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CHAPTER 3
For a few minutes I almost forgot.
As I started down the stairs, wearing the dress my mother had delivered earlier, the scents from the kitchen took me back to evenings when the sound of music had come from Gordy’s room upstairs and the house had felt cozy and safe. That’s how I’d felt in this life I had built for Gordy and me. Home safe—like a kid who’d been playing kick the can and had rushed out madly from the shadows of dusk to hit goal. But I’d forgotten something about how the game was played. The win was always only temporary. You never knew what was going to happen in the next round.
I was bending over the open oven door, basting what I’d hoped was going to help me win the next round, when I heard the front door open and Moira’s voice loudly purr, “Yum-mee—something smells good enough to eat. And look at that table,” she said as she came through the dining room. “And look at you, girlfriend!”
I shut the oven door while Moira stood in the kitchen doorway and studied the dress I was wearing.
“Donna Karan?” she asked.
“Right,” I answered.
“Bernice was here,” Moira said.
“Right again.”
She grimaced. “How did it go?”
“It was typical Bernice. First she cut me down at the ankles and then she wished me good luck.”
“Good luck? Don’t tell me you’re expecting a man for dinner!” Moira put her hand to her chest and slumped dramatically against the wall. “Oh my god, you’re dating and you didn’t tell me!”
“I am expecting a man for dinner. But it’s not a date. It’s strictly business.”
Suspicion brought her upright again. “Business with whom?” she asked.
“Roger,” I answered as I walked past her to check on the table one last time.
Moira scurried after me, her arms outstretched. In the fringed peacock-blue cashmere shawl she was wearing over a matching V-neck sweater, she looked like a horrified exotic bird. “Cloth napkins and a Donna Karan dress! I had no idea you were this desperate.” She swept me into her arms. “Sweetie, don’t you know Stan and I would never let you starve? You don’t have to resort to this!”
It took me a moment to disentangle myself from her shawl.
“Resort to what?” I demanded once I’d spit fringe out of my mouth.
“To trying to woo the shirt back into your life,” Moira stated like the answer was obvious.
“Damn it, does the entire world see me as that pathetic? Bad enough that my mother jumped to the same conclusion. I expected more from you, Moira. Give me a little credit, will you?”
Moira flapped a hand at me. “Simmer down, hon. I mean, it’s a gigantic whew that I was wrong, but why the big production if there’s gonna be no seduction?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly say there wasn’t going to be any seduction,” I said demurely as I fluffed the giant mums in the short amber color vase in the middle of the dining room table. “But not,” I added before Moira could erupt again, “sexual seduction. I’m using food to have my way with the man, true,” I admitted, “but only so I can convince him to let me stay in the house for a few more months.”
Moira digested this information for a few seconds. “Hmm, shrewd,” she said, nodding sagely. “Very shrewd.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
She pulled a pout. “Well, I am a little hurt that I wasn’t consulted since you know how I love mischief, but it’s a solid idea, sister. Roger was always a sucker for your cooking. That dress isn’t going to hurt, either.”
I looked down at myself. For once, my mother had gotten it right. The dress fit like it was tailored for me. Made of something black and soft, it had a wide V neckline and hugged my body to the waist where the skirt flared gently to just above my ankles. It made the most of my flat midriff and decent waist-line while it hid my slightly generous hips and backside. I looked good and I knew it.
“Thank you,” I said.
Moira followed me back into the kitchen and plucked a crumb of topping from the apple crisp cooling on the counter. “I could easily be bribed into something for a dish of this stuff.”
“Come over for leftovers later. You can dry the dishes.”
“I’ll dry the dishes as long as you dish the dish. I want to hear every little crumb of what goes on between you and the shirt,” she said.
I assured her that I would spill like a toddler trying to pour a glass of grape juice, then steered her toward the door. The last thing I needed was Moira hanging around when Roger arrived. But as she was leaving, I suddenly wanted to grab onto her fringe and make her stay. “I wish you could hide under the table and feed me lines if Roger gets difficult.”
She pulled me into a quick hug. “Hey, you can pull this off. Just let your inner diva meet your inner bitch queen.” She did a little shimmy, fringe flying and breasts bouncing. “Mix ’em up a little. After all, God wouldn’t have given us multiple personalities if he hadn’t wanted us to use them.”
Moira could always make me laugh.
And Roger could always drive me crazy.
“If this is some sort of attempt to win me back, Lauren,” he said as he surveyed the table twenty minutes later, “I can tell you that you’re only embarrassing yourself. I’m with Tiffany now. You remember—the twenty-eight-year-old aerobics instructor?”
