Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  I had to admit the guy did have a point. How many parties had I given over the years where most of the guests congregated in the kitchen, not in my carefully arranged and artfully decorated living room?

  I snuck a look at Jim. He wasn’t buying it. I had to say something quickly to save the situation.

  “Dr. Rhodes, Dave, I have to ask you something, but I don’t want to appear rude.” I paused, not really sure how to go on.

  “I bet you want to know about the baking, right?”

  “Well, I…”

  “That’s okay. Here, have a cookie.” Rhodes pushed a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies toward me. They looked heavenly.

  “When I first came up with the concept of the Re-tirement Survival Center, I have to admit I was at a crossroads in my own life,” Rhodes explained. “I had been a lifestyle counselor for many years out on the West Coast, but the challenge just wasn’t there for me anymore. I realized that I needed to change direction somehow, but I still wanted to use the professional skills I had perfected over the years.”

  Rhodes shifted his gaze from me to my husband. “Maybe you know what I’m talking about, Jim. Have you ever gotten up in the morning and wondered what you were doing it all for? And wanted a way to recapture the excitement and passion you once had about your job? Heck, even about your whole life?”

  Jim relaxed a little in his chair. “Well, Dave, I guess everyone feels like that at one time or another.”

  “Exactly. So I began to wonder what I really wanted to do with my life,” Rhodes said. “I thought how interesting it would be to go on a job interview, but this time to interview myself. You know, ask myself a series of questions, the kind most job applicants still have to answer, to find out what my interests really were. I realized that people’s focus, priorities, and choices change as we mature. But that doesn’t mean we’re ready for a rocking chair. Just a new challenge or two to keep the juices flowing. Do you see where I’m going with this, Jim?”

  Jim nodded his head in agreement. I munched on a cookie. Clearly, I was no longer part of this discussion.

  “At the time, I hadn’t even thought of retirement for myself,” Rhodes continued. “Just restructuring my professional life. Like you, Jim, I’m really too young to retire.”

  That did it. Jim was now bobbing his head up and down so hard I thought he’d lose it. In an agency dominated by men under thirty-five, nobody had told him he was too young for anything in years.

  “So, I wrote a series of questions for myself to answer. And you’ll never guess what I figured out.” Rhodes paused dramatically and looked at both of us. “I discovered that what I’ve always wanted to do is bake. Maybe it takes me back to my childhood when I’d come home from school and my mother would be in the kitchen with a snack for me. I don’t know. But I started to do some baking, and realized how much fun I was having. And how much satisfaction it gave me to do it.

  “Now, I knew that I wasn’t going to leave my clients to become the next Mrs. Fields,” Rhodes continued with a chuckle. “But I also realized that many men, particularly in their fifties, experience what I was experiencing. The next phase of life is really a tune-up–physically, mentally, and professionally. Kind of like taking your car in for routine maintenance, changing the filters and rotating the tires, to get as much mileage out of the vehicle as possible.

  “That’s how the Re-tirement Survival Center started,” Rhodes said. “I’m really the first client. And I never let myself forget it.”

  My eyes glazed over. All this focus on cars was not doing it for me. But it sure was doing it for Jim. I looked at My Beloved to see his reaction to all this, and I swear, the guy was so excited, I thought he’d jump out of his chair.

  “You know,” Jim said, “I don’t think I’ve ever admitted this to anyone before, but…” and then he was off and running. Babbling about things at work that he hadn’t even told me.

  I sat in that kitchen for the next half hour and I might as well have been invisible. There was so much testosterone flying around the room that I thought I might gag. They traded stories, laughed at each other’s jokes, and all the while I just sat there with a smile pasted on my face. The kind of smile I’d mastered from years of going to boring corporate cocktail parties, not really listening to all that inane chatter but appearing to. Believe me, it’s an art form.

  “So, Jim,” Rhodes finally said, “what can I do for you? Your online test was one of the most interesting and insightful ones I’ve ever seen. It would be an honor, and a challenge, to work with you.”

