by Jane Porter
Three hundred thousand just to pay for all the things we’ve bought in the past, never mind what we’ll need in the future.
I’m beginning to see the whole picture, the one Nathan’s been trying to make me see for a while.
I’m also beginning to see that Nathan can’t do this alone. I’m going to need a job, too.
It’s a bold decision and a good plan, but getting a job won’t be that easy. At least, not getting a job doing anything serious that will help pay serious bills. Sure, I could work in retail. I could probably get a job today at Nordstrom’s as a sales associate. I know fashion. I’m good with people. But being a sales clerk, whether it’s at Nordstrom’s or Ann Taylor, won’t make a dent in the debt.
Each night for a week, I scan the classifieds. I overhear some of the moms at school talk about various home businesses. Tupperware. Creative Memories. Pampered Chef. Candles. Erotic toys. I look into several of the different opportunities but am more depressed by the opportunity than encouraged, especially when I discover nearly all require some kind of up-front financial investment.
What I need to do is find a good part-time position in my field. I studied communications and public relations in college. I worked for a PR firm here in Seattle after I married Nathan (not that I’d want to work for them again since all the owner did was hit on me nonstop), but there’s no reason I can’t get back into PR.
Confronted by a dwindling checking account and the sickening realization that we have no savings, I decide I need to put together a new résumé, a very good résumé, and make immediate, albeit painful, budget cuts.
I reduce the housecleaner from weekly to biweekly. She cries that she can’t afford to be cut back. I calmly remind her that just months ago when she insisted on a pay raise, she threatened to quit if she didn’t get it because she had so many families who wanted her, and they were all paying more.
I call the gardener, and I cut him back from weekly to once a month. He’s upset, but fortunately he’s cursing in a foreign language and I don’t understand, and with a polite thank-you, I hang up.
Annika’s a different story. It’s hard to cut back her hours, especially with Nathan gone, but she’s a huge cash drain, and if I keep her at her current hours, we’ll have nothing for groceries soon.
Annika also complains at the reduction of hours. I offer to keep her at the same number of hours we’ve had her but reduce the pay. Grumbling, she opts to take fewer hours, and when she presses for an explanation, I tell her that with Nathan away I want to spend more time with the girls—which is true, as the children are missing Nathan terribly. They’re all more cranky than usual, and Jemma is particularly volatile.
Bottom line, I’d rather die than let everyone know we’re struggling financially. People would talk. And people can be so cruel.
As today is one of the days Annika doesn’t work, I now sit with the girls in the dining room. They’re tackling their homework while I face my laptop and slowly try to put together a résumé. It would have been nice if I could have found a copy of my last résumé, but no such luck. We’ve had so many moves since then that I’ve either tossed it out or buried it in a box in the attic.
It takes me three hours to put together the pieces of degrees, internships, and jobs held since graduating from USC as a communications major. I had two internships in Los Angeles, one while attending USC and one the summer after I graduated. The first was in radio (sales and advertising, which I hated; radio sales is the worst job in the world), and the second was for a talent agency. I loved the talent agency and the perks now and then tossed my way—parties, premieres, fetching coffee for bored stars and coked-up celebrities. Or maybe it wasn’t the celebrities all coked up. Maybe that was my boss. Either way, it was fun and rather glam for a recent college grad. The only downside was they didn’t pay, and I needed a paycheck.
My first paying job in Los Angeles was for a party-planning company. I look them up this afternoon online to get their details for the résumé, and I’m surprised to see they’re no longer in business. Zelda’s company, Invite, did fancy parties that we then worked hard to get good press for. One of Zelda’s parties—a baby shower for a B-list star (but attended by three A-list actresses)—was featured in the April issue of InStyle, and for a month the phones didn’t stop ringing. Zelda was over the moon. We all got a big fat bonus, and then later when the phones stopped ringing Zelda wanted the bonus back. I found out six months later that I was the only one who gave it back.
Nathan in the meantime had gotten a job in Seattle and was already working up there. We were dating long-distance. I hated being in a long-distance relationship, but I didn’t pressure him. I knew how his mom felt about me. I also knew she was trying to introduce him to other girls, rich girls, because as we all know, rich girls have such great values.
Nathan surprised me by proposing on Christmas Eve. We were at his family’s house in Hillsborough. When Nathan dropped to one knee, I swear to God, his mother screamed. It wasn’t a happy scream, either. I’ll never forget her grabbing at his arm, pleading for him to get up.
I guess it is kind of funny in hindsight. At the time, I was humiliated. I cried when I accepted Nathan’s proposal and slipped the ring on my finger. But I was crying for the wrong reasons. I was crying because I knew I’d never be good enough for him, yet I loved him so much that I couldn’t refuse him. Nathan was the first person to ever make me feel really beautiful, not just on the outside, but on the inside, too.
Maybe it’s still not so funny.
I stop typing, close my iBook, take a deep breath and then another.
I look up, and Jemma’s watching me. I give her a shaky smile. “You miss Dad,” she says.
I nod. I do.
“Why did he have to take that dumb job in Omaha? Why didn’t he get another job here?”
