Tough Sell

by Trixie More

  Dorothy had known about the trust fund for as long as she could remember. When she’d been younger, she’d asked for the money occasionally, when she wanted something large and impossible, like a pony or a sports car. Her father always said no, but sometimes, her mom would relent. Dorothy knew it caused friction between her parents and she hadn’t asked for years. She didn’t want a pony now; she wanted to save herself from this disaster of a day. She’d done the work, created a fantastic campaign and she just needed a way to bring it to market.

  Her mom answered the question Dorothy had asked, even though that wasn’t the real question. “Well, I don’t know, honey. It’s been a long time since I looked. The market fluctuates but we’re sure there’s enough to fund your retirement.”

  A bubble of humor burbled inside Dorothy. She smiled at the thought that her retirement was funded. The rest of her life, not so much.

  “I’m wondering if I can take some of it.” Dorothy gave a half smile even as she said it. She was a fool. A part of her wondered why she had brought it up. Did she want to fight with her mother? With anyone? Was that the way to handle this very long day?

  “Dorothy. What is this about? If you need some money to tide you over until you find another job, I can help with that.”

  “No! No, Mom. I don’t want to borrow, or beg, or have you take care of me.” Dorothy caught her breath and went on, aware that at best she sounded like a preteen wheedling for permission to stay out all night. “Mom, I want to finish the project I started but without my job, I can’t do it unless I have cash to invest in myself.” She tried to explain, to herself as well as her mom. “I love Edward, I mean, Edward’s products and his company. I think they’re important, for the whole earth.” She was mucking this thing up. “I created this awesome presentation for him and they fired me anyway and I just think I should try to do this on my own.” Why had she driven all the way out here? “Mom, if I can pull this off, it might make up for everything.”

  Her mother frowned and seemed to be considering her request. “What do you mean, make up for everything?”

  “Everything, Mom. For being a burden on you and Dad, for making it harder for Ed to get his business looked at by Cogent and for everything.” Some of the fight went out of her, she felt it flee from the pain of the dark wound she’d put her finger on. She pressed harder, letting what festered in her rise up. “For you know, surviving.”

  Her mom didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “You mean when your family didn’t?”

  This really didn’t have anything to do with her parents. At least, not with the living ones. She wandered over to the stove, looked in the pot, turned back.

  “They left me.”

  “Honey, they didn’t leave you, what happened to them, it wasn’t their fault.” Her mom shook her head at her.

  “No, Mom, not them. The killer, or killers, they left me. They took everyone but me and a dog. Why would they leave me behind?” Her nose burned. Tears were not far behind and Dorothy knew that what she was crying about, made no sense to anyone else. She’d lived, everyone else was dead. How did she have the right to still be here, let alone cry about it?

  Dorothy felt her mother’s warm, firm arms around her, felt the cheek, starting to soften with age, press against her temple. “I don’t know, little one. I don’t know and I don’t care.” She rocked Dorothy from side to side. “I’m just so glad, every day, that they did.”

  Dorothy covered her face. “Sometimes, Mom,” she whispered, “sometimes I’m not.”

  She felt a kiss pressed to her temple and felt herself being squeezed.

  Everything just felt so wrong. She turned her head and pressed her cheek to her mother’s shoulder.

  “It seems so wrong to be sad, you know, about anything.” Her mother stroked her hair but remained silent. “Why did I survive when my whole family didn’t? Why couldn’t my real mom have lived?” When she heard her own words, the tears finally started to fall. “I’m so sorry, Mom, I don’t mean my real mom, you’re my real mom. I know that.”

  “Oh, Dottie, don’t you worry about that,” her mother murmured. “I know what you mean. You can’t hurt me by talking about this. Don’t you know that?” The woman holding her, the woman who had held her through every hurt in her life, leaned back and gently guided Dorothy’s face to look at her own. “There is nothing in this world that could convince me that you don’t love me.”

