“I remember,” I smile. “Not that far back, obviously, but we did that for a long time.”
“I always loved this time of night for that reason,” he says. “You know, your mother and I just want to have you close because we love you. It’s not that we’re trying to keep you from having your own life. We just want to be a part of it.”
It still surprises me that I forget how my dad can be even more effective with the art of the guilt trip than my mom can. If guilting was a sport, they’d take gold and silver every time.
“You are a part of it,” I tell him. “I can come visit more, but I can’t just give up my life because Mom still wants to treat me like a toddler.”
“She loves you, dear,” my dad says. “I love you, too. We just want what’s best for you.”
“Then trust me,” I tell him. “I’m doing great on my own. I have problems just like anyone else, but I find solutions. I’m actually doing some really great things in the city. My store remodel just got finished, and—”
“Do you have any pictures?” he asks.
I waited until after Eric and his guys left, but I did snap some photos with my phone, so I pull up my picture gallery and hand it over to him.
“Wow,” he says. “It looks like they did a really good job. I love the sunken floor right there.”
“Yeah, and that window used to only go to this corner,” I tell him, pointing at the picture, “but I had them take it around the side so people coming down the street can get a view of the window displays before they get to the store. People are much more likely to see something if it’s in front of them, or close to in front of them than if they’re already walking past it.”
“Didn’t you say they started this a couple months ago?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Why’d it take them so long to finish it?”
My dad is probably the only person on the planet in front of whom I’d feel embarrassed about changing my mind so much, so I just tell him, “Some of the materials they needed took longer to ship than we thought they would, but it came out pretty nice, huh?”
“It looks great, honey,” he says, and hands the phone back to me. “How much did that cost?”
“You really don’t want to know,” I tell him.
“I really do,” he says.
“No, New York prices are different than prices almost anywhere else. It would just sound like a waste of money.”
“I know New York is expensive,” he says. “Come on, how much?”
“All told,” I start, “a little over 160.”
I’m already cringing in expectation of my dad’s response.
“One sixty what?” he asks.
Now I’m cringing harder. “Thousand, Dad, it was a little over 160,000. It was going to be a little cheaper, but I thought of some changes before they were done and I had them implement it.”
“Where did you get that kind of money? You didn’t take out one of those payday loans, did you?” my dad asks.
I laugh. He’s so sincere, and he’s just looking at me with those big eyes, but that just makes me laugh even harder.
“Dad,” I wheeze, “I really don’t think those places deal in that kind of cash. I took out a normal bank loan, but I was able to pay a chunk of it with my savings.”
“How much?” he asks.
My phone beeps, but unfortunately, my clandestine friend will have to wait a minute or two.
“A little over half,” I tell him. “I like to save most of my money. Investing in the future is better than blowing all your money for a fleeting present.”
“Well, I’m impressed,” he says. “That must have cleaned you out, though. We can’t let you pay for our—”
“I left about 20,000 in my account,” I tell him. “I didn’t want to completely gut my savings. After all, you never know when times are going to get tight.”
“Where did you get all this money?” he asks.
“From my store,” I tell him. “Despite what Mom thinks, it’s actually a really good concept.”
“Don’t be too hard on your mother,” he says. “You know that she has trouble letting go.”
“I get that,” I tell him, “but that doesn’t mean that she just gets to belittle me when she won’t even listen to what I’m doing with my life. I’m not her little girl anymore.”
I regret the words because I can already hear the cliché they’re going to elicit before he says it.
“You’re always going to be her little girl,” he says.
“Yeah, I know,” I tell him. “I’ve seen the Lifetime movies, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t let me grow up. Whether she likes it or not, I already have.”
“I know, dear,” he says. “You’ve grown up so fast.”
My phone beeps again.
“So, who’s sending you messages?” he asks. “Is it a boyfriend?”
“No,” I tell him. “It’s just some guy. I don’t even know him.”
“You can block him,” my dad says. “I read that online.”
“We’re living in a strange world,” I tell him. “It starts with parents coming to a functional, albeit gradual, understanding of technology, and where does it end? Next thing we know, kids will start doing their homework willingly and politicians will stop accepting bribes to sway their votes. It would be madness!”
My dad chuckles, and it’s still one of the most comforting sounds in the world to me.
Growing up, he was always the one cheering me on when I had soccer games or dance recitals. Mom, she’d always say the same thing, no matter what I was doing, “Just remember, Jessica, you may not be the smartest or the prettiest, but you go out there and do your best anyway.”
There was never any, “I’ll be proud of you no matter what,” or “You’re going to do great.” It was always, “Do your best even though it’s not going to amount to much.”
“Dad, does Mom hate me?” I ask.
