Knitting Under the Influence (6 page)

II

W
hen Kathleen's job interview went well the next day (once again she wore her responsible clothes, which were starting to seem lucky as well as responsible), she was immediately hired to start that very week, which convinced her she had been right to tell Lucy she was going places.

On the downside, the job wasn't exactly what you might call high-powered. On her first day at work, she discovered that she wasn't the assistant to Jackson Porter, CEO of Porter and Wachtell, as she'd been led to believe in her interview with the head of personnel, but was, more accurately, the assistant to
his
assistant, sixty-year-old Luisa Rivera.

Luisa was Jackson Porters secretary, assistant, confidante, advisor, personal shopper… whatever he needed, she had been, for twenty-five long years. Kathleen was Jackson's twenty-fifth anniversary present to Luisa, the idea being that the new girl would take over any duties Luisa no longer enjoyed.

As it turned out, Luisa was fairly proprietary about her boss and not all that interested in giving up any of her access to him, so Kathleen spent most of those first days fetching coffee, typing the occasional memo, answering the phones, and organizing drawers of stationery supplies.

She considered being disgruntled but decided it wasn't all that bad. For one thing, her job was pretty easy, since Luisa wasn't used to asking anyone to wait on her and didn't like other people to wait on Jackson. For another, the central position of Kathleen's desk—in front of the wall outside Jackson's office—allowed her to observe and eventually meet anyone at the firm who caught her interest.

Kathleen was good at meeting people. The first few days she was there, she wore bright-colored silk tops and called out cheery hellos to anyone who came within a few feet of her desk. It wasn't long before a lot of the guys at Porter and Wachtell were finding excuses to wander by the new girl's desk. Even the women were happy to discover there were new and enthusiastic ears to pour old rumors into.

She learned very quickly that three of the top businessmen who were always rushing around in suits and ties were not just Jackson's employees but also his sons. And that, while the older two were married, the youngest one was not. “And he's the nice one,” one of the secretaries had added before tossing down her third Ultra Slim-Fast chocolate shake of the lunch break.

“Is he straight?” Kathleen asked.

“Why wouldn't he be?” The secretary sounded almost insulted, so Kathleen quickly said, “No reason. I just dated a guy once who turned out to be gay.”

“I guess that can happen,” the woman said. “But Kevin Porter's had tons of girlfriends since I started working here. And”— as if it settled the subject—“they're always
very
pretty.”

Well of course they were, Kathleen thought. The guy was worth hundreds of millions—he could pick and choose. And if Kevin Porter were the kind of guy who cared what a girl looked like, Kathleen was the kind of girl who was realistic enough to know that meant he was bound to notice her sooner or later.

It was sooner. Kevin came walking up to her later that same day to introduce himself and welcome her to the team.
(Literally
—that's what he said—“Welcome to the team.”) He had a nice face and good posture and met her eyes when he talked to her. Kathleen had gone out with far less appealing men. And he was wildly rich. Hadn't Sari told her that a rich guy was her fastest path to a happy future?

Which made her think she was really growing up—here she was, thinking about her
future.
What better sign of maturity than that?

III

S
ari had a less pleasant week.

Monday morning she was woken up by a phone call and there was her sister, Cassie—who hadn't spoken to her in over three years—saying, “Sari? You're up, right? I couldn't remember the time difference, but I figured you're probably the early-bird type.”

It was four in the morning and of course Sari had been asleep. She had spent the previous day wrestling a kid who liked to scratch people's eyes and then had stayed up until one working on some progress reports—no matter how much she wrote, she never caught up with the paperwork. She was still trying to get out some sort of coherent response, when Cassie cut her off. “I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep,” Cassie said. “I was thinking. Sari, you have to promise me.
Promise me.”

“What?”

“Never to have children. Never. I mean, look at our family. We can't do this to anyone else. Neither of us can have kids. Ever.
Maybe
we could adopt. No, not even that. Not even adopting. Promise me, Sari.”

“Cassie—“

“No, listen. I’m right about this. I haven't slept all night. I won't ever sleep again unless you promise me this right now. I mean it.”

“I can't
promise,”
Sari said, her voice hoarse with sleep. “I mean, I don't even know what—”

“Fine,” Cassie said. “If you're going to be like that. But you're wrong. You're so wrong, I can't believe it. Why am I the only sane one in the family? Do you know mom actually asked me once when I was going to get married and have kids? Like she thought it was a good idea?”

“That's not such an awful—”

“Oh, fuck this,” Cassie said. She hung up and Sari couldn't get back to sleep.

So when she walked into the clinic that morning, she was too exhausted to put up much of a defense when Ellen cornered her and said she had been assigned to work with Zachary Smith. “You started with him,” she said, as if the original choice had been Sari's and not hers. “You started with him, and the first session went well. The father requested you, and you had chemistry with the kid. I want you to stick with him, at least for the first few months. Then we can reevaluate.”

Sari could have argued, but she had never once won an argument with Ellen. Besides, she had already vowed that she would help Zack if asked. So she called up Jason Smith and scheduled time for Zack—four sessions a week, three of them at the clinic for an hour and a half, and then four straight hours at his house on Friday afternoons. She would have to cut way back on intake work, but Ellen was already training someone else to do evaluations. There was no one to take over her grant proposals or progress reports—they were all overloaded on that stuff—so she'd be working late at night and early in the morning just to keep from falling too far behind.

None of that was really a problem. It wasn't the first time she had devoted herself to a kid for a few months and had to scramble to keep up with everything else in her life.

