By Design (3 page)

Trish tried not to laugh. “Um, you have . . .”

“What?”

“Your . . . um . . .” And she pointed at Emmie’s face.

“What?” Emmie demanded, gingerly touching her forehead. She felt indentations from the embroidered couch cushions. “Oh great. See what a train wreck I am?”

“You’re not,” Trish said emphatically. “And it is possible to get another job, you know.”

Emmie tipped herself right side up and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, God, Patricia, where in the world would I get another job in Jemison? Or even all of Iroquois County, for that matter? It’s not like the interior designer industry is just chugging along in our burg.”

“There’s always room for one more,” Trish said with a wicked smile.

Emmie didn’t get it. “What?”

“I mean,” she said, draping her arm over the back of the couch, “maybe you should, you know, go out on your own.”

Emmie gaped. “I can’t do
that.
”

“Oh my God, Emmie, it’s not like I’m suggesting you murder the man, bury the body in your garden, and take over Wilman Designs while you tell everyone he’s ‘out of town visiting friends.’”

“That’d be easier. And safer.”

“People start their own businesses all the time.”

“People go
out
of business all the time, too.”

“Or not.”

Emmie sighed. “Businesses cost money, and you know I don’t have anything saved. Wilma owns me.”

“Business loan?”

“They’d laugh me out of the bank.”

“But—”

“Trish, I
can’t
,” Emmie cut her off with a finality that made it clear it wasn’t really about the money. And she buried her face in the cushion again.

Trish started to argue, but she was cut off by a cry of “Wassup, wassup?” as Kyle entered, his sudden presence sucking all the air out of the room. Kyle acknowledged Trish with a curt nod. “Patty-cake.”

“Urinal cake,” Trish muttered under her breath as she rooted around in her purse for her car keys. “Hi, Kyle,” she said, louder, tossing a chilly smile in his direction.

It was no secret that Trish and Kyle weren’t fond of each other, mainly because Trish didn’t approve of the way he treated Emmie, so he didn’t like her in turn, and around and around it went.

“Hey, baby,” he said to the back of Emmie’s head. “What’s for dinner?”

Emmie’s shoulders tensed. Trish went to bat for her. “Emmie’s had a rough day,” she told Kyle in her tough-mommy voice. “Be nice to her.”

“I’m nice!”

“That means don’t expect her to cook for you tonight. She’s upset.”

“But it’s dinner time.”

“Then go make dinner!”

Kyle laughed as though Trish had just cracked the funniest joke he’d ever heard, but he stopped short when she pinned him with her fierce mommy-glare. Kyle’s mouth flapped a couple of times, fish-like. “I can’t
cook.
”

“Nobody’s asking you for coq au vin, Kyle. Scramble some eggs. You can do that, can’t you?” As Kyle wandered off toward Emmie’s kitchen, trying to wrap his head around this foreign concept of “cooking dinner,” Trish leaned closer to her burrowing friend. “Breakfast for dinner,” she cooed. “That should make you feel better.”

Emmie raised her head and gave her a hopeful, weak smile. “Pancakes?”

“Aw, hell, I can’t make
pancakes
!” Kyle exclaimed from the kitchen.

Trish rolled her eyes and patted Emmie on the shoulder. “Maybe eggs. Depends on what the Redneck Chef can whip up without blowing up the kitchen.” She hoisted her purse onto her shoulder. “I’ve gotta go.” She kissed Emmie on her dented red forehead and whispered, “Make
him
take care of
you
for a change. Don’t help him in there. Got it?”

“But—”

“Do
not
!” Trish raised an admonishing finger. “And think about what I said before, about your job.”

When Trish left, Emmie snuck a peek over the back of the sofa to see what Kyle was up to. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking lost, with a carton of eggs in one hand and a frying pan in the other. At least he found the frying pan, she thought. And the eggs. That was impressive, for him.

When Kyle felt Emmie’s eyes on him, he turned hopefully toward her, likely expecting her to take over. But Emmie decided to see what kind of humor the sitcom
In the Kitchen with Kyle
could provide. She ducked back down and busied herself with the newspaper even though she’d already read it that morning.

 

Late that night, Emmie found herself wide awake, staring at the darkened ceiling of her bedroom, wondering if Kyle’s snoring was going to suck sections of paint off it. Kyle rolled onto his side, which lessened his snoring, but he flung his arm across her neck, throttling her. She flipped his arm onto the pillow above her head and shifted toward the edge of the bed, where she teetered precariously.

Emmie clamped her eyes shut and tried to sleep, but Trish’s voice was echoing in her head. “Throw it out,” her friend had said about her lackluster relationship, and now about her job as well. It was sort of obvious that Trish didn’t approve of the way she lived her life. Emmie admired Trish’s super-confident decisiveness, but sometimes she resented it. Trish had made all the right choices in
her
life and was always in control, while Emmie often felt as though her own existence were a crazy gallumphing Labrador retriever out for a run, and she was merely hanging on to the other end of the leash, shouting, “Heel!” and trying to avoid doing a face-plant onto the sidewalk.

Emmie turned onto her side and stared at the wall for a while. Kyle found her again, draped an arm across her once more, and grasped her left boob through her nightshirt. Even in a deep post-sex sleep, his inner homing beacon never failed to locate her breasts. It was uncanny. Suddenly irritated, she unsuctioned his palm from her boob and slid out of bed.

She made her way into the living room, sat at her desk, and turned on the lamp—a vintage brass number she had dug up at a garage sale and rewired. She flipped open her laptop and went to Circle-O. She hadn’t been there since her drunken stalking of Juliet Winslow and had never spent much time reading up on her former classmates’ lives. Now, however, she was curious about what those other people were up to. Well, she had to admit that, in her present state of mind, she was probably drawn to compare her life to theirs and see if she was better—or worse—off than she thought.

