Claire Cook

by Seven Year Switch (v5)

  Eventually I got Rat Girl off the phone. I popped the rest of the dumpling into my mouth, took half a second to appreciate the warm burst of ginger and green onion, and pushed back my own chair.

  I poked my head into the living room. “You’ve got until three to turn that TV off and get back to the dinner table.”

  Anastasia ignored me.

  “One,” I said.

  She ignored me some more.

  “Two,” I said.

  “Mom,” she said. “It’s almost over.”

  “Anabanana…,” I said.

  She jumped up. “Don’t call me that. It’s a baby name.”

  My daughter, all elbows and knees in purple leggings and a long striped T-shirt dress, flounced past me with her empty plate. She adjusted her shiny pink headband with one hand as she came in for a landing at the kitchen table. I tried hard to give her the firm, consistent limits all kids need, but the truth was I loved her little acts of rebellion. I read them as signs of progress, evidence that she had not only survived, but was finally starting to thrive. She had friends at school. Her grades were good. She loved to read.

  The last thing either of us needed was for Seth to come back into our lives and screw them all up again.

  MY PHONE SHIFT TONIGHT was four to midnight. After Anastasia was in bed, I made myself a cup of Earl Grey tea so I could stay awake. Some nights the phone rang like crazy, and I’d talk nonstop about group rates and trip insurance and the relative merits of Provence versus Paris while I washed dishes or folded the laundry. I’d gotten so used to going about my business while I talked into my headphone that once I even flushed the toilet while I was talking to some woman about our Galapagos Islands cruise.

  “What was that?” she’d asked.

  “Just a waterfall,” I’d replied. “The Iguazu? On the Brazil-Argentina border?”

  “Ooh,” she said. “Can you send me some info on that trip, too?”

  To night was quiet. Eerily quiet. Twice I got up and walked over to the living room window that looked out over the street. I pulled back the curtain just enough to peek out without being seen. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t detect a trace of Seth. But whether he was actually out there after all, or simply hovering on the outskirts of our lives, I could feel him.

  Just as the big old predigital clock on the living room wall was reaching its long pointy arm up to midnight, I pulled off my headphone and pushed myself away from the couch.

  I took my time heading to my bedroom. There was no rush: my life had turned back into a pumpkin a long, long time ago.

  3

  ANASTASIA HAD NIXED THE KISS AT THE BUS STOP AROUND this time last year. We said our good-byes inside the house now, and then I sat on the front steps, looking up and down the street for potential kidnappers and pedophiles while she waited with the other kids and pretended I wasn’t there.

  “Hi there,” Cynthia from next door said as she came over to join me. For a minute, it looked like she might even sit down beside me on the cement steps. Whether it was the potential damage to her tennis skirt or her manicure that stopped her, I might never know. She rested one hand on the metal railing instead.

  “Hey,” I said. I kept my eyes on Anastasia. I’d never admit it to anyone, but even though she was in fourth grade now, I still got a tiny bit choked up every time the bus pulled away.

  Cynthia lifted her hand off the railing and examined it.

  “It’s called rust,” I said.

  “Don’t we have a big chip on our shoulder this morning,” she said. “God, you never seem to amaze me.”

  While I puzzled over her morning malaprop, Cynthia grabbed a chunk of impeccably foiled hair with her rust-free hand, stretched it diagonally across her forehead, and held it there, as if she were teaching it how to stay. “So, how about lunch at that new sushi place on Maple?” she finally asked.

  I tried to like Cynthia, I really did. She reminded me of that old don’t hate me because I’m beautiful commercial, and she drove me almost as crazy. It was hard not to hate someone, at least a little, when they oozed entitlement from every well-peeled and dermabraded pore, but I also kind of wanted to be Cynthia. Somehow I thought I’d do a better job of it.

  Cynthia and her family buying the house next door last year had been a sign that the neighborhood was on its way up. Anastasia and I moved in three years earlier with the help of a no-money-down, low-interest program for first-time buyers. Joni, my boss, had not only helped me find it, but also gave me some hand-me-down furniture and a paid day off to move. It was considered a “transitional” neighborhood then, though “sketchy” might have been more accurate.

