Perfect Timing

by Spinella, Laura

  “Yep, I’m all taken care of,” she said, smiling. “Your step-daddy sure is generous. He asked if I wanted to intern for him this summer.”

  “Did he?” Isabel said, taking in the girl’s tight T-shirt, low-slung jeans.

  She cracked her gum and smiled. “He did. He even asked if I’d be interested in serving as his personal assistant,” she said, sliding into her cute-as-her convertible. “I wouldn’t mind bragging about that. Leighanne Dunbar, personal assistant to Rick Stanton, state senator.”

  Isabel didn’t reply. Caution and warning would fall on deaf ears. Besides, it was residual fear, the senator’s permanent sitting position eliminating any physical threat. “Well, good luck with that.” She turned and headed toward the house. Halfway there, Isabel stopped. She didn’t want to go inside, not with that tidbit on her mind, positive what was on Rick’s. Looking at the beautiful house, thinking about the prestigious private school Jack attended, Isabel found herself at the juncture where she couldn’t make peace with the price. She tried to force herself, even negotiate. In a few hours she could escape to Strobe’s for the night. Over the years he’d been amiable, if not inviting, insisting Isabel stay with him when she visited. It worked out well, each glad for an ally. Strobe remained the underdog of the Stanton clan and the two of them made for a lovely pair of black sheep. But Strobe wouldn’t be home for hours, giving Isabel no choice but to go inside. She took another step, hearing Rick’s deep belly laugh, charming his son and taunting her. Glancing through the open car window she saw Carrie’s keys in the ignition. She pulled out her cell phone. “Mom, I’m going for a ride . . . I don’t know, a while.”

  It seemed unlikely that a person could drive for an hour and never consciously decide where she was going. Yet, Isabel did just that, ending up in a place walled in comfort. She stood for a time in misty rain, shoes sinking into the muddy red-dirt driveway of the farmhouse. Tentatively, she approached its rotted front porch. Along with the floorboards, indifference weakened, meeting with a momentary lapse. Isabel was overwhelmed by the notion that if she went inside Aidan would be there. She’d find him sitting on one of those old crates, strumming a guitar—like he’d never left. Smelling air that she attributed to the unique combination of apple orchard and graveyard, Isabel nearly swore she could hear the chords. Maybe it was that Spanish thing he only played there. Almost too easily it led to Aidan’s wide lazy grin, the one that said, “Isabel, quit with the debate team talking points and tell me what you think of this . . .” She reached for the rusty knob and the music stopped. She didn’t go in. On her abrupt retreat, Isabel saw a Sold sign, passing construction vehicles that were on their way up the drive. It rattled her, imagining other people, strangers, calling the farmhouse home. In the rearview mirror her eyes met with a road that ran like a gray snake, glancing one last time toward the past.

  Afterward, Isabel cut the trip short, saying a fast goodbye to Jack and her mother. Carrie was disappointed but didn’t question it, Isabel forgoing the obligatory grunt at Rick. Instead of driving her to his house, Strobe drove her to the airport. While they’d never discussed that night, he did make a telling remark. Grabbing her suitcase, he held on until there was solid eye contact, airport noises roaring in the background. “If it helps, Bella, my daddy got what he deserved that night. Never let it bother you—I don’t.” During the flight to Providence, Isabel debated if she’d heard right, amazed by what Strobe had all but confessed.

  Not unlike her trip to the farmhouse early last spring, this day had only aggravated the past and Isabel was angry about that. In the small hall of her apartment, she took a cleansing breath, stopping in the bathroom to pop two Excedrin. After an exchange of food for ardent meows, Isabel passed on anything that could be construed as dinner. But she did spy a stash of beer in the back of the fridge. Still not her beverage of choice, it was something new since Nate. She grabbed one, popping the top and guzzling a long mouthful. It hit the back of her throat, cold and bittersweet. The doorbell rang, Tanya and Mary Louise arriving together. Wonderful . . . Tanya also brought all her children, including the one who vomited a couple of hours ago.