No, the real problem was trying to reconcile her past and present every time Jason Smith walked through the door. Which was a lot, since he came every time. The mother never showed.

When she came to their house that first Friday afternoon, a housekeeper let her in. Jason wasn't home, which was a relief at first. But Maria the housekeeper came with her own set of problems. Her job, as she saw it, was to keep Zack from getting upset.

And upsetting Zack was basically Sari's job description.

Sari had to teach Zack that communicating with words was a more efficient way of getting what he wanted than screaming and crying, but the only way to make that point was to let him cry without giving him what he wanted. At first, if she held up a piece of candy and told Zack he needed to say “candy” if he wanted it, Zack would cry and scream for an excruciating
ten minutes
in the hopes that this new lady in his life would just go ahead and give it to him—all his life, people had given him stuff when he cried.

Sari knew—having done this hundreds of times with dozens of kids—that if she ignored the screams for long enough Zack would eventually stop sobbing and take a stab at saying “candy.” The instant he did, she would hand him the candy. And, over time, he would learn that saying words actually worked
better
than crying at getting him what he wanted, especially if all the other adults in his life waited him out the same way.

Already, within the first week, he was showing signs of progress. He was making some of the beginning sounds of words. He was
trying.
Pretty soon, Sari knew, he'd really get the idea, and then words would start coming like crazy.

But not if—as happened that first Friday in Zack's house— Maria was going to come racing into the room the second she heard him scream, and—one hand outstretched, the other clutched to her heart—cry out, “Oh, my love, my life! What's wrong? What has she done to you?”

“Nothing's wrong, nothing's happened,” Sari said.

“Is he hurt?” Her hands on his shoulders, she was scanning his face—apparently looking for bruises.

“He's fine,” Sari said. “He just needs to stop crying and try talking if he wants this cookie.”

“He's a good boy,” Maria said. “No trouble with
me.” Zack
buried his face in her shoulder.

Sari said, “I know it's hard to hear him cry like that, but it's really just out of frustration and soon he'll—”

“He never cries with me.”

“Well, then, you're going to have to start letting him,” Sari said. Maria didn't even bother responding to that. She wrapped her arms around Zack and rocked him, crooning softly, until Sari gave up and left the house.

Sari hated to get anyone in trouble, but something had to change, and she told Jason that when he came to the clinic on Monday.

“As long as she comes running whenever he cries, he'll keep crying,” she said. “And it's not just a problem when I’m there. It's a problem
all
the time, if she's soothing and cuddling him when he's behaving badly. All she's doing is rewarding the bad behavior—which means it will continue no matter what I do.”

“Should I fire her?” Jason Smith said. “Because I will, if you tell me to. Actually,” he said, “I’d do anything you told me to.”

Sari said, “Don't fire her. Of course, don't fire her. We want Zack to feel loved and secure right now. But talk to her for me. Tell her she's got to change how she deals with him.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “Maria and I aren't exactly in the habit of talking a lot.” His mouth twisted. “The truth is, I’m scared to death of her. We kind of keep our distance, take our shifts with Zack … Denise was the one who hired Maria in the first place. She likes her because she's so competent and take-charge about everything, but now that it's just me at home, I’m the one left dealing with her, and all that competence terrifies me. I don't think I live up to her expectations.” He tried to laugh, but it ended in a sigh. “This single dad stuff is all new and strange to me.”

So he was divorced. Or at least separated. Not that Sari cared. She said, “If you could just make sure she's busy doing something else when I come on Fridays, that would help a lot. And please tell Maria not to give him what he wants whenever he cries, but to wait until he's asking appropriately. We all have to be a little bit tough with him right now.”

“Cruel to be kind?” Jason said.

“Exacdy.”

Later, when they were shaking hands goodbye, Jason Smith said, “I’ve been wanting to say—what you've been doing with Zack is amazing.
You're
amazing.”

“It's all pretty simple, really,” Sari said.

“I know. That's the beauty of it. I watch you and you make it look so easy. But he's actually starting to say words. I didn't think I’d ever—” He stopped. They both looked at Zack, who had turned a toy truck upside down and was using his index finger to make one of its wheels spin. After a moment, Jason said, “I feel like I’m seeing him for the first time. You know what I mean? Like the real Zack is starting to come out.”

“All of him's the real Zack,” Sari said. “We're just encouraging him to talk and be social. But he's all Zack all the time.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jason said. He was wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt that hung straight down from his broad shoulders. He looked like a jock. He'd look like a jock in footsie pajamas.

He was still talking. Sari made herself focus. “I’ve always loved him, but now it feels like he's turning into a friend. It's incredible. He actually asked me for juice today. I couldn't believe it. He came right up to me and said, ‘Joo, joo.’”

“Maybe he just thought you looked a little Semitic,” Sari said.

He laughed and then said, “It's weird that you're funny. I remember you as being really serious. I mean, in all honesty, I don't remember you all that well, but I have this mental picture of you always being in the library.”

“I’m amazed you remember me at
all,”
Sari said. “I didn't hang around with your crowd much.”

“My crowd?” he repeated. “I didn't have a crowd.”

“Sure you did.”

“I had a few friends. Not that many.”

“You had an
entourage”
Sari said. “Which was appropriate, what with you being the king and all.”

“Was I voted king?” he said. “Funny that I don't remember that.”

“People don't vote you king,” Sari said. “You're born to it.” He shook his head. “Not me. I was just trying to survive, like everyone else.”

It blew her mind that he could say that, that he could act like his high school experience was anything like hers, like he hadn't
ruled
the place and dealt out favors and cruelties with equal generosity.