  But the neighborhood had gone from transitional to trendy, and now people like Cynthia couldn’t wait to get their hands on the funky little summer cottages, so they could double or triple the square footage and deck them out into full-blown year-round housing extravaganzas. With every year that passed, my mostly untouched house looked smaller in comparison but also grew a lot more valuable. Maybe eventually my neighbors would pool their pocket change and plop an addition on mine, too, just to keep me up with the Joneses.

  The bus pulled up in front of my house. I stood up. Anastasia held on to the front straps of her pink backpack as she climbed aboard with the other kids. She took a seat where I could see her and leaned back against her backpack like a pillow. I waved. She lifted one hand casually, maybe a wave, maybe not, then started fine-tuning her headband.

  After the bus had pulled away, I turned to Cynthia. “Sorry,” I said, “but I can’t. I’ve got a client today.”

  Cynthia reached up with both hands to check on her chunky gold earrings. “All work and no play-ay,” she sang, “make Jill a dull gull.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I thought about adding a little seagull screech, but I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

  Supposedly, Cynthia worked, too. She said she had her own interior decorating business, but I’d yet to see evidence of a client, interior or exterior, to back up the claim.

  I took a step toward my door. “Yeah, well, have a tuna roll for me, okay?”

  “Eat your own mercury. Hey, if I’m not back in time, can you grab my three off the bus and give them a quick snack?”

  I looked at her. Cynthia was simply one of those women who always came out on top. If you carpooled with her, you somehow managed to drive twice as often as she did. If you watched each other’s kids, she got one and you got three. There was nothing to be done about it. It was just the way of the world. And I needed her for backup.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Not a problem.”

  I WAS MEETING my new client at Starbucks. Of all the cultures in all the world, wouldn’t you know he’d want to talk about Japan. But I couldn’t afford to ruminate about brutal poetic irony when bills needed to be paid, so I had no choice but to take him on.

  He’d gotten my name from an ad I’d placed on Craigslist, so he could easily turn out to be a nutcase. Starbucks was safe, private enough, and since he’d agreed right away to the insane hourly consulting rate I’d thrown out to leave room for negotiation, I could even afford the coffee.

  A guy was chaining his bike to the bike rack next to Starbucks when I got there. I hurried past him and reached for the heavy front door.

  “Yo,” he said. “You’re not Jill, are you?”

  I turned around and watched him slide a big rubber band off one nylon pant leg while I considered which was the bigger ed flag that this guy couldn’t afford me, the yo or the bicycle.

  “I am indeed,” I said. I held out my hand. “Jill Murray. And you must be Bill Sanders.”

  “Billy,” he said.

  “Great,” I said.

  I’d half expected a high five or a knuckle tap, but at least he shook hands like a grown-up. He had good eye contact, too. His crinkly brown eyes had a bit of a raccoon quality, as if he spent a lot of time outside wearing sunglasses. He was probably about my age, though he seemed younger. Or maybe I just felt older.

/>   Starbucks was teeming with people. I wondered if the whole world was doing away with their offices and coming here instead.

  “How about you snare us a table, and I’ll grab the coffee. Cappuccino okay?”

  Technically, I should pick up the tab. I’d order a small regular coffee and hope he did, too.

  I imagined gazing into the foam of a frothy, overpriced cappuccino. “Thanks,” I said.

  He handed me his bicycle helmet. I hovered near the tables, and as soon as two men stood up, I slid into a chair fast. I plopped the shiny green helmet in the middle of the table like a centerpiece.

  When Billy Sanders eventually made his way over with my cappuccino, it turned out to be a venti. I said thanks and took a demure sip, since it seemed more dignified than yelling “score,” but the truth was I couldn’t wait for the day when I could just relax and buy what ever damn size overpriced coffee I wanted whenever I wanted to. “Okay,” I said. I reached into my bag and pulled out an invoice. “Let’s get the bookkeeping out of the way first, so we can get right to Japan.”

