Mrs. Perfect (20 page)
I look at my hair, which hangs past my shoulders in vivid color streaks. “I’d like to be dark blond again without the orange. I had highlights, but they were a lot of maintenance. I used to go to the Salon every four weeks for touch-ups and every six to eight weeks for highlights. But I need easier upkeep. I’m in a different place financially.”
“There’s no rule that says you have to spend a lot of money to look great,” she answers, adjusting my cape. “I have a lot of clients on tight budgets, and a lot of those clients are blondes with great hair.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Michelle pats me on the shoulders. “It’s going to be all right.”
“So what will you do?”
“Take out the color you have on your hair right now, change your base color, going darker blond, which will help stretch out your root touch-ups. Then we’ll add highlights, but do them underneath, instead of at the crown to hide grow-out. That way, you’ll only need to do highlights twice a year instead of every six to eight weeks.”
She does what she said she’d do, but it’s not a speedy process. First we strip the color and then put in new color as well as the highlights.
By the time I walk out, I’ve been in the chair for hours. Fortunately my hair is dark blond again, but the highlights are more subtle and less “sun kissed,” which is fine considering it’s mid-November and Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
I call Z Design on my way out and get the answering machine. The office is closed for the day. I’m not surprised, since it’s almost five-thirty and completely dark out, but driving home, I keep feeling this funny little tug inside my chest.
Marta isn’t so bad, I think, swinging by the house to get Monica’s check and head to the bank. Marta might even be nice.
Monday night after dropping a check by the landlord’s, I flex my fingers against the steering wheel and grin. Our rent’s covered now until June, and we should have enough for my car payment, too. My job will pay for groceries, child care, and incidentals.
I should call Nathan. He’d be proud of me.
I reach for my phone, call him on speed dial. To my delight, he picks up right away. “Nathan, great news,” I blurt out breathlessly, “I’ve just sold all our furniture for twenty-five thousand dollars!”
I’m met by dead silence.
“Did you hear what I said?” I say, a hint of hurt creeping into my voice. “I sold our furniture to Monica and Doug. Twenty-five thousand dollars, Nathan—”
“Taylor, the dining room set alone cost twenty-five thousand dollars.”
His voice is chilly and remote. I pull over to the side of the road, lean on the steering wheel. “Are you mad?” I ask incredulously.
He exhales. “You’re so impulsive, Taylor. You just don’t think.”
“That’s not fair!”
“It’d cost us a hundred thousand dollars to replace all that furniture. The couch in the living room was more than twelve grand. The two armchairs were five thousand each. How are we going to be able to replace that?”
I press the tip of my tongue to my teeth, press hard, pressing to silence my protest. I can’t win with him anymore. Nothing I do is right.
“But we don’t have a house it’ll fit in,” I answer after a moment when I’m sure I’m calm. “None of the pieces will fit in the rental house, and we can’t afford to store it all. Nathan, we have furniture to fill a six-thousand-seven-hundred-square-foot house. The rental house isn’t even two thousand square feet. It’s itty-bitty. Trust me.”
“So why pick that house?”
“Because it’s available, it’s cheap, and it’s near the girls’ school.”
He’s silent so long that I think he’s hung up, but then I hear a low, heavy sigh. “You don’t even need me anymore,” he says quietly.
Something in my chest wrenches. “That’s not true.”
“It’s what it feels like to me.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Yeah. That’s what I keep hearing.”
Our conversation weighs on me the rest of the night, and I phone him back the next day on my way home from work but then don’t know what to say.
Come home, let me support you? Quit your job and live in the ugly rental house with us?
I swallow hard as I drive. Nathan was raised with money, by a stay-at-home mom and a father who made millions in the seventies and early eighties in Silicon Valley. Nathan was expected to make millions and millions, too. Instead we’ve lost everything, and my handsome quarterback husband is slogging away in Omaha.
There’s times I think I have it hard, but looking at the big picture, Nathan has it worse. He’s a man. He’s supposed to be the provider. He’s supposed to be in control. Knowing Nathan, knowing his family, I’m sure he feels like a failure.
Wednesday is a short day at Points Elementary, which means Eva appears in the Z Design doorway at two-thirty in the afternoon.
Robert and Allie are presenting to a client, Mel’s on a plane to New York, and Marta’s in the house searching for something her mother either wants or needs. Eva in the meantime is in the studio office, spinning in the chair at the corner workstation. It’s the extra computer for when Marta has part-time employees, but there aren’t any part-time employees right now, just Eva making me crazy.