I resisted the urge to lunge at his neck. For just a moment it flashed through my mind that no jury with at least one female member would convict me. After all, it was the third time that day that I’d been accused of trying to lure Roger Campbell back into my life. Surely I was expected to have limits.
I managed to keep from curling my fingers into weapons and tried for a reasonable tone. “I don’t know what your fantasies are, Roger. But I assure you, winning you back isn’t one of mine. I was just trying to make our discussion more pleasant. I mean, you gotta eat, right?” I said, with a shrug. “But if you’d rather not join me, that’s not a problem. I’ll go turn the oven off and then we can go into the living room and talk.”
He followed me into the kitchen. I’d been pretty sure he would.
“What’s in the oven?” he asked, then, “No, don’t tell me. Your honey mustard pork loin.”
“Well, that’s just amazing, Roger,” I said with what I thought was just the right amount of awe. “After all these years your senses still recognize it.”
He opened the refrigerator door without asking, a territorial infraction that ordinarily would have driven me nuts. This time it was just part of the plan.
“You’re marinating vegetables,” he said as he breathed in deeply.
For all his faults, Roger knew a decent balsamic vinegar when he sniffed one. When he shut the refrigerator and saw the apple crisp on the counter, I knew I had him.
He looked at his watch. “I have to be out of here by eight,” he said. “Tiffany’s car is in the garage again and I have to pick her up after her last class.”
“No problem. Go fix yourself a drink while I start grilling those veggies.”
To keep him out of my hair while I cooked, I’d set up drinks on the coffee table in the living room, complete with a silver ice bucket and tongs. This was the kind of thing Roger had wanted me to do when we were married but usually by the time he got home from work the coffee table was full of puzzles pieces or finger paints or homework assignments.
Once we were seated in the dining room with our salads, I could see that he appreciated the vinaigrette. But I decided to wait until he had some protein and carbs in him to make my pitch. I did, however, point out the list Sondra had given me, folded like a napkin next to his water goblet. He shoveled in salad while he started to read. But the longer he perused the list, the less eating he did until finally he threw down his fork where it clattered against the salad plate. The noise didn’t even make me flinch. Pleasure spread through me like the warmth of good wine. I no longer felt responsible for Roger’s anger.
“There’s nothing wrong with that kitchen,” he fumed while I enjoyed my salad. “It’s—well, it’s quaint. And as for the living room ceiling, who doesn’t expect an old house to—”
“Roger, that’s exactly what I told Sondra,” I said. “People expect some—um—quaintness when they buy a house this old.”
“Right,” Roger agreed as I got up to clear away the salad plates and bring in the entrée.
“Did you explain to her that the floors are original to the house?” he asked as I served him slices of perfectly roasted pork loin from a platter we’d gotten for our wedding.
I nodded. “Yes, I did, Roger. But she still suggested wall to wall carpeting.”
Roger was offended at the notion, but not so much that he wasn’t able to cut into his meat and seize a hunk between his teeth.
“Mmm—you always could cook,” he said as he chewed.
I sat down across from him and handed him the basket of rolls.
He slathered butter on a warm roll and took a bite.
“You know, I was thinking—” I began. Then I went into my spiel about how Sondra the Hawk said the house probably wouldn’t sell until after the holidays if we didn’t get it on the market soon.
“So, it occurred to me that since the house will be empty anyway, maybe I could have just a tiny little extension before I have to get out.”
“Lauren—” he began warningly.
I plowed on. “It would really help you out, too, Roger. I could be here to supervise the work on the house, which would free you from having to deal with workmen. Besides, just think what it would mean to Gordy to have one last Christmas in his childhood home.”
He raised his brows and I wondered if he had started having them shaped. I could tell that he was definitely using some sort of skin products on his face. Probably frantic to keep up with the twenty-eight-year-old aerobics instructor, Tiffany.
“Are you sure you aren’t talking about yourself?” he asked while he cut into his third helping of the other white meat.
“Well, of course, I’d love it too, Roger. I mean, I know that soon Gordy may not even want to come home for the holidays—”
He raised his knife in triumph. “Didn’t I warn you not to make Gordon your whole life?”
I knew right away I was going to go for humble agreement, even though it made the grilled asparagus in my mouth hard to swallow.
“You were right, Roger,” I said, shaking my head like I was really too bewildered to fathom why I hadn’t listened to him in the first place. I was beginning to wish that Moira were under the table. I was giving the performance of my life and I had no audience.
“But putting all that aside,” I went on, “the main thing is, it would be a shame if the house just sat here empty all winter when your son could be having the stability of coming home—I mean really coming home—for the holidays.”
