Heart and Home (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Slipping back into a routine
was the furthest thing from my mind when I sunk in behind my desk, a tall
Starbucks mocha with a double shot of espresso steaming in one hand, and my
eyes heavy with lack of sleep. I no sooner sat down at my desk and started to
open up my web browser when one of my coworkers paused over the top of my
cubicle and announced, “Cal wants to see you in his office before the morning
meeting.”

I drew in a breath through
my nose, my nostrils flaring with the notion that facing my boss was the last
thing in the world I wanted to do after a sleepless night.

“Thanks, Jerry.”

I pushed away from my desk
and grabbed my coffee before stalking down the hallway into Cal Roger’s office.
I rapped on the door, which was partially opened and then peered into the room.
He looked up, the phone already tucked under his chin, and motioned almost
impatiently for me to come in.

Without being offered, I
took a seat and listened to him schmooze with the communications director in
the mayor’s office. “Sounds good, Marla,” he finally said. “Definitely, I will.
All right, honey, I’ll see you then.” Cal spun in to hang up the phone and rested
his arms on the desk. He leaned forward just a little, his bemused grin making
my already uneasy stomach feel sick. I still hadn’t forgotten what he’d said to
me during our last conversation. “Janice, I wasn’t sure if you’d actually join
us today.”

“I said I’d be back today
when I talked to you last Sunday,” I reminded him.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Yes, you
did. You also said you were only going to be gone a week when you went home for
your mother’s funeral, so how was I to know you really meant it this time?”

I bit down on my tongue
until it hurt. “So, have you decided I’m expendable then, because if you have,
I’d like to go home and go back to bed? I had a long night.”

I was a bit surprised when
he started to laugh, but I didn’t join him in smiling when he leaned back in
his chair and folded his hands over his belly. “See, that is what I love about
you. You’re not afraid of me, Janice. It makes it easier for us to be honest
with each other, and it’s allowed me to get closer to you than most of the other
people on my team. It’s shown me first hand that you’re a damn good journalist.
Not a phony like Steve Jorgen, whom I let go while you were gone, by the way.”

I said nothing, but raised
my eyebrows at his revelation and the double-edged compliment he’d given.

“See, I can already see you
sitting in this desk someday,” he went on. “You’re a little young yet, a little
green, but you remind me of myself when I was your age. You’re driven,
determined and you’re not afraid to give yourself to this job.”

“Why do I feel a ‘but’
coming on?”

He laced his fingers
together on top of the desk and just stared at me for a moment. I wasn’t sure
how to feel about his comparison of himself to me, though three weeks earlier I
was pretty sure I would have been flattered. Twice divorced and with three kids
he barely knew by name, Calvin Rogers devoted his entire adult life to hacking
into the world’s issues like a keyboard wielding samurai. People both loved and
hated him, and that was why he was the senior editor. He took me under his wing
gladly, taught me more than I could have ever dreamed, but he did not take
failure lightly, and he never put up with mediocrity.

“But,” he nodded, “this last
week was proof that you’re not as ready as I thought you were to step up to the
plate and play with the big boys.”

“I see.” I leaned a little
sideways in my chair.

I’d always known he was
vicious, in fact, I was fortunate enough to have landed on his good side early
on, but I definitely pushed a button. As my mentor, I would have done anything
to please him in the past, but my mother’s death changed me. In its own right,
it tested my devotion to him, to my work, and had it been anything else, I
might have easily passed.

“I want you on Local Living
covering holiday events.”

I must have gone paler than
my usual shade of white when I shrieked, “Local living?”

“Parade coverage, local
turkey raffles and charities, find out when and where Santa Claus is coming to
town, and schedule an interview.”

“You’re kidding, right,
Cal?”

“You’re a creative kid, I’m
sure you’ll use it to your advantage.”

Numbness moved through my
entire body, and I could barely feel my own head nodding. “So my mother dies,
and you punish me?”

“Janice, look,” he turned
his head in mock sympathy. “I’m not punishing you because your mother died, but
treat this as a lesson.”

“A lesson?”

“Death is one thing, you say
goodbye and move on, but this business isn’t gonna hold your hand and wipe your
tears, and it certainly isn’t gonna stand still while you pull yourself back
together.”

“No,” I swallowed hard
against the razor sharp fear building in my throat. “You’re right. You’re
absolutely right.”

“I’m glad you see it that
way,” he nodded once. “And you know it’s only temporary, hon. Give it a couple
weeks and you’ll be back in your old shoes.”

“Of course,” my head just
moved in agreement without any signal from me, like some plastic doll. “I’ll
get started on it right away.”

“Good girl,” his wolfish
grin cut into me in ways I had seen it destroy others.

Any connection that I believed
existed between us before my mother’s funeral, the good humor we shared, it was
all a lie, and I saw that in his eyes. Cal Rogers was no one’s friend, but as
long as he believed one served him well, he was a real good pretender.

“Is that all?” I started to
push up out of the chair.

He turned his head downward,
a slow smile drawing at his mouth, “Don’t go getting all emotional on me, Jan.
You know I love you like my own, and I’d give you the shirt off my back. You’re
a good kid, a strong writer, but if you want to get ahead in this business
you’ve got to make sacrifices.”

Again, my head responded in
that docile agreement, like I had no control over myself. “Sacrifices. I
understand completely.”

“You can go,” he gestured
toward the door with his head.

I started walking out of the
office, a part of me feeling numbed, while another part of me seemed to just
hover behind myself in disbelief at what just took place.

“Oh, and Jan,” Cal called as
I approached the edge of the door. “I know I don’t even need to say this, but
make me proud.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Of
course, you know I will.”