It’s a dramatic question, but maybe it’ll get him to realize that her behavior is more than a mother just hanging onto her little girl a bit too much for a bit too long.
“Of course not, honey. Why would you say something like that?” he asks.
“Well, I don’t think she actually does, but you know the way she talks to me. She’s always talked to me that way, and it doesn’t matter what I do or how well I do it, she never trusts that I’m going to make the right decision about anything,” I tell him.
“She just worries about you,” he says. I wait for him to finish the thought, but apparently that’s it.
I pull my phone back out of my pocket and check my messages.
“Is he a good man?” my dad asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “So far, he’s about the closest thing I have to a friend besides the people I pay to work for me.”
The statement was a bit blunter than I intended, and I can see the result on my dad’s expression.
“You work too hard,” he says. “I bet if you were to go out there and have a good time, you’d come home with a bunch of friends.”
“Maybe,” I tell him, and look at my phone.
“What’d he say?” my dad asks.
“Oh, you really don’t want to know,” I tell him.
“He’s not being disrespectful, is he?” my dad asks, and I have to smile. He’s always been the protector. “You know, despite what you may see on television, it’s not okay for men to say the nasty, sexual things that they do to women.”
“It’s not that,” I tell him. “He’s never talked to me like that, actually. I was just telling him about Mom and the cancer.”
“What did he say?” my dad asks.
“He just told me to hang in there—that it’s going to be okay.”
I leave out the fact that my text friend’s mom died of cancer. Dad has enough on his mind as it is.
“Well, that’s good,” my dad says. “Now, why don’t you come inside for some more of your mother’s award-winning blueberry
pie?”
“Dad, I know you’re the one that makes it,” I tell him.
“What?” he asks, feigning ignorance. “What are you talking about?”
“Every time we have blueberry pie, your hands are stained purple,” I tell him. “Mom’s never have been.”
“She wears gloves, dear,” he says, and gets up from the porch swing. It’s a ludicrous response, but it’s too endearing to argue with him about it. He smiles and holds a stained hand out toward me. “Shall we?”
* * *
“I think I’ve become my mother,” I write. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her and everything, but she’s not exactly who I thought I would be at 30 years old, you know?”
I’m sitting on the corner of my old bed in my parents’ house, hoping that he knows male/female propriety well enough to try to convince me that I couldn’t possibly be anything like my mother.
“Tell me,” he writes, “if you could go anywhere in the world with anyone in the world, who would it be?”
Well, it’s hardly the response I was hoping for, but at least he knows male/female propriety well enough to change the subject.
“I don’t know,” I write. “Where did that come from?”
Along with coming to talk to my mom and dad about the house, I came here for another reason.
It’s hardly new. In fact, it’s something that I’ve tried to talk myself into doing for years now, but I can never find the nerve to just do it.
My phone beeps.
The message reads, “In my experience, when someone starts to think that they’re turning into one of their parents, it usually means it’s time for a vacation.”
I cover my mouth as the laugh escapes me.
“Well,” I write back, “you’re right about that. It’s starting to look like you’re right about a lot of things.”
Even as a little girl, I tried so hard to impress my mother, to show her that I wasn’t this frail, stupid thing she’s always thought me to be. Apart from trying to convince my parents to help them with the mortgage, I’m here to confront what is quite possibly the saddest part of my childhood.
My phone beeps.
“That’s something I never tire of hearing,” he writes. “What specifically am I right about this time?”
I write back, “I should start trusting my employees. I’ve had a few lackluster workers in the past, but the staff I have now is pretty amazing.”
I joined every club in high school and before that I went for every team, volunteered for every school play, every bake sale, every fundraiser...one year, I tried out for the cheerleading squad, but the coach said I didn’t smile enough.
He wasn’t wrong.
My phone beeps and the message reads, “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to start management training,” I write. “It’s terrifying, but I think it’s time I realize that I’m not the only one who can do it.”
Despite my cheerleading disappointment, over the years, I built quite the collection of first place ribbons, trophies, and certificates declaring me champion at this or first place with that.
Every time, I would come through that door and I’d walk right past my dad and show my mom what I’d won.
Every time, she said the same thing, “That’s okay, honey, you’ll do better next time.”
When I was younger, I tried to explain that I had, in fact, done better than anyone else, but she’d just pat me on the head and say, “It’s not nice to take advantage of people’s kindness.”
It took me years before I realized what she meant. She was saying that I only got the awards because the judges felt sorry for me.
After that, I stopped tacking up my certificates and stopped polishing my trophies. Now, they all sit in the bottom of the closet in this room.
My phone beeps.
The message says, “You’ll do great. Have you ever done employee training before?”
I’d been trying to ignore the fact that I’ve never in my life trained a person to any level higher than salesperson or cashier.
