“That can’t be the only job in Vegas,” Alex said, determined to fly out there on his own dollar to get them another job. “What about the proposed office complex in Riverside?”
“We bid too high and Stefan wouldn’t come down.”
“But we don’t have any new bids going out.”
Without saying it, Peter told Alex he was just as frustrated with the partners who owned the firm. They liked their expensive toys and coming in two, maybe three days a week. They’d completely lost touch with the reality that profits were going down if they didn’t lighten up.
“So I’m really sorry to do this to you, Alex,” Peter said. “You’ve meant a lot to this company and hey, you know it’ll be good for you to have some free time and go somewhere where you can get higher up into management.”
Alex looked up. That sounded awfully like he was the one they were laying off. “What?”
Peter squirmed in his seat. “Like I said, I’m sorry. And I got the partners to give you this.” He opened one of his desk drawers and planted an envelope on the desk.
“You deserve this,” he said, tapping the envelope. “One hundred percent.”
Alex reached for the envelope and tore it open. There were two checks: one for seven thousand dollars, and the other a payout. They even included a two-page letter of recommendation.
“We didn’t want to do this. Really,” Peter begged him to accept. “But we’re letting almost all the foremen go.”
“Almost all?”
“Stefan feels that—” Peter squirmed in his chair. “Look, they’ve managed this whole thing so badly, you’ll want to be getting out of here.”
“Who’s going to manage what’s left of our jobs?” Alex asked, calmly tucking everything back in the envelope, and then pressing his finger to the twitching muscle under his eye.
“I am.”
“Shit,” Alex hissed and Peter’s eyes all but popped out his skull. Alex never lost his cool. Not on a job, not in a crisis, not even when getting cussed out by a client. Never. It gave him some pleasure to see Peter deflate with embarrassment, but that wouldn’t pay Christine’s tuition, much less Alex’s.
“Andy really tried to keep you. He did. He wanted you to split the responsibilities between you and me but…”
Andy was the least important partner and oddly the one who did the most work.
“No one discounts what you’ve done,” Peter said as fury roared through Alex’s blood. “And between you and me, this place is too fucking far down the toilet to last much longer.”
Neither Good Alex nor Bad Alex liked the feel of sunshine getting blown up the ass. And as much as he itched to shove that seven-thousand-dollar check down one of the partners’ throats, Alex just stood up and held out his hand like the pushover he was.
Bad Alex would tell Peter to screw himself and walk away with the extra seven grand and the three-thousand-dollar company laptop.
But Good Alex prevailed. He shook Peter’s hand, left his keys and company laptop, and for the first time in his adult life, walked to his car not knowing how he was going to pay the mortgage.
“You’re doing it wrong! Here let me.” Patty used her mumu’d girth to shove Josie.
“Hands off!” Josie’s slap prompted Susan to set down her wine glass and pry them apart before Patty threw Josie to the ground.
“Girls!”
“I tell her she never puts enough salt in her posole!”
“You don’t need all that salt.”
“But it doesn’t taste like anything.”
“Here, let me taste it,” Susan insisted. Patty was in a mood, which meant she probably got a call from her ex.
For every year that Patty fought this divorce, she gained another ten pounds until all she could wear were mumus, preferably wild tropical or animal prints. Tonight she looked like Toucan Sam.
Patty had always been, well, a “big girl.” Her husband, Juan Sr., was a good-for-nothing that showed up at the beauty shop to take five twenties from the register and spend it on some girl he found in Ensenada, or, in the affair that broke the back of their marriage, Patty’s next-door neighbor and Josie’s sister.
How a smart, loving—albeit pain-in-the-butt—woman like Patty could keep herself tied to such a nasty little man was beyond Susan’s comprehension. In the meantime, she and especially Josie paid the price.
She blew on the posole broth and then delicately sipped it. Perfect. But she knew Patty was in a mood.
“Maybe a little more garlic,” she suggested. “Just un poquito.”