But all I could think about
as I wandered in a fog back to my desk was how ridiculous I was going to feel
interviewing Santa Claus at the North Hills Village Mall and a handful of Giant
Eagle managers about free turkey raffles before Thanksgiving. It was kid’s
stuff, the type of assignment Cal gave to annoying interns and pretentious
staffers with ego problems.

And I wasn’t going to do it.
I sat at my desk for ten minutes trying to decide how to handle the extreme
measures my mind was telling me to take. I played over everything in my mind,
the talks Troy and I had about making rash decisions because of my mother’s
death, but I knew one thing for sure right then: I was not going to wind up
like Cal Rogers. I would never sit in his desk, barely lamenting over the fact
that I didn’t even know my children’s names.

That was not who I wanted to
be.

I didn’t even say a word,
but cleared off my desk, stuffing my few person effects into my purse before I
walked out of the building without so much as a goodbye. I walked home in a
daze, not even sure what I’d just done. When I arrived home, I took the
elevator to my floor and let myself in, dropping my purse on the counter.

It was probably foolish, the
first step to having no choice but moving back home with my father, but despite
it all, I knew that I never wanted to give up so much of myself to a job ever
again. For the first time in my life, I wanted to live. I passed by the answering
machine, noticing someone called while I was at work. Figuring it was probably
Cal calling to scream at me, I almost passed it by, but curiosity won me over
and I pressed play. I wanted to take satisfaction in his shock over the mistake
I’d made, his promises that I’d never work in that town again.

There was the sound of
shuffling in the background, and then, “Hi Jan, it’s Mom.” Every nerve in my
body froze at the sound of her voice. “I’ve been doing some thinking, and I
know that we usually come out there for the holidays, but this year maybe it
would be nice if you came home. Now before you call me back to tell me how much
you hate this place, just think it over. It’d be so nice to have you here at
Christmas, just like when you were a girl. So anyway, think about it and we’ll
talk later, okay. Love you, babe.”

My breath caught in my
chest, and for a minute I thought I was going to hyperventilate as I gasped to
try and catch it again. A light-headed numbness like the one that came up on me
at her funeral gripped me, and I backed into the nearest chair. Why I hadn’t
heard it before, I couldn’t be sure. I’d probably come home late and gone to
bed without bothering to even check the messages. There was a tired warning in
her voice, and I wondered if that message was from the same day she had her
stroke.

The machine beeped again and
the next message started, “Uh, hi. I know you’re at work, but I wanted to start
practicing this phone thing.” I couldn’t help but laugh a little through my
tears. “So, yeah, I’m really tired. I wish you were still here, but you know
what they say about that absence thing, though I think if I get any fonder of
you this distance thing will have to go.” He paused a second. “Eh, who am I
kidding? It already sucks. Anyway, have a good day. I miss you.”

Wiping the tears from my
cheek, I considered carrying the answering machine into bed with me and just
playing those two messages over and over again. Cal’s message was enough to
deter me, and it was just as I’d expected. A raging promise that I’d gone too
far, and he wouldn’t welcome me back when I was ready to come crawling. But I
wasn’t going to crawl. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but at the moment
I almost didn’t care.

I crawled into bed and let
the waves of delirious exhaustion wash over me. I slept so hard I didn’t even
dream, and when I woke again at four that afternoon I wandered disoriented out
into my kitchen to find something to eat. As I sat down to a steaming bowl of
ramen noodles, the cobwebs of sleep clearing from my mind, I needed to face the
aftermath of the morning’s events.

I was fairly certain given
the time and effort Cal Rogers invested in training me, he would give me my job
back if I called in and kissed up to him, even though he’d said he wouldn’t. He
would chalk my rash behavior up to grief coupled with female hysteria and make
me promise to go on some kind of emotion-inhibiting medication, and that would
be that. In my heart I knew the decision I made was the right one. Flipping
open my laptop to check my emails, there were five from Cal in the same folder,
the title of which read in all capital letters: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR EFFING
MIND?

His first email confessed he
didn’t know what my problem was, and maybe that alone was a problem in and of
itself. The second was a long-winded diatribe about how throwing away my
opportunity with him was career suicide, and just as I’d guessed he said he’d
welcome me back, but only if I agreed to see a grief counselor in my spare
time, on my own dime to help me get my head back in the game. The emails got
progressively worse, with him finally telling me in all caps that ignoring him
wasn’t helping my case.

Maybe I was out of my mind.
All I knew for certain was that I’d changed, and no job was worth the hassle he
was putting me through, especially not in the wake of losing my mother, whom
I’d let grow distant because my ego had gotten too big for my own good.

The second week I spent in
Sonesville getting to know and love Becky, and letting myself fall for Troy had
been the most amazing week of my entire life, and given the history of my
supposed success as a Sonesville escapee, it certainly seemed like a time to
reevaluate where my life was headed.

On the other hand, I really
felt that Troy was right about making rash decisions. Quitting my job was
something I would more than likely experiences moments of doubt about, but if I
went rushing back to Sonesville without really evaluating my reasons for
wanting to be there I might regret my choice later. Pushing away the bowl of
noodles without having eaten but a few bites, I stretched my neck along my
shoulders and sighed.

“I’d love to blame this on
you, Mom,” I jested out loud, though I was fairly certain her ghost hadn’t
followed me all the way back to Pittsburgh. The silence of the empty apartment
confirmed that, but I went on to add, “You never interfered with my life, never
told me what a self-absorbed little twit I was all those years… and now when I
actually wish you were here to stick your nose in and tell me what to do,
you’re not there.”