Sarah's Choice

by Rebecca St. James

Jennifer nodded. “As I said before, this is strictly off the record. As in, you tell anyone we had this conversation and I will take away that scarf you’re always wearing.”

  Not her too.

  But Jennifer smiled. “Actually I think it’s rather charming. And I don’t really care what you wear, and neither does Henry Carson. Nick doesn’t either, as long as it’s short and has a plunging neckline. And you didn’t hear that from me either.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “What I care about is this. I want you to have this job because this company is in desperate need of people with integrity. Desperate.”

  Jennifer had lowered her voice almost to a whisper so that Sarah had to lean over her artichoke-spinach-and-pinenuts to hear her.

  “You’ve been around long enough to know that the advertising business as a whole is all about getting people to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need.”

  Sarah flinched. Those were almost exactly the warning words her father had spoken to her when she’d chosen her major.

  “I don’t usually have much of a problem with that,” Jennifer went on. “I buy things I don’t need all the time.” She pulled back her sleeve. “Who needs a Cartier, right?”

  “Well, right . . .”

  “But I take issue with some of the means that are used on two levels.” She put her fork down and held up one finger. “Some of our people—and I won’t name names—are not above playing pretty serious head games with our clients, who in turn try to play their customers in the same way.”

  “I think I’ve seen that,” Sarah said. Caveats hidden in the fine print on TV ads, implied promises in pharmaceutical campaigns, and half-naked girls on billboards advertising knee replacements all came to mind.

  “I’ve done the research, Sarah, and the kind of advertising I’m talking about does not increase sales the way we as a company are telling people it does. I can’t fight that alone, and people like . . . well, the established people at Carson aren’t going to do battle alongside me. But I’ve watched you—even the way you handled yourself in that heinous meeting with Nick and Henry the other day—and I think . . . no, I know you have the kind of ethics that would make it impossible for you to do otherwise than to get on board with me.”

  Sarah could see her father’s earnest eyes. Learn the skills, SJ, so you can make people aware of products and services and issues and opportunities they do need—and steer your industry away from cheap manipulation.

  Jennifer was watching her, chewing her lettuce and, Sarah guessed, her thoughts.

  “I’m honored that you’d say that,” Sarah said.

  “Don’t be modest. You know it’s true.”

  “It’s what I work at anyway.”

  “And the ConEx account is the perfect opportunity for you to do that.”

  Jennifer pushed the half-eaten salad away and folded both hands on the table. Sarah had only taken two bites, but she gladly set hers aside too. What she wouldn’t give for a ginger ale. For so many reasons.

  “You’ve done the background work,” Jennifer said. “You know ConEx is a reputable company with, to use your own word, honorable goals. For heaven’s sake, they’re in the business of helping the wealthiest of the wealthy find ways to give their money away. They’re all about philanthropy. All we need is to get someone like Thad Nussbaum in there telling them they should show businessmen with trophy wives at their sides handing out iPhones to at-risk kids down in South Chicago. We’ll lose that account and all chances Carson Creative has of developing any kind of decent reputation for honesty. Which we currently do not have in this industry.”

  She folded her arms across her crisp blouse. Sarah could have sworn she heard it crackle.

  “I sound so jaded, don’t I?” Jennifer said. “But you’re still young and idealistic and so far you seem to be untouched by the seamier side of this business. I need you. We need you.”

  Jennifer leaned back and looked as if she expected Sarah to say something. What came to mind was, Me? You’re talking about me? Because inside she felt old and disillusioned and very much in touch with her seamy side.

  “Is there something you need for me to do now?” Sarah said instead.

  “No. Well, yes, actually. Don’t tell anyone we had this conversation. It’s obvious I’m pushing for Henry Carson to promote you, but you aren’t supposed to know that.”

  “Did we have this conversation?” Sarah said.

  Jennifer smiled briefly and then she said, “Another thing. If I were you, I would spend less time with Megan Hollister. She’s one of the very people I’m talking about. Associating with her creates entirely the wrong impression, and it’s not one you want, trust me.”

