I swallow. It’s time to curtail this walk down memory lane. “Kids are the last thing I need. Anyway, about the job...I’m sorry if you were misled during the interview, but this was never intended to be a permanent position. Even if I could swing the cost of another salaried employee who isn’t bringing in dollars, I can’t swing a bunch of expensive programs to increase morale.”
She goes pale beneath her tan, and no wonder—she’s got kids to support, and I just told her the job isn’t going to last. I silently curse Mark for not being more upfront when he hired her.
“What if the programs aren’t expensive?” she asks. “If employees are leaving because they want to work from home, it must cost you thousands to hire new people and get them up to speed, right? Stopping the flow would pay for the programs right there.”
I sigh heavily. I know for a fact that pizza parties and posters that say ‘Believe in yourself’ aren’t going to keep someone here if he wants to sit on his couch playing video games and jerking off. But the board needs to see it for themselves, which is why I agreed to three months. “It’s not going to work, Lucie. But look...stay for the next few weeks. Take the salary and spend every minute you’re here sending out resumes and interviewing. When you meet the board tomorrow, rattle off some bullshit and keep looking for a job.”
She’s staring at me as if she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. “Rattle off some bullshit?”
I shrug. “Whatever. Tell them you want to host a blood drive or get everyone to wear a lapel pin or something. The lamer your ideas are, the better, as far as I’m concerned, because I need the board to realize it’s not going to work.”
Her shoulders sag. “Why are you so sure I won’t make a difference?”
“I just am. Take the next two weeks to job hunt. You can even stay three if you must.”
She appears to hear the finality in my tone and rises, smoothing her skirt. “Maybe I’ll surprise you,” she says as she turns to leave.
“I don’t want to be surprised,” I reply.
Surprises are the last thing I need.
Especially surprises who swim naked outside my window.
3
LUCIE
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
I march out of the office and wince once the door shuts behind me. What a complete disaster this is.
Does he really believe I can get another job that will support a family within two to three weeks? I spent months applying for jobs before I got this one. I spent months saving enough money to get us by until that first paycheck.
How long will that last us if I’m unemployed? Not all that long. I could conceivably sell my aunt’s house, but I doubt it’s worth much and I assume I’d have to split that with Jeremy. I could never buy a new place with what would be left over.
I collapse into the desk chair and bury my face in my hands. God, I’m foolish. There I was, wondering if it was fate that we met and eager to find out where his life had taken him, while he was simply trying to figure out how to get me out of his company as soon as possible.
But if he told the board he’d give me three months, he’ll have no reason not to give me three months as long as I can impress them tomorrow. I just need to create a miraculous program by the end of the day, despite having no idea what the budget is and no real-world job experience. Great. Super. No problem.
I always think of Ruth during moments like this, panicked moments when I’m not sure I have what it takes. She’d spend the day on conference calls while I sat by quietly, and between each of them she’d give me advice—all these sayings that were utterly meaningless to a little kid who just wanted to go outside: Work smarter, not harder; don’t recreate the wheel.
Those meaningless phrases of hers have helped me out of more than one situation and—because I have to pick up the twins in seven hours, and that’s not nearly enough time to come up with an idea of my own—not recreating the wheel is decent advice.
I start looking at what larger companies offer their employees, and though every idea seems like a terrible one when it has to be perfect or else—‘Perfect is the enemy of good’ Ruth says in my head—by the time I leave to get the twins, I’ve at least chosen something and started to pull together a presentation.
“Finally,” my friend Molly says, picking up on the first ring. “I texted you a million times.”
I look both ways before I take a left out of the parking lot. “I couldn’t text. I couldn’t do anything. I’m already about to get fired.”
She laughs. “That can’t be true.”
Molly is the one person who knows everything about me. She knows who my dad is, she knows about Jeremy’s cheating and overall ugliness. But she is endlessly confident and competent, at least where work is concerned—as the only Black supervisor at a research lab, and one of only three females, the nonsense she hears is endless, so she’d have to be. I’m not sure she can even imagine getting fired because she’s too damned good at what she does for anyone to want her gone.
“My boss—there’s a whole story there too—basically told me he needs me gone. He said he’s giving me a couple weeks to find another job and that’s it.”
“Shit,” she whispers. “Have you met with the divorce lawyer yet? You need child support if nothing else.”
The lawyer, who is booked out for weeks and wants five hundred for the first meeting. “It’s next month.”
“I still think we should just poison Jeremy. It would solve so many problems.”
I laugh wearily. “That’s a pretty bold plan coming from a woman who can’t even tell her boss she likes him.”
She hasn’t been on a single date during all the years I’ve known her. There was an ugly break-up in grad school, and ever since she started at her current job, it’s been Michael, Michael, Michael—the boss she lusts after from afar.
“Here’s what we do: apple seeds,” she says, ignoring my point. “They contain arsenic. We crush them up and put them into his food. Nothing ever gets traced back to us.”
“Unless they test for arsenic and someone wonders why I recently bought ten bushels of apples. I’m not ready to turn to murder yet.” I pull into the parking lot of the twins’ school and let her go, as St. Ignatius doesn’t allow cell phones to be used on the premises, and it’s the kind of place where you follow the rules, because we need them more than they need us. I’m still not sure how Jeremy got the twins in when we’re pretty much the only parents here who didn’t attend St. Ignatius ourselves and couldn’t afford to build the school a new stadium if necessary. Jeremy comes from money, at least, but me? I spent my entire childhood moving from one guy’s trailer home to another guy’s apartment, and now—broke and soon-to-be-divorced—I don’t see myself fitting in any better.
Fortunately, the halls are empty this late. I rush back to the aftercare room, where Henry is waiting for me, sitting at a table alone. My heart pinches hard at the sight. He never plays with anyone but Sophie, and I’ve been hoping it would change, but they’ve nearly got an entire year of kindergarten behind them and it hasn’t. One day, Sophie will move on—to new friends and college and a career. Who will Henry have then?
Both twins run when they see me but it’s Sophie, happily occupied at the play kitchen only a moment ago, who’s outraged. “Where were you?” she demands. Like my mother, she’s never one to let the opportunity to complain pass quietly, but in her, it’s a good thing. No one pushes my mother around, and no one will ever push Sophie an inch either.
I offer an awkward smile to the teacher as I shepherd them out. “I had to work, sweetie. I told you.”
“I-D-L-T,” she announces.
It’s a game I made up last year, to help the twins learn the sounds letters make. ILY is I love you. TFB is time for bed. I created it mostly for Henry, who doesn’t have Sophie’s ease with words nor her love of stories, but it’s Sophie who uses it, mostly to express her disapproval. Today’s is easy to figure out because I hear some version of it quite a bit.
“I didn’t like this?” I guess.
“I didn’t,” she says. “I still don’t.”
If today had gone better, I’d probably laugh. But I just don’t have the capacity for laughter at present.
I wanted to give my children everything my mother did not give me. Now I’m worried I’ll be giving them even less.