Pursing her lips was about as confrontational as Josie would get. She threw in a pinch of garlic and stirred in hurt silence.
“I went to the botanica for that perfume you told me to get. Now what?” Susan asked.
Not turning from her stirring, Josie asked, “You have to get Isa to wear it?”
“That won’t mean she’ll use it,” Patty piped in. “I’d just spray her if I were you.”
Josie clanged the wooden spoon against the edge of her pot. “It doesn’t work that way. The person has to agree to the spell for it to work.”
Patty rolled her eyes. “You’re just talking a bunch of nonsense—”
“I had nothing to do with her stealing your husband, so back off,” Josie yelled, stabbing the air with her steaming spoon.
Patty dropped the roll she’d been plucking apart. “Who said—”
“I want you to stop picking on me or you can get out.”
Patty’s eyes rolled from Josie to Susan, begging for help. Susan fanned herself with her hand. Finally someone dared to point out the huge thundercloud hanging over them. Josie’s sister, Virginia (who’d always been easy), took off with Patty’s no-good husband. Good riddance, Susan had thought, but it drove a wedge between her comadres. After losing Yolanda as a friend when she took in Isa and Andrew, Susan didn’t want to lose any more.
“Well?” Josie challenged.
“I’m sorry,” Patty drawled, swallowing and then breathing as if her heart was going to fly out of her mouth. “I should go.”
Josie hesitated and Susan wondered what she’d do if she really let Patty leave. For once in many, many years she didn’t know what to say and the helplessness of that feeling strangled her.
“Stay,” Josie ordered, lowering her spoon. “I don’t approve of what my sister did but I want you to stay.”
“Okay m’ija,” Patty managed, her voice deep with emotion. “I’ll be good.”
“You better.” Josie nodded and then turned back to her posole. “Now Susan, I put in some extra rose oil to beef up the potion. Do you know when she’s supposed to meet Alex?”
“No,” Susan squeaked, reaching for her wine. “I’m still working on that.”
Josie’s brow ridged as she seemed to think hard about something. “Ay Susan, when are you going to learn?”
7
ALEX’S HOROSCOPE FOR SEPTEMBER 14
Considerable forces are moving against you, maneuvering you into a corner. Do you fight, flee, or retend it isn’t happening. That is entirely up to you. Then again, notice the use of the word
“considerable.”
Caught up in a whirl of irrational panic, Isa knew she was going to lose her job. It was more than a job, it was the only thing she’d done right, that she’d loved second to her son. And all because of some stupid, unfair, heartless prank, she’d also lost the respect of Dr. Quilley.
When she found out she was pregnant in college, Isa realized she couldn’t be one of those mothers who handed the baby to grandma while she struggled through medical school. First, she didn’t have any grandmas she was close to and second, Isa admired women who could put their careers on top of everything else, but she knew she couldn’t be like them.
So when she asked Dr. Quilley for a letter of recommendation to the School of Education, he didn’t ask why she changed her mind or how she could give up medicine.
“I expected you’d see the light,” he’d said
as if she turned in a satisfactory paper. “And when you’re finished, we’ll find a position for you here.”
Far cry from her father, who’d said, “Imagine what you could’ve done if you’d kept your legs closed.” And then Isa never heard from him again until Andrew was six months old.
Not that working towards her teaching degree had been any easier; Isa never regretted giving up med school, especially when she realized her gift for working with ESL students.
Sitting at the computer station in the farthest, darkest corner of the library after school, she scrolled the Internet for Joan Collins. She couldn’t change what happened this morning, but she’d be damned if she was losing her mind.
Please don’t be dead, Isa prayed and then realized if Joan wasn’t visiting her in spirit, then that soccer ball had knocked something loose in her head.
“Hey honey,” June purred. “How ya holding up?”
According to Hello!, Joan was fabulously alive and well. “Not good.”
“I snuck in Snickers ice cream bars,” June whispered, holding open her denim jacket. “Whatcha looking at?”
