“Come on in, Adele,” Fran said. “We talked it over. We need someone at that desk, and if you’re willing to work for fifteen dollars an hour, we’d like to give you a try. Our receptionist isn’t coming back, and the woman we hired to replace her didn’t work out. But there’s considerably more to do than those few office chores I gave you today.”
Adele’s smile was so big she thought her face might crack. “I’m pretty smart,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“The receptionist has to double as the janitor,” Ross said.
“My father was a janitor!” Adele shot back.
“I was kidding, kid. Except for the fact that we all pitch in to make sure the place is tidy. You know—wash your dishes, wipe out the sink, sweep up. You know—if you see a mess, clean up the mess. Right?”
“Right,” she said. “I have a job?”
“You have a job. You fell into our laps and we fell into yours. Let’s see if we can make this work. We’ll get your paperwork done in the morning,” Fran said with a smile.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Maybe my luck is changing! she thought happily.
* * *
Adele wanted to tell someone, of course. Not Justine. What would Justine say? She wouldn’t compliment Adele’s cleverness. She’d probably warn her to do extra careful work to keep the job. Not Beverly; Beverly would want to bring her a cake. She texted Jake. Have you eaten yet?
Not yet.
Can you come to dinner? Stir-fry? Chicken.
Love to, what time?
Seven?
I’ll be there.
She hurried home to chop her vegetables and set the table. She checked her makeup to be sure it was fresh, brushed her teeth and reapplied her lipstick. She wasn’t trying to impress Jake so much as look like it wasn’t a total accident they wanted to keep her. Then she decided on a sip of wine as she waited for him, and of course that first sip contradicted her toothpaste and made her pucker. She made the rice and had her chicken and vegetables ready to go. Finally, she heard the doorbell.
She threw open the door and there he stood, holding flowers. Jake had stopped bringing her food, so intent was she on her new eating program.
“You will never believe what happened! I have a job!”
“Well, that was fast.”
She poured him a glass of wine and told him every detail of how it happened, from beginning to end, while she began to feed the chicken and vegetables into the wok. She explained how she wasn’t sure why she just answered yes when Fran asked if she was there for the job. “I guess I was there to get a job after all.” And she told him all the possibilities she had thought might come to pass, like they might say, Good, now that we know what you can do, let’s look at the job openings. “It doesn’t work that way, I guess. But I didn’t know that.” She told him how much she enjoyed talking to the women, finding that they were all so different from her and yet so much the same. “They’ve all been held captive, of their own free will, of course, and yet when set free, they are lost. It didn’t really matter if they were homemakers, moms, caregivers, whatever—suddenly they need work and have nowhere to turn. They all looked better when they were leaving—if not entirely joyous at least relieved. It’s an amazing place, this office, this program.” And in the end, when they explained to her it had all been a misunderstanding, she practically begged for the job. “And it wasn’t because I so need a job. At least not totally. I really wanted to stay there. I wanted to watch what was going to happen next. I don’t have any idea what their success rate is, but some of those women who were feeling so scared and hopeless are going to get work and get on with their lives.”
“Like you,” he said.
“Like me!”
While they ate, she told him about some of the women, not using any names or physical descriptions, of course. But she did describe some of their problems. “Imagine finding yourself broke and in need at the age of seventy! I can’t wait to see how her story turns out. That’s a real wake-up call. It really got me thinking—my mother could have been left with no resources and what would we have done?”
“Your sister would have stepped up...”
“My sister. I wonder if she even knows how lucky she is. What Scott has done to her is terrible, but she has a job.”
“A job you said is in peril,” Jake reminded her.
“I’d better check in with her tonight. How’s your stir-fry?” she asked.
Jake put down his fork. “It’s very good. Adele, you look wonderful, you know. I’m sorry if I haven’t said so enough.”
“I have a long way to go,” she said.
“You’ll do what you want, but I think you look wonderful. I thought you looked wonderful before.”
“And better now?” she asked.
“Addie, I have a lot of admiration for anyone who works at being their best, but I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”
“I’m going to have to get up very early to get my walk in and make it to work on time,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him.