  Needless to say, Jim preened at this flattery.

  “I think,” I started to say, but was interrupted by Rhodes. “Jim, what I think you need, and what we are going to come up with together, is a re-treading strategy for your life. What do you say?” Rhodes pushed the plate of cookies toward Jim. “Here, have another.”

  What? I couldn’t believe my eyes. My hard-headed, stubborn, “I-don’t-need-any-help-from-anyone, I-can-do-it-all-myself” husband was now shaking hands with Rhodes and making an appointment to see him again next Tuesday night.

  What the heck was in those cookies anyway?

  ~*~

  During the ride home from the meeting with Davis Rhodes, Jim was strangely quiet. I was bursting with questions, but the first time I tried to start a conversation, Jim stopped me cold. “Not now, honey. I’m thinking.”

  I waited a few minutes, then tried again.

  “I don’t really want to talk right now, Carol. I need to mull over what happened tonight. Dave has given me a lot of serious things to consider.”

  “Okay,” I said, throwing up my hands in mock surrender. “Let’s go home and have a nice dinner. We can talk later.”

  But when we got home, Jim surprised me by saying he didn’t want any food. “You go ahead and get yourself something to eat,” he said, giving me a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to work on the computer for a while. I may stay up late, so don’t wait up. If you get tired, just go on to bed.”

  I tried not to take Jim’s desire for solitude personally. It was hard not to be frustrated, though. I was dying to talk, but had no one to talk to.

  The message light on the phone was blinking. I pressed Play and heard Jenny’s voice. “Hi, parents. Just wanted you to know that I’ll be at school late tonight. Don’t wait up. Hope all went well with Davis Rhodes. I’ll see you in the morning. Love you. Bye.”

  I considered calling Nancy, but decided against it. I couldn’t even unburden myself to the dogs without Jim overhearing me. I nuked a Weight Watchers dinner, had a glass of wine (small), and went to bed at 9.

  I don’t know what time Jim came to bed, or Jenny came home. But I had dreams of chocolate chip cookies all night.

  SIX

  Q: How do you keep your husband from reading your email?

  A: Rename your mail folder “Living With Menopause.”

  By the time I got up at seven the next morning, Jim was already gone. This was very unusual behavior for him. For the last four months, he hadn’t been leaving for the office before eight thirty. And he claimed that, even if he didn’t get into the office until ten, he still was the first one in. This was one of Jim’s many ongoing complaints about the agency these days—staff people came to the office late and left early. And, to hear him tell it, none of them did much work while they were there, either.

  I didn’t know if it was bad or good that Jim had left so early. I was very worried that he was still going to make an appointment with the human resources office about his retirement options, despite our meeting with Davis Rhodes last night.

  Jenny was still sleeping (at least I assumed she was), so I tiptoed into the kitchen. The dogs greeted me and followed me into my office, their nails clicking like tap shoes on the hardwood floor. Before doing anything else, I went online to check my email.

  Of course, there was one from Nancy, wanting a full report on what happened last night. I quickly emailed her back.

  ~*~
/>   Guru Update

  Meeting went pretty well. Believe it or not, Jim seemed really interested in what Rhodes had to say. If this guy can really help him, I’d be thrilled. I didn’t connect with Rhodes at all. Too much macho talk. I kind of zoned out. But I got a great recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I’ll explain when I see you.

  ~*~

  No need to share with her that I’d been (briefly) attracted to Rhodes. I smiled to myself and pressed Send. That message would certainly pique Nancy’s well-known curiosity.

  I was just about to log off the computer when I was “Instant Messaged.” The new email was from Jim.

  Hi Carol.

  Didn’t want to wake you when I left this morning. Thought last night went great. Davis Rhodes is some guy, and I know you’re as excited as I am that he seems interested in having me put together a proposal to have our agency represent him.

