What's a Park Avenue working mom to do when her troubled son desperately needs a male role model? If she's like the gutsy heroine of Holly Peterson's astute new comedy of manners, she does what every other woman on the block does. She hires a manny.

A middle-class girl from Middle America, Jamie Whitfield isn't "one of them" but she lives in "the Grid," the wealthiest acre of real estate in Manhattan. And she has most everything they have—a sprawling, new apartment, full-time help, as well as her very own detached attorney husband. What she doesn't have, is a full-time father figure for their struggling nine-year-old son, Dylan. Enter The Manny. At first the idea of paying a man to provide a role model for Dylan sounds crazy. But Peter Bailey is calm, cool, competent and so charmingly down-to-earth, he's irresistible. And with her career as a news producer in overdrive, and her husband locked in his study, Jamie is in serious need of some grounding. But will the new manny in her life put the ground back beneath her feet, or sweep her off them?

Jamie Whitfield, 36, lives on Park Avenue with her three children and her mostly absent high-powered attorney husband, Phillip, and works part-time as a producer for a prime-time news program. She hires Peter Bailey 29 and biding his time until he get funding for his software business to plug the household's gaps and be a father figure to nine-year-old Dylan. The two, of course, are attracted to each other, and when Peter's money comes through, he doesn't tell Jamie. Phillip's temper tantrums when lacking pulpless orange juice or a wooden-handled umbrella are surprisingly funny, and a subplot where Jamie chases a trashy but potentially career-making story is strong. Jamie's co-workers are more realistically portrayed than her shallow friends, but even Jamie's children come alive when they root for mom's success. (June)