  “You don’t mind, do you, Isabel?” Tanya hustled past with Lucy straddling one hip, two pizza boxes in her free arm. Her boys, Josh and Eddie, followed. Mary Louise brought up the rear, carrying a plate of sushi and tofu disguised as something mirroring meat. “I couldn’t afford a sitter and none of their dads were home.” Four-year-old Lucy was a keen shade of green, clinging to her mother, whimpering. “I’ll just lay her in your bed. It’s closest to the potty, right?”

  “Close as anything else,” Isabel said. Tanya deposited the feverish-looking child onto the bed. In a 700-square-foot apartment, they’d probably all be diving for the commode before the night was over. But she couldn’t object, Tanya would only think she was slacking off if she’d stayed home. It all went to her well-meaning but questionable judgment. “Have the boys eaten?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that. The boys are all fed. They’re going to play on your jungle gym. We won’t even know they’re here.”

  She didn’t mind. Eddie and Josh were great kids, though not without their issues. Josh suffered from acute asthma and Eddie was diabetic. Many days, it was all Tanya could do to juggle her kids’ medical appointments and work. Besides, Tanya’s boys liked to visit. There was a great recreation area, all of it visible from Isabel’s living room window. Tanya lived in subsidized housing where the amenities weren’t as nice—or existent. Isabel had only been there a few times. There were no trailers, but the air of desperation was the same. Places like that led to a coarse reminder of the moments before Aidan arrived and him beating Stanton to a pulp, followed by Rick’s shooting. Once there, it was a slippery slope, moving on to Aidan’s arrest before the two of them ran away from everything. Currently complementing that was the present-day image of Aidan in handcuffs, nearly identical to the scene from the Catswallow sheriff’s station. Opening another beer, Isabel suspected you couldn’t make up a scenario like that.

  She dropped the pizza boxes onto the kitchen table, finding the first one empty. She supposed the boys had eaten. Clearly, medical issues did not affect their appetites. She didn’t know how Tanya managed. Their fathers were sporadic, at best, when making child support payments. The spunky airtime scheduler barely made enough to support herself, never mind four people. Isabel gave each boy a juice box, which she specifically kept on hand for them. As their mother prodded, they offered a quick hello and thank-you, heading out the door. “So how’s Joe?” Isabel asked, hoping for good news.

  “He’s okay. A little depressed.” Mary Louise settled onto a bar stool, opening her signature sports bottle of tap water.

  “Why’s that? I thought they were taking one of his casts off today.”

  “They were, but the orthopedist wasn’t happy with the way the bone is healing. It’s going to be a few more weeks. When Joe called work, they said they weren’t sure if they could hold his job at the shipyard. He was pretty upset; he’s worked a lot of years there. I’d hate to see him lose it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what happened today.”

  “Won’t he get suspicious when your clock radio goes off tomorrow and 98.6 is nothing but static?” Tanya said.

  “I mentioned the format change. I didn’t tell him the rest—us having to come up with an entirely new audience in ten seconds or the fact that we’re going to get canned if we don’t. If he knew we might lose our health insurance, it would put him over the edge.” Isabel offered a sympathetic hum, realizing she’d downed her beer as if entered in a chugging contest.

  “I’ll take that,” Mary Louise said, snatching up the empty nickel-deposit bottle. “Add ’em up and it’s a large soy latte, Isabel. Thriftiness is something you might want to embrace, considering what’s in front of us.” Mary Louise made her way to the sink, rinsed the bottle, and dropped it in her tote bag. “You know, the more I think ab
out it, if Joe had angled his fall a little to the left, not hit the fence on the way down, it would have been a cleaner break.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mary Louise,” Tanya said, reaching for a slice of pizza, “take some responsibility. If you paid for dirty movies like everybody else he wouldn’t have fallen off the roof at all.”

  Isabel’s appalled stare volleyed between the two women. Like Tanya’s questionable judgment, they did not berate Mary Louise’s frugality. It was one reason they got along, their ability to accept each other’s quirks, or at least not skywrite the flaws. “Mary Louise, I’m sure she didn’t mean anything—”

  “Humph! I know what I heard. Tanya called me cheap! Do you agree with that, Isabel? Do you think it’s my fault that Joe got hurt, that he might lose his job because of me?”