She clicked on her class year, 1995, and studied the list of names. Her graduating class wasn’t that big—about three hundred students—and about half of them were listed on the Circle-O site. She recognized very few of the names. She and Trish had stuck together all through high school, and she had never had much need to become close to other classmates because of it. Boys were few and far between; Trish had only ever dated Rick, and Emmie never had a boyfriend, just a few flirtations that never really went anywhere.

Emmie perused the list of people who had allegedly been her classmates. She had halfheartedly “waved” at or “waved” back at a number of them over the past few months, even if she wasn’t quite sure who they were, but had never checked their profiles. Now she clicked on one name or another to see what they were up to. Eventually she made it down the list to Juliet’s name. She clicked on the link to her profile.

“Damn,” Emmie whispered.

For a second or two, she thought that Juliet had posted her yearbook photo. She seemed not to have changed one iota. Slim and trim—even her arms, noted Emmie, as Juliet was confident enough to be photographed in a tank top—without a wrinkle on her face or a hint of a sag in her jawline. Unbelievable.

Then Emmie clicked on the profiles of the classmates they had in common on Circle-O, which led Emmie down the dark, perilous path of the Popular Girls. She cringed. These women apparently had been trapped in amber shortly after graduation. Emmie shrank in her chair as if they could see her sitting there, all frumpy in her flannels.

And the profiles! Successful businesses—consulting firms, boutiques, graphic design studios, art galleries—or high-ranking titles at major corporations, plus some PhDs. Apparently the Popular Girls remained at the top of the heap forever.

She went back to Juliet’s profile. She was married, with two children, a boy and a girl (“Of course,” muttered Emmie), with a florist shop “Coming soon!” Plus she had a laundry list of charities she donated her time to, including her church and an animal shelter. Emmie looked at Juliet’s photo again, checking for the halo she must have missed the first time.

At this point, she was more than ready to bail out of Circle-O entirely, but Juliet’s last update, dated July 30, caught her eye: “Taking the plunge. The fam is moving back to the old hometown at the end of August. Can’t wait! Nothing like new beginnings in old, familiar places! Loooove Jemison! Looking forward to getting together with everyone! Maybe we can tailgate at some games. Go Panthers!”

Emmie shut her laptop down. Juliet hadn’t lived here for years, but she was here now. Maybe her husband had taken a position with one of the new data-management companies sprouting up like mushrooms in what had been the rural area ringing the town. After decades of decline, the town had redefined itself, hosting new tech businesses that gave the area a healthy dose of cash and brought in lots of employees who enjoyed the finer things in life. Upscale businesses were thriving, noses were tipping a little higher, and developers were tossing up McMansions by the hundreds. That was good news for Wilma—the new folks moved right into those unadorned boxes and needed someone to fill those blank canvases with color, and they gave him free rein . . . for better or worse.

Emmie had never been a fan of newly built houses; she preferred her little bungalow, even if it was in a sort of dicey part of town that was rapidly becoming more commercial than residential. Sure, new houses had the benefit of being a clean slate. Walls and floors were straight and true, and there were no remnants of previous owners—no forgotten boxes of junk in a corner of an attic or dried goo in the back of a cabinet. But she had a thing for the funky character of old houses. When she had seen her tiny Craftsman house for the first time, she fell in love with the beamed ceiling, the built-in cabinets with leaded glass, the hardwood floors.

She had poured a lot of love into the place—not to mention all that bottled-up creativity that Wilma wouldn’t let her express at work. She had installed the brightly painted Mexican tiles around the fireplace. She had stripped layers of old paint off the oak trim, groove by groove, and refinished it. She had chosen her furniture carefully, one piece at a time, from antique stores and secondhand outlets.

Her tastes differed from Wilma’s, that was for sure, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Wilma was all about ostentation, displays of opulence, formal grandeur—the finest fabrics, the most expensive furniture, the most dramatic artwork and accessories by only the most noteworthy craftspeople. The kind of elements that should have the price tags left on in order to fully appreciate why they were there in the first place. But Emmie preferred comfort and homeyness—furniture you could relax into, rugs that could incorporate a little cat or dog hair, well-loved wooden tables with dings, accessories with chipped enamel and faded paint from having been used instead of just put on display to collect dust. Was there a market for her kind of interior design? Did she even
have
a style, or was she kidding herself?

She turned back to her desk. That blank canvas of a house from earlier today . . . she had her own ideas about what to do with it, and there was no law against playing around to see what she could come up with. Even if Wilma wasn’t interested in her ideas, she could please herself. She pulled out a piece of paper and started to sketch.

Emmie sat back, stretched, and massaged her fingers. The only sounds in the house were Kyle’s snoring and the
thunk
of the wall clock in the kitchen. That was one of her favorite finds: She had dug that treasure right out of a Dumpster, when her old school was being remodeled and expanded to make room for all those new kids in the new housing tracts.

Emmie looked over her sketches. She liked what she had just created. A lot. So much so that her warm fuzzies extended to encompass everything else in her world. She forgave Wilma, she loved Trish’s strong opinions, she didn’t mind her neighbor’s yappy little dog. She even was grateful for Kyle. She tucked her drawings into her notebook and dropped it into her workbag. Then she headed back to bed, intending to crawl into Kyle’s arms and appreciate her blessings.

Kyle, however, had taken over the whole bed, splayed out like a starfish and snoring loudly. She pushed, she shoved. Kyle was so far gone, he was immovable. With a sigh, she yanked her pillow out from under his head and returned to the living room. She also loved and appreciated her sofa. And a good thing, too.