  Huh? This was news to me. Guess I had really zoned out last night.

  So when I came home, I wanted to get on the computer and make notes on what we talked about while everything was still fresh in my mind. Dave and I are going to meet again next week so I can show him some P.R. concepts. He may even come into the agency some day soon to meet more of our staff. Wanted to let you know that I’ll probably work later for a few nights to get this proposal done. Even Mack was impressed when I announced at this morning’s staff meeting that I’d landed this new client. I haven’t felt this energized in years!”

  Oh, dear.

  “Girls,” I announced to Lucy and Ethel, “I may have accidentally created another problem.” They both wagged their tails and looked sympathetic. I reached down to give them each a quick scratch. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Sighing, I closed my email and sat staring at the blank computer screen. None of this sounded good to me.

  “Did Davis Rhodes really agree to have Jim do a proposal for marketing his book and his Center?” I asked the dogs. “How could I not have heard that last night? Is Jim reading things into our meeting that didn’t happen?” I shook my head to clear my muddled brain.

  “No,” I told the dogs. “Jim is a professional. He’d never do that. He has good judgment when it comes to his work.”

  But Jim was also desperate. I knew that better than anyone. Was he grasping at straws to reinvent his job? Should I be happy that he was fixated on landing a new client now, rather than on taking early retirement? How could Jim have told his boss he’d signed Davis Rhodes as a client for the agency before he’d even given the guy a proposal?

  I needed to think hard about this. And worry.

  And feel guilty, because if it hadn’t been for me, Jim would never have met Davis Rhodes in the first place.

  What would happen if Jim wasn’t able to sign Rhodes, and Mack found out that he’dbeen lying about it being a done deal? I had a momentary vision of us being forced to sell our beautiful home because we couldn’t keep up with the property taxes. Jim was now worse than unemployed—no one wanted to hire him since word of his shameful behavior and lack of professional ethics had swept the public relations world. We’d end up living in a small bungalow at the Connecticut shore, and I’d take a part-time job as a check-out clerk at the local food store just to make ends meet. Jim would take the only job he could find, driving around neighborhoods delivering newspapers at five a.m. He’d lie and tell all our friends he’d taken early retirement and was in “media relations.” We’d shop at thrift stores for our clothes, and buy day-old bread, dented canned goods and perishable food items whose “use-by” dates had long since expired.

  Our children would send us money to live on, instead of the other way around.

  Well, maybe there was a bright side to this after all.

  ~*~

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Sweetheart. You startled me.”

  Jenny came into my office. Her short blonde hair was sticking up endearingly on one side of her head, and she was wearing a pair of old pink pajamas with red hearts on them. She looked like she was about ten years old.

  I got up and hugged her, smoothing down her hair, and felt a little tremor go through her body. Was she crying in my arms? So far, neither Jim nor I had asked Jenny for any more details about why she’d come back home from the West Coast. We knew she would tell us what she wanted us to know when she was ready for us to know it.

  Jenny pulled away from my embrace, then said, “Sorry, Mom. I don’t want to interrupt you while you’re working on the computer. I’ll go into the kitchen and grab some breakfast.”

  “I’m never too busy for you, honey,” I said. “Come on. There’s coffee already made. And I’ll make you some eggs, okay?”

  “No eggs for me. Cholesterol, you know? But I’ll have some coffee with you and maybe some fruit or granola and yogurt if you have some. I can get it myself. You don’t have to wait on me.”

  “I want to wait on you,” I protested. “Maybe the reason you ended up coming home wasn’t the most positive one, but I’ll admit that it’s a treat for me to have you here. If that’s kind of selfish, well, I guess I’m guilty. So let me get your breakfast.”

  The dogs raced ahead of me and then stopped by their food bowls. “I get it, girls. You need some food, too.” Jenny laughed and settled herself in a kitchen chair.

  After giving the dogs fresh water and a few handfuls of dry dog food, I pulled out a mug from the kitchen cabinet. It had a picture of a ballerina on it. “Are you too grown-up to have your coffee in this?”

