by Jane Porter
Sadly, my dad isn’t strong in the empathy suit and isn’t making this process any easier. “But why would she cut her hair off? What’s the matter with her?”
“Nothing’s the matter with her. She just wanted a change.”
“Well, it’s not flattering at all. She looks like a mouse.”
“Not like a mouse,” my mother corrects. “More like an orphan.”
“Yes,” my dad agrees. “A refugee.”
“Or like Little Orphan Annie,” Mom adds, now smiling tenderly at me. “Remember when we saw Little Orphan Annie at the Fifth Avenue theater, Marta? It was one of the first musicals I took you to.”
“I do remember.” I hated it. All those little orphans singing, and Annie with her disgustingly red, curly hair. It gave me the creeps.
My dad suddenly takes my arm. “Is that Bill Gates and Melinda?” he asks in a whisper.
“Yes.”
Dad’s shoulders straighten, and he looks like a retired officer. “Why didn’t you tell me they were here? We should be sitting, enjoying our meal, allowing them to finish their breakfast in peace.
“Sit, Marilyn,” he says to my mother, pulling out a chair for her and holding it while she sits down. “Now go get Eva,” he tells me, “and let’s act like a family that has some manners.”
I go outside to cajole Eva into returning. It’s a chilly morning, the air damp and cold, and even though Eva’s shivering, she doesn’t want to come back in.
“I knew I looked ugly,” she says glumly, seated on the cement planter by the front door, picking at the purple and green cabbage foliage around tiny purple pansies.
“You don’t look ugly. You look different.”
“Huh. Same thing.”
I smile down at her and riffle her hair, the dark ends wispy. My little gamine. Like a young Audrey Hepburn before Audrey Hepburn was pretty. I smile a bit more. “Come inside and eat. I need you there. Your grandma is going to drive me crazy.”
The mention of her grandmother reminds her of her humiliation. “Grandma thought I was a boy,” she says bleakly.
“Grandma’s losing her marbles.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Grandma has dementia, and little by little she’s losing her mind.”
Now Eva glares at me reproachfully. “That’s not nice. Grandma can’t help it. It’s the disease.”
“I know. But losing your mind isn’t nice, so we’re just going to love her anyway.”
We return to the dining room, and Mom and Dad are suddenly absolutely delightful company, and I know—because my dad keeps sneaking glances Bill’s way—it’s because we’re trying to impress the Gateses. Not that the Gateses even know we’re there.
Chapter Twenty
Monday morning, it’s back to work in the studio. Robert’s taken the week off. It’s his anniversary, and he and his partner have gone to Costa Rica.
I wish I were going to Costa Rica. What I actually wish is that I’d hear from Freedom Bikes. It’s been a couple of weeks, and we should hear something soon, even if it’s just a request to schedule another meeting, give me a budget, and ask for a more detailed proposal.
Tuesday, I present a proposal to Trident Conglomerate. I’m not really thrilled about the proposal because I don’t want to get their account. Trident’s a huge company undergoing tremendous change, which also means tremendous stress. Executives are being laid off quarterly, which is why we’ve been approached about handling their advertising. The last director of sales and marketing was just given the boot, along with the ad agency, and now they’ve got a new (panicked) director who is good at sales but doesn’t have a clue about advertising.
Tuesday evening, I get a call from Luke but don’t have time to call him back, as Mom’s disappeared. I hear the panic in Dad’s voice, and Eva and I throw on coats and rush to Laurelhurst to help look for her.
By the time we get to Laurelhurst, Mom’s home. A neighbor three blocks over found her in his driveway and thanks to Mom’s MedicAlert bracelet was able to escort Mom back to her house.
Eva takes Grandma upstairs while Dad and I confer in his study. Dad is absolutely sick. He sits ashen in a leather chair in his study, his head in his hands.
“I only went out to get the newspaper,” he keeps repeating. “I was gone just a minute. How did she slip out? Why didn’t I see her?”
“It was dark, Dad—”
“But she didn’t say a word. She just left.”
