Mrs. Perfect

by Jane Porter

  Susan agrees. “And we all do different things for lunch. Some days I go home, some days I eat here. Some days everyone has client lunches—”

  “Like me,” Mel answers, grabbing her coat and a briefcase and dashing toward the door. “Gotta go, and it was nice to meet you, Taylor.”

  Robert and Allie decide to go grab a bite and head out together, leaving Susan and me alone.

  Following Susan’s lead, I pick up my bag lunch and carry it to the conference table. As we eat, we chat about our respective Thanksgiving plans. Susan’s taking her kids to her sister’s in Olympia. I share that we’ll be packing to move. Susan wants to know where we’re moving to, and I tell her I don’t know, that I haven’t found a place yet.

  The phone rings, and Susan leaves the table to check the number. She doesn’t recognize it and lets it go into voice mail. “During lunch I only pick up if it’s Marta, one of the team members, or the kids’ school,” she explains, sitting back down.

  “How long have you worked here?” I ask as she peels the lid off her blueberry yogurt.

  “Couple years now.”

  “You like it here?”

  “It’s terrific. The team is terrific. I honestly can’t complain.”

  I notice she doesn’t mention Marta specifically. “No problems with Marta?”

  Susan’s expression turns incredulous. “Problem with Marta? Heavens, no. She’s . . . she’s . . .” Her hands lift, outstretch. “She’s brave. She’s smart. She’s . . . incredible. I wouldn’t have my new job if it weren’t for her. She helped make it happen. She believed in me. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

  Susan must see my look of disbelief because she hastens to add, “Now that doesn’t mean she can’t be demanding. She has really high standards and works very hard, and sometimes it can be a bit much. But if you’re ever overwhelmed or feeling pinched, just talk to her. Marta’s the type you can talk to. Straight up. No games. She will listen, I promise.”

  The phone rings again, and Susan once more goes to her desk to check the number. This time she picks up. “Marta, hi, how’s New York?”

  I can’t help listening as Susan chats with Marta and then picks up a pen and scribbles some notes. “I’ll get you on that earlier flight. . . . No problem, and I’ll line up the car service, too. . . . Okay. No worries. . . . Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Conversation finished, Susan writes a few more notes to herself and then returns to the table. “You said you haven’t found a place yet?” she asks, dipping her spoon into the yogurt.

  “No, and we have to be out of the house by the end of the month. Thank God Thanksgiving is late this year. Otherwise we’d be moving in between bites of turkey and cranberry.”

  Susan chuckles. “I’ve done that before. No fun. So what kind of place are you looking for?”

  I tell her it has to be relatively affordable (meaning cheap) and preferably in the area because I really, really don’t want the girls to change schools.

  She understands. She has kids at Points, too. “You know, there’s a house on my street for rent. Nothing fancy. But I know the owners and they’re looking for a year lease and they want someone trustworthy, someone who won’t be having loud parties and lots of people over.”

  I think about my life and can’t imagine loud parties or lots of people over. “How big is it?”

  “Three bedrooms. Two baths. Decent-size living room. Kitchen’s old, though, never remodeled, but the backyard’s fully fenced and there’s a nice little carport.”

  A fenced backyard and a carport. That’s where I am now. Unbelievable.

  “Do you know how much the rent is?” I ask, biting into the second half of my very boring turkey sandwich. I hate turkey sandwiches. I don’t know why I made me one. Penance, maybe?

  “Eighteen hundred a month, plus first and last.”

  Not cheap for a rental that sounds like a dump. “The house is close?”

  “Maybe a mile from here and within walking distance to the school.”

  I put down my sandwich. “So the girls wouldn’t take the bus?”

  “No. Unless you drove them, they would just walk together. My kids walk to school. Lots of the neighborhood kids do.”

  I feel a pang. I’m saying good-bye not just to our house, but to our neighborhood and our bus stop. I think about our bus stop and all the moms who stand around with their cups of coffee and their dogs on leashes. If we move, we won’t be part of that stop anymore. We won’t be rushing to meet the bus. By moving, our whole routine will change.