“No,” I write, “not to that level. It can’t be that much different than normal job training, though, can it?”
When I got to be a teenager, I’d still try out for everything and I’d still come home with awards and certificates, but by the time I walked through the door and saw my mom sitting in her chair, I’d be overcome with a sense of dread at the response I knew was coming, and I’d just walk in my room, open up the closet door, and toss whatever I’d gotten in one of the boxes I’d placed in there.
It’s been so long since I opened that closet door that I don’t even remember how many boxes I put in there.
I’m pretty sure my high school diploma’s in there somewhere.
The phone beeps and I read the message.
“That’s all right,” he writes. “Do you know anyone who has trained other people to higher positions?”
“Not really,” I start, then as the thought comes to me, I groan. “There was a guy who was doing some work for me. He’s done that sort of thing, but I’d feel weird asking him.”
I lie back on the bed.
Eric probably wouldn’t help if I asked him anyway. Besides, they’re totally different kinds of training.
The phone beeps and the message reads, “Are we still avoiding the finer points of our lives, or can you give me a little more to go on? What kind of work do you do?”
There’s really no reason for me not to tell him what I do. I mean, I’m nowhere near ready to actually meet him, so it’s probably best to keep the store name out of it, but maybe it might actually help to give him a little more to go on.
“I own a clothing store,” I write. “The guy’s a contractor.”
I just close my eyes and wait.
My mom’s still got the TV blaring like she used to and my dad’s already in bed, though how he can sleep with that racket, I’ve never known.
A new message comes in, saying, “They’re different kinds of work, but I bet the basic principles are close enough that he could help you. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Maybe I will,” I write, “but we have kind of a weird relationship. Things are starting to even out, but he doesn’t work for me anymore.”
I sit up and look back toward the closet and decide that tonight’s the night I open that door again and pack whatever I find in the car.
This is something I’ve done every time I’ve come home and stayed in this room, but I already know that the shot of courage is not going to last.
I lie back down and wait for the beep.
“Do you have his number?” he writes after a few minutes.
“Yeah,” I write, “well, his work number anyway, but he’s never answered it. I don’t even know if it’s a working number, to tell you the truth.”
After a minute, another message comes in, “Well, now that he’s not working for you anymore, he might be more willing to answer that phone. Try giving him a call.”
He has a point.
Stupid as it is that Eric didn’t answer his work number—granted, I only ever called it while he was working on the other side of the store—he’s got to be hoping for someone to call, so I find the number and press send.
“Hello?”
“Hey Eric, this is Jessica from Lady Bits,” I start.
“Oh, hey there,” he says. “What’s up?”
“Hey, I know you’re probably really busy and everything, but I was wondering if you might be able to point me in the right direction on something.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“I’ve decided to take your advice and move up some of my people. The problem is—”
“You’ve never trained a manager before and you’re worried that if you screw it up, all of your worst fears will come true?” he asks.
“Something like that,” I answer.
“Well, I am very busy,” he says over the unmistakable sound of an aluminum can hissing as it’s cracked open, “but I mi
ght be able to help. When did you want to get together?”
“Oh, no,” I laugh. “I was thinking more of a phone mentorship or something like that.”
“A phone mentorship?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I answer. “You know, if I get into a training situation where I don’t know what to do, I give you a call.”
“The problem with that is that you’re assuming you already know the proper way to train a manager in the first place. Did you take any business courses?”
“Yeah,” I answer, “but they only went over general theory.”
“All right,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the shop when you open tomorrow.”
He hangs up before I can tell him that tomorrow, we’re closed.
I try calling him back, but the number just goes straight to voicemail.
I can’t believe this is the guy that I’m really going to for advice on higher training for my employees.
This is going to be a disaster.
Chapter Ten
Threading the Needle
Eric
I’m still not sure if Jessica would slap me or hug me if she found out I’m the one she’s been texting back and forth, but I really don’t think that now is the time to find that out. I’m totally into her after these messages and don’t want to fuck it up so soon.
First, I’ve got to charm her into the realization that I’m not nearly as despicable a person as she thinks I am.
This is not going to be easy.
“Hey,” I say with a smile as she pulls up in front of the store. “Ready to get to work?”
“We’re closed today,” she tells me.
“Oh, right,” I answer, putting my palm against my forehead. “I totally forgot about that.”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Why didn’t you call?” I ask.
Okay, that one was just because I am a bit of a despicable person.
“I tried to, but—”
She’s already flustered, but I interrupt her anyway. “It’s all right,” I tell her. “You and I can discuss the Eric Dawson approach to making great employees into great employees who can carry a little bit more of the burden so I, or in this case, you, don’t have to work quite so hard—trademark pending.”
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