Help Wanted

by Barbara Valentin

  So unfair.

  Even now, with her approval ratings of him still in the single digits, his good looks were not lost on Claire. She used to love the way his thick hair curled up when it got long and his dimples came out when he laughed, and his brown eyes were big enough and warm enough to swim in. And he hadn't shaved yet.

  Boy, you smell good.

  "How'd you sleep?" His voice was low, almost a whisper.

  Claire checked herself. The first time she had looked into those eyes, she dove right in—no life preserver in sight. The next thing she knew, she had four kids and was stuck in a career that demanded more than she ever cared to give.

  "Fine." Her mouth suddenly felt dry.

  Not about to deliver a lip-quivering apology for the things she had said the night before, she leaned to her right to step around him just as he leaned to his left.

  She scratched her nose and folded her arms.

  "You're in my way."

  "I know."

  When he didn't move, she noticed his raised eyebrow and the hint of a flirtatious grin playing at one side of his mouth. Usually, this heralded a how about we just forget about all of the stupid things we said to each other last night moment.

  Not this time.

  She narrowed her eyes and continued, "Seriously. The absolute worst place you could be right now is standing between me and the coffeemaker."

  While part of her wanted to shove him out of the way, she'd be lying if she didn't admit that there was a tiny part of her, miniscule really, that was hoping he'd fling her over his shoulder and take her back upstairs.

  "We're out."

  Looking over his shoulder into the kitchen, she saw that the crystal-clean coffeepot was indeed sitting cold and empty on the kitchen counter, surrounded by the boys' dirty breakfast dishes.

  Caffeine-deprived wife throttles husband. News at ten.

  Before she had a chance to react, Paul closed the gap between them. He was standing so close, she could feel his chest rise and fall against her rapidly beating heart.

  Bristling, she drew in a breath and moved her head back as far as she could, unable to focus on anything but his eyes that were riveted on hers—until they dropped to her mouth.

  The chemistry that used to flow between them like lava surged to the surface, evaporating Claire's defenses. With questions flying through her mind, she had to force her hands not to reach up and grip his shoulders. His big, strong, muscular shoulders.

  Did I remember to brush my teeth?

  Divorce? What was I thinking?

  I wonder where I can get coffee on sale this morning?

  He started lowering his face.

  Just as she closed her eyes, thinking of nothing but his mouth and how much she missed what he used to do with it, he whispered, "Is there something you want to tell me, Imp?"

  Claire's eyes popped open. Feeling a little hazy, she started to ask, "Wha…?"

  Not budging, he simply raised an eyebrow and waited for her to reply.

  So much for lava.

  Composing herself, she edged around him and stepped into the foyer as she clipped, "Why yes, there is."

  For reasons unbeknownst to her, Claire began speaking in the same chirpy tone used by tour-boat guides on the Chicago River.

  "I'm happy to inform you that you are free to reenter the workplace at your earliest possible convenience, as it appears that I have been relieved of my job."

  And on your right is the iconic Merchandise Mart. Opened in 1930, it has four million square feet of space.

  When he didn't respond, she asked, "No? Still not interested in pursuing gainful employment?"

  "Claire—"

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Unbelievable."

  Reaching down, she pulled on her ballet flats and yanked her purse from an antique coat hook affixed to the wall.

  "Where're you going?" he asked.

  "The unemployment office. After that, the grocery store for some coffee. But don't worry. I'll be sure to get it on sale." With that, she reached for the doorknob, but Paul's hand covered it first.

  In a flash, she imagined him smooching the stuffing out of her while his warm hands slid around her waist and up her back, pulling her close. "Stop it," she would mumble against his mouth, resisting the urge to sink her fingers into his thick, soft overgrown hair. He'd pull back, look into her eyes, and with every ounce of his molten appeal, say, "No worries. I'll take it from here."

  Instead, he yanked his hand out from under hers, backed a step or three away, and asked, "Why didn't you tell me last night?"

  "What difference would it have made?" Her voice sounded husky. Clearing her throat, she added, "You made it quite clear that I'm in this alone."

  Paul thought for a moment. "Yeah, I guess I did."

  When that appeared to be all he had to say on the subject, Claire announced, "Well, off I go. If you'll excuse me."

  She had just opened the front door when he asked, "How about we grab some breakfast first?"

  He leaned over and pulled a hoodie of hers off of the same hook her purse had occupied. "It's a little chilly out. Better put this on."

  Feeling leery, Claire did as she was told but protested, "I don't want to be stuck at unemployment all day. I ought to get in line."

  In response, Paul tilted his head toward the front porch. "That can wait. Come on. We need to talk."

  She stood firm. "I said everything I had to say last night, Paul."

  "Yeah, well, I didn't, Imp, so let's go."

  * * *

  The little brass bell on the door to the Cozy Cup, a local breakfast dive, chimed as Claire and Paul entered.

  A waitress, wearing a pink uniform that looked about as dated as the black-and-white checked floors and red sparkly vinyl seat covers, called out from behind the counter, "Sit anywhere you like. I'll be right with yuz."

  Claire, with her guard on high alert, was relieved when Paul didn't say a word to her since they left the house. Sliding into the opposite side of a booth from him, she pulled a menu off of a little metal holder that was flush against the wall in between the napkin holder and a little container that held a slim assortment of jams and jellies.

  Before long, the waitress appeared, clutching the handle of a pot filled to the brim with steaming caffeinated goodness. "Coffee for you, folks?"

  Thank you, Jesus.

  Turning the mug before her right side up, Claire spied the woman's nametag. "Thanks, Peg."

  The waitress rewarded her with a pink-frosted smile before looking at Paul.

  He put his hand over his cup. "I'm good, thanks."

  "Ah, ok. Suit yourself. Ready to order, or do you need a few minutes?"

  "I'm ready," Claire announced without bothering to look at her husband. She had, after all, skipped dinner the night before and was famished.

  "What can I getcha?"

  "Blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon."

  Peg set the coffee down and scribbled on her pad. When she redirected her gaze to Paul, he squinted at the menu. "Uh…I'll have the special. Eggs over easy. Rye toast."

  "Ok. Be back in a bit."

  Claire leaned over her coffee and blew on it while Paul started to verbalize his financially wired stream of consciousness, assuring her that all was well. At least for a couple of months.

  "Seriously. We're fine." He seemed to convince himself.

  I wouldn't go that far.

  He repeated it eight more times over the next ten minutes while delivering a detailed assessment of their familial balance sheet. By the time her pancakes arrived, she was almost ready to buy his line about the indefinite break sprawling in front of her being more of a fully funded sabbatical rather than the non-income generating abyss that it was.

  Images of the unfinished manuscripts she had abandoned after the boys arrived swirled in her head, filling the space that used to be cluttered with little more than deadlines and project plans.

  Awash in guarded optimism, she ran he
r finger around the rim of her now-empty coffee mug.

  "So…" she started. "Was that all you wanted to talk about?"

  Paul took a sip of his ice water. In a hushed voice, he continued the first conversation they'd had in she didn't know how long that didn't require both sides to pull on boxing gloves.

  "When I lost my job," he started, "my paycheck went toward paying for the boys' day care and the sitters. Yours took care of most everything else."

  Claire nodded. Nothing to argue with there.

  He continued, "When I uncovered what Ed was doing with other people's money—well, you remember. Then Mike, of all people, turned on me."

  Hunching his shoulders together as if he had just caught a chill, he continued, "Had me blacklisted. Killed my prospects."

  When he stopped and looked at Claire, his eyes were clouded with bitterness, hurt, and betrayal—much like when it first happened.

  And then again when she'd leveled him with that scorching performance review a while back. But with the house looking and (worse) smelling like a locker room and the kitchen in a constant state of nutritional bankruptcy (save for a box of corn flakes), who could blame her?

  But things between them hadn't been the same since. She regarded him with little more than disdain, and he made a point of keeping his distance, physically and emotionally. In essence, they were barely going through the motions for the boys' sake.

  Go us.

  Thinking of the vow she had made to herself to not stay in a loveless marriage as her parents had, she squirmed in her seat and started idly tearing off bits of her napkin and collecting them into a small pile.

  "That was a long time ago, Stretch."

  The term of endearment rolled out of her mouth before she could stop it. She scrunched her face into a grimace.

  Way to keep that guard up.

  Still, the dark cloud that had settled over him seemed to lift a little at the sound of it.

  "Ed's probably still in jail," Claire continued. "They did arrest him, didn't they?"

  Paul smirked and in a quiet voice said, "No, they didn't, and he's not."

  It was Claire's turn to shiver. "How do you know?"

  Sitting back in his seat, he raised his eyebrows and said, "Because I saw him at the cross-country parents' meeting over at Knollwood yesterday."

  Feeling her jaw drop, Claire managed to ask, "Are you serious? He doesn't work there, does he? Doesn't that school run background checks? I told you we should've sent Luke to St. Patrick's."

  Paul held up his hand. "Turns out, it wasn't Ed. Last I heard, he fled the country. But he's got a twin. They're identical."

  Unimpressed, Claire sat back and frowned while he continued, wondering what this had to do with anything.

  "Here we are," Peg sang out as she placed their orders on the table in front of them. "Can I get you anything else?"

  When they both shook their heads, she placed a check on the table and waved to a new customer who had just walked through the door. "Be right with ya."

  Claire didn't realize how hungry she was until she shoved a forkful of hot, buttery pancakes in her mouth. Stifling a moan, she listened as Paul kept talking.

  "So yeah, Ed's twin is the new coach. Replaced Burt. Started last year. I hear he's pretty good."

  With a shrug, Paul poked at his over-easy eggs with a piece of toast and added, "He's actually a pretty nice guy. I introduced myself. I didn't tell him about, you know, but he knew who I was."

  Still frowning, she asked, "What do you mean?"

  "Remember when I found out all my old high school records were broken?"

  Um…

  "Well, he's the one who broke 'em."

  She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand, and studied his expression before venturing, "Is there a point to this story?"

  He shot her a look that landed somewhere between annoyed and hurt.

  With another shrug, he jabbed at his hash browns with his fork. "Seeing Ed, or who I thought was Ed, brought up a lot of bad memories."

  He set his fork down and scrubbed his face with his hands, as if trying to erase every last one of them. "That's all."

  When he raised his eyes to hers, she somehow knew what was coming next. Her stomach clenching, she suddenly regretted wolfing down her pancakes.

  "Listen, hon…"

  Great. Now I'm "hon."

  That's what her parents used to call each other when they were pretending to be nice—like when they had guests over or they didn't want the girls to know that they had been fighting. But she and Kate always knew when they'd been fighting. The icy coldness between them was hard to miss, as was their mother's vindictive spending sprees that always came after. Ironically, some of Claire's favorite outfits were the bi-product of their especially bitter altercations.

  "I do know how hard it's been for you," she heard Paul continue. "But if you can just find a job you really like, I'm sure you'll be happy."

  With a wry chuckle, Claire replied, "Right back at ya. Hon."

  She snatched a section of the newspaper sitting on the table next to his plate.

  There's got to be an ad in here somewhere for a divorce attorney.

  As if reading her mind, Paul narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice. "I do love you, Imp."

  Claire couldn't manage more than a glance at his chest.

  I don't believe you.

  With her heart feeling like a big hunk of mud, she tore open the Lifestyle section, looking for her favorite advice column.

  Very much hoping to see a reply to a letter she had submitted the week before, she was disappointed to find nothing more than a call for pasta recipes for an upcoming pre–Chicago Marathon carb-loading contest. After scanning it, she sensed movement on the other side of the booth and snuck a glance at Paul, who was folding up the Sports section while scooting out of the booth.

  Without looking at her, he asked, "Shall we?"

  He glanced at his watch as he stood. "You can pick up Jonah. He'll love that."

  Ten minutes later, Claire approached a horde of other mothers waiting to pick up their little ones as they huddled near the St. Matthias kindergarten door. Some were idly pushing baby strollers back and forth while chatting. Some, Claire noted with no small amount of concern, were paying more attention to their phones than their toddlers who were attempting to scale the nearby playground equipment with reckless abandon.

  Not recognizing a single face, she looked for a spot away from the crowd but close enough to have a clear view of the door. A minute later, the teacher burst through it, took one look at her, and announced loudly, "Jonah, your mommy's here!" as if Claire herself was on the cover of People magazine just last week. The other mothers stepped back and looked at her, clearly unimpressed.

  Relieved to see her youngest barreling in her direction, she leaned down to catch him in a hug. Clutching his backpack and his still-wet finger-painting project, she led him onto the sidewalk.

  Once home, she asked Paul, who was stripping the beds upstairs, "Ok, now what?"

  Pressing around her with his arms full of jumbled linens, he replied, "I've gotta get a load of laundry going, prep for a Boy Scout committee meeting—"

  Claire held up her hand to silence him. "I'm going to unemployment."

  * * *

  After spotting the Illinois Department of Employment Services sign on the side of a nondescript, brick one-story building, she pulled into the parking lot on Diversey Avenue, eager to get that uniquely unpleasant task out of the way. She soon found herself sitting at a Formica table with other defeated souls filling out applications for government aid with stubby eraser-less pencils. Numbly, she filled in the forms, insensitive to the shame she supposed others felt. After all, she had done her best, and it still wasn't enough.

  Right?

  She spent the next three hours scanning the crowd for any familiar faces, bracing herself in the event she ran into any spiteful former employees, all from the discomfort of a government-issued folding cha
ir.

  The wait was interminable and held little reward at the end.

  "Claire Mendez," an expressionless woman announced in a voice that barely made it over the din of the other applicants. If Claire's cell phone battery hadn't died, she would have missed her turn all together.

  After giving her paperwork a cursory glance, the woman pulled out an information packet and circled an 800 number on the front of it.

  "This is the number you call in two weeks to file your claim."

  Claire was incredulous. "That's it?"

  "Everything you need to know is in there," the state employee replied, pointing to the packet. "Have a nice day."

  On her way out, Claire scribbled How about installing a drive-through window? on a scrap of paper and dropped it in the suggestion box bolted to the wall.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, Paul had apparently retrieved the remaining boys, because the foyer had once again transformed into an obstacle course of backpacks, instrument cases, and shoes.

  Making her way to the kitchen, she saw that the pantry door hung open, as did the refrigerator. Her youngest was seated at the table, while the older three prowled the kitchen like young cougars hungry for fresh kill. With a vague recollection of Paul mentioning something at breakfast about their monthly grocery bill being bigger than their mortgage payment, Claire stood in the doorway. She watched, agape, as Paul maneuvered between the boys, pulling frozen snacks from the microwave and leftovers out of the oven before pouring drinks into glasses lined up on the counter.

  If he won't go back to accounting, he could always be a short-order cook.

  Catching his eye for a quick moment, she nodded up at the clock on the wall with an expression that read, "You're feeding them now?"

  Paul acknowledged her inquiry. "It's like eating Chinese food," he explained over the sound of clanking dishes and scooting chairs. "They'll be hungry again in an hour."

  Sure enough, they managed to polish off a dinner of salad, baked potatoes, and barbecue chicken that he had made on the grill an hour later.

  Feeling like a stranger in her own home, Claire offered to clean up afterward while the older three boys tackled their homework and Paul took Jonah to his soccer practice. It was almost ten o'clock by the time she sat on the family room floor across from him and pulled a laundry basket, full of newly dried items, into the space between them.