“That’s part of the disease.”
“I’ve already put locks on all the doors. I already watch her like a hawk. What else can I do?”
“I don’t know.”
He lifts his head and looks at me, eyes hollow. “It scares me, Marta, scares me half to death. It’s dark out, she’s not wearing a coat. She could have been hit by a car, attacked, raped—”
“But she wasn’t, Dad. She’s here now. She’s safe.”
“If something happened to her, I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t. She’s a fine woman, your mother. A fine woman.” His voice deepens, breaks. “You don’t get much better.”
I’ve always known my dad loved my mom in his way, but until now I had no idea how attached he was. When I was growing up, my parents weren’t particularly lovey-dovey, but I always had the sense that they liked each other, enjoyed each other, even if they didn’t make a lot of jokes or even laugh all that much. Maybe it was the way my dad’s mouth turned up or the way my mom’s eyebrows lifted, but when one talked, the other listened.
“Dad, everything’s going to be fine.”
“But it’s not. I’m losing her, every day, bit by bit. And I have to watch.”
A cold knot settles in my stomach. “Maybe it’s time you got more help. You can’t do this on your own anymore.”
“I have help.”
“The housekeeper is here to clean the house, not take care of Mom, and Mom’s going to need more and more care soon. She can’t be left alone.”
“But what I want to know is where is she going? What is she doing? The specialists say she’s looking for someone, but what . . . where?”
I clasp my hands together, feeling terribly useless. “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”
I eventually leave and get Eva to bed, and I know I should go to the studio and work—I have dozens of e-mails to be returned—but I can’t make myself do it. I’m tired, and like Dad, I’m scared. I don’t want to see Mom in a hospital. I know they eventually have to “lock up” their Alzheimer’s patients, but Dad’s right. Mom could have been badly hurt tonight.
Thinking about Mom’s future, thinking about what’s happening to her—to all of us—I put my head down on my arms and cry.
I don’t cry. But I can’t seem to help it tonight.
I miss my mom, and the mom I knew isn’t coming back.
The next day is Wednesday, a day I haven’t been looking forward to, as it’s the first auction class project meeting. As first assistant head room mom, I’m apparently the fourth-grade co-chair for the class project. Not quite sure how that distinction was made, but here I am at Tully’s on Points Drive at ten-thirty in the morning, waiting for the rest of the moms to arrive.
I hate all these meetings. There are way too many meetings. Haven’t these women heard of e-mail or voice mail?
While I wait, I can’t help studying a cluster of women at another table.
They’re all very well groomed and certainly polished, but they don’t look quite normal. No one in the group looks quite like what a woman in her late fifties, sixties, or seventies should look like.
I’m reminded of those funny picture books made for kids, the ones where you can flip different heads and torsos with different feet and legs. These lovely, sophisticated women seem to have stepped from that book. Faces don’t match bodies, and bodies don’t match wardrobe. Skin is too taut in some places and droops too much in others. Some women with softening jaws and softening eyes are toned and taut.
Other women with small shoulders and widening waists have the smooth, shiny complexion of a twenty-year-old. How is this possible?
It’s plastic surgery, and I know it’s plastic surgery, but something in me rebels. My stomach knots.
There’s nothing wrong with plastic surgery, yet when I look at these women, all “seniors,” it’s obvious that they work very hard at taking care of themselves. It almost seems indecent the amount of work involved. Such devotion, such dedication, such personal sacrifice.
Aging gracefully—surely an oxymoron if ever there was one—is wonderful, but this is beyond graceful. It’s Star Wars meets The Swan. Weird. Sad. Unnerving.
Finally, the other moms start to arrive, and our one table becomes two tables and then finally three as more tables are dragged over to accommodate all the binders and planners and calendars.
I don’t want to say it was a waste of time being there, but I’ve nothing to contribute. I’m not even sure I understand the point of yet another school fund-raiser. How much money does the school really need? And how much time is this auction going to take?
