MotherReader

On Friday, I took my girls to the community swimming pool. My good swimsuit was still in my husband’s car from our last trip down the the beach, so I grabbed one of my old suits. As I put it on, I realized that the straps were a little less stretchy then I would have hoped. They had seemingly melted. I thought it would be okay until my ten-year-old looked at me askance.

“Um, it kind of shows a little too much, Mom, don’t you think?” she said.

“Yeah, but the straps aren’t holding it up right,” I replied.

“We can pull the straps together in the back and tie them,” she said, and went off to look for the proper material.

Together we decided on a piece of white yarn tying the two straps together and then cut off very close to the knot. When it was done, I swear, it looked like a regular bathing suit that crossed in the back. I told my ten-year-old that I couldn’t believe that she had remembered that we used to do that with her bathing suits when she was little (she is a twig, and things never fit her well). She thought a minute, and told me that she didn’t remember that time — it just seemed to make sense to tie the straps together. What a smart girl.

We went to the pool, and I alternated between swimming with them and reading a book. It was hot out — too hot to sit on the chair for long without taking a dip. The girls played in the huge shallow area of the pool, allowing me to read on the lounge chair.

As the day was drawing to a close, I reached up to adjust my straps. Owww! What the...?

In the heat, my elastic straps — already melty, if you remember — had glued themselves onto my very skin. As I peeled them off my shoulders, I noticed a white dusting on my thighs. Hmm. Leftover sand from the beach? Dry skin flaking from the heat? No, hold it. It was tiny grains of the fabric from my bathing suit which was apparently disintegrating at that very moment. It was time to go home.

Fortunately, I finished my book. I read — and am not ashamed to say it — Friends With Benefits, the second book in the “Nannies” novels series. You know what? I am a little ashamed to say it after all.

In the first book by Melody Mayer, The Nannies, three very different girls from three very different backgrounds become nannies for three very different reasons. Hispanic Esme needs the money for her family and to find a way out of the ghetto. Outspoken Lydia needs a way to escape the rainforest her parents dragged her to, and get back to her rich roots. Midwestern Kiley wants out her quiet life, and competing on a show to be nanny to a rock star seems just the way to do it. They find each other, become friends, and meet boys. Of course they meet boys.

In the second book, Friends With Benefits, they are adjusting to their new lives as nannies to the rich and famous, while balancing their loves and lusts. Esme has her boy from the old neighborhood, and the son of her employer interested in her as well. Lydia has found a real hunky catch, and is determined to lose her virginity with him (as she states in the book). Kiley has attracted the attention of another transplanted Midwesterner, but he seems out of her league. Add all that to the troubles of their charges, and their employers, and you’ve got a lot going on. Oh, and there’s lots of name-dropping of actors, actresses, models, and designers.

A fun read for a hot day by the pool. A hot, elastic-melting, fabric-decaying day by the pool.