  Everything will change.

  A lump fills my throat. I won’t be able to eat another bite now, and I put the sandwich in the bag and crumple it up.

  “Do you want to go see it?” Susan asks, dropping her plastic spoon in her empty yogurt carton. “It’s not far. We could zip over and back in less than ten minutes.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. Come on.”

  The house is a square, squat 1950s-era brick house with the original windows and a moss-covered roof. The front lawn is green but shorn short, and the shrubs have all been pruned into small, hard mounds. One or two cedars stand sentrylike along the driveway. The carport is metal and gloomy. The interior (or what I can see through the living room window) is gloomy. The front door with its screen door is a faded barn red.

  It could be worse.

  I know it could be worse. And it is just three blocks from school.

  Okay, it’s on the wrong side of Clyde Hill’s hill, the side that isn’t officially Clyde Hill, just Bellevue, but lots of new houses are being built up and down the street. If you look past all the construction vehicles, you can see Mt. Rainier in the distance and a span of the Cascades along with some of downtown Bellevue’s skyscrapers.

  Susan drove us in her car, and I walk back to her car and glance down the street. “You’re sure the owners want a year’s lease?”

  She nods. “They’re going to tear this down and build a new house, but it’ll take a year to get the plans done and all the permits approved. They don’t want it sitting empty for the next year if they can make some money on it—” She breaks off as a huge truck lumbers by. “It won’t be the quietest street. There is a lot of construction going on. It drives me a little batty.”

  “Where do you live? Which house is yours?”

  She points to the end of the street. “The little blue one.” She makes a face as if seeing it through my eyes. “Someday it’ll be someone’s tear-down, but we’re happy with it. At least, I’m happy with it. The kids want a bigger house. I think they’re embarrassed that we live in a shoebox when their friends all have nice houses, but they don’t understand. This is nice. Far nicer than anything I had growing up.”

  “I understand.” And I do. The little shoeboxes on this street still cost a million dollars. Bellevue’s not cheap. Great schools and proximity to the Seattle bridges come with a hefty price.

  We head back to Z Design’s office, and although it was weird this morning pulling up to Marta’s house and walking up her drive for my first day of work, I’m not uncomfortable now. I don’t know if it’s Susan’s company or her confidence, but as we walk through the door, I smile at Robert and Allie, who are also back and working at their desks.

  Inside, Susan takes my coat and tells me to go ahead and check the phone for voice messages.

  I sit at her desk and, lifting the phone, use the code Susan gave me to retrieve messages. Seven. I write down everything I think I need to write down before playing the next message but save each message just in case I get some of the details wrong.

  In between answering the phone and making requested copies and faxes, I listen as Susan teaches me how to do the monthly billing. She shows me the program she uses and how to invoice and how to show a payment is made.

  Finances aren’t my strong suit, but I take notes and remind myself that Susan didn’t know how to do this, either, when she first started. I can learn. I can learn an
ything. I just have to be patient.

  We’re practicing making fake invoices when the office door opens and shuts. I’m so used to the team coming and going that I don’t even look up anymore, so it’s a shock to hear my name.

  “Mrs. Young?”

  My head jerks up, and I look straight into Eva Zinsser’s wide green eyes. “Eva.”

  “What are you doing here, Mrs. Young? Are you working on the auction?”

  She’s so excited, I think, so pleased to see me here. I open my mouth to answer, but before I can speak, Susan is sliding off her reading glasses. “Eva, I don’t know if your mom told you, but Mrs. Young is working here now.”

  Eva’s jaw drops. “She is?”

  Susan nods and smiles broadly. “Isn’t it wonderful? She’s your mom’s new secretary.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The positive is that I survived my first day as Marta Zinsser’s secretary.

  The negative is that tomorrow I will still be Marta Zinsser’s secretary.

