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Alicia is a single mother to two boys, Warren and Christian, who have grown up alongside my boys. My philosophy is that if Alicia is happy, I am happy, so I attempt to make her life as stress-free as possible. Having her boys around where she can keep an eye on them makes life easier for all of us. Of course, this puts the boy count in the house at seven on most afternoons. Scan the loft and you will see scattered about the apartment glassy-eyed boys of various sizes and colors planted and staring into screens of some version of mind-sucking technology. Until, of course, they all decide it’s time for a game of monkey in the middle. Then they pound about until the downstairs neighbor starts beating on the pipes.

Alicia is petite, well spoken, and well dressed. She never hesitates to use her knowledge of style on me, saying things like “You’re not going to leave the house in that, are you? You look like Secretarial School Barbie.” Or “Explain to me why you are wearing a tuxedo at two o’clock in the afternoon.” Thanks to an addiction to exercise and fitness magazines, she is superfit. When she arrives at eight-thirty in the morning, she has already been to Boot Camp or kickboxing or on some other blood-rushing, muscle-building endeavor. She has a passion for designer handbags and can describe in detail the latest It bag. Once, when I was pitching a fashion game show to a network and needed a display of designer loot to demonstrate the game, I turned to Alicia to borrow what I needed.

“That Chloé bag is gorgeous,” said a network executive.

“I know, don’t you love it? I borrowed it from my nanny.”

“Your nanny? I want to be your nanny.”

“Oh, no you don’t.”

DESPITE HER QUIET DEPENDABILITY, ONE LOOK AT HER FACEBOOK profile photo gives you a clue that Alicia has a wild side. Wearing a wig and a fitted hot-pink dress, photographed from behind showing off her well-toned rear: this is the Alicia I see only occasionally.

“Is that Alicia?” a father asked me at a school Halloween party.

“Catwoman? Yeah, that’s her.” I smiled.

“That’s my sexy nanny!” Pierson added, proud to be there with the masked girl in the tight leather pants carrying a whip. Costume parties always bring out Alicia’s wild side. She tends to look like one of the girls on the Leg Avenue packages at Ricky’s. The sexy cigarette girl. The glamour gladiator. The dark angel. Every costume features Alicia’s hard-earned abs.

She doesn’t get mad often, but when she does she is capable of a crippling silent treatment, which renders me defenseless. The silent treatment is the worst for me. Yell at me, hit me, just get it over with. I have tried to convince her that keeping her anger in is unhealthy, and it would better and more cleansing for her to express why she is angry, but I think she knows I am just saying that because I can’t bear her torture.

Alicia has been a part of our family as long as Peik has. And when I say “a part” I don’t mean some organ we could live without if necessary, like the spleen. Not one of my sons knows a world without her. She knows everyone’s favorite snacks and makes sure they are stocked in the pantry. She is the softy in the house: the boys go to her when they feel unloved or in need of some extra attention. To be democratic, she refers to them all as “Boyfriend.” When Peik was a baby, he pronounced Alicia “Sheesha,” which has stuck so completely that even my friends and neighbors think that is her name.

“I called the house and spoke to Sheesha yesterday,” Larson’s class mother told me, “She is so lovely. She said it would be no problem to make her banana bread for the bake sale.” They know better than to ask me.

Larson has improved upon this moniker by adding “Mom,” as in “Sheesha Mom,” and sometimes just plain “Mom.”

“You are Lawa,” he tells me, “and Sheesha is Mom.” When he calls out “Mom!” from somewhere in the house, if I respond he will sometimes say, “Not you, Mom, my other mom.”

That my children have no problem letting me know exactly on which side