“Nothing.” June stopped her from switching the screen.
“Joan Collins?” she questioned, grimacing.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” June coughed and tore the wrapper. “She’s just some old lady.”
Old lady? Isa wasn’t going to take to anyone putting down Joan. “Excuse me but she’s the bitch that paved the way for all TV bitches. She defined fabulous.”
Another cough and rip. Pointing her ice cream at Isa, June didn’t give up. “No, Amanda Woodward from Melrose Place was a super bitch.”
“But she never could’ve been who she was without Alexis.”
“I still think she’s better.”
“Alexis would’ve kicked her ass.”
“With what? Her cane?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
June squinted, pressing her fingers against her temple. Good, Isa thought. She deserved an ice cream headache for putting Joan down.
“Whatever. Look, I figure it’s best to tell you but I heard Dr. Quilley order up some disciplinary paperwork after you know, you ripped him a new one.”
Isa took a honking bite from her ice cream. The cold pain surged into her temples.
“I’m really sorry,” June apologized.
“It’s not your fault.” Isa’s head pounded and the ice cream just sloshed around in her mouth. Forcing it down, she then noticed the look on June’s face. “What?”
“Well, we got two calls today. One from an L.A. Times reporter and another from Rocco Ramie of Rock Hard in the Morning!” Isa couldn’t imagine how June could get all giddy over the vilest, nastiest misogynistic DJ that was the spawn of Howard Stern. “Ted used to listen to him and I asked Mr. Ramie if he’d send me an autograph and—”
Isa shook her head. “Why didn’t you just bring a gun and shoot me in the head? It would’ve been much kinder.”
Remembering herself, June settled back in her chair. “Well, you have to admit stuff like this doesn’t happen every day.”
“And I bet Ted would’ve been thrilled if you were mentioned as the most f-able in the school on Rock Hard in the Morning.”
“I emailed him.” She giggled. “And he agreed. Isn’t that cute?”
“Real cute.”
“Oh, it’ll all blow over. Before you know it, no one will remember.”
“Doesn’t matter because everyone will know. Everyone reads that stupid paper, everyone talks in this town, and hell, if some other reporter shows up, even more people will know. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, no one in this town forgets.”
“At least they don’t know your name.”
“Everyone knows that it’s me,” Isa nearly shouted. They looked guiltily over their shoulders but the library was practically deserted. The squeaky wheel of the book cart inched through the history section, pushed by a student with blaring headsets.
“Look I know you’re trying and I’m just not…I just have to get through the day.”
“Well I think you’re the smartest person I know. Everyone thinks that way about you, especially—”
“Don’t say it,” Isa warned.
“Say what?”
Isa was about to say Alex. “Never mind.”
“You were going to say Alex, huh?”
“No, I wasn’t!”
June’s perkiness dampened and for once she looked like she didn’t know what to say. “Isa, I don’t want you to take it the wrong way but…Well, Alex isn’t as interested as I thought and I didn’t want you to get your hopes up—”
“I have to go.” Isa stood up and logged herself off the computer. The buzzing sound in her ears had nothing to do with the fact that Alex wasn’t interested.
“I’ll walk with you.”
“No, I’m fine,” Isa insisted. “I know what you’re going to say. I should wear makeup or slut clothes or do my hair. I don’t need to know how damn smart I am from you or Al—or anyone.”
June stepped back and Isa saw the embarrassment shading her face. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was just kid—”
“Thanks for the ice cream.” Isa tossed it into the trash can against the wall. “I’ll call you later.”
Feeling nasty and out of sorts, Isa restacked her papers, hoping at least one of her students would walk through the door with his parents. For her entire career Isa had managed to keep her private life and her work life separate. No one knew about her divorce until she changed her last name back to Avellan. No one saw her tears fall or took the hits from her bitchiness. Now she not only alienated her mentor, but also her only friend at school.
