Loves Me, Loves Me Not

by Libby Malin

  I don’t want to call Henry at work because I’m afraid I’ll jinx it. But I need to borrow his car to get out to the college, so I end up calling him, anyway. I’m vague about why.

  “I need to, uh, run some errands,” I say.

  “There’s an extra set of keys in the top drawer of my dresser,” he responds, not knowing that I already know that from my previous glance through his things. Then he tells me where he’s parked in his firm’s garage. His firm is only a few blocks away from his condo. He could walk to work, but he sometimes needs the car for “appointments.” When he first explained that to me, I imagined him with some of his flower babes. But I can’t think about that now. Note to self: worry about Henry’s fidelity later.

  Getting a car isn’t my only problem. I have to get clothes, too. All I have now are leisure clothes—a sundress, khaki capris, shorts, a bathing suit. Oh, and my leopard-print thong. Not exactly job-interview material. My old business clothes are out of date—those I haven’t given to Goodwill—and I packed the rest of them away when I moved.

  I scramble to reach Wendy to see if I can borrow something, but don’t get her until nearly an hour and a half before my appointment. So, I’ve resigned myself to stopping at a mall on the way out of the city and buying the first decent staid suit I see. I’m getting ready to trudge up to Henry’s parking garage when the phone rings and it’s Wendy, returning my three calls.

  After I explain my predicament, she urges me to stick with plan B. “You don’t have many office things anymore, right?” she asks. And I can tell she’s distracted by work and probably doesn’t want to have to meet me at her apartment so I can shop in her closet.

  “Stop at Hecht’s on the way out of town. I saw a great little summer suit in their window. Sage-green military-cut jacket.”

  And a military price tag, too, is my guess. Wendy doesn’t look at price tags much.

  But it’s clear I’m not going to convince Wendy to help me with plan A, so I reconcile myself to using my charge card, which is already approaching red alert.

  “Call me and tell me what happens,” she says before I rush off the phone.

  Rushing is the word of the day. It takes me ten minutes longer to get to the parking garage than I’d figured, and an extra five to find the car because it isn’t exactly where Henry said he’d parked it. Then, traffic is heavy on North Charles. (Need I tell you exactly where? Let’s just say it’s around the residence of a certain someone, a certain someone whose initials are T. W.)

  And I find the sage-green suit at Hecht’s, all right, but I can either buy it in a size 16 or a size 2, neither of which fits. With just a half hour to go and a twenty-minute drive still facing me, I hurriedly pick out a floral-print dress that looks like a Sunday-go-to-meeting frock worn in prairie country, and pair it with an unlined cotton tan jacket. Hey—they fit and I’m in a hurry.

  I arrive at the college, sweating, so I reapply my makeup in the car, dropping my lipstick, which leaves a smudge on the second page of my résumé. “Oh, shit,” I say out loud, just as a white-veiled nun walks by the car.

  Smudged résumé in hand, I head into the administration building, a two-story white brick building with a huge cross painted above the front door.

  The nun who passed me on the way in happens to be the college president, Sister Mary Altamont, whose white hair matches the color of her short veil. She gestures to a seat in her office, looks over my résumé silently, and does not acknowledge the fact that she heard me cursing in the parking lot. Hell—I mean, hey—maybe she even lets a vulgarity loose on occasion, right? Looking into her green eyes, I decide she doesn’t.

  “We’re eager to fill the position as quickly as possible,” she says, smiling at me. “We’re an institution in a state of transition, you see, and we can’t waste time. When I heard you called, it seemed like a gift from heaven.”

  I’m not used to thinking of myself as someone else’s gift from heaven, but I smile back, hoping I remembered to brush my teeth before leaving the condo.

  She tells me a little about the college and their “vision for the future,” which sounds suspiciously like just staying afloat. Then she calls in Karen Armstrong, the director of public relations, so they can both talk to me