My Lucky Groom

repeating itself.”
    “What happened to the last one?”
    “The nanny totaled it.”
    There was a loud pounding from upstairs in the hall and then the rising sound of Jason’s voice, “Hey, kids! I said open up!”
    “Uh-oh.” Richard rose from his chair. “I’d better go investigate.”
    Ventura eyed the cage on his desk. “Another frog?”
    He strode quickly from the room. “Another clog’s more like it.”

    Richard and Ventura arrived in the upstairs hall just as Jason prepared to thrust his shoulder into the bathroom door. “Stand back!” he warned the kids. “I’m coming through on three! One… Two… Oomph!” He threw his weight into the door, and it swung open, ricocheting against the claw-foot tub.
    At the opposite end of the room, Ricky and Elisa stood on either side of the commode, their little mouths dropped open. Toilet paper littered the floor along with empty shampoo bottles, several empty cracker boxes and — Ventura could scarcely believe it — an open jar of peanut butter! Elisa stood her with her arms frozen over the toilet in midair, her hands clutching an upside-down potato chip bag. Ricky, who’d been squirting whipped cream around the rim of the bowl, held the can straight out in front of him and pointed it in their direction.
    “Ricky!” Richard commanded. “Put that thing down!”
    “Now, Elisa!” Ricky urged his sister. “Flush it! Flush it fast!”
    Ventura’s eyes traveled to the gold-plated toilet paper holder, seeing sheets from the roll had been pulled long — and deposited in the toilet with everything else.
    “Don’t do it,” Richard grated between clenched teeth.
    Elisa laid one finger on the handle and met Ventura square in the eye.
    “Elisa, no!” Jason called.
    Without a hint of emotion, she flushed, sending the rest of the toilet paper on the holder spiraling into the already overloaded bowl. The commode gurgled to life, then erupted in a wild spray that momentarily blinded Richard. Jason beat back the stream with his hands and fell to his knees, wrestling with the water valve on the wall. The kids wailed, apparently terrified by their own horrific doings. Little Ricky blubbered as filthy water repeatedly lapped at his face, while Elisa screamed and shook her soaking hair as tears streamed from her eyes. Ventura lunged forward to pull the kids out of the fray, but her shoe caught on a slick piece of paper. “Ahhh!” she cried, stumbling forward and barely breaking her fall by clutching the toilet’s rim. But it was too late — gravity had already taken hold, and her face was set on a downward trajectory—straight into the center of the nasty bowl.

    Richard sat in the front seat of his car beside Ventura in awkward silence as he drove her back across the Potomac. He’d been so mortified by the bathroom fiasco, he must have apologized for his children a hundred times. Ventura hadn’t said much since she’d pulled her head out of that murky mess and he’d handed her that face towel. He hoped she wasn’t planning to sue, but wouldn’t necessarily blame her for having those thoughts. He didn’t know why his little angels morphed into devils half of the time, but they certainly appeared to have a wild streak. Richard had long wondered if it was because they’d missed a mother’s touch.
    At first, he thought having a nanny around might help fix that. Of course, it wouldn’t be nearly as nice for them as having a real mom, but the right sort of nanny might provide a suitable substitute. But finding the perfect caretaker for Ricky and Elisa had proved more difficult than Richard had imagined. Even the fairly good ones had possessed some kind of quirk, like Jasmine, who’d been great in every way apart from her penchant for listening to rap music. He’d only learned about it by accident when little Elisa and Ricky began spouting ghetto talk peppered with four-letter words. That was the trouble with nannies. You had to trust them implicitly and believe that their judgment was sound, even when it came to picking out radio stations around the five-year-old twins.
    Richard glanced at Ventura with her wild wet hair, still flecked by tiny pieces of toilet paper, knowing she’d never make that kind of mistake. Ventura was bright and had a good head on her shoulders. She was educated and articulate too. She would make a fabulous role model for the kids and appeared to be really even tempered. Any of his previous nannies would have gone ballistic