“I’m good, too,” she answered.
“Good like your numbers,” he said, grinning. “You’re going to have the highest of the whole team by next week.” He leaned closer. “I had them give you more files this go-round. That’s good for you and for me.” He blinked—she was pretty sure he meant to wink—and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Not to mention good for GI. But a little bump in our checks is nice, right?”
“It sure is.”
“You should splurge next payday,” he said. “Get yourself something new.” He indicated her green dress, then touched the collar of his golf shirt, which was, naturally, Global Insurance purple. It was also quite new looking, with a crisp collar and a row of buttons that lined up neatly instead of veering west like the neckline of Markie’s dress. Her face reddened at the thought that even Gregory dressed better than she did.
“I’m afraid my next paycheck’s already spoken for,” she said. “And the one after that. And . . .” She made a rolling motion with her hand to complete the idea.
He cocked his head to the side, confused by her gesture, but she had already said enough. She was not about to list for him her many creditors and payment deadlines and interest rates and penalty fees. Or tell him about her strategy of financial self-flagellation: if anyone was getting anything new in her house, it was the fourteen-year-old who had done nothing to warrant having his finger pinched so many times by constantly tightening purse strings, not the forty-five-year-old who had let them get into that condition.
They stood awkwardly for a few moments while Gregory tried to think of something more to say, and Markie tried to conjure up an emergency that would allow her to leave, stat.
“Oh!” she said, patting her purse. “Was that my phone?”
“I didn’t hear—”
“Yes, I think it was.” She rooted through her handbag, pretended to find her cell, and fake-read a terrible message on its screen. “Oh no!” she gasped. She looked up at Gregory with simulated panic in her eyes. He didn’t catch on, so she added, “Something terrible happened!”
“What happened?” he asked.
She turned away, artificially distraught, and raked a hand through her hair, hoping the dramatic gesture would serve to both distract him and give her time to think of some awful thing that required her to rush home immediately. She couldn’t think of anything, so she went with “I know! You’re right! I have to get home right away!” Turning, she headed for the exit doors. Gregory started to walk with her, so she picked up her pace, losing him in fifteen steps.
“What is it?” he called after her. “What happened? Markie?”
“I will!” she called back, waving without turning around. “I will drive carefully! Thanks! You’re a great help, Gregory.”
This is how the universe punished Markie for pretending there was a disturbing message on her phone earlier: she got a disturbing message on her phone. She had finished her last file for the day and was waiting for Jesse to get home so they could start their mother-son night out when he texted to say he wanted to hang out with Trevor after school. Maybe even stay for dinner at Trevor’s house. He would be home by ten. Was that okay?
Trevor, whose name I’ve heard exactly one time, but whose face I’ve never seen? she wanted to text back. This boy I haven’t met, whose parents I know nothing about, expects your mother to have no problem with your spending the entire afternoon and evening there? Is Trevor’s father going to drive you home, or do they intend to have you walk, alone, in the dark? What are these people thinking, these so-called parents of this so-called Trevor, letting a ninth grader walk home by himself? Tell me the address, and I’ll come and get you at ten. Or right after dinner. Better yet, why don’t you just tell Trevor that tonight’s not going to work out?
At Saint Mark’s, she had known every child, every family, every parent’s occupation. She had most of Jesse’s friends’ mothers on speed dial, could get to their houses with her eyes closed. It was time to remind her son of this, she thought as she reread his text. She would do it over dinner that night as they reconnected. They could leave Trevor of the Negligent Parents to invite some other unsuspecting kid over while she explained to her child that he needed to take things a little more slowly when it came to his social life. She wasn’t at all comfortable with this insane public-school laxness where kids made plans willy-nilly with people their own parents had never even laid eyes on. He had to give her some time to catch up.
I’m not so sure, she finally texted back. I’ve never met Trevor.
?? Jesse replied, and because Markie had an honorary PhD in Interpreting Teenage Boys, with a major in the Naturally Quiet subset and a minor in the Recently Turned Sullen, she knew exactly what “??” meant: This again, Mom? First you grill me about sneaking cigarettes in the backyard, and now you don’t trust me to choose my own friends? What’s next—you going to check to see if my toothbrush is wet after I tell you I’ve brushed?
She set her phone in her lap and closed her eyes. He was adapting to his new surroundings, making friends. Did she really want to interfere with that, to tell him to hold on just one minute, let’s stop this forward advancement and rewind things to how they used to be? This was how things were now. And if that made her nervous, if that made her feel uncomfortable, then she was going to need to suck it up and learn to be nervous and uncomfortable.
Never mind, she texted back. Ten is fine.
Chapter Nine
One morning the following week, as Markie lowered herself into one of her patio chairs, a stack of files cradled in her arms, she heard the door from Mrs. Saint’s house to her screened porch open and close, the scraping of chairs on the wood floor, the clatter of dishes being placed on the coffee table, and the voices of the elderly woman and the four members of her staff as they prepared to sit down. Coffee hour was about to begin, and Markie could predict exactly how the next sixty minutes would go.