But she had heard him.
“Luckily the sun is coming up earlier, but the beach is still foggy early in the morning. And will be till ten or later. You be careful,” he said.
“I’ll be careful,” she said. “But we don’t have trouble around here.”
“Mostly nuisance stuff. But I wouldn’t want you to be the first one with real trouble.”
“Nothing can scare me off my program,” she said. “Everything about it feels better. And did I mention I have a job?” She couldn’t stop smiling.
Chapter Six
Justine knew work could be a beacon, a white light. The right kind of work even more so. Just the sound of Addie’s voice was magical when she called to say she had a job. She sounded so much more filled with life than she had in years. As her sister had been consumed with responsibility, monotony and drudgery, Justine had wondered if Addie would ever break free from her isolation and come to life.
Such could be the plight of the caregiver. You wanted to do it because you loved the patient and felt personally responsible, but there was no harder work. And at the end of the day you had succeeded only when things weren’t worse.
Without their mother at the house to check on, Justine hadn’t seen her sister in weeks. They’d talked every couple of days, mostly so Justine could keep Addie apprised of the divorce situation. Her lawyer had filed, Scott had signed the settlement agreement and it could be over in as little as two more weeks. The girls were still very upset but they were hanging in there, and school would be out soon. They both had summer jobs, which would keep them busy and might help them rein in their emotions.
She enrolled them in counseling, which took a great deal of time. They needed individual sessions—they were too different to attend together and their coping methods would not be anything alike. Amber went to the counselor on Mondays and Olivia on Thursdays.
Tonight Scott was planning to be home to make dinner for the girls so Justine decided to be absent. She didn’t want to run into any neighbors so she went to Chen’s since it wasn’t too far from home. She ordered a glass of wine and was studying the menu, not feeling the least hungry when she heard a familiar voice.
“Justine?”
She looked up into the warm brown eyes of Logan Danner. She was so surprised her mouth hung open. “It’s you,” she said.
“It’s me,” he said with a smile. “I never expected to see you here but I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been wondering how you’re getting along.”
“You could have called,” she said.
“I would have, eventually. Once it was pretty obvious you were no longer a client. While you still might want my services, it’s strictly professional.”
“Will you sit down?” she said. “Let me buy you a beer? And you can tell me what you’re doing around here.”
He slid into the booth across from her. “I was in court today. Here in San Jose, testifying on behalf of a client.” The waitress approached him and asked him if he wanted beer, and he gave her a nod and thanked her. “I guess you can tell this is a favorite place of mine.”
“Big fan of Chinese cuisine, are you?”
“I like it, yeah. But one of the good things about this place is that at certain times of the day there’s hardly anyone here. If a potential client isn’t too far away, this is one of the places I frequent to meet them. I have a partner, Georgianna, who lives in Santa Rosa. We share an office in San Francisco, but we’re only there a couple of days a week. Now, tell me about you. Will it be a divorce?”
“Absolutely. It’s not what I want, but it has to be.”
“Are you sure? People manage to work out all sorts of things.”
“I thought about it, a lot. I thought about it for the sake of my girls, but in the end I’m not sure what I’d be teaching them by doing that. I look back over almost thirty years with the man, and I’m wondering if this is the first time. I can’t live with a man who lies and cheats. Who could?”
“People have all kinds of arrangements...”
“I think Scott stayed for my income. He likes to buy things like golf clubs, scuba gear, bikes. He’d been talking about buying a sailboat. He would have stayed with me another couple of years for that sailboat.”
“Wasn’t he bored?” Logan asked.
“He’s been very active,” she said with a short, disdainful laugh.
“Is he a good father?”
“He’s a very good father. I think we’re both good parents. That’s my biggest concern. Can we be good parents as divorced parents? Because I didn’t realize how selfish Scott is. He’s the fun guy. If I had to work late, he’d get a neighbor or babysitter to stay with the kids so he could play ball or bowl. He took very good care of the girls, but now I can see he always did the bare minimum. His free time was carefully guarded. And the girls don’t need him like they did. In a year and a half Amber will be in college.”