The Nanny Diaries

Today was the big day. I had spent all night packing and getting all my shit together to spend the next 5 months on the road. I didn’t have that many clothes, so packing those wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was making sure I had everything that I would need, like toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, stuff like that. I didn’t want to forget something and have to run to the store to buy things that I already had.

Lou had prepped me the night before of what to expect. I was going to their Manchester show that evening and straight from there we were heading to Paris.

Paris.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I was itching in my boots to finally leave and travel outside of England. I didn’t even care that I was traveling with One Direction; anything that could get me out of England was good enough for me.

Lou was heading to the show earlier to set everything up. She left her bags and such at her house and I was to bring them to the show when I brought Luxy up. It was a three-hour trip from London to Manchester, but I guess that was a little preparation for tour.

I arrived over at Lou’s around two to fetch Lux and head on out. Lou left around 10 that morning and Tom was in charge of Lux. Tom was meeting up with us during the Germany and Switzerland dates and I was going to switch buses with Lou, so the three of them could be together on one bus alone.

I walked in the front door and closed it behind me. I heard hurried footsteps come my way and Lux ran across the room towards me and stop just before she hit my legs. She wasn’t wearing a shirt and just had a diaper on. She also had some sort of substance rubbed all over her face and her hair was in its usual pigtails.

I smiled at the sight of her. The little tyke had grown on me, almost like she was a cousin or a niece of mine. She rushed behind me and hid behind my legs just as Tom was coming out of the living room. He gave me a sweet smile before diverting his eyes towards Lux.

“She’s a but rambunctious today, love. Hopefully she’ll get zonked out on the ride up there, yeah?” He grabbed his suitcase and his peat coat, kissed me on the cheek, and was off to work. I looked back down at Lux and she giggled and ran off somewhere in the house.

I walked around the house, picking it up along the way, and noticed Lux’s luggage was all packed and ready to go. I, of course, brought mine too, but it paled in comparison to Lux’s six bags.

Not long after, the car arrived and I managed to wrestle Lux into some proper clothes but not without her throwing a huge fit. At first, she didn’t like the clothes I picked out for her. Then, she didn’t like the way I was fixing her hair. Finally, she figured out that we were leaving and refused to go in the car. I bribed her with chocolate to get her in the bloody car and when we finally left, I realized we were an hour behind schedule.

That meant that when we would finally arrive at the venue, the boys just be finishing up sound check. I threw a quick text to Lou explaining that we were going to be late and she responded with an Emoji of a grinning yellow person. I still hadn’t downloaded the “app” but Lou promised me she would help me with it later.

Since Lux had such a huge fight with me, she slept the whole way to Manchester. I had time to finally read and listen to music, a few things that had been lacking in my life since I became the nanny of the most famous toddler in the world.

I shook Lux awake when the driver pulled into the parking lot. I told Luxy that she was going to see Harry and her mum soon and that perked her up. The car parked next to a bus and I unloaded our baggage.

The bus was going to take our luggage to Paris so it would be there just before we got there. We were taking a late fight after the show so that we could sightsee a couple of days before the show and so that the boys had time to do some interviews. I finally juggled loading our luggage and keeping an eye and Lux and I finished. I saw our passes sitting on the table on the bus and scooped them up. I grabbed Lux’s hand and we were off.

To be honest, I was a bit nervous to meet the rest of the band. If they are anything like Harry, this is going to be a rough tour. I swallowed back my fear and walked with pride past the security while flashing him both of our passes.

Lux and I were aimlessly walking around the back of the venue. I had no idea where Lou or anyone else was. I guess I was just hoping to run into someone familiar. After a while, I heard some loud laughter and talking. I picked Lux up cause she was slowing me down and walked quickly towards the noise. I peaked my head in the room and was met with all of One Direction’s smiling faces.

My face heated up and once they saw that someone was interrupting their conversation, the whole room fell silent. Lux was squirming once again so I let her down just for her to run full force at Harry. He laughed and scooped her up, paying no attention to me. On the other hand, the four other member’s gazes were still on me.

“Um, hello. I’m Tatum, Lux’s nanny.” I explained.

“Well, hello! Lou has told us all about you. Well, what are you waiting for? Get in here!” A boy with short brown hair shouted at me. He was sitting to the left of Harry and I’m pretty sure his name was Louis. I tried researching the boys and their names a while ago, but quickly gave up because I got bored of all of the nonsense on the Internet.