He gave in before he even tasted the apple crisp.
“But you’re on your own financially this time, Lauren,” he said. “I’ll give you a month to find a job and then the maintenance stops for good. I’ll agree to have the work done on the kitchen, but there’s nothing wrong with the rest of the house. If Preferred Properties doesn’t want to handle it, there are plenty of other companies out there who would jump at the listing. Meanwhile, it’ll be your responsibility to find someone to do the work. And stay away from those national companies. They charge a fortune. Better to find some local man. Just make sure he has references.”
“Of course,” I said, proud of hiding my panic at the idea of finding a job in a month.
“So,” he asked as I served him another helping of apple crisp, “how is our son doing?”
I filled him in on what I knew about Gordy’s new life, then pointed out that it was time for him to leave. “You’ve got to pick up Tiffany, remember?”
At the door he lingered, giving me that little smile of his that I used to find sexy and now just seemed arrogant.
“Come on,” he said, leaning in a little closer and cocking his head like he thought he was Robert Redford, “tell the truth. Even if you weren’t trying to get me back, you were kind of hoping this whole sexy Martha Stewart scene would at least get you a roll in the sack for old times’ sake, weren’t you?”
“No,” I said sweetly. “Were you?”
I saw by the look on his face that my mother had, indeed, been right about the dress.
An hour later the dishes were done and Moira and I were sitting in the breakfast nook, eating the rest of the apple crisp right from the baking dish while perusing the employment section of last Sunday’s newspaper. It was a warm enough evening to have the back door open. The faint neighborhood sounds drifted in and I felt safe again. But I had to keep reminding myself it was only temporary.
“Here’s one,” Moira said. “Dog grooming assistant. Says they’re willing to train anyone who can demonstrate a love for dogs.”
“I wonder what that means?” I asked suspiciously.
“It probably means you have to not mind getting your leg humped by a German Shepherd with performance anxiety.”
I laughed.
“Or getting pissed on by a poodle. Or lapped by a—”
Sometimes it didn’t do to encourage Moira. “Stop it,” I said nearly choking on my apple crisp. I tossed a pen at her. “Circle it.”
The circle looked pretty lonely on that big page, even though it was the miscellaneous employment section—the last hope of the unskilled.
I sighed. “Face it, I’m not qualified for much.”
“I still think this one about dancing at the Leopard Lounge is your best bet.”
“I’m not seeing me wearing an animal print thong and wrapping myself around a pole anytime soon. Not with my thighs.”
“It’d be the best thing for your thighs, sweetie. It’s become very chi-chi to use stripping moves as a workout, you know.”
Hoping Moira wasn’t going to tell me that she’d had a stripper pole installed in her bedroom, I picked up the page where we’d circled an ad for a day care aide. The pay was paltry and I could no longer see myself wiping noses and helping with snow boots.
“Wait!” Moira yelled as she circled an item in red ink. “I think I just found the solution to your employment problems!”
I grabbed the section of the paper out of Moira’s hand. “A temp agency?” I asked dubiously when I saw what she’d circled.
“Why not? Look,” she said, poking the newsprint with her finger, “it says they have a variety of jobs for inexperienced people and that they offer free refresher courses in computer and clerical skills.”
“I don’t have anything to refresh,” I muttered.
“You’ve done a lot of volunteer work. That shows you’ve got people and organizational skills. The rest,” she said with a flap of her hand like it was the easiest thing in the world, “you can fake.”
Temporary Solutions had a suite of offices downtown in a glassy building that had a shiny marble lobby and a wall of elevators. I was glad I’d borrowed one of Moira’s more conservative suits for the occasion. When I caught my reflection in the mirrored wall of the elevator I was convinced I looked like employee material.
Unfortunately, the first thing they did at Temporary Solutions was test my skills. As far as I could see, there was absolutely no way to fake it. Excel? QuickBooks? PowerPoint? Lotus Notes? The only lotus I knew was a yoga position—about as unobtainable by me as a position at Temporary Solutions was beginning to look.
“You never have worked in an office, have you?” Christy Sands asked.
Christy, who had the harsh hair of a woman who’d been bleaching it for most of the twenty-something years of her life and the slightly red tan of a tanning bed addict, was what Temporary Solutions called my personal career counselor. She was supposed to help me find the job with a perfect fit. What good would it do to lie?
“No,” I admitted. “I’ve never worked in an office. But I’m a fast learner and I really, really—”
“Please,” she said. “I’ve heard it all before. There’s nothing worse than a premenopausal woman begging for a job because her husband just dumped her for a younger woman.”