“Knock-knock!” Susan called through the open door.
Even though Susan worked at the elementary school, Isa knew better than to ask, “You heard about this morning?”
“I did.” Susan looked over her shoulder and then walked inside. “Isa, Dr. Quilley didn’t deserve that from you.”
Isa sucked in her breath, feeling ten years old after Susan caught her and Tamara with a Playgirl magazine. Susan folded her arms over her chest, leaning her hip on Isa’s desk. “But I know you’ll do what’s right,” she said, knowing full well that she was probing Isa’s suffering conscience. “You will, right?”
“I don’t know what I could do that—”
“Enough about this,” Susan dismissed, waving her hand in front of her face as if that would simply make all of Isa’s problems vanish. “Did you and Alex set a time for your dinner?”
Isa drummed her pen against the edge of a student desk, her heart accelerating at Susan’s mention of his name. Even though June already told Isa how Alex felt about her, Isa wouldn’t let Susan know that. One humiliation at a time.
“Alex and I aren’t going to dinner,” she answered carefully.
Susan’s eyes landed on the dancing pen and then a subtle grin graced her lips. “You’re not?”
“No.” They were playing a game of high stakes and neither wanted to reveal her cards first. “Why?” Isa broke.
“Oh, I guess you didn’t hear.”
“Hear what?”
“You were voted team mom at practice. Oh, and did I tell you that Tamara and Will are coming down for Andrew’s first game?”
Susan was a formidable opponent but Isa wasn’t a kid anymore. “Good,” she said evenly. “Any news if they’re getting married?” Isa stopped bouncing her pen.
“Ay, who knows,” Susan replied, her eyes narrowing that Isa hadn’t taken the bait. “They keep saying they’re waiting, but waiting for what?”
Isa imagined Tamara was waiting her mother out on principle. But she smiled, anticipating Tamara’s reaction when she came home and discovered that Susan had subscribed to every wedding magazine known to womankind.
Out of nowhere Susan slipped back to Alex. “So. What are you going to wear when you go out with Alex?”
Isa sucked in her breath, ready to tell Susan to back off, but she never got a word out. Some women, Latinas in particular like Tamara and Susan, were born with the girly gene that empowered them with the ability to match clothes and accessories. Since Isa was nearly allergic to pink and couldn’t tell the difference between lavender and mauve, she obviously lacked that gene.
“Please tell me you won’t wear your combat boots or that twenty-five-cent blouse,” Susan pleaded. “Not that they aren’t lovely, I just think something a little more feminine would be best. Here, try this.”
Something cold and flowery wet her face, smelling of roses and herbs. She coughed and waved it out of her face. “Do you like it?” Susan asked brightly, blasting Isa with more of the stuff out of a bright green glass bottle. “Josie made it for me to give you.”
Isa sputtered, “Wha—what’s in it?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a little something extra for your date.”
“Susan, there is no date and who voted me team mom?”
“The other mamas. And I think the sooner you talk with Alex about the team, the better for the boys, don’t you think?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Isa saw a woman appear in the doorway. Joan? Twice in one day?
But the woman clutching a brown purse and wearing a black head scarf was not Joan. She peered inside, waiting to be welcomed.
Waving away the crap that Susan sprayed in her face, Isa stepped forward, shedding the girlish insecurity Susan brought out and replacing it with her teacher’s authority.
The woman’s husband followed in a clean shirt and pressed but worn pants and then Isa’s shyest student, Khadija, walked in. Even though her jeans and long-sleeved blouse were all-American, her traditional hajib framed her pretty face, dominated by long-lashed brown eyes.
“Ms. Avellan, these are my parents,” she said and then interpreted in Iranian.
As Isa reassured them of their daughter’s progress and that the school hadn’t had problems with bullies, she felt as if she were stepping off a rocky boat and back on solid ground.
“At the end of each semester we have verbal presentations,” Isa said. “You’re more than welcome to attend.”
In Between Men Page 4