  But I’m focusing on the positives as I drive away at five-fifteen: that I don’t have to go back until tomorrow, and I’ve also got the opportunity to go see the rental house on Susan’s street.

  After lunch, Susan tracked down the man who owns the house, and after he and I talked for a few minutes, he invited me to come see the house on my way home from work.

  The squat brick rental house is just as forlorn on the inside as it is on the outside, but there are three bedrooms and two working bathrooms and a nice fireplace in the living room, which makes me think we could have Christmas here. I don’t know why I always look at a house and try to imagine it at Christmas. Where would the tree go, and how could we hang the girls’ velvet stockings?

  “I understand you want to rent for a year,” I say, returning to the kitchen, where he’s leaning against a counter waiting for me. The kitchen must once have been pale yellow, but it is now more putty gray.

  “Six months to a year,” he agrees.

  I cross my arms, thinking. School will be out in six months. The girls and I could move to join Nathan as soon as school ends. If Nathan lets us.

  “Could we do a six-month lease, with maybe the option to renew for another six months?”

  The owner, a man in his fifties, looks at me. “That would probably work. Are you building a house, too?”

  We have a house. A big beautiful dream house, just like the Barbie dream house I had when I was a little girl. Three stories and lots of rooms.

  I shake my head. “My husband is working for a new company. There’s talk that we might need to move this summer.”

  “Six months would be fine, then. Just let me know a month in advance if you won’t renew the lease.”

  I nod.

  “The house is available now. I just need first and last month’s rent, with a five-hundred-dollar cleaning deposit, and you could start moving in anytime. I wouldn’t charge any extra if you moved in before the first of the month.”

  Which is helpful, but doing the math in my head, I realize I’d need $4,100 to move in. I don’t have that. “Is the cleaning fee really necessary? I understand you’ll be tearing the house down . . . ?”

  “Yes, but if I have to rent it out after you, it’ll have to be clean, and you’d be surprised at how most people leave a rental house.”

  I want to tell him I’m not like that, that I’d never trash a place and leave it, but he doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know that for the past twelve years I’ve been the ideal wife and mom, cleaning, organizing, making things beautiful and comfortable for my family.

  I glance over my shoulder toward the small dining room, which opens onto the living room. Our dining room table will never fit in the dining room here. Our living room couch would take up the entire living room. None of our furniture will fit here. The scale is all off. Our furniture is oversize and grand. Big pieces that make a statement: This is who we are. This is what we have. . . .

  Our furniture will have to go, too.

  I ball my hands, try not to think of what we’re losing. It doesn’t help to focus on the loss. It’s the future I’m concerned with. “If I give you a deposit, would it be possible for you to hold the house for me? I’ll need a little time to get the money together—”

  “Is money a problem?” he interrupts nervously. “Not to be rude, but I don’t want to get into a situation where people can’t make their payments. I don’t like evicting people. It’s no fun being the bad guy.”

  “I understand.” I ball my hands tighter against my rib cage. “Money’s not a problem. It’s just that my husband’s on the road right now, and I’ll need him to send you a check.” I hate lying, but I’m not about to admit that I can’t come up with $5,000, and I want this house. We need this house. It’s close to school, close to downtown Bellevue, and close to where I work.

  “It’s such a great house for the little girls,” I add before he can refuse me. “They’ll be able to walk to school, and they already have friends on the street. It’ll be such a happy place for them.”

  He takes a deep breath and exhales noisily. He doesn’t like being put in this position, but I don’t like it, either. I don’t like begging. I don’t like pleading. I don’t like needing handouts and favors from anyone.

  “Fine,” he says, burying his hands deep in his trouser pockets. “You could have a couple days. But if I don’t have the check by Monday for first, last, and cleaning deposit, I won’t hold it any longer.”

  “Thank you.” I beam at him, giving him my full megawatt smile. “That’s great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You’ll have that check soon. I promise.”