I walked in the room and took a seat on the couch next to a lad with blond hair. He smiled at me and I instantly knew that the rest of the boys were much nicer than Harry.

“So, Tatum. I’m Louis,” the first one piped up. “That’s Liam,” he pointed to a boy on his left. “That’s Zayn,” the bloke that was sitting next to Liam. “And that Irish git sitting next to you is Niall” I gave them all small smiles each time Louis pointed to them and in return they waved at me.

“So, Tate, do you mind if I call you Tate? Tell us about yourself?” I furrowed my eyebrows at Louis. What was there to tell about me? I was a nanny. That was probably the most exciting thing about my life.

“Like what?”

“Well, do ya have any siblings?”

The one topic I hated talking about. In my family I was the black sheep, constantly being ignored and forgotten. It didn’t really bother me that much, but I didn’t like being reminded about it.

“Yeah, I have two twin brothers and two twin sisters. Their names are Tanner, Tyler, Tessa, and Tiffany. In that order.” Liam whistled and I saw Niall shake his head out of the corner of my eye. That was usually the reaction I got when I explained my family.

“Tanner and Tyler are two years older than me and Tessa and Tiffany are only a year older than me. Tanner and Tyler own their own business together, some shoe company thing. I never really was interested enough to ask questions. And Tess and Tiffany play volleyball at UCLA in the States.” I explained. The room went silent after my explanation, I guess they didn’t want to know that much.

“What’s with all the t’s?” Harry spoke up. I looked over at him and saw Lux was playing with his curls and running her hands all throughout his hair. He was staring at me with a frown on his face and I frowned back.

“I don’t know, both my mum and dad have names starting with t’s. I guess they wanted to keep it going. I think it’s clever,” I glared at him. Personally, I hated the t thing. I thought it was dumb and weird. But Harry didn’t need to know that.

“Boys, you’re on in ten! Oh, Tatum, dear, you made it.” Lou popped her head in and announced to the room. The boys hopped up and made their way towards the stage and Harry left Lux with me.

“Feel free to watch the show, babe. Try and keep Lux out of my hair though, I have to change the lads outfits and stuff!” And then she was off.

I decided to just stay in the room that we were already in because I really didn’t feel like getting lost in a strange arena. I let Lux play on my phone and I did her hair in different hairstyles until the boys were done.

Finally the show was over and the boys walked back in the room smiling, laughing, and sweating. Man, they smelled bad. Everything was chaos and before I knew it, we were boarding the bus to take us to the airport. The boys were on their own bus while I shared a bus with Lou and her assistants. Lou wanted to spend some time with Lux so I just fiddled on my phone until we arrived.

The airport was deserted and we only had to wait a little while until our flight was ready. We were all going in the same private plane and I couldn’t wait to get some shuteye. Lux curled up with her mum while I took a seat in the way back of the plane and snuggled into the blanket I packed.

I’ve never flown before so this was all new to me. I was a little jittery at first when we took off. But I just looked down at all the lights of Manchester and that eased my discomfort. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.

The next thing I remember was someone violently shaking me awake. My eyes flew open and I saw that Harry was standing over me with a frown on his face.

“C’mon, we’re here.” And he walked away from me. I was still disoriented from being rudely awakened so I just grabbed the stuff I carried on with me and aimlessly followed the crowd.

It wasn’t until we were outside that I finally came out of my slump. It was a little chilly outside, as it was two in the morning, but that’s not what was holding my attention.

The airport was relatively close to the Eiffel Tower and at night it was covered in lights. I stopped in my tracks and looked at the tower that was a couple of miles away. I couldn’t look anywhere else; it was like it was hypnotizing me. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Someone knocked shoulders with me and I stumbled a bit into the streets. I looked up to see Harry leering at me.

“It’s just a bloody tower. Ya holding everyone up.” He spat at me. My cheeks redden and I quickly followed the group to the taxis that were taking us to the hotel. We checked in and I was glad to see that I had a room to myself. Lou told me that she was going to take Lux since we had a whole week off. I was so relieved because I was looking forward to sleeping in.

That night I dreamed of pushing Harry Styles off the top of the Eiffel Tower. You could say I woke up very happy.