“I talked to my mom,” she says, pausing in her spinning to look at me. “She says you’re not her secretary. You’re the office manager. Apparently there’s a big difference.”
I look up from the letter I’m typing. “Thank you, Eva. That’s good to know.”
She spins once and stops herself by grabbing the edge of the desk. “Did you want to be her secretary?”
Does anyone like to be tortured? “Not particularly, no.”
She’s hugging her knees to her chest now, her red sweater bright against her blue jeans. “Why are you working here?”
“I needed a job.”
“Why?”
It feels as though she has a nail and she’s tap-tapping it into my forehead. “Why does your mom work?”
“Because she’s smart and she likes it.” Eva makes a face. “And because she’s a single mom. My dad’s a sperm donor.”
I’d just reached for my coffee, and I nearly spit the mouthful all over the computer screen. Wiping coffee dribbles from my chin, I turn to look at her.
She nods matter-of-factly. “Apparently he donated a lot of times, too. He wasn’t supposed to, but he went to different clinics and somebody in New York just figured it out. They called my mom and said I probably have ten or twenty brothers and sisters out there.” Eva reaches up to rub her cheek. “That’s a lot of brothers and sisters.”
“Uh-huh.” It’s a terrible answer, but I don’t know what else to say. Eva’s not like most little girls around here.
“The thing is,” she continues, studying her nails, “I have to be careful I don’t marry my brother. It could cause defects.” She pauses, frowns. “Besides, it’s gross.”
The office door opens and Marta appears. She’s tugging off her jacket and dropping it on the back of her chair. “You’re not supposed to be bugging my staff,” she says, crossing to her daughter’s side and dropping a kiss on the top of her head.
“I’m not,” Eva answers blithely, sliding from her chair to head to the office door. “I’m just telling Mrs. Young about my dad.”
She leaves and Marta stands there a moment, hands on her hips, before shaking her head. “That has to be her father’s genes. Can’t be mine.”
“Can’t be you,” I agree, uncertain if I should be impressed by Eva’s nonchalance or horrified. “You’re not a rebel.”
Marta laughs and drops into her chair, stretching her long legs out in front of her. She’s wearing old jeans, a white men’s shirt with the tails hanging out, and her hideous combat boots. “God, I’m tired.” She tips her head back and rubs her neck before turning to look at me. “I’m not paying you enough for you to work this many hours, Taylor. Susan never worked past three on Wednesdays and twelve on Fridays.”
I gesture to the stack of paperwork on my desk. “There’s too much to do for me to leave.”
Marta lifts an eyebrow. “There will always be too much to do. You’ll never get to the bottom of the pile because new stuff will come in. Just do what you can do and when everyone else dashes out, you should, too.”
“Well, let me at least finish this letter I was working on. Once it’s printed I’ll take off.”
Ten minutes later, I’m going through the document one last time doing spell check when I feel Marta’s gaze. It’s incredibly unsettling. I look over my shoulder at her.
“Have you always been such a perfectionist?” she asks quietly.
I frown. “Why do you think I’m a perfectionist?”
“I’ve been watching you. You’ve read the letter through at least four times, maybe five. Move on. Be done with it.”
“I just don’t want a letter going out from Z Design with mistakes in it. It’d look bad—” I break off as Marta laughs. “Why are you laughing? I’d think you’d care about appearances—”
“I do.” She’s no longer laughing, but she’s still smiling a little. “I do, but I also know what it’s like to juggle home and work. Go home, Taylor. Your girls had a short day, too, and I’m sure they’re dying to see you.”
The girls are screaming at the top of their lungs as I open the front door.
“It’s all your fault!”
That’s Jemma, I think, closing the door between the garage and mudroom.
“It’s yours!”
And that’s Brooke. Sagging with fatigue, I hang up my coat on a mudroom wall hook, set my purse on a bench, and head toward the kitchen.
“If you weren’t such a spoiled brat, we wouldn’t have to move and sell all our things!”
Jemma again.
“If you weren’t such a jerk, Dad wouldn’t be in Omaha!”
And that’s dear Brooke.
I close my eyes, take a breath, and another, trying to keep from losing my cool. How can this be my family? How can these be my children? How can they be so horrible?
“I’m home,” I shout wearily, stepping out of one high-heeled pump and then the other.