  She was saved by the sound of a gagging four-year-old, a disoriented Lucy unable to find the bathroom. It was almost worth the river of vomit on the bedroom carpet to end what was heading toward a nasty confrontation. In three years, Isabel had never seen Tanya take such a cheap shot at Mary Louise. The stress of delivering an out-of-thin-air feat and looming unemployment was taking a toll. The quiet was palpable as Isabel helped Tanya clean up the mess, curious what Lucy ingested that would turn beige carpet bright green. Scrubbing away, Isabel could see that Tanya felt awful. The inconsequential Stanley Steemer message occurred to her, Isabel insisting that all her carpets could use a good cleaning. From the edge of the living room, where she vigorously applied hand sanitizer, Mary Louise said she’d see if the number was still there. She replayed the messages, including the one from Nate.

  “Isabel, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “You guys have enough to worry about,” she said, blotting the stain. “Grassroots Kids is my problem, not yours.”

  “That’s not true,” Tanya said, leaning back on her heels. “Both my boys’ medical expenses have been offset by Grassroots Kids, and Lucy loves the after-school program. More important, Mary Louise and I both know what it means to you.”

  “One problem at a time, okay? We’ve got enough to deal with.” Finished with the mess, she headed toward the kitchen.

  “It didn’t sound that way to me,” Mary Louise said, following. “It sounds like the problem with Grassroots Kids is as urgent as the radio station—maybe more.”

  “I’ll handle it. Nate will help. You two don’t need to worry about it.” Putting away the bucket and disinfectant, the silence resumed. She popped up from the sink, smiling. “Look, I’ve had my share of challenges with Grassroots Kids. Both problems are the perfect opportunity to test my skills, think on my feet.” She smiled wider. “Besides, you guys know my parents. They didn’t raise a quitter!”

  They smiled to appease, Tanya adding, “You’re right about that. Where do you think my best parenting tips come from?”

  A couple of hours later, Tanya made use of that advice, taking her ninth or tenth pass by the window, watching her boys play under a giant spotlight. Lucy had fallen asleep and Isabel returned to the breakfast bar where she made three mental notes: The pizza was gone, they’d made little progress, and she’d drained the last beer. That one was most surprising. There was plenty an hour or so ago. Especially surprising since Mary Louise rarely drank and Tanya, who had to drive, stuck to diet soda all night. She was spot-on with short-term judgments. Isabel didn’t feel drunk, but a good buzz had segued to numbness, which, considering the circumstances, wasn’t such a bad thing.

  “I put a call in to my friend JJ Reese, he works promotions at JMX-Classic Rock in Dallas,” Tanya offered. “They’re huge. They sponsored two major shows last year. He’ll know somebody. We just have to wait for him to call back.”

  Isabel didn’t have the heart to tell Tanya that a weekend at a radio station conference, spent mostly in bed with a stranger, didn’t translate into the kind of LinkedIn relationship they’d need. In fact, they were all relieved to find out that it didn’t link him to being daddy number four.

  “He might know people, but unless he’s super chummy with Beyoncé or moonlights as Bon Jovi’s booking agent, I don’t know how that’s going to help,” Mary Louise said. “Those shows are booked months, even a year in advance. This is going to take the kind of personal connection we don’t have.”

  You mean, like, once upon a time having run away with a rock star? But instead of speaking up, Isabel clamped her hand over her mouth, silencing a burp. She slumped against the wall, sliding, until her bottom found the floor. Mary Louise’s conjecture was fact, having gone through every connection, every possible marker owed them. Except for a few unreturned phone calls, which wouldn’t amount to a thing, they were screwed.

  “Maybe we should be using this time to find new jobs. I can appreciate how upset Joe is, just the thought of being unemployed and having no insurance. I can’t afford to be out of work for a day.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Tanya,” Mary Louise said, folding her arms, “if you’d just used some birth control, like everyone else, you wouldn’t have such a problem.”

