“With Carol, though,” Ronda went on, “it’s likely to be pure grudge, through and through. She’s one of the tough ones. She’s . . .” She gazed at the back of her hands for the right word. “Hard,” she settled on. “She’s a hard, demanding woman. Patty can’t do anything right, if you ask Carol. But then, if you ask just about anyone who knows Carol, they’ll tell you she hasn’t done a lot right in her life herself.
“And she sure ain’t doing right by her family these days, always messed up and borrowing money. Or stealing it, if Patty’s not around to lend it. So why she’s so hard on Patty . . .” She turned her hands over and examined her palms for the rest of her sentence. Not finding it there, evidently, she started a new one. “I’ve probably made more Carol totems than any other kind. Patty has a drawerful, I think! Not that it’s helping.”
Markie thought of her own hypercritical mother and considered asking Ronda for a Lydia totem. Then again, she only had to deal with hers on the phone or over Skype. Patty, forced to see Carol every day, was the one most in need of the totems.
“I wonder why Patty doesn’t just move out,” Markie said. “I assume she makes enough money to get her own place.”
“She does,” Ronda said. “It’s Carol that don’t have enough to get by. And since Carol raised Patty on her own, Patty feels like she owes her. Or at least, Carol’s told her enough times that she owes her. Plus, there’s the fact that Carol’s the go-to for minding Lola while Patty’s out in the evenings. And you don’t move out on Carol and then ask her to look after your kid. That’s not how things work with Carol. Like I said, you make her mad, and that’s it for you.”
Ronda gestured to the house and said, “I should get back in there. I’m burning some muffins, but I don’t want to let them go too long or it might make it obvious.” Noting Markie’s surprise, she winked and said, “Carol’ll do some yelling and cursing about my terrible cooking and lay off Patty for a minute. Works every time.”
It was the Thursday after Halloween, and Markie was working at the dining room table. She was trying to work, anyway, but mostly she had been staring out the window, trying to keep herself from obsessing about the fact that the gig was likely up for her work-from-home position. She had eight days, including the weekend, to get her numbers up before she was scheduled to meet with Gregory for their mind-mapping session. There was no way for her to get out of it, and at this point, she couldn’t see herself coming away from that meeting with good news. Her numbers were still down, thanks to Angel.
She had considered staying up all night to work while the dog was happily cuddling in bed with Jesse. But she had never been able to pull off late nights, even when she was young. It took her days to recover from even a single night of missed sleep, as she had been reminded after Patty’s middle-of-the-night Lola pickup. And anyway, she couldn’t imagine having to deal with Angel all day when she was tired.
She looked down at her yoga pants and oversize T-shirt and let out a breath. The weight loss she had been so excited about after her short period of dog walking had reversed itself, thanks to her sprained ankle. She might not even be able to squeeze into her lime-green post-baby dress next Friday. And although she had been trying to avoid the mirror in the bathroom, it hadn’t escaped her that her gray roots had now grown so long that her hair seemed to belong to two people—the bottom six inches to a young blonde, and the top six to an old brunette.
Not that a slimmer physique, a new wardrobe, and a day at the beauty salon were all that was standing between her and the ability to work in public once more. Emotionally, she still wasn’t there. And it wasn’t just Gregory and the cube prairie she couldn’t face. It was any location, any boss.
Her limited interactions with Mrs. Saint and her employees took more out of Markie than she had. She had taken to buying groceries only on Wednesdays, and only late at night, because that was the shift worked by the least-talkative cashier in the store. The others wanted to chat about the weather or her purchases, innocuous enough in terms of subject matter, but it was torture for Markie, the way they smiled and waited for her to respond. There was no way she would be able to withstand workplace banter in the cube prairie all day long, and the idea of department lunches, with the requisite get-to-know-you pudding-cup trades Gregory was so keen on, made her break into a cold sweat.
Noise from the other side of the window caught her attention. Jesse and Lola were outside on one of their homework breaks. Lola waved her arms above her head and squealed while she ran laps around the yard, Jesse chasing after her, bent forward, his arms hanging limply in front of him, making deranged-creature noises. Angel, who was allowed to lie at their feet under Mrs. Saint’s kitchen table while they worked, ran after them, barking.
Markie stood, crossed to the window, and watched as the kids ran in circles. Every few minutes they stopped and pitched forward, hands on their knees, ribs moving in and out as they caught their breath. No matter how far apart they were when they stopped, Lola always moved closer to Jesse. Markie could see their mouths move as they talked and laughed until finally, one of them would swat the other and they would both take off running again.
A few minutes into their game, the side door opened and Frédéric came out. He said something to Jesse, pointed toward the bungalow, and started for the fence. Markie, always eager to stop any cross-lawn travel when she could, hurried out to meet him.
“I have not yet thanked you for taking Lola the other night,” he said, reaching across the fence to take both of her hands in his. “What a wonderful thing you did. Thank you.” He bowed stiffly.
“It was more Jesse than me,” she said.
Frédéric turned to watch the children, who were now turning in tight circles with their arms straight out, like airplanes. “He is a remarkable young man, to do these things for her,” he said. “These childish games of which I am sure he wants no part.”
“It’s good for him to get the fresh air himself,” Markie said, “not to mention the exercise. I think his video game playing has been cut in half since he started spending time with her. Maybe more.”
“He has a good mind,” Frédéric said. “He is interested in things. Not the same as many his age.”