Marc was a very good-looking man with dark hair. He invested a lot of time in his appearance, sometimes even more than his wife. For Angelica, having a handsome and intelligent husband was more important than her desire to improve her social status in society, but she utilized him at various meetings, showing him off like a beautiful toy. After working for some time as a manager, he had begun to dream of independence. He had opened a small company and proudly announced to all his friends and acquaintances that he was now his own boss.
Angelica and Marc had met when both were already over 35, which is typical for such careerists. Before marriage, they bothtravelledthe world, built careers, and accumulated some capital. They constantly drank expensive wine, smoked, and drank coffee. Perhaps because of this they lost their first child (a baby who died eight months after birth from suffocation in its lungs).
But even the appearance of a small miracle in their family could not change the essence of the typical manager-careerists in their heads, where the only things were numbers and profits. The appearance of a child, a creature that was not profitable, but only requiring both material and spiritual support, caused surprise. Sometimes they did not know how to deal with the child, because in their posh offices it was a nonsensical being. And then Lisa came to rescue and was the best friend of little Ben.
At four p.m., Lisa rode her bicycle to bring Ben home. Then they cooked and played until nine p.m. when she was free. Even with her modest salary, she had still managed to save some money to buy a cheap little computer. She used it in her spare time to study the language, endlessly performing grammar exercises in anguish.
Sometimes she liked to ride her bike and explore the city. There was a huge shopping center with all kinds of goods. Lisa went and immersed herself in the perfume, clothes and everything else. With smells of expensive clothes and perfumes in her head, she could feel like a princess.
Every day the two strict managers, Ben’s parents, took a shower, put on their freshlyironed suits, and drove to their offices. Everything had to look perfect: they themselves, the child, the house. Each crumb in the house was considered vulgar and had to be eliminated immediately.
But sometimes Lisa had the impression that her host parents had a computer instead of a heart.
This time,Lisa wanted to do everything better and was discussing meals with the family. They said very nicely to her: "You can eat anything from the fridge. There is absolutely no problem."
That was probably why all the time there was absolutely nothing in the fridge. Apart from two frozen rolls for a dime
One evening, the host mother came home. The fridge was mostly empty, as the risks of making the family bankrupt because of a hungry au pair were calculated to be too high. The only thing in the refrigerator was a mango.
"Where is the mango?Have you eaten it?" the host mother shouted at Lisa suddenly.
"No, it is in the fridge," Lisa assured her.
"Good!" she whispered, relieved.
Once, when Lisa was eating breakfast, she heard the sound of a moving camera in the kitchen, the typical sound that you recognize from movies. Lisa discovered a tiny device in the refrigerator. From the previous family, Lisa had experience with a baby monitor in every room, and now there was probably a hidden camera in every room of the house.
Lisa felt embarrassed. Even though she was very hungry, she could not dare look in the refrigerator again, out of fear that she was being filmed by a camera and she was under observation. Lisa imagined that possibly every thirty-cent yogurt was equipped with a personal alarm which signaled about the movements of the yogurt in the stomach of the poor creature, similar to the movements of the stock market, so that the family budget decreased.
Lisa began to feel like she was in a well-supervised prison where she was dependent on the whims of the host family for food.
There was only some cereal for breakfast and a piece of bread for dinner. Of course, there were those two frozen rolls, which were kept asa family treasure in the refrigerator. And four yogurts that were probably counted in the fiscal year report in the family budget. And two apples that had to last for two weeks.
A few times Lisa almost dared to eat a roll, but every time Lisa was about to bite into it, the host father suddenly appearedat the door. He had probably installed a more expensive camera to patrol the roll treasure to save some cents.
At first, Lisa was trying to show her host family her generous culture. She would prepare all kinds of dinners. She made casseroles, soups and baked buns. She made cakes and other delicious treats. She loved cooking and she loved sharing her meals. The host family was thrilled. But one day Lisa received a comment that sounded tired from stress: "Everything you think about is food." Lisa quickly grew accustomed to eating cereal for breakfast and bread for dinner.
Lisa had to get used to the family traditions of the household. They ate granola for breakfast and bread for dinner. It was as simple as that. Her host parents wanted to be as skinny as possible. Lisa would joke to herself that they may as well eat air. The family was egotistic and greedy. Lisa thought that must be the secret to their wealth. They weren't just greedy towards Lisa. They lacked compassion and generosity towards everyone. That included their friends. Their guests weren't invited to the table when the family was dining. They were expected to wait in the corridor until the meal was finished.
The parents stubbornly believed that they replaced their love and attention with expensive gifts. They were outrageously selfish and stingy towards others. Maybe it was the secret of their wealth.
The exhausted hunger tormented Lisa all the time. Sometimes she secretly made flatbread, which consisted only of water and flour. Or she bought cheap chocolate or biscuits. So Lisa survived lunch.
Sometimes, Lisa wondered if her host parents even had hearts. Maybe, they had calculators instead of hearts. They pumped numbers instead of blood. These were the types of parents who believed in buying affection. Instead of giving their child time, they gave him expensive gifts. To them, it was the same thing. Instead, Lisa was the one who spent time with Ben. At four o'clock, she brought Ben home from the pre-school. They would play or work on homework. Then, they would cook together. For a few hours, they would be engaged in a sporting activity. Then between eight or nine o'clock at night, she was free.
In her free time, she liked to explore the city. As an au pair, she had to understand the culture. Although she was stuck in a family of managers with no compassion, she knew there was more to the culture. With her modest salary, she managed to save enough money to buy herself a cheap laptop. It cost an entire month of her salary, but it helped her to connect with the outside world. She couldn't take the language courses, so the internet helped her develop her language skills as well. When she was exploring the city, she usually took a bike. She loved the huge shopping center that was near the house. She felt like a princess whenever she wandered through the shopping center. There were perfumes and colorful clothing. It was all too expensive to purchase, but she still enjoyed looking around.