The girls don’t even hear me. They’re still screaming mean things, and now Jemma’s shouting at the top of her lungs:
“Well, Mom and Dad never even wanted you. You’re a mistake!”
Suddenly I don’t have it in me to yell. I don’t have words for anything. I’m just sick of the screaming and sick of the worrying and sick of trying to do it all by myself.
I grab two lids from the pots and pans cabinet and clang them together as hard as I can. It’s like cymbals crashing. It’s loud. Really loud, and worse, I can’t stop banging the tops to the pans.
Suddenly Annika and the three girls are on the stairs, staring down at me. Annika’s aghast. She’s Finnish, never loud, always civilized. Whatever.
My girls stare at me as though I’m mad. I am. So there. Dropping the lids onto the counter, I face the girls. “There’s no mistake in this family. Each of you was deliberately made, and each of you was very wanted. There were more of you planned, and more of you wanted, but life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan or we want. So, get down here, pick up your toys, and help me make dinner.”
I glance at Annika. “And Annika, as the Wicked Witch is home, you’re now free to go.”
Thursday afternoon, I hand over a check to Mr. Oberon, the owner of the rental house. It’s for $5,900, the first two months of rent, the last, and the cleaning deposit. I know he didn’t need the extra month’s rent, but I do it for my peace of mind, not his. This way, no matter what happens, the girls and I have a home until January 31.
Last Monday night after signing the lease agreement, Mr. Oberon handed me the keys to the house and let me know I could start moving in any time.
Now on Thursday I stand in the middle of the horrid little house that will soon be home and realize I can’t move the kids in, not with the house in this condition.
I’ll paint the walls. Rip up the stained carpet and have it hauled away. Maybe the floor beneath isn’t so bad. Maybe I’ll splurge and get us some new remnant carpeting.
Maybe I should have found a different place.
Friday, Marta closes the office at eleven-thirty. I head to Home Depot and buy gallons of white paint. White paint covers a multitude of sins.
At the very least, it’ll hide the stains, mildew, and grime.
I spend all Friday painting, and after arranging playdates with Patti’s kids (I called Kate as Brooke wanted to play with Elly but haven’t gotten a call back), I spend Saturday painting, too.
By the time I pick up the kids from Patti’s, my arms, face, and hair are covered in tiny paint freckles.
Sunday, Lucy has the girls over and I return to the rental house for another painting marathon.
I know we’re going to be in the rental house for only six to twelve months, but I can’t stand the faded paint, the walls a drab gray and dirty beige that makes leaving our beautiful sunny house even more depressing. I won’t be depressed. I refuse to be depressed, so little by little I work my way through the house with a paintbrush, roller, and cans of off-white paint.
The only negative with painting is that it gives me way too much time to think. I find myself thinking about everything. I think about Nathan. I think about his family. I think about my family. I think about those Christian music tapes I found and Matthew’s baby box.
I haven’t painted a room, much less a house, since before Matthew was born. But then I haven’t sewn, either, and I used to sew all the time. I designed and sewed my own clothes, curtains, slipcovers, baby clothes. I made Jemma’s entire layette. But I stopped sewing after losing Matthew. I don’t know why I didn’t sew again other than it hurt whenever I thought about fabric or patterns. It hurt because I could remember Matthew’s room and the crib that was already furnished and ready. I remember the padded bumper and the soft quilt that I hung over the rocking chair.
I remember the cheerful sailboat valances, the little throw pillow I’d embroidered his name on.
Matthew Young. Matt Young. It sounded like a quarterback’s name. My son was going to grow up and be like his father.
After Matthew, Nathan wanted me to get pregnant right away. He thought it would make the grief better. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even bear for Nathan to touch me. I hurt too badly.
It was around that time that I began sketching, putting together all my ideas into a dream house. Nathan loved the sketches. He got excited about having a big house on the water, a house we’d fill with more children, little boys and girls, and we’d be this all-American family. We both got so excited by the idea of what we could be that, looking back, I see we lost who we were.
Nathan and I never were about things in the beginning. We were about us. About love. About making our way through life together.
My eyes sting as I paint, and I tell myself it’s the fumes, but I know better.
I know I’m incredibly, deeply hurt. And incredibly, deeply confused. I could never love any man the way I love Nathan. He and I just work. We fit.
By the time I’m finished, it’s dinnertime and pitch dark outside and I hurt all over. My back, shoulders, and neck ache as I wash out the paintbrushes in the hideous kitchen sink, but at least I’ve got the living room, dining alcove, laundry area, and kitchen done.