  Sarah was grateful the check arrived just then. She was having a hard time wiping “stunned” from her face.

  Thad wasn’t hanging out in Sarah’s doorway like a spider monkey when she returned from lunch. When he passed her in the hall, there was no sweaty handshake—just a hate-laced look. She was never going to breathe a word about her conversation with Jennifer, but the fact that they’d had one at all was obviously old office news before they even got back to the building. Nobody missed anything in that place. Which was a scarier thought than usual.

  In fact, Sarah had barely gotten her scarf off when Megan came into her cubicle and whispered, “Let’s go in the break room. There’s nobody in there right now. I want to hear everything.”

  Sarah turned quickly to her desk and picked up a folder. Any folder. “I can’t. I stayed out longer than an hour, and I’ve got stuff to catch up on.”

  Megan glanced up and down the hall and then came to perch on the counter. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Everything.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” Sarah said.

  “You’re a worse liar than a used car salesman.”

  Sarah had seen that for herself in the bathroom mirror. Although . . . Jennifer Nolte didn’t think she lied at all.

  But it wasn’t just because Jennifer had told her to dump Megan that Sarah wanted her to go away. She needed some time to sort out that lunch conversation—all of that about the difference she could make. The compartments were confusing their contents again, and it was starting to matter more than ever.

  “I can’t talk about it,” Sarah said.

  “Not even to me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Megan stared at her for a long moment, eyes boring. Sarah turned her head before they could get in too far.

  “I get it,” Megan said. “Okay, a back table at the Grille then. After work. My treat.”

  Sarah just shook her head.

  “Fine. Do what you have to do.”

  As she listened to the heels tap importantly down the hall, Sarah closed her eyes and felt the weight of one less ally.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thursday, Sarah had trouble sitting at her desk. It wasn’t only the runs to the restroom now. It was the anxiety, the kind that wouldn’t let her, the Focus Queen, be still for longer than seven minutes at a time. She’d never been this way.

  Okay, maybe once—when she first moved to her tiny apartment in New York and found herself alone, facing graduate school and friendlessness and a refrigerator she couldn’t afford to fill. That day she was melting from Independent Sarah into Daddy’s Sarah so fast she could hardly talk when she got him on the phone. She’d curled into a fetal position in the closet of her apartment and listened to him pray for her.

  Sarah lurched from her chair for the fifteenth time and took an aimless walk down the hall. All heads were bent over desks or inclined with phones pressed against them. Everyone was focused the way she always was. The way she couldn’t be until she decided. And how could she decide when even she seemed to have abandoned herself?

  Only one person looked up at her as she rambled past. Sarah’s eyes met Audrey’s as she went by. When she turned on her heel and returned to the doorway, she was still looking, as if she’d known Sarah would co
me back.

  Sarah stepped inside and Audrey said, “You can close the door if you want.”

  She did.

  “I don’t really want to talk,” Sarah said.

  Audrey nodded, splashing the bob against her cheek. “I know.” She swept her arm over her office. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  That would have been easy to do if she hadn’t felt like she was about to come out through her own pores. Two stripe-cushioned wingback chairs faced Audrey’s desk and another cushier one hung out in the corner next to a small table with a teapot on it. It occurred to Sarah that she’d never even peeked into Audrey’s office before. If she had, it would have surprised her. It looked more like a favorite aunt’s sitting room than the place where an account executive made decisions.

  Sarah chose the chair in the corner and pulled her feet into a cross-legged position. Then she thought to ask, “Is this okay?”

  “It is. You want some tea?”

  Tea. Sarah hadn’t thought of that.

  “I recommend the peppermint,” Audrey said. “It will settle your stomach.”

  “Sure. Thanks,” Sarah said, and watched Audrey hoist herself out of her desk chair and waddle cutely over to a kettle plugged in next to her printer. She spooned loose tea into some kind of tea-making gadget and put a small pitcher of milk into the microwave. Her movements made Sarah want to lapse into a nap.