All the girls are looking at me now. I gather my pages of scribbled notes, stack them into a neat pile, and lay them on top of my computer. “It was a good opportunity. He’s working hard to take care of us.”
“Still,” she snorts. “It’s lame.”
Brooke’s expression darkens, and she shoves her spelling packet at Jemma. “Don’t call Dad lame!”
“Well, he is if he expects us to move to Omaha!”
“I’d go to Omaha,” Tori pipes up.
Jemma’s jaw drops. “You would?”
Brooke’s lips compress. “I would, too.”
“You’d leave all your friends here and go someplace where you know no one?”
Her sisters nod, and Jemma turns on me. “Would you, Mom?”
I study my girls. I feel as though I’m seeing them for the first time in a long time. “Omaha wouldn’t have been my first choice, no.”
“See!” Jemma crows.
“But,” I add emphatically, “I don’t like living apart from Daddy. I love Daddy. I want us to be together. We should be together.”
“So are we going to move to Omaha?” Brooke asks.
I stand up, move away from the table, as if I can escape the wave of panic that’s always threatening me. “I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see. Depends if Daddy likes the company. If the job makes him really happy, I think we’ll be happier being with him.” And then I head to the kitchen. I want to eat something. Something bad. Something that will fill me up and make me warm and take away the pain.
Instead, I eat a nonfat light blueberry yogurt and make a cup of tea, using my instant-hot tap, and call Patti.
For five minutes, Patti and I discuss the auction and compare notes. How is procurement going? What about entertainment and decorations? Are the save the date cards now at the printers?
Business concluded, we switch gears. “Are you going to make book club this week?” Patti asks, her voice rising to be heard over a loud whirring noise.
“What are you doing?” I ask as the noise ends abruptly.
“Making smoothies. The boys have football practice from five until eight. Right in the middle of dinner hour.�
�� She hits the blender button again and shouts above the din. “So what did you say about book club?”
I wait for the blender to stop. “I don’t think I can go this time. Nathan’s away, and I don’t have child care.”
“It’s probably time to replace Annika. She’s becoming less and less reliable.”
“Yeah,” I answer, unwilling to admit that I’m the one who has severely curtailed Annika’s hours rather than the other way around.
“In that case, just bring the girls here.” The sound of Patti scraping the blender competes with her voice. “Our kids get along great. It’ll kind of be like The Brady Bunch. My two boys and girl with your three girls.”
“I don’t want to create work for Don. Tori’s still a baby. She can be a lot of work.”
“Not to worry. I’ll tell Suze she’s the baby-sitter for the night and will promise her five dollars for helping watch Tori. Suze will love it. It’ll make her feel like one of the big kids.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. Oops, it’s late. I better run. If the boys arrive at practice late, the coach makes them do extra laps.”
“Bye.”
“Bye. See you tomorrow night. Bring the kids early and we’ll drive to Jen’s together.”
“Deal.”
After I hang up, I start downstairs but end up pausing on the curving staircase to look out the tall, multipaned window that stretches from the second floor to the entry.
It’s so gray and drizzly. Typical November day, but it’s not November yet, just the middle of October, and I’m not ready for the winter rain. Not ready for the months of dark clouds and gloom.
Grabbing my raincoat, I tell the girls I’m heading outside to get the mail.
Brooke looks up from her math workbook. “But it’s raining.”
I tug on my black slicker and pull up the hood. “I know, but if I wait for the rain to stop, I might have to wait all year.”
The girls laugh, and there’s something so innocent about their laughter that a lump fills my throat. I’ve tried so hard to protect them since they were born, tried to keep them from knowing about bad people and bad feelings, but it hits me almost violently that I can’t protect them from the truth. Can’t protect them from reality. And the reality is, we’re in trouble. Big trouble. And it’s not just money trouble, either.
The lump in my throat grows bigger, and I quickly head out the door, walk down the drive, my head bent beneath the chilly rain. I splash through puddles, my leather flats so low that my wheat-colored cords are getting drenched at the hem.
I use my key to open the mailbox and drag out the armful of mail. Catalogs, catalogs, magazines, and four inches of statements and bills.
I close the mailbox door, lock it shut, and stand in the rain, flipping through the statements and bills. The envelopes arriving aren’t just white. A handful of the envelopes are pastel hued, shades of pink and purple and green. I open one of the colored envelopes with dread. I’m right to be worried. It’s from a collection agency. They’re threatening legal action. I know now what’s in the other colored envelopes.
And it’s not good.
Chapter Ten
The next morning I wake early, hoping if I call Nathan he’ll pick up. He doesn’t answer. I hang up furious and frustrated. But only seconds after hanging up, I dial again. “Nathan, we love you and miss you. Hope you can come home for a visit soon. I know the girls would love to have you watch them play in another game before the season ends.”
I hang up once more. This time I bury my face in my hands and rage silently.
Maybe I did spend too much. Maybe I wasn’t listening closely enough. But I didn’t lie to him. I’ve never lied to him. He has no right punishing me like this.
He was the one who lied to me for over six months.
He was the one pretending to go to work even though he had no job. So where did he go for all those months? What did he do? Play golf? Internet solitaire? Gamble at Diamond Lil’s?
