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“Thanks.” Dylan gave zero shits about my job or what I taught, and I huffed a laugh then gulped down a bit of the coffee. “All anyone’s talking about is Finn or?—”
“The Hot Professor,” Jude interrupted with an elbow to my side.
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered, sinking down to hide in case anyone here recognized me.
In the spring, I’d signed a deal with a publisher. My nonfiction book,Donkeys, Elephants, and the Two-Party System, was going to be my first printed work outside of an academic press. It was a big deal for me. I received an advance and everything.
Up until now, I’d quietly taught my university classes and attempted to parent my son, but now my face waseverywhere. I was splashed across social media platforms, written up in online articles, and talked about how I was the Hot Professor. I was getting messages from random strangers calling meZaddy, whatever that was. The past few days had been a nightmare.
My segment on the six-o’clock news hour was supposed to be an easy seven minutes, discussing how America’s current politics were transforming. I was in the middle of drawing parallels to early America’s political parties and the struggle to form our constitution when Finn, who was supposed to be playing quietly on an iPad in his bedroom, came waddling into my office with his pants down around his ankles, holding his diaper as he told me in his Finn language that he had to go potty. The hosts of the show were gracious and took it in stride, laughing about funny stories with their own children, but in the moment, I froze. I obviously couldn’t continue the interview with Finn crawling all over me, and the producer in my ear cut the interview short.
But by then, the damage had been done. My frozen face had become a meme, the video of my son shuffling around with his pants down was a GIF, and no one cared about all the work I’d put into my PhD or the book I had coming out next year. No, all they cared about was that I was a “hot dad” and that my kid was adorable. Which he was.
He was also a real asshole sometimes. Like when he ruined his father’s segments on live television.
“I need help,” I told my friends, confessing what I knew had been true for months. But it wasn’t until two days ago, when my mother called and told me she was packing her bags to come down, that I decided I needed to do something.
I loved my mother, but I wasn’t about to invite her into my house for the foreseeable future.
“You need a babysitter,” Dylan said, while Jude shook his head.
“You need a full-time nanny.”
I jerked back. “Like Mary Poppins?”
“I’ve been to your house,” Jude said with a wince, and he didn’t need to continue, so I put my hand up.
My house was a mess. I ordered out more than I cooked, and between my job and Finn’s preschool and appointments, let alone his constant need for attention, I was really struggling to get into a routine.
Finn’s mom, Tessa, was a professor in the science department, and we’d been good friends for a few years before we decided to give dating a shot. We’d only been together a few months when we found out she was pregnant. It was a happy accident, although we very quickly realized we were better off friends and decided to split amicably and raise Finn together. We had a wonderful partnership, got along great, and never argued, but she had accepted a yearlong sabbatical to study climate change in Antarctica.
Four months in, and I was drowning.
When Tessa had first informed me about the research grant, I was so proud of her, though it would have been a lie to say I wasn’t worried. The program had been her dream for a long time, and I couldn’t keep her from it just because I was afraid of being a single dad for a year. So, I’d assured her over and over again that I could handle it.
I genuinely thought I could.
Yet here I was, in the middle of a veritable child circus, running on two hours of sleep, my life having been turned into an internet joke.
“I don’t know anything about hiring a nanny,” I said.
Jude retrieved his phone, typing on it for a few moments. “How to hire a nanny,” he read aloud. “A nanny can be a great addition in your household to help make the transition of returning to work an easy one for new parents.”
“I’m already working,” I mumbled.
Jude kept reading. “While finding the right nanny may seem like an overwhelming task, it doesn’t have to be. Depending on your comfort level, time, and budget, you can do a lot of the work yourself, or if you need help, employ an agency to find one for you.”
“More work,” I said, pointing my finger at Jude’s phone screen. I didn’t have time, and I wasn’t really looking forward to adding more to my plate in order to take it off. That didn’t make sense to me.
Jude shrugged. “So let us help you.”
“Yeah.” Dylan crossed his ankle over his knee. “It can’t be that hard. There’s got to be, like, a Tinder for nannies.”
Jude and I both chuckled. Dylan had been a frequenter of online “dating” apps for his hookups until he met Gen, his one-night-stand-turned-girlfriend. She was off touring the world as a dancer on a cruise ship, and I knew how he hated being parted from her. Although, he didn’t struggle much with his kids since he had a big, blended family with his ex-wife. Jude, while widowed, had his family and was still very close with his late wife’s family.
On the other hand, my mom and brothers were all up in Boston, and Tessa’s family was across the state in Erie, Pennsylvania. Icouldask them for help—hell, my mother was chomping at the bit—but I didn’t want them to disrupt their lives to take on the full-time gig that was Finn.
“Why don’t we go to Walt’s?” Dylan suggested.