  Audrey said nothing as she handed Sarah a large mug with Rocky Mountain National Forest printed on it. When she went back to her desk with her own cup, Sarah looked around some more.

  It was clear a great deal of work got done in here. Files were in neat slots and the out-box was fuller than the in-box. But it was as if Audrey were determined to work at home, even if she had to come here. Fresh poinsettias on the credenza. A lamp with a fabric lampshade on the desk, casting a cozy light. And a gallery of framed photos on the wall above Audrey’s head. A life with a shaved-headed happy-faced guy was chronicled there. Hiking. Sailing. Toasting glasses over Italian food. In Italy. It was a testament to the possibility of happiness.

  Sarah had to look away.

  When she finished off the tea, she stood up. “Thanks for this.”

  “Come back any time. Sometimes ten minutes of hiding makes all the difference.”

  Sarah nodded and put her hand on the doorknob.

  “You know . . . my husband’s going to be out Saturday night. You want to come to my place for supper?”

  Sarah stared at her.

  “Just a thought,” Audrey said, head tilted. “I’ll e-mail you the address and you can let me know.”

  Sarah had no idea what to do with that. How could she spend an evening with a woman who rested her hand on her belly because there was no question that she loved what was inside? Somehow the offer made her feel lonelier than ever.

  By Friday afternoon that aloneness pressed down so hard on Sarah’s shoulders, she couldn’t bear her own heartbeat. She decided to go to the tree-trimming party at her mother’s. The strand upon strand of twinkly lights and the chatter and the pretense that the celebration could be what it had always been might take her mind off the absolute isolation.

  And she might talk to Denise.

  Sarah seldom went to her sister with her struggles, because Denise never seemed to struggle at all. She had always been “the easy daughter”—according to their mother, not to her—while Sarah was the “challenging” one. But Denise was the closest thing to a saint their family had now that Dad was gone. She had his patience. She never judged. She just listened with her whole body.

  So Sarah might talk to her.

  Maybe.

  Buzz got her there, thanks to a trip to the mechanic Wednesday that carved a two hundred–dollar hole in her savings and left her with less than fifty in the bank. Sarah could almost hear Megan saying, Would you be able to afford that if you had a kid to feed? It didn’t seem to matter whether she hung out with Megan or not; she was still in her head like a CD on how to live your life. Dad’s whisper, on the other hand, was still silent.

  Yeah. Sarah really did need a night of nonsense.

  Her mother was over-the-top delighted when she walked through the door. Sarah had a cup of from-scratch hot chocolate and a plate of red sprinkled snickerdoodles in her hands almost before she got her gloves off. But the evening threatened to immediately go south when the scarf fell to the floor as Agnes hung her coat on a hook in the front hallway.

  “I’m so glad you wear this, honey,” she said, pressing it against her face. “I know it’s not as sophisticated as your other things, but your father would be so pleased.” Her voice choked.

  Can we please not go there tonight? Please?

  And as if that weren’t enough, her mother’s next words were: “Honey, where’s Matt? I thought he was coming.”

  “He couldn’t make it,” Sarah said.

  She must not be getting any better at lying, because Agnes’s eyes drooped. “You’re not having trouble, the two of you?”

  “Mom—”

  “I would hate to see that happen. He’s a nice boy. Several of the women at church were very impressed with him. He looks people in the eye. Not many young people do that—”

  Sarah raised the mug of chocolate. “Do you have any marshmallows, Mom?”

  “Marshmallows.” Agnes blinked. “Yes. And you’re right. This is a happy night, isn’t it?”

  She was off to the kitchen before Sarah had to answer.

