She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I want . . . I want . . .” Okay, really, if she knew what she wanted, she wouldn’t be standing on top of some mountain trying to explain her existence, would she? “I want . . . confidence!” she blurted.
“Why should you want confidence?” Teresa groused. “You’ve got more money and looks than any of us will ever have!”
“That’s not true! I lost it all when my husband left me for another woman,” Rebecca said angrily, startling even herself. “Did your husband leave you for someone else? Or announce it the very day you learned your father was dying? Just look at me now! I have never been anything but a beauty queen! I gave up all my dreams to be his wife, and now I have a young son, and I’ve never had a job, and I never finished school, and I’m still trying to figure out why I wasn’t good enough for him!” she cried. “I want to find out who I am! Who I really am! And I want to believe in myself!”
She stopped, shocked by her uncharacteristic outburst . . . but she clearly had their attention.
“So what you are saying is that while it may seem like you and your life are all picture perfect, the truth is, there’s nothing really very perfect for you at all, is there, Rebecca?” Moira asked, unfazed. “You don’t believe in yourself, do you? You don’t believe you are worthy or capable of love or hope, do you?” she pressed, moving in closer, her face looming larger.
“No!” Rebecca cried. “And I don’t know what to do.”
“Get a job,” Teresa suggested, her voice kinder.
“Please!” Rebecca scoffed. Were they deaf? “I have no experience at anything, and I’ve never worked, and everyone in Dallas knows my husband. And I don’t need a job.”
“Move to a new city,” Eloise said. “Leave that cheating sonovabitch behind and go somewhere and be yourself!”
“Move?” Rebecca echoed weakly.
“MOVE!” someone else shouted.
“What your Partners in Transformation are telling you, Rebecca, is that you should move out from the shadow of your husband, because he represents the insecurity and feelings of inadequacy that have bubbled up to toxic levels inside of you. And whether you need a job or not doesn’t really matter, does it? The point is the only way you’ll ever believe in yourself is to prove that you can do whatever you set your mind to. Only you control your future, only you can prove yourself. What do you need, Rebecca? Say it!” Moira shouted, pointing at her.
“A job?” Rebecca asked.
“A job!” Moira cheered. “What do you want, Rebecca?”
“A job!”
“A job!” Moira roared to the stars above.
That was it, that simple! What had seemed so ridiculous a few months ago now seemed genius. Suddenly, everything seemed clearly genius, and Rebecca felt a burst of hope throughout her body.
She suddenly tossed back her head and howled at the moon, then lowered her head, beaming at them.
At which point, Leslie clutched her stomach and turned pleading eyes to Moira. “For the love of God, can we please eat now?”
Chapter Two
I like work: It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours . . .
JEROME K JEROME
Austin, Texas
Six months later
When Rebecca left Colorado, all pumped up and ready to kick some ass, she had immediately set out on her newly defined path. Which meant that she and Grayson had moved to her lake house near Austin and she had begun to send out résumés. Okay, admittedly thin résumés, but résumés nonetheless, because Moira said there was no such thing as an unmarketable person.
What Moira did not say, however, was that there was such a thing as an unqualified person. Fortunately, The Unqualified Applicant: Obtaining Employment in a Competitive Market, a new addition to Rebecca’s ever-expanding arsenal of self-help books and tapes, had cleared all that up for her. And here was something else Moira did not say: Years of tennis and shopping had not exactly qualified her for the real world.
Seated on a park bench on the grounds of the state capitol in Austin, a bench that, incidentally, was just across the street from the Fleming and Fleming Employment Agency, Rebecca decided that her lack of experience in general was, like the rest of her miserable life, all Bud’s fault for three reasons: on general principle; for having convinced her to be a social butterfly and waste her life; and for then cheating on her and leaving her high and dry. Asshole.
Then again, she really couldn’t lay it all at Bud’s jacked-up feet. Yes, he was an ass, capital A, capital SS, but it wasn’t as if he had chained her to a stove or anything. In the end, he was hardly ever home; she could have flown to the moon and back for all he cared. No, she was the one who gave it all up for Bud. She’d dropped out of college with nothing more than a Miss Texas crown to fall back on. She’d put up with his affairs. And somehow, she’d come up with the brilliant idea that if she had everything neatly and perfectly arranged, then life would be perfect. Her marriage would be perfect. She’d be perfect.