  “Oh, Mom, I can’t believe you still have this,” Jenny exclaimed. “Using this mug for chocolate milk was my special reward when I finished all my vegetables.”

  I was rummaging in the refrigerator for yogurt. “Jenny, I’m afraid that we don’t have any yogurt right now. I need to get to the food store sometime today. How about some cold cereal and a banana?”

  “Sure, Mom, thanks. Living in California for a while has changed my eating habits. I’ve become much more conscious of sugar and sodium in food. Jeff used to say…”

  She stopped and her eyes filled with tears.

  I wasn’t sure how to react. I’m an impulsive person, and in the old days I would have crossed the kitchen in two steps, tissues in hand, kissed her and told her that whatever was wrong, Mom and Dad would make it better. But she was all grown up now, and in charge of her own life. My job was to be there for support when she wanted it.

  I sat down at the table beside her and covered her hand with mine. “Jenny, honey. I hate to see you so upset. Dad and I both wish we could do something to help you.” I paused.

  Careful, said my brain to my mouth. Don’t say exactly what you’re thinking, that Jeff is a jerk and you’re much too good for him. I knew that some of my friends had said negative things about their offspring’s partner after the couple broke up. Then the pair reconciled, and the parents’ harsh criticism had alienated their child, in one case for a whole year. I didn’t want to take that chance with my daughter.

  “We don’t want to pry or intrude on your space,” I continued cautiously. “You know we’re glad to have you home, and if you want to talk about your issues with Jeff, that’s fine. I’ll just listen. If you don’t, that’s okay, too. It’s your call.”

  Jenny sat there moist-eyed. “It’s kind of hard to talk about this with your mother. It’s just so personal. I suppose that sounds stupid. Of course it’s personal. Oh, I’m just so mixed up!” She covered her eyes and began to cry again.

  To give her some time to get control of herself, I decided to share a little of my relationship with my own mother. “Sweetie, you know that I never had these kinds of intimate talks with your grandmother. I admit that Grandma and I had our problems over the years. There were times that I really wanted to talk to her about personal things, especially when I was a new bride. The few times I tried, she got very upset, embarrassed, defensive, whatever. Of course, you have to remember that your grandfather died before I was born, so her experience with married life was prett
y brief. Anyway, I certainly didn’t want to upset her, so I just backed off. But I’d like to think that you and I have a different, more open relationship than Grandma and I had.”

  Dramatically I put my hand over my heart. “I hereby solemnly swear that, whenever you want to talk, I’ll just listen and won’t say a word. You know how hard that will be for me. I’ll even put it in writing.”

  Jenny smiled, just a little.

  I got up from the table and kissed the top of her head. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. Now, let’s change the subject. How are things going at Fairport College? Tell me about your classes and your students. I have to admit I’ve been bragging a little to Nancy and Claire about your being a teaching assistant there.”

  “T.A., Mom.”

  “What?”

  “The job is called a T.A.”

  Jenny ate a bite of her cereal and drank a few sips of her coffee. Nourishment: balm for a mother’s soul.

  “The students are an interesting cross-section of people,” she continued. “All ages, all ethnic groups. I was kind of intimidated the first day by the fact that so many of my students are older than I am. But Dr. Burns said not to let that bother me.”

  “Dr. Burns?” I repeated. “You mean Linda Burns?”

  “Yes. Even though she’s in the history department and I’m in American literature, she made a point of stopping by my department office to welcome me.”

  “That was nice of her,” I said slowly. “I don’t see her that often anymore.” Thank God. And I think she’s a royal pain. But if she was nice to my daughter, she went up a notch in my estimation.

  “I used to baby-sit for her two sons, remember?” Jenny said. “They were real terrors. I called her Mrs. Burns then. But when I called her that at school, she reminded me that she’s Dr. Burns. What’s up with that?”