Life After Coffee

by Virginia Franken

  The head office for FMC Trading is downtown—oh joy—so, of course, the GPS and I both got completely lost on the way there. I spent the last ten minutes following Waze around in an optimistic loop-the-loop, until I gave up and pulled out my outdated Thomas Guide, which didn’t do a lot to illuminate the situation. Honestly, give me a map with some actual land contours and I’m fine, but trying to navigate this rabbit warren of a city without some kind of insider’s knowledge is too much to ask of anyone. However, I’m pulling into the FMC lot now, amazingly with ten minutes to spare before the interview.

  “Did we eat any breakfast?” asks Billy from the back. Damn it. No, we didn’t.

  “Mommy, I’m still in my jammies,” adds Violet. I turn back to look at her, and indeed she is still in her jammies. At least it’s jammies and not a nightgown. The particular jammies in question might just pass as very casual leisure wear if you don’t look too closely. They’re Billy’s old ones—dark blue, with a bear on the front declaring that he’s “Not Sleepy Yet,” which can surely only help my case.

  “I’m hungry. I’m so hungry I’m going to die right now, in the car.” This is Billy. Okay. I’ve got ten minutes to spare and I saw a McDonald’s one block back. I’m totally going to pull the slacker mom move. Completely justified given the circumstances.

  Fifteen minutes later, we’re back in the parking lot. Billy wolfed down his entire breakfast sandwich in about twenty seconds, but Violet’s still working on hers. Showing up to an interview with kids in tow is bad enough, but I just can’t show up with one of them wearing jammies and munching on fast food.

  “Violet, I need you to finish that in the next twenty seconds or you’ll have to leave it behind.” Her brother consumed a whole muffin in that time. She only has to eat half of one. Completely doable if she sets her mind to it. “Agreed?”

  She doesn’t answer. I start to count down from twenty, quickly. She manages to take two bites, but she’s still not done by the time I get to zero. I’m already five minutes late; I can’t wait out the time it’s going to take her to eat this thing. Violet is a notoriously slow eater.

  “Okay, put the muffin down. We have to go.”

  “Noooooooooooo! No! No! Noooooooooooo!” she screams, straining against her harness and thrashing all of her legs and arms at the same time. I note that she manages to keep hold of the muffin. I have no time for this McDrama; we’re going to have to take the muffin in. If I stink out the reception area with McDonald’s reek, then so be it. I’m guessing it didn’t go down like this for Michelle.

  As soon as we push through the glass doors into reception, I realize that FMC Trading is a bigger deal than I thought. I suppose I shouldn’t be this surprised at the swankiness of their head office. FMC’s the second-largest coffee trader in the world and provides the beans for the big guys: HushMush, the Penny Bean, et cetera. Before now, I’ve always purposefully sprinted in the opposite direction whenever there’s been an opportunity to work for a big conglomerate. However, as we all know, I can no longer afford to be the Picky Patricia of my past. If I have to work for an evil corporation in order to feed my children, then that is what will happen.

  We head for the front desk.

  “Thelma?”

  “Amy?”

  “How did you guess?” I ask with a smile. I called ahead before I rolled up with my two monsters. I’m not a complete numbskull.

  “You two must be Billy and Violet,” Thelma says.

  “I’m wearing my jammies,” says Violet.

  “So you are. I wish I was wearing mine too. Then we’d be matching.”

  “Do you like ponies?”

  “I love ponies.”

  “Even pink ones?”

  “Pink ones are the best ones of all.” And they’re off. Thelma’s at that stage. I remember it so well myself. Engaged to be engaged to her boyfriend and already spending a lot of time daydreaming about the beautiful biracial children that they’d make. She informed me of all this on the phone when I called her on the way in. She said she’d be delighted to watch both kids for me while I had my interview, and I implied that if I got the job, I’d put in a good word for her with upper management. Sorted.

  “They’re running late,” Thelma tells me. “The candidate before you only just went in.”

  “Thanks.”

  Oh, well. At least the sweat will have a chance to dry off my upper lip before I see them. That was quite the ordeal to get here. Violet and Thelma are absorbed in a pony game, and Billy is in holy communion with his iPad. I have nothing to do. I spent most of yesterday cramming every factoid about FMC available on the Internet into my head. If I prep any more for this interview, it’s just going to make me nervous. I flick open iBooks on my phone. I need a distraction. I’m going to start that emotional-child book Billy’s nameless teacher keeps talking about. I still haven’t had four minutes straight in a row to start reading it. This is as good a chance as I’m likely to get.

  And so I read. And then I read. And then I read some more. And I keep on reading till I’m so overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow that I can’t read another word. I’ve been doing it all wrong. And not just wrong in an “I put the wrong factor sunscreen on my kids” kind of way. I’ve been talking to, dealing with, and parenting Billy in a way that’s completely incompatible with his nervous system. It’s like he’s a brand-new Mac and I’ve been trying to run ancient Office software on him this whole time and then yelling at him for not working. All the things I’ve thought he was being a drama queen about: the freak-out over scratchy labels, the time he threw his electric toothbrush out the window because it was too “buzzy” and I was insisting he use it, the meltdown over any and all changes to his routine, the inability to cope with the slightest physical pain, his constantly accusing his sister of smelling of “horses,” the zero tolerance for crowds, noise, shouting of any kind—it’s all because his central nervous system is basically on twenty-four-hour high alert. He’s a bit different. Not worse or inferior. Just a little different. And there’s been no consideration made for that whatsoever. By anyone. It’s like I’ve been yelling at my dyslexic son for not being able to spell. I am a fraud.

  “Amy O’Hara?” I quickly flick away a spilled tear and jump up. “I’m Lexi, Bob McLeod’s PA. Please come through.” I toss my phone into my purse. I’ll be going straight back to that later.

  Bob’s office is a huge glass box, a hop and a skip away from reception. I take a seat opposite his empty desk. I’m going to be sitting with my back to the door—good—less chance of getting distracted by any potential mayhem going on behind me. “Bob will be with you in a moment,” she says.

  As soon as she leaves, I jump up and try to figure out how to close the blinds so no one will be able to see any of the craziness that’s sure to erupt any moment in reception. I get them about halfway closed before two guys walk in.

  “Amy? Nice to meet you. I’m Bob McLeod, head of North American operations. And this is Jay Jones, our chief sustainability adviser.”

  I give both of their hands a firm shake. I see Bob flexing his hand a little after. I tend to overcompensate on the handshake thing. If this is a man’s world, then it must be said that coffee is a dude’s universe. Agronomy’s just as intense as buying, and I’ll need to prove I’ve got the physical, emotional, and mental stamina to do the job before they even think to ask themselves if I have or if I haven’t.

  “So, Jay and Bob?” I ask, smiling. A couple of blank looks back. “Like Jay and Silent Bob?”

  “The other guy mentioned something about that too. What does it mean?” asks Jay. Oh, dear. Corporate. Must think corporate.

  “Just a film reference,” I say, and hope they don’t think to look it up later, especially as Jay Jones is tall and blond and Bob’s a little on the dumpy side.

  “Are these your children?” I ask, pointing at a picture of four extremely wholesome-looking kids on his desk.

  “Yeah, my crazy crew,” Bob says, glowing a little. Score.
Common ground. “So we wanted to get you in today to see if you’d be a fit for our agronomy program that we’re expanding to the African region.”

  Damn it. I missed my opportunity there. I guess discussing offspring isn’t the topic at hand. I’ve been doing business too long in South America. No one down there even thinks of talking shop till everyone’s discussed their families for at least half an hour. Bob proceeds to give me a pretty thorough rundown of what FMC’s been up to recently. It’s kinda interesting. Looks like someone at the top of the food chain has decided it’s time to support overseas farmers rather than grind them into the ground. I wonder what prompted this sea change. Last time I worked with a coffee conglomerate, it was all “gas everything with fungicides and fuck the farmer.”

  “We’ve had enormous success in South America, and now we’re expanding the program to Africa. Ethiopia first. That’s where you fit in,” says Jay.

  “So I’m curious, what’s with the large-scale turnaround?” I ask. They pause for a second. Maybe I didn’t phrase that quite right.

  “Sustainable supply chains. It’s more important than ever with the epidemic. We need to develop and enhance whatever we can,” says Bob. “The program almost doubled the yield in most instances in South America. If we can help farmers boost the quality of their crops, they’ll make more money. We all will. It’s the economically viable thing to do.”

  “I can’t argue with that logic,” I say with a smile.

  “We were interested in hearing if you’d had any experience helping farmers heighten production, specifically in Ethiopia,” says Jay. Have I? I’m about to blow these two middle-aged men’s socks off. I hope they’re prepared to be super impressed because—

  “Mommy?”

  I freeze. The door has swung open behind me. I turn to see Billy and Violet standing next to a strung-out Thelma. Billy is completely white and has vomit all down the front of his shirt.

  “He just threw up all over himself. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I should do,” says Thelma. All trace of the woman who was happy to talk about pajamas and pink ponies has loooong gone. Good God, it’s only been five minutes. Try five years of it, girlfriend, and then you’ve got the right to look that sour about it all.

  “Hi! I’m Violet. These are my jammies.” Violet does a funky little turn to show off said jammies. She’s still brandishing that awful muffin. I grab it off her. “Hey!” I open it up. No cheese. She must have switched with Billy. I know I gave him the one without cheese in it.

  “Good morning, FMC Trading,” says Thelma. We all stare at her. No, she’s not been driven to insanity; she’s talking to someone on her headset. “Putting you straight through, one moment, please.” Then she mouths, “I have to go,” and starts speed walking back to her desk. I’ve got a feeling she’s going to be renewing her NuvaRing after all.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I say to Jay and Bob, who are actually looking less horrified than I would have thought. “I had to bring them—my husband normally looks after the kids, but we had a last-minute conflict and none of our sitters could make it, so here we are.”

  “We do appreciate that we asked you in here on very short notice. It’s not a problem at all,” says Bob, smiling. He’s smiling? Violet slides a stapler off the side of his desk and pulls it open to examine its inner workings.

  “Violet, put that down!” Too late.

  “Ow!” She drops the stapler to the ground. Jesus Christ, has she stapled herself? I rush over and grab her hand. It’s fine. She just broke the skin. I pull her over to where I slung my purse over the back of my chair and unzip the back pocket. It’s still there, my one solitary, teacher-recommended Band-Aid.

  “Here’s a free tip: always have a Band-Aid handy when there’re kids around!” Do I look like Parent of the Year yet?

  “Mommy, this is an Angry Birds Band-Aid. I want a normal one.” I ignore her.

  “I’m going to get my eldest cleaned up, then I’ll be right back,” I say. Please don’t end the interview. Please don’t.

  “I think all moms deserve a medal,” says Bob. This is promising. “I know my weekends are harder work than my weeks.” Yes! He gets it.

  “Yeah, Suzie’s certainly got her work cut out with four all day!” says Jay.

  “She sure does. We both do,” says Bob. Okay, so he’s probably overestimating his portion of the “work” there, but I’ll roll with it.

  “The bathrooms are just down the hall on the right. We’ll see you in a minute.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Violet, come on.”

  “I want to stay here.”

  “Oh, she’s fine for the minute,” says Bob. “I think I’ve got some crayons somewhere in here from when the kids last came in.” I seriously love this man.

  “Violet, be good. We’ll be back in two minutes.”

  Violet slams her muffin down on the desk and crawls up onto the chair I just vacated.

  “So what exactly happens in this office here?” she asks. Oh Lord. Maybe she’ll have wrangled herself a job by the time I get back.

  I spirit Billy down the corridor and usher him into the women’s bathroom.

  “What happened?” I ask him. “I gave you the muffin without cheese.”

  “Violet said it wasn’t cheese. She said it was yellow melted plastic and she didn’t want to eat it. I asked you if it was okay to switch, and you just said ‘one-way system,’ so I ate it. I was hungry.” Okay. If this ever comes up again, note to self: order both muffins with no cheese. In fact, when I get home, I’m going on a dairy purge. No harm can come of it.

  I gingerly work his unzipped hoodie off him so it remains clear of vomit. I pull his T-shirt off, bundle the vomit up into the center of it, and throw the whole thing in the trash. Some puke unavoidably gets smeared onto the front of his hair when his T-shirt comes off, but I manage to get the worst of it out with a handful of wipes. (I have fresh wipes in my bag!) I put the cleanish hoodie back on him and zip it up to the chin. In the section of my purse where I’d stashed the Band-Aid, I’ve got a brand-new pack of Lactaid Chewables. I hand him one.

  “I need water.”

  “There’s a tap. It’s full of water.” He can just about reach the sink, and he manages to gulp down a few mouthfuls while I rinse off his Crocs. Within four minutes he’s more or less cleaned up. There’s a faint scent of McDonald’s-style puke about him, but you can’t have everything. Okay, now to quickly divulge my plans for redeveloping the entire agricultural model for the East African region to Jay and Bob before the inevitable second act starts: diarrhea.

  The moment I step back into Bob’s glass office, I can tell that something’s changed. Bob and Jay look up at me guiltily, almost as if they’ve been assessed and found wanting. Somehow Violet looks like she’s just been handing their asses to them. I suddenly get a firm image of her thirty years from now laying it down in a meeting. It’s a bit terrifying. What on earth has gone down here? I pop my head out into reception. Thelma is nowhere to be seen.

  “Do you know where Thelma got to?” I ask.

  “Not sure. Maybe she’s on a break,” says Bob. A break? A break from what? Billy’s already slunk over to the side of the room and has reattached himself to his iPad. I sit down and Violet clambers up onto my lap, her warm cheek pressed into my chest. Well, it appears we can just continue on like this, then. See, Bob, I’m a modern working parent just like you. Nothing like you. I’m about to jump right in and tell them all the things I’ve done in the past to get African farmers to sort out their soil, when Jay suddenly stands up.

  “I’ve actually got to run.” This is not good. Despite Bob leading most of the “interview” so far, Jay’s the guy who’s really going to know what I’m talking about.

  “Oh, really?” I say. “Could I just quickly outline some of the agricultural processes I’ve helped farmers to put in place?”

  “I’m sor—”

  “Organic certification?”

  “Another time.” An
other time? The interview is now. “Our CEO just got in a little early from Geneva, and he just called me up so . . .” He swoops forward to shake my hand. “It was great to meet you, Amy, and your family. Take care now.” Something about that sounds very final somehow. I’m officially worried. As soon as he leaves, I turn back to face Bob. I wonder how interested he’s going to be in hearing about my grading scale for fertilizer. I’m going to try it anyhow . . .

  “How have you handled the work-life balance so far in your career? With all the travel involved?” he asks. Your Honor, I object! Would he be asking a man that question at this stage?

  “My husband stays at home with the kids, so the travel’s never been an issue for me.”

  “Even so, there’s nothing quite like mommy at home, is there.” Wha . . . ? Is there some kind of hotline number I can call to report this level of sexism?

  “They all manage just fine without me when I go away. It’s fine.” I meant to give a slight warning edge to my tone, not a full-on snap. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I know these are the tough issues. I just wanted to see how your family was set up to handle the unusual circumstances. Looks like you’ve got it all worked out.” Oh yes. I’ve got it all figured out, just perfectly. Damn you, Unsilent Bob. “I apologize, but I actually have to get going too.” You’ve got to be kidding me! “We ran late with our other candidate, and I’ve got a conference call with Oxfam that we’ve been trying to get on the books for about six weeks now.”

  “I understand.” I don’t understand at all. This is just plain rude. I had to feed my kids McDonald’s in order to do this interview.

  “We’ll get you in again. Perhaps just you next time! Though it was lovely to meet the family.” Violet pops her head up to give him a scowl. Unhelpful.