  The residual sarcasm wasn’t lost on Tanya, her face turning as red as her hair. It was a callous remark and Tanya, who had odds in a catfight, looked as if she might come right across the bar top.

  “What a horrid thing to say, Mary Louise! I was only talking about your cable bill. Those are my children!”

  “I’m just saying, nothing against your kids. But if you’d been a bit more frugal with your sex life, maybe the idea of potential unemployment wouldn’t be scaring you to death.”

  “Is that right?” Tanya seethed, stomping around the bar. “Well, at least I’m a real enough person to have had children. Unlike some people who can’t get their mind around anything messing up their health-crazed, sterile existence!” There was a stunned gasp from Mary Louise, Isabel’s eyes volleying from her spectator spot. “And at least when I was married my husbands were very much alive and kicking. Unlike a man who personifies his name—Mary Louise Bland!”

  Things were getting out of hand, Isabel picturing one of them showing up to work and going postal on the place. She struggled to her feet, trying to get between them, the half-dozen beers impeding her accuracy. “Hey, come on, guys, don’t do this. It’s not going to help.” They edged her right out of the argument. Isabel had never seen them behave like this. Tanya and Mary Louise had worked at the radio station longer than her, been friends for years.

  “You take that back, Tanya! Just because some of us have a moral code, instead of an area code followed by do-me-Tanya, doesn’t make me a cold fish. At least if I ever have children, the school won’t have to cross-index them by last name.”

  “Really?” Tanya said, stretching her curvy five-two frame against Mary Louise’s fishing rod stance. “Well, when you find that new job, good luck acclimating your co-workers to your habits.”

  “Habits? What habits?” demanded Mary Louise, who prided herself on perfectionism, which, in truth, was her most irritating habit.

  “The ones that require years of conditioning—like not looking twice when you use a tea bag for the third time or order water when we go out for lunch. Then,” she said, thrusting a hand in Isabel’s direction, “ask Isabel to ‘be a sweetheart and make a secret trip to the salad bar’—so you can pick!”

  But as she pointed, Isabel was darting away. She exited to her bedroom, where the argument reverberated through the walls. She moved with her usual calm cadence, albeit visibly tipsy. This morning the changes at 98.6—The Normal FM for Easy Listening threatened their livelihood, now it threatened a friendship. Isabel dragged a chair across the wet carpet, teetering, as she climbed up, widely acting under the influence. Grasping the closet doorframe, she paused, swallowing down a rush of alcohol and angst. The decibel level rose and Isabel pushed forward as Tanya ranted to Mary Louise about the harsh realities of single parenthood. Mary Louise countered, wanting to know if Tanya had a clue what
an orthopedic surgeon charged per visit.

  Isabel could see how things would play out, bad for her, worse for them. Providence was a limited place, their jobs tough to duplicate in the New England market. It wasn’t as if you could get another one at the radio station across the street. If they lost them Tanya would end up on welfare or working at Walmart. Her kids would grow up somewhere worse than subsidized housing. She could picture Joe Bland, who wasn’t the most resilient guy, spiraling into a deep depression. The loss of another income and their medical insurance would be devastating. Isabel rummaged past a couple of baseball caps, a blanket she’d attempted to knit, and old copies of Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice. Tanya’s and Mary Louise’s circumstances were real. Hers was unpleasant history. If anything like that happened, Isabel couldn’t live with herself, especially when the answer might be buried—like all good skeletons—in the back of her closet.

  The two women didn’t realize she’d left the room. They didn’t see her come back, going at it like two feral cats. Even Rico had retreated beneath the sofa, his posh tail flicking at the edge. They’d moved on, from personal to professional grievances.

  “You know what, Tanya, if you spent half as much time beefing up promotions as you did your roots, we might have a name. Somebody we could go to in this situation.”

  “Don’t you put this on me, Mary Louise! Promotion is only part of my job. At least I didn’t have to google Lady Gaga to figure out who or what she is. At least I own an iPod! You don’t have a clue what’s hot or happening.”

  Mary Louise stood stiffly, her librarian looks accentuating Tanya’s claim. “Until today hot or happening wasn’t in my job description either!”