THIRTEEN!” she gasped out.

“It is triple knotted!”

“You are THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN!!!!! Not TWO.” 

“I don’t have nails.” That was true, she had ripped off eight of her acrylics (banned at her private school) on the ride from school; the other two had come off in basketball scrimmage at PE.

“Soooo, fine, you be resourceful and find an alternative. And panic is not an alternative. You are a practical girl, you can do it.”

Celine was not excessively impressed with the solution Eva came up with, but it was certainly effective.

“Yeah, see. That took exactly one second.” 

“You made me think!” Eva reproached her.

“That is why I am freaking here, darling.” Celine retorted.

Come to think of it, Celine thought, I like her better when she is having a meltdown. Then she grasps at what I say instead of throwing it back in my teeth. Eva had had another meltdown a few evenings previous over her foreign language homework. Being forced to think was cause for panic, apparently. Celine had calmly helped her through it to a perfect score. THAT is what I am here for: making learning less scary. The storm blew over and it was time to chill for Eva. Despite Celine’s toughness and no-nonsense honesty sometimes, Eva was sorry when it was time for her to go. She wanted Celine to take her to Disneyland and to ceramic painting, she wanted Celine to adore the dog as much as she did. When Celine mentioned that her landlady liked her new tenant, Eva sincerely replied, “Well, who wouldn’t?” A fair change from the heckling she volleyed almost constantly, indeed! When for a writing assignment Eva had to jot down in a heart-shaped frame the names of people who meant the most to her, Celine saw her name scrawled there along with Mom and Dad and the dog. When Celine wanted tea, the petite teen squirreled up on top of the marble kitchen counters to find the right tea bag and boiled the water herself. She shared her cookies and for occasional snacks chose quarts of the one fro-yo flavor Celine could have because it was dairy-free. She was always careful to remember Celine was dairy-intolerant. Celine would never forget the amazed, hungry, happy look on Eva’s face when Celine promised her that, although she would likely not be her tutor next school year, she would always be there for her as a friend and mentor. 

No, she thought. THAT is what I am here for.