But this time, wisely, I voice no opposition and sit there instead, taking notes and nodding my head, trying desperately to fit in and be a good Bellevue mom.
It’s not until a half hour later when my phone vibrates in my purse that I actually come to life. Checking the phone, I recognize Frank Deavers’s number and my insides jump.
I’ve been waiting for this call.
Motioning to the others that I’ve got to take the call, I start walking toward Tully’s glass doors even as I answer. “Frank,” I say. “How are you?”
“Good. And you?”
“Great.”
“Is this a good time to talk?”
I push open the doors and step outside. It’s a gray day, overcast, with the big trees lining Points Drive pale and nearly leafless. “Yes. I’m glad you called.”
I wait for him to make the standard preliminary chitchat we always have before we launch into business, but this afternoon Frank’s abrupt and right to the point.
“We didn’t go with you.” His rough voice sounds almost like a bark on the phone line.
For a moment, I think I’m going to drop the phone. I go cold and numb. My heart plummets. “No?”
“No. And I called as soon as I found out. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, and I didn’t want you to hear it through a third party.”
I’m quiet and shaking inwardly. I should have expected this—who doesn’t prepare for failure?—but I didn’t. I hadn’t. I never attempt anything that doesn’t have a chance of succeeding. I never doubt my ability to succeed. It doesn’t make sense to think anything but positively.
“You had some good ideas, great ideas, but the general consensus was that Z Design doesn’t have the resources to get Freedom Bikes where we need to go.”
I’m still silent. I’m holding my breath, trying to take it all in. I’ve thought of nothing but Freedom for weeks. I’ve worked, eaten, slept, dreamed this deal. I wanted this deal.
“It wasn’t personal,” Frank adds even more gruffly.
I suppose I’m silent because I’m afraid I’ll blurt out something stupid, somehow make things worse. I’m silent because a little part of me hopes that this isn’t happening, that it can’t be true.
“If anything, Marta, we respect you tremendously and admire the passion and vision you brought to the meeting.”
“I’m sensing a strong ‘but’ here,” I finally say, finding my voice and gratified it sounds almost normal.
“As I said, you have some fantastic ideas, and obvious energy, but the overall feeling was that you’re pulled pretty thin and we need someone who can give Freedom their all.”
“I can. We can.”
“Marta . . .” Frank’s deep sigh is audible, and I can almost picture him rubbing his salt-and-pepper-speckled beard. “You’re a single mom.”
“I am.”
“Most of us are married. Most of us have kids.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We know what it’s like to juggle work and home.” He pauses, and the silence lengthens. “Marta, I don’t know how to put this.”
“Frank, just say it. Get to the point.”
“Leaving the meeting early hurt you. I know it had to be important for you to walk out in the middle of the presentation, but for the management members riding the fence, it cast the deciding vote.”
This is not what I want to hear. I want to have a family and a career. I don’t want to have to make a choice between them. Men aren’t forced to make these choices. “I didn’t leave in the middle. I left near the end.”
“Regardless—”
“You said, and Chris said, that the rest of the presentation went well,” I protest, clamping my elbow to my side. I’m trying to keep my teeth from chattering, as I’m shivering from cold and shock. Glancing into Tully’s, I can see my coat hanging on the back of my chair.
“It did. But Chris isn’t Z Design. Chris isn’t a bike enthusiast. Chris isn’t you.”
“And you have me.”
“Then you should have stayed till the end.”
“Despite Eva throwing up like Linda Blair?”
“Kids throw up. It’s what they do.”
And he doesn’t say this next part, but I sense it, hearing the unspoken: Daddies don’t race home from the office just because Timmy has the stomach flu.
I shake my head, my teeth gritted. My throat feels raw from swallowing so hard.
This is ridiculous. This is so unfair.
“Marta.”
I can only shake my head silently. I don’t trust myself to speak. I’m too hurt, too disappointed.
Frank sighs tiredly. He doesn’t like playing the bad guy. It doesn’t help that we’ve known each other for years. “It would have been better if you’d had someone else pick her up from school,” he says flatly. “It would have looked better, Marta. Would have solved a lot of problems.”