  He handed me a check that was already made out.

  “Cool,” slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. I cleared my throat. “So, tell me what you need to know about Japanese culture, and why.”

  He took a moment to beat the bicycle helmet between us like a drum, ending with a single air cymbal crash. “The short version is that my family owns a business that makes bicycles.”

  I took another sip of foam-capped espresso heaven. “Must be nice,” I said.

  He shrugged. “It has its moments. Anyway, we have a core business with stable profits, and we’re trying to balance some cuts we’ve made by investing in future growth.”

  He pushed a button on his cell phone and handed it to me.

  I didn’t know anything about bicycles, but the one on the screen was pretty amazing—sleek and shiny and futuristic. Most of the bike was an ultrametallic red, but its handlebars were painted so that they loomed above the front wheel like menacing eyes.

  “Wow,” I said. “It looks almost alive.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s called the Akira. It’s named after the Japanese anime from the ’80s.”

  I squinted at the picture. “Of course it is.”

  “The design is a nod to the motorcycle the hero drives.”

  I nodded, as if I knew what he was talking about.

  He looked over his shoulder for potential bicycle spies, then leaned toward me. “I had this idea that we’d test-market them in Tokyo. The bike rental market is already established there, but this would add a fresh, high-tech spin. Basically, we’d implant a microchip in each bike, and then people could locate the nearest bike with their smartphones….”

  I handed him back his iPhone. “And the bicycle would ride itself over to meet them?”

  He smiled. “We’re not quite there yet. But we’d sell inexpensive packages, and members would have access to hundreds of conveniently located, high-end Akira kiosks all over Tokyo. It’ll be great advertising for bicycle sales, too, since the rental bikes will function like little billboards. And then, if the whole thing flies in Japan, we’ll give it a shot in Boston. Car share companies like Zipcar are paving the way for us.”

  “Sounds like a great idea to me,” I said. I took another sip of my cappuccino. “So what’s the problem?”

  He held both palms up toward the ceiling. “I can’t get anybody to talk to me over there. I e-mailed some likely candidates, tried to set up some meetings. Nothing. So then I made some phone calls. I was like, hey, just say no if it doesn’t sound good to you, but here’s an idea that could make us both some money.”

  “There’s your first problem,” I said. “The Japanese don’t like to say no. ‘I’ll consider it’ means no. Sometimes even yes means no. You’ll have to hire a go-between to set up the meetings, someone who speaks Japanese, has a good reputation, but also doesn’t have a personal stake in the project. Make sure you wear a suit when you go. And bring gifts, but don’t give them out until you see what they give you first, because it’s important to match the level of your gifts to theirs. It can’t be too extravagant a gift, because it might be considered a bribe, and make sure you don’t open your gifts in front of them, and…”

  Billy Sanders opened his raccoon eyes wide. “Seriously?” he said. “A suit-suit?”

  4

  I CERTAINLY DIDN’T NEED ANY MORE CAFFEINE, SO I skipped the tea and drank a glass of water when I got home. I ad the noon-to-eight-o’clock shift, and the phone didn’t waste any time ringing.

  “Great Girlfriend Getaways,” I said. “Feisty and fabulous man-free escapes—”

  “Two minutes,” Seth pleaded. “Just let me talk to you for two minutes. I’ve got a job, and I’ll have a paycheck in a couple of weeks. I’m staying at my parents’ for the time being. Listen, I want to see our daughter. I want to make things right.”

  I knew I should just hang up, but I couldn’t seem to do it. “Make things right,” I said. “Make. Things. Right.” I could feel a heavy surf pounding in my ears.

  I paced across the worn linoleum tiles on my kitchen floor. I started to open the back door, but changed my mind. There was nowhere to go.

  “Seth, you cleaned out our bank account when you ran off. Do you know what that did to our daughter and me?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Do you know what I found out, Seth? That they can’t re-possess your car if you’re in it. I slept in our car, Seth. For weeks. Our daughter slept in our car for weeks. In her Blues Clues sleeping bag with her entire collection of Beanie Babies. I told her we were fucking camping, Seth.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  I kept expecting my voice to catch, my eyes to tear up, but all I could feel was a cold, dry rage. I leaned against the kitchen counter and thumped my head into a cabinet.

