The Green Room

"Minna?"

"Minna?"

"Minna!" 4-year old Jonathan yelled from behind the door.

Minna rolled her eyes, set her book down, and slowly cracked her bedroom door. This was the third time today little Jonathan had come looking for her on Christmas Eve - her day off.

"Um, I just wanted to see… well…Mommy says you're a pear. Are you a pear, Minna?" he questioned as he peered in.

Minna furrowed her brow momentarily. She couldn't believe her employer would have the audacity to comment on her shape or physical appearance before an impressionable child.

"Mommy says not to call you a babysitter because you're a pear," he explained.

Realizing his error, she cackled, "No, Jonathan, I'm an 'AU Pair, ' which is just a French word that means someone who is a nanny or takes care of children."

"Oh, ok," he yelled as he ran backwards down the hallway, dropping his Legos and crayons like breadcrumbs.

Minna knew being a nanny wasn't a long-term calling, but her experience with the Drew Family had made the job somewhat pleasurable. They were constantly taking her on trips with them as thanks for her excellent care of their three kids.

She also spent loads of time with the children in the backyard garden, teaching them about growing vegetables and pruning back and picking fruit from the apple, pear, and lemon trees.

Knowing Minna was an antique enthusiast and a gardener, Mrs. Drew would shower her with art, accessories, and indoor plant gifts to decorate her room to make her feel more at home. Ferns, money plants, and orchids started to proliferate and take over her shelf and window space. Once the towering potted ficus tree got so high it almost touched the ceiling, Penny, the Drew's 10-year old started calling Minna's room the "Green Room."

Minna got her love of gardening and antiques from her mother. There was always time to make a road stop to peruse garden centers, garage sales, stoop sales, and antique malls. Nothing could beat the high of discovering a treasure in plain sight.

On one summer road trip, they filled an entire RV up with rare finds to decorate Minna's college dorm room; a 1930's patchwork quilt from Tennessee, an 1800's oil lamp from Kentucky, a mother-in-law's tongue plant in a folk art pot from Alabama, and a turn of the century bee smoker from Georgia.

"Minna?"

"Minna?"

"Minna!" Jonathan yelled again from outside.

"Yes?" an annoyed Minna responded, opening the door again as he barreled through.

"Mommy says we're going to cut the cookies up," he said as he dumped a Tupperware bowl of metal cookie cutters onto her bed.

Realizing that trying to take this day off was futile, she sat down on the bed with him. "Yes, we're going to use these metal cutters to make cookies in different shapes. See, here's one shaped like a Santa and one shaped like a Christmas tree. Here's a candy cane, and what is this one?" she asked.

"A pigeon!" he squealed with certainty.

"Close!" She said. "That's a partridge! See the little head feather? And when we're done using these for baking, we can put them on the Christmas tree as ornaments.

"Yeah!" he said as he grabbed it and twirled the partridge on his little finger.

Minna, at 22, felt a gnawing angst about her future. The Drew kids were great but was she really making a big difference? She had no family now, few friends, and her day-to-day work as a nanny seemed trivial in the large scheme of things.

Why was she on the planet? Was this her fate? What was she here to learn, do, be? Maybe she'd become an antique dealer or perhaps a landscape designer?

Her most exciting life event to date was when she won the ticket lotto to her favorite program, the Antiques Roadshow, when it came through town.

The crowd on the set fell silent as she wheeled her grandmother's small 19th-century mahogany writing desk past them to take her position at the back of the appraisal line. The "Keno Brothers," famous on PBS for their spirited furniture appraisals, stopped mid-conversation to rush over to ask her questions. Their estimate came in around $1500, and she was thrilled.

In the end, Minna didn't make the final cut into the Antiques Roadshow episode, but that was ok. She secretly knew she had fulfilled a lifelong wish of her mother's to be there with a subtle twist of her wrist. With her poison ring cap pre-loosened, a few flecks of her mother's ashes sprinkled onto the Antiques Roadshow's red set carpet and over Leigh Keno's shoes as they knelt to examine the desk's wheels. She could imagine her mother giggling with delight.

As Jonathan played with the little metal bird and hung it on a branch on her ficus tree to make her laugh, she started chuckling at him and herself.

"That's a partridge in 'au pair' tree," she joked. Jonathan seemed confused but laughed along anyway as he spun around the room.

Minna recalled something she read once that a partridge would sacrifice its life to save its children and that it was a harbinger of abundance and wisdom. She smiled. She could feel herself growing in the moment.

"Let's go 'cut the cookies' up!" she excitedly said as she closed the door on the "Green Room" and skipped to the kitchen with Jonathan.