I don’t think he’s reprimanding me, but I do know he’s disappointed, maybe even feeling let down.
“I had high hopes,” he adds. “I’m just sorry it didn’t work out.”
“It’s fine, Frank,” I say, eager to just get off the line.
But after I hang up, I know it’s not fine.
It’s not fine because men aren’t penalized for working and being a father.
It’s not fine to have a man criticize me for going to pick up my child when she’s ill.
It’s not fine to assume that just because one day I drop a ball, I can’t juggle my commitments.
It’s time corporate America realized that working moms offer our companies the same thing we offer our families: ethics, integrity, and loyalty. Just because we love our children doesn’t mean we don’t love our jobs.
Still shivering, I go back to the class auction project meeting, sink into my chair, and wrap my coat around me, but I sit catatonic for the rest of the meeting.
I wouldn’t say I’m shattered. But I’m certainly not all here.
The next day is hard. I’m working the same long hours, but now the time seems to crawl by, and before it’s even lunch I’m aching to cut loose, leave the office, and do something else.
I think about calling Luke back. It’s been two days since he left me a voice message, and while I want to call him, I’m not sure what I’d say now. He’s not who or what I thought he was. He’s far wealthier, far more powerful, and I don’t know that he’d even understand just how bad I’m feeling right now about losing the Freedom Bikes account. With his company and success, could he relate to my disappointment?
I don’t call him. And I finish the week at work knowing that everyone’s walking on tippy-toes.
By the time Friday afternoon rolls around, I’m just glad it’s Friday, although everyone’s staying late today to cope with four deadlines that have all hit at once.
Eva, not knowing that my bad mood has infected the rest of the team, trips happily through th
e studio door. “Hey, Mom,” she sings as the door bangs open. “Look what I have!”
Chris, who’s on the phone, looks up irritably and hushes her even more irritably. Allie sighs, rubs her temple. Even Susan frowns at yet another interruption.
Poor Eva, I think, shutting the door quietly and drawing her toward my desk. It’s got to be tough enough having a mom who works from home without being made to feel as if you’re a nuisance in your own home. “What do you have?” I whisper.
“What’s wrong with everybody?” she whispers back, rummaging through her backpack. “It’s like somebody died or something.”
“It’s just work.” I smooth the wispy brown black hair from her pale oval forehead. “Everyone’s really stressed.”
“Why?”
“It’s the end of the month, and it means everything’s got to wrap up or roll over.”
“Crunch time,” she says wisely.
“Exactly.” A better answer, I think, than explaining to her that I laid out a fortune to land Freedom Bikes and we still didn’t get it, which means we’re in the hole, and people will be mad if there aren’t holiday bonuses.
Eva finds what she is looking for, retrieving a small square orange envelope from the front pocket of her backpack.
“An invitation,” she says triumphantly, opening the envelope and pulling out the card, which is black and white with dancing skeletons on the border. “Phoebe’s having a Halloween party on Halloween before everyone goes trick-or-treating!”
The invite’s cute. I admire the font and print style. It’s been professionally done, and I like the card stock. “See, you have friends.”
“Well, she invited the whole class, but still.” She flops into Robert’s chair and sits Indian style. “She lives in Clyde Hill on this big acre and a half, and kids were saying there are ponies and a tractor pull and lots of games. Phoebe’s family has a Halloween party every year, and everyone dresses up.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Can we go buy my costume tonight? Halloween is just five days away.”
The phone on my desk rings. I glance at the number. Jet City Coffee. I don’t pick up. I need to finish running some numbers before I can call them back. And before I can run their numbers, I’ve got to upload the winery’s holiday calendar to the printer and double-check the PowerPoint presentation for Ewes and Lambs Maternity Clothing Store. They’re a regional upscale clothing chain about to take their stores, and brand, national. It’d be a great account, and I could use Shey and her models, which would be fun for me.