  Driving home, I vow I’ll get the money we need for that house. I’ve got four days to come up with $4,000. I know what’s sitting in my checking account, but I don’t dare use any of it since I have to pay Annika’s salary tomorrow, as well as groceries and the normal household bills like water and electricity, garbage and phone.

  We could have another yard sale. This time we could put more out front, drag furniture outside, along with much of my closet. But I cringe at the idea of selling our furniture out from beneath us.

  It seems nasty and desperate.

  But I am desperate. And my once enormous pride is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Everything right now revolves around cash. Getting it, making it, conserving it.

  I let the gardener go last week. He won’t be back, but I still owe him a check. I tried to let the cleaning lady go, too, but she was furious and said I must give her two weeks’ notice, so she’s coming another two weeks and then not again.

  So I need $4,000 to get us into a new house. Four thousand is the difference between being on the streets and settled somewhere close for the next six months.

  Pulling into the garage, I realize the kind of sale I’m talking about isn’t a yard sale but an estate sale, one of those where you hire a company to come in and empty your house.

  At least 10 percent of everything would go to the liquidation company—something I hate to see happen—but wouldn’t that be better than trying to move it, or store it, or sell pieces off one by one ourselves?

  Or maybe we do sell it ourselves, but not piece by piece.

  Maybe—and I start smiling—maybe there’s someone who loves my good taste so much, she’s willing to buy not just my house, but my furniture and lifestyle.

  I turn off the ignition and sit in the garage, headlights illuminating the drywall.

  Why not? The furniture was designed for this house. Every Kreiss table, every Lee Jofa upholstered couch, every Brunschwig & Fils covered chair, was bought for a special place for a certain room for just this house.

  Shouldn’t the furniture and glory stay with the house?

  I reach for my cell phone, call Patti. She answers immediately, even though I can tell she’s in the middle of feeding her brood. “I was just thinking about you,” Patti says, raising her voice to be heard over the din in the background. “How are you? How’s your week?
”

  “Fine, you know, as fine as can be.” I hesitate, anticipate my request, and hate that I’m actually grinning. “Patti, I have a favor to ask. I don’t know if it’s some-thing you could do or not, or if it’d make you uncomfortable.”

  “Of course. Anything.” Patti must be walking into a different room because it’s suddenly quiet on the other end of the line. “Tell me.”

  “I’ve decided to sell almost everything in the house—”

  “Taylor, no!”

  “No,” I stop her, “this is a good thing. It’d actually be less painful for me to sell everything in one fell swoop than try to figure out how to save this or that. When we move we’re better off starting fresh. We’ll take the girls’ things, of course, and maybe the furniture from my room and a few pieces from the family room for the new house, but otherwise, I’m going to sell it all.”

  “So what can I do?”

  “Let Monica know.”

  Patti’s silent a moment. “But won’t she just gloat?”

  “Not if she thinks she can’t have it.” I pause. “That’s why I need your help. If you can just drop it into a conversation somehow, that some big New York interior designer is desperate to buy up everything for a house he’s furnishing for a client in Portland—”

  “Taylor!” Patti’s choking on laughter. “Monica will hate it. She’ll die. She’ll want to buy everything herself.”

  My lopsided smile grows. “Exactly.” I open my car door, slide out one leg. “It’s a shame everything’s going so quickly, too. The designer will be here next Wednesday. He’s paying cash. Twenty grand.”

  “My God, Taylor, you’re wicked.” She’s still spluttering with laughter. “And brilliant, and dammit, I’m proud of you. You know she’ll buy it all.”

  I slide out of the car and close the door behind me. “Cash,” I say delicately. “Twenty-two thousand.”

  “Twenty-five, for the pain and humiliation of being stabbed in the back, and you can thank me when you put the check in the bank.”

  Friday morning before I leave for work, the idea that I have a job still achingly new, I shoot Nathan an e-mail, tell him I’ve found a house for us for the next six months to a year. I tell him I have a job, too, and everything’s great and not to worry. The girls are doing great. We’re all doing great. And I know his new job will eventually be great, too.