  “In a million years, you could never be sorry enough,” I said calmly, as if I were stating a simple fact, like springtime is beautiful in the Netherlands.

  “Why didn’t you go to my parents?” He sounded like a little boy when he said it. It might have been Why didn’t you just ask Santa?

  “I did, Seth. It killed me, but I finally went to your parents. You know what they said? That they’d spent their whole lives cleaning up your messes, and they were finished. Your messes. And then on Anastasia’s next birthday, they sent a Hallmark card that said ‘Happy Birthday to a Fine Four-Year-Old’ with a check inside for fifty fucking dollars. And I couldn’t even afford to rip it up into a million pieces and send it back to them.”

  The pounding was back. Waves crashed in my ears like the soundtrack to The Endless Summer. I tried to slow my breathing so my head wouldn’t explode. I always shocked myself a little when I heard the f-word come out of my mouth. It was crude. It was unsophisticated. But right now there weren’t enough fucks in the world to express the depths of my rage.

  “I’m sorry,” Seth said softly.

  “Seven years, Seth,” I said. And then I hung up.

  Seven years.

  The Holo’o clan of the Sidama people in southern Ethiopia offers a sacrifice to their common ancestors every seven years. The Romans had seven deities. So did the Goths. Japanese folklore has the Seven Gods of Luck.

  There are seven types of intelligence and seven habits for highly effective people. Hollywood has Seventh Heaven and The Seven Year Itch. There’s even a New Age notion that every seven years you shed your skin and become a completely new person, sort of a seven year switch.

  There are seven seas and seven dwarfs, and if you break a mirror, superstition says you’ll get seven years of bad luck. When asked to think of a number between one and ten, research shows that most people pick seven.

  In twelfth-century Spain, Nachmanides formulated the kabbalistic concept that seven is the number of the natural world: seven days in the week, seven notes on the scale.

  On a brisk spring day in twenty-first-century America, Jill Mu
rray determined that a husband and father who stays away for seven years is unforgiveable.

  EVEN THOUGH I WAS still tethered to my headphone, I herded all four kids over to Cynthia’s house as soon as they got off the bus. No way was I going to let Cynthia’s three trash my place while eating me out of house and home.

  Cynthia always left a key under her welcome mat, not that a robber would ever think to look for it there. I lifted up the mat. Her youngest, Parker, stepped on my hand.

  I screamed.

  My cell rang.

  Treasure, Cynthia’s middle child, grabbed the key. Lexi, her oldest, grabbed it out of Treasure’s hand. Treasure screamed. Anastasia adjusted her headband and watched like an anthropologist observing a fascinating new culture.

  “Great Girlfriend Getaways,” I said.

  The kids disappeared into the house, leaving a trail of backpacks behind them like supersized bread crumbs.

  Fortunately it turned out to be just a question about collecting on trip insurance, so all I had to do was recite the toll-free number of the insurance company from memory.

  I was only a few steps behind them, but the kids had already grabbed snacks from the kiddie snack station, complete with miniature undercounter refrigerator, micro wave, and snack drawers. Parker was heading for the mammoth flat-screen TV in the great room with a goji berry juice box and a bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos, and the three girls were carrying bottles of Perrier Pink Grapefruit and tubes of Kiwi Kick Go-Gurt to the three-computer kiddie work station in the large alcove off the great room, what ever that was called. The second greatest room?

  I had to swallow a great big green gulp of envy every time I walked into this house. The excess was appalling, but also kind of seductive. I put my hand on a cool black granite counter and tried to guess which floor-to-ceiling cherry cabinet the adult refrigerator was hiding behind, since I could never remember until Cynthia opened it. Maybe it was part of the design strategy—make rich people thin by hiding the food.

  My phone rang again. “Great Girlfriend Getaways,” I said.

  “Does she always talk into that thing?” Lexi asked from the middle computer.