Maddie P

Addie Was More Than a Nanny

It was the day before my fifth birthday when she first arrived. My siblings and I had already successfully scared away three nannies in two months.

She brought me a doll, a gift I promptly rejected. I was a tomboy in Greenwich, CT, and deeply offended by Addie’s pink-skirted, blond-haired peace offering. It didn’t take long for my siblings and I to realize that despite our valiant and ruthless efforts, she wasn’t going anywhere.

Uncomfortable Underground

New York City in the summer is notorious for its uncomfortable heat and sticky humidity. Tourists in Midtown sag together,  pushing past each other in a sweaty August frenzy. Taxi exhaust clogs the air, the sun tries hopelessly to pierce through the smog and Manhattan swelters — a tired, miserable haze. There is no reprieve beneath the sidewalk. Steamy subway platforms seem to breathe, and the metal cars push columns of air even hotter and denser than the oppressive heat in Times Square.