I think I could have picked a better white paint, as this one looks a little chalky, but it’s not as if I can’t repaint some of the walls later. The hall to the bedrooms would look nice in a crisp green, and the kitchen would be far brighter and cheerier if the walls were more buttery or maybe lemon.
At home, I let the girls order a DirecTV movie and they all climb onto my bed with microwave popcorn to watch. I’m so tired that I fall asleep before the movie ends. And when I wake up, the TV’s off and the house is dark except for a light in the upstairs hall.
I go into Tori’s room, and her bed is empty. I check Brooke’s room, and her bed is empty, too. I hurry into Jemma’s, and there they all are, sleeping on the ground with Jemma’s blankets and comforters as if they’re having a slumber party.
They put themselves to bed.
I stand in the doorway a moment and watch them sleep before heading downstairs to lock the doors.
The doors are all locked. The lights are all off.
They even put their popcorn bowl in the dishwasher and wiped off the counters.
Maybe my girls aren’t so horrid.
Monday, Marta lets me leave work at four so I can show the girls the house. I’m nervous about their reaction but want them to see the house and help pick out the paint colors for their rooms.
When I go home to get the girls, Annika asks if she could talk to me. In private.
What cruel thing has one of my daughters said now?
Turns out none of them have said cruel things. Annika’s just ready to move on to another family, a family that’s more stable and can offer better hours.
I ask if she needs a reference and she says no, she has a job lined up already. She just needs to give me a week’s notice, but because it’s Thanksgiving this week, Wednesday, just two days from now, will be her last day.
After Annika leaves, I drive the girls to the rental house. Holding my breath, I wait for their opinion.
The girls don’t hate the house completely. Tori likes the green “fur” on the roof, says it looks like Turtwig, the green Pokémon with a little leaf on its head.
Brooke gives me a pointed look. “That’s a bad thing, Mom.”
Yeah, I got it.
Walking through the house, the kids want to know which are going to be their bedrooms. I show them the two at the end of the hall. The rooms are tiny, and the windows are up too high. Great for placement of furniture, but bad if you want light.
Jemma announces she wants her own room (no surprise there), which means Brooke and Tori will share the other. Brooke starts to throw a fit, but I snap my fingers and give them my new, improved don’t-or-you’ll-die look.
That silences the fighting. Now we just have to decide on bedroom wall color. Jemma wants lavender. Brooke wants lavender. Tori wants pink.
Jemma denounces Brooke for picking her color. Brooke shouts that lavender doesn’t belong to Jemma. Jemma didn’t make it or buy it, so she can’t own it.
Tori wants pretty pink.
Jemma laughs because Brooke—who hates pink—is going to have a pink bedroom.
Tori wants ballerinas.
Brooke wants soccer balls.
Jemma rolls on the ground, laughing, saying that maybe we can find wallpaper where pink ballerinas are playing soccer.
Brooke slugs Jemma. Tori cries because she doesn’t want her ballerinas to play soccer. Jemma cries because Brooke hit too hard and she hates everything to do with our family.
I’d like to cry, too, but at this point, it seems a tad redundant.
Time is passing quickly, so quickly that I realize I haven’t thought about the auction once, nor have I been sending out my weekly e-mails to the various chairs and committees, checking on progress and giving everyone updates.
Tuesday I use my lunch to send everyone a brief e-mail letting them know that we won’t be meeting until after Thanksgiving weekend (how could we meet before? I have to get us moved), but please feel free to e-mail me with any questions, suggestions, or problems.
With that e-mail sent, I’m inspired to tackle more of my to-do list, and I knock off another dozen e-mails, notifying the kids’ schools that we’re moving and giving the effective transition date and new address. I e-mail magazines, place a change order with electric, phone, water, garbage, and DirecTV. I restart our newspaper subscription, reasoning it’ll just feel more homey with a paper arriving every morning in our driveway (in front of our carport). I call U-Haul and reserve a large pickup truck along with a dolly and moving blankets. I inquire about their packing materials and resolve to go by on my way home from work tomorrow (it is a half day, after all) to get everything I’ll need for packing up our clothes and our dishes.
I send one last e-mail before wrapping up my business:
Hi, Nathan, Just a quick update re the house and move. I’ve nearly finished painting the rental house and we’re almost ready to move this weekend. The girls are really excited you’re coming home tomorrow. It wouldn’t have been Thanksgiving without you. It’s been a hard couple months, but I know we’re over the worst now. From here on out it’s going to be better. Love, Taylor.