  Sarah made it to the end table in the living room with the mug and plate just before Sean, chubby cheeks fiery from too much stimulation, tore through with a box of candy canes under his arm and Tim on his heels. Screaming, of course. Sarah grabbed her mother’s nativity snow globe a mere shaving of a second before its dive from the table was inevitable. Sean left her and the sloshing globe in his wake as he careened across the living room and leapt onto his father’s unsuspecting back, candy canes still in hand, Tim still squalling. Justin juggled his camera and let out a “Whoa, dude!” which was a whole lot more civil than what was about to come out of Sarah’s mouth. Behind her, Denise put in a halfhearted, “Settle down in here,” and went off after Tim, who was suddenly wailing that he had to go potty. From the smell of him, that announcement was coming several minutes too late.

  If someone had put a gun to Sarah’s head right then and said, “Are you going to have this baby or not?” she would have said, not no, but heck no!

  Until she passed the still-naked Christmas tree and went toward the kitchen and the aroma of vegetable soup—and stopped dead in the dining room.

  The table was piled with boxes of ornaments and trails of garland—not with a changing mat and containers of powder and lotion and stacks of diapers. Or a baby.

  The last time she was in this room she was holding Daisy. That scene was far more real than the ghosts of Christmas past that flitted fitfully among the nativity scenes and the faded felt stars dotted with glitter, looking for a place to be put to rest. It was easier to believe she could kiss that sweet pink neck than she could bear to put those preschool-crafted ornaments on a tree one more time. Not without her father reclined in his chair saying, “Put that one that says ‘Daddy’ on it right in the middle.” Her father who didn’t care that she’d spelled it Dady.

  Why had she thought coming here was a good idea?

  “I’ll be on social security before I get that kid potty-trained.” Denise put her arms around Sarah’s shoulders from behind. “Where’s Matt?”

  Sarah closed her eyes. “We’re not attached at the hip. He had something else to do.”

  “Bummer,” Justin called from the living room. “I got some great shots of you two at Mom’s birthday party. My camera’s on the table if you want to take a look.”

  For once her mother’s timing was impeccable. The kitchen door swung open and she appeared with yet another plate of frosted, sprinkled goodies in one hand and a bowl of tiny marshmallows in the other. Heaven forbid you should serve them from the plastic
bag.

  “It’s time!” she sang out. “Boys, are you ready?”

  “Have you met them?” Justin said.

  He was now on a ladder, stringing lights, while Sean wrapped a stray strand around a big-eyed Tim. The little guy’s hair stood straight up on his head in spikes as if his brother had plugged it in. But, then, he always looked that way. His cuteness was depressing.

  “Here’s how we do this,” Agnes said. And proceeded to give the same instructions she handed out every year. Lights first. Then the angel on the top. Then the adults would hang the breakable ornaments on the higher branches and the kids would hang the nonbreakables on the lower ones.

  “Good luck with that,” Justin said.

  But Nana was undaunted. She somehow managed to make the whole thing happen and avoid any mini-man meltdowns and keep all the mugs steaming and marshmallow-filled. Even Sarah got into the hilarity of the concoctions she and Denise had made as kids, which became more misshapen every year.

  “Mom, really,” Sarah said, “this stuff makes the tree look like a Salvador Dali painting.”

  Denise hooted.

  “Who?” Mom said.

  Denise collapsed.

  “Now you look like a Dali painting,” Sarah said to her.

  Agnes stroked the face of a lopsided cardboard snowman missing three-fourths of his cotton. “It’s patina,” she said.

  Justin gave her a deadpan look. “I don’t even know what that is.”

  Sarah started to tell him patina was a nice word for “This has seen way better days,” until she peeked around the tree to find him propped up in Dad’s chair, pointing to a bare lower branch for Sean to hook a clothespin reindeer onto.

  Dad’s chair. The wooden arms stripped of their varnish by his hands. The headrest rubbed raw by his head. The cushions recessed to the contours of his fading body even when he stood up and groped at the air for something to hold onto—

  “Sarah,” her mother said, “someday your children will be doing this with us.”

  The tree was almost done. Mom had her grandchildren to fill her up. Sarah could go now and not leave too much disappointment behind her. And if she didn’t leave, she couldn’t be responsible for what might burst out of her.