  At the words, Dorothy felt her abdomen contract. Her mouth turned down and her nose ran. She was a mess. Her mom reached to the counter for a tissue.

  “I do. I really do,” Dorothy said. “But I’m not sure why you love me. You know, I always told myself, when everyone helped me, it was because maybe they saw something in me, you know, a reason why I should have lived. But this week, it just seems there is no reason.” She took the tissue her mom offered her and blew her nose.

  Her mom handed her the box. After a few sodden tissues, Dorothy calmed down a bit.

  “I can’t do anything right, Mom,” she said.

  “Dottie, honey, you do everything just fine.” Her mom gave her a squeeze and led her gently to the old, wooden kitchen table. “Why don’t you sit down?” When she was sure Dorothy was going to sit, her mom got out an old mixing bowl and busied herself with the chicken, pulling it from the pot, returning the meat to the soup.

  Dorothy tucked her feet up to the wooden seat of the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees, watching the familiar actions of her mother preparing supper. Something in her relaxed, just a bit.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes it just feels so wrong to be here, on earth, while they are all gone.” Her mom glanced back at her with a small, sad smile, then resumed her task. It was easier for Dorothy to talk to her mom about this when her back was turned. “I don’t even remember them,” she whispered.

  “Not to make everything about men, but the man you mentioned, this is the Edward from the other evening, yes?”

  “Yeah.” Dorothy sighed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with him. He has issues.”

  Her mother raised her eyebrows at her and Dorothy couldn’t hold back a small laugh. “Yeah, well, I guess he and I both have issues.”

  “And are those his clothes?” Her mother waved a spoon in the general direction of the pants that were obviously too big for her.

  “Yeah. I went over there after I left Cogent.” Dorothy sighed. “I’m a mess.”

  Approval and love. That’s what she saw in Helen Johansen’s eyes. That’s all that Dorothy had ever seen there, but tonight there was something else there too. Dorothy didn’t know if it was new, or if it was just the first time she realized it, but Helen also looked knowing.

  “Dorothy, I’ve decided something.” Helen wiped her hands on a towel. “I’m not going to give you any money this time.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to give you money or let you take money from your trust fund.”

  “But, Mom! Didn’t you hear me? I lost my job today. I live in the most expensive city in the world and I’m going to be out of work for a long time, I just know it!”

  “Honey, you can always come here if you need to. That won’t ever change. You won’t be on the street, you won’t starve.” Her mom turned back to the cupboard and pulled out two bowls, ladled soup into them.

  Dorothy’s eyes felt like they were the size of tangerines, they were open so wide. Honestly, Dorothy could not think of one thing to say. Was her mom trying to make this day worse? And hadn’t she told her mom that she wished she didn’t exist? She sat at the table in silence. Not one word came to mind. Her mom put their bowls and spoons on the table and sat across from her.

  “Dorothy, I think in some ways this is my fault.”

  What? The what? Dorothy shook her head and plunged her spoon into her soup.

  “Really. You just lost your job, you don’t actually know what your relationship with this man, this Edward, is …”

  “He’s my boyfriend!”<
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  “This relationship is …” her mom spoke over her, “and now you think you should take your money and give it to him?”

  “To me! To me, Mom. I think I should invest in my ability to sell his products!”

  “You know, when you came to us—”

  “When my family was murdered in their beds you mean?”

  Helen winced like she always did when Dorothy put it that way. “When you came to us, you were so small, so helpless and so very dear to both of us.”

  Dorothy slumped in her chair, shaking her head. This story again. She was as sick of the story as she was of her stupid self.

  “And all I wanted to do was keep you safe, to protect you.” Helen looked sad. “I think I might have overdone it.”

  Well, this was a new twist. How did this lead to Dorothy having no money though?

  “My wonderful, sweet, beautiful girl is loved by everyone except herself,” her mother said and Dorothy was a little surprised to think her mother actually knew this. “You have no love for yourself, do you, my girl? And you have no faith in yourself.”

  Dorothy shifted uncomfortably. She was used to saying these types of things to herself, but it was different when her mom said it.

  “First of all, you have no business questioning your value.”

  “Yeah, well I do, Mom,” Dorothy snapped.

  “All people have the same value in our Lord’s eyes,” her mother said.

  Dorothy bristled at that thought. Jesus felt far from her, a plastic figure. “Look, that’s great to say but I don’t feel it.”

  “Then you don’t understand intrinsic value.”

  Dorothy just looked at her mother. What could she say to that? She understood the words but they didn’t apply to her, not at the deepest level. She gave her head a shake and blew on her spoon sending ripples across the pale broth.

  “There’s intrinsic value and there’s self-confidence. They are two different things and you should understand them both.” Her mother’s food sat untouched. Instead, Helen fingered the cross around her neck. “It’s easier if you have faith in God. You can just accept that God knows what he’s doing.” Her mom sighed. “For your father, it wasn’t as simple. He grew up the way you did, giving God a passing wave.” A little smile passed over Helen’s face. “But you don’t need faith in God to understand it. We can leave him out of it.” Helen picked up her spoon. “Is it good?” She nodded at Dorothy’s bowl and Dorothy set down her spoon and ran her hands over her face. Her mom was a stubborn woman.

  “Yes, Mom. It’s good.”

  “Good.” The word sat firmly between them as her mom began to eat.

  “Just finish your thought, Mom, and get it over with.” Dorothy resumed eating.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Helen glanced at her, humor showed on her face. Dorothy rolled her eyes.

  “You know, we went to your house once.”

  Dorothy looked up sharply.

  “Yes, the one where your mother was killed.”

  This was news. Why didn’t she know this? “When? It was gone by the time I was twelve.”

  “Your father and I went there on the same day we picked you up. We traveled through that small town and out to the farm where you lived. I felt very much that I should see it.” She salted her soup, stirred it. “It wasn’t a particularly nice place.”

  Dorothy frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “It was clear the people that lived there were struggling. There was heat but no plumbing, the whole place needed a good cleaning. Everything in the house was very … used.”

  “Did you see the room …?”

  Helen nodded. “It didn’t have much in it. A small bed and a dresser.” She smiled ruefully. “That dresser looked like it belonged to any other nineteen-year-old girl in the world. Odd bits of makeup, jewelry, papers.” She leaned back in her chair, giving up on her soup apparently. “The reason I’m telling you this is so you’ll understand. There was nothing special about that family.” She held her hand up to stop Dorothy’s protest. “Nothing special, and nothing bad either. They were just people. Whatever the reason was for the crime against them, at the root of it, they were just people, like you, like me. They didn’t make themselves. They were born whole, complete. Everything after that was just an afterward.”

  Feeling small and tight, Dorothy frowned down at her bowl. She didn’t understand any of this.

  “Don’t you see, Dot? Nobody earns their life. There’s you and there’s what happens to you and there’s what you do. They are not the same things.” Dorothy’s throat constricted at the words but her mom kept going. “The moment you were born, you were finished. Complete. All the rest is just circumstance … and what you do with that gift.” Helen rose, taking her bowl to the sink, stopping to kiss the top of Dorothy’s head.

  The words felt like they were pushing the molecules of her being around. Dorothy sat for a moment before rising and clearing the rest of the table. She rinsed a rag in hot water and wiped down the scarred wooden surface. Behind her the sound of dishes being put into the dishwasher sounded like home.

  When they were done cleaning, her mom brought tea and cookies to the table. She settled across the table from Dorothy and passed a mug to her.

  Dorothy held the warm cup to her face, let the peppermint scent of the tea wash over her and watched as her mom pushed the cookies around the dish with one manicured forefinger. Her mother loved sweets. She also loved clothes, so picking a cookie was a big deal for her. Finally, a shortbread was selected and Dorothy grabbed the dish, taking the first two cookies she touched. Her mom laughed softly at the joke, and Dorothy felt a bit lighter.

  “So I’m asking myself, how is it that your father and I have such confidence in ourselves?” Her mother dunked her cookie and rushed it to her mouth before it could break apart. When she spoke, her mouth was still full. It was the first time Dorothy recalled seeing her mom do something like that, at least the first time in a long, long time. “When we were young, your father and I had nothing. I know I’ve told you that.” Helen leaned back in her chair, rested her elbow on the arm of the chair and set her chin into her hand. Then she plunked her calf up onto the corner of the table, brought her other leg up and crossed them at the ankles. Before her eyes, her conservative, Long Island ladies club mother turned into a woman who might have stayed up last night playing poker. What was going on?

  “We were a lot scrappier then. Carl worked two jobs and I waitressed at night while I went to school. We ate a lot of mac and cheese back then.” She smiled at that. “We could do it too, because we burned it right off.” She gave a shrug and pressed her lips together. “The thing is, I always knew that if we lost everything, every nickel, every dish, your father and I could do it all again. We can always just do it again.” Her foot smacked back to the floor and she stood up, gathering her cup and plate as if she’d made up her mind. “That’s the greatest feeling, the greatest resource to have and I’ve robbed you of it, Dottie.” She came around behind Dorothy and gave her a hug. “You go right back out there and get it all back, girl.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything Dorothy could say to that other than, “But how?” And she knew that her mom wasn’t going to have an answer for her. In fact, her mom seemed quite pleased with herself. And a little edgy, like she might go out later and buy a leather jacket or maybe a Vespa. Did women of her age do that kind of thing?

  “Well, Mom, that just sucks,” she said and her mom laughed.

  “There’s always your old room, honey.” She chuckled. “It’s still done in pink pastel. You’ll love it.”

  Dorothy smiled and felt just a bit better. “You do know I still have a credit card, right?”

  Chapter 18

  Tuesday morning when Jesus fell from the wall, the bed was empty and Dorothy wasn’t there to see it. Down the hall, the shower was running and Dorothy was totally not bothered by the thought her shower singing might be unwanted. After all, why had God made Amazon Prime
if not to have shower playlists? She grinned as she bent to shave her legs. One more song and she was out of the shower, drying off. She wrapped up in her thick white cotton bathrobe and reminded herself that having rich parents was a very good thing, even if they weren’t going to buy her way out of this mess.

  The night before, when she had told Allie what had happened, she had been smarting from her mom’s refusal and really, had thought she would wake up today feeling desperate. But that’s not what had happened. Today, she felt fine. Better than fine, kinda pumped up. She didn’t have to go to work at CDP, she didn’t have to write a campaign to sell copper-covered cookware, spray-on hair color or trampy diva shoes. She had a kick-ass campaign and an awesome client she could bring with her. Why on earth couldn’t she just go to another firm and get a better job?

  Peter had said the campaign was good, and if he liked it, others would too. She dried her hair, dressed and ran out to get pastries. An hour later, she was cruising the job search sites and making a list of postings. Then she made a list of Cogent Digital’s competitors and decided she would cold call them in the afternoon and drop off her résumé. By noon she’d uploaded her résumé to several job search sites and had a printed stack of cover letters and résumés. By three, she was dressed for success and heading out the door with her papers.

  Seven o’clock found her back home, tired but very happy. A productive day is what it had been and she was certain it would yield big results; she even had a follow-up interview with one of the agencies she had cold called. She shrugged out of her suit jacket, hanging it up carefully. The apartment was quiet since Allie was at work and Dorothy could hear the woman in the next apartment scolding her cat. She picked up her Jesus from the bed and hung him back on the wall. Thinking of Allie and Derrick banging away in the other room earlier, made her smile a little but it also made her chest feel tight. She wandered into the kitchen and was struck by the memory of kneeling on the floor, looking up at Edward.