E-mail sent and my lunch hour over, I shift gears again, finishing letters that need to be written, resending invoices on statements that haven’t been paid, photocopying the color handouts for Marta’s presentation in the morning.
Marta’s been out much of the day, arguing with one of her big printers. She’s not happy with the calendars she designed for one of her clients. The calendar is the client’s Christmas gift to their customers, and the dark burgundy wine color isn’t the color Marta ordered, and she’s not going to take the calendars. She wants them redone. And she wants them done now.
Knowing that Marta is not in a good mood, the other team members have slunk out of the office to avoid potential storms.
When Marta returns at one-thirty with a slam of the door, I know she still hasn’t gotten the printer to do what she wants.
“Hi,” I say as she slings her purse into her chair.
She grunts a hello.
While the copy machine in the supply room continues copying and collating, I attack filing. A tall filing cabinet is sandwiched between the wall and my desk, and I start finding homes for the huge pile of paperwork that has been accumulating on my desk over the past two weeks.
I’m trying to straighten the files in the second drawer but can’t seem to make the folders line up right. Instead of going in horizontal, they are twisting to the side. Sliding my hand to the back of the drawer, I feel something wedged back there. It’s a book. With a twist and a yank, I manage to free it.
I blink at the title:
How to Be the Most Popular Girl in Your School
. I had no idea there was such a book, and the bigger surprise is that it’s in Susan’s filing cabinet.
“Did Susan read stuff like this?” I ask, studying the back cover blurb.
“What?” Marta asks sharply, looking up.
“This.” I turn the cover toward her so she can see it.
“How to Be the Most Popular Girl in Your School.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the filing cabinet, at the back of the second drawer.”
Marta shakes her head. “So that’s where that is.”
My eyebrows arch. “It’s yours?”
She glares at me. “It was Eva’s. I was her project last year. She was determined to make me popular.”
I’m struggling not to laugh. “No offense, but I don’t think her plan worked.”
“Really?” she answers with a roll of her eyes as she turns back to her computer. But not before I see she’s smiling.
Nathan replies to my e-mail that afternoon:
I can’t wait to get home. It feels like I’ve been gone forever. Do you need me to arrange a moving truck?
Feeling very pleased with myself, I e-mail back:
I’ve taken care of the truck, but we do need you.
Two hours later, the phone rings. “Z Design,” I answer, picking up the phone without checking caller ID.
“Marta?” a voice quivers at the other end.
“No, this is Taylor. Would you like to speak to Marta?”
The woman doesn’t answer. A long silence ensues. I’m not sure what to do next. “How can I help you?” I ask after a moment.
“Marta?”
“No, this is Taylor. I work for Marta. Can I help you?”
The line goes dead. I replace the phone, perplexed. Such a strange call.
“These look good,” Marta says, emerging from the supply room where she’s been flipping through the handouts that I just finished binding into books. “We’re set. Now all I need to do is dazzle them, win the account, and close the deal.”
“Piece of cake.”
Her eyebrows lift. “How many did you make?”
“Sixteen. A few extra just in case.” I glance at the phone, the call still very much on my mind. “Marta, there was just an odd call. Someone asked for you but then wouldn’t talk. I’m wondering if we should check caller ID, make a note of the number, just in case.”
Marta frowns and picks up the phone from my desk. She hits the last number. Her expression clears. “My mom.”
She returns the phone to me, grabs her cell phone, and walks out, heading toward her house. She doesn’t return for fifteen minutes, and when she does she sits at her desk but doesn’t do anything except stare out the window, troubled emotions flickering over her face.
I’ve never seen Marta this way. She looks lost.
It’s not the way I think of Marta, and even though I’m just an administrative assistant, I feel I should do something, say something, but I don’t know what.
Shuffling the papers on my desk, I tell myself to get back to filing, but instead I stand at the filing cabinet, biting my lip, wondering what to say.
“Is your mom okay?” I blurt out.
Marta nods once. She looks even more sad, if anything.
I realize I don’t know Marta. I’ve made snap judgments based on appearances. I suppose I’ve taken a look at her and labeled her. Long hair, combat boots, motorcycle equals pothead, druggie, outlaw, bad lady.
But seeing her here, knowing what she’s already done for me, I’m ashamed.
Marta’s not that hard. And she’s not that wild. She’s actually—surprisingly—not that different from me.