Yet as angry as I am, I know I can’t blame him, and I can’t give up. I won’t lose this house. I won’t have my children embarrassed. I won’t let us become a source of gossip and laughter for the neighbors.
Pulling my hair back into a ponytail, I take a deep breath and open the Word file containing my résumé.
For the next half hour, I work on polishing my résumé. Then, using last Sunday’s classifieds, I write a cover letter for six different jobs I think I could do.
For each job application, I double- and triple-check my cover letter for spelling and typing errors before printing the letter on pristine Crane parchment paper. Then I rework my résumé for each different application, trying to refocus my résumé’s objective statement to reflect what I could do for each company. Even to my eyes, my résumé looks sadly outdated. I haven’t held a paying job since before Jemma was born. Over ten years without employment. Twelve since my last job search.
Scary.
I’m still working when the phone rings. I grab for it, see that it’s Nathan.
“Hey, stranger,” I say, sitting back in my chair.
“Hey,” he answers, but his voice sounds strange. Strained. “I got your messages.”
“You don’t sound so good, Nathan.”
“Just homesick.”
“Then come home.”
“I wish I could.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Taylor . . .”
“I’m going to get a job, Nathan, and when I do, quit that job and come home. You’ll find another one here. We can make it work here—”
“I need to go, honey. Sorry.”
“Nathan—”
“My appointment arrived early, Taylor. I’m sorry. Give my love to the girls.” He hangs up.
I stare at the phone a moment before putting it down. What’s happening to my life? I feel as if I’m starting to lose my mind.
I take a breath, and another, trying to slow my crazy pulse. I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t want to feel this way.
With a shaking hand, I press print and my résumés start to churn out, one after the other.
I will find a job. I will help out. We will get through this.
While the résumés print, I go wake the girls and do the morning routine. Once the big girls are off to meet their bus, I dress Tori and then head to my room to get ready for the day.
In my closet, I spot a long honey suede skirt hanging in the back. I pull out the skirt and see tags still attached. The skirt’s been buried in my closet since last fall when I bought it brand new. I’ve never worn it, and I look at the tag. Michael Kors, $1,800.
With the way things are now, I’d take the skirt back if I could, but it was purchased in New York when I accompanied Nathan to a conference there last year. We stayed at the Four Seasons, ordered room service every morning to a tune of $75 a pop.
Play money. Monopoly money. That’s what it was. I’ve lived on my credit cards, rarely paying cash for anything. I had no idea that Nathan was living the same way. It didn’t cross my mind that we were living dangerously. That we could run out of money.
Tori wanders into my room, sucking her thumb. She’s got her favorite stuffed green frog beneath her arm, holding it close to her body. She outgrew her thumb and the frog a year ago. “Going to wear that?” she asks around her thumb, using her pinkie to point to the suede skirt.
I start to hang the skirt back up. “No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Like it.” She looks at me, her blue eyes so serious. “Wear it. With boots.”
Oh, my baby. I scoop her into my arms and hug her, kiss her. “Did you want to pick out a pair of boots for Mommy to wear?”
She nods and disappears into my closet. She’s always loved my shoes, and she takes her time finding black stack-heeled leather boots. The toe is slightly pointed like a cowboy boot, but the black leather shines and the heel is four inches high and sexy. “These,” she anno
unces, dragging the pair to me.
I sit on the chaise to put on stockings and tug on the boots. “You’ve got good taste.”
She stands in front of me as I finish dressing, watching as I pull an off-white sweater over my head and cinch the waist with a wide black leather belt highlighted by an enormous round buckle.
“Pretty,” she says approvingly as I comb my hair straight, leaving it loose.
I put down my brush. “You think so?” She nods soberly, and I nod back at her. “Mommy thinks Tori’s very pretty, too.”
She adjusts Froggie under her arm. “I look like Mommy.”
It’s all I can do to keep from pulling her into my arms again. I’m so scared for her, so scared for all of them, but I can’t let her see my fear. Nathan’s going to call. Nathan’s going to help me make everything right. “Yes, my darling girl, you look like Mommy and Brooke and Jemma. We’re a family.”
She nods once. “And Daddy.”
Nathan. Nathan, call. Nathan, please come see us, please come home. “And Daddy.”
I pick up my purse on the floor, not bothering to change it. It’s mink brown and doesn’t match my outfit, but suddenly I’m too tired and too busy to care. There are more important things on my mind, more important worries weighing on my heart.
It rains on the drive to drop Tori at preschool, rains during yard duty, rains during lunch duty, with no sign of letting up.
After lunch duty ends, I head to the office to copy and collate the bulletin. Lori and Kathleen aren’t working in the copy room with me today. Instead it’s a new face, a mom I haven’t met yet but who seems to struggle with everything from working the copy machine to stapling the pages in the right corner to counting out the bulletins for the various classrooms.
I’m still trying to sort out the bulletins when my cell phone vibrates. I don’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Young?”
“Yes?”
“This is Cottage Preschool. We have Tori still here. Your nanny didn’t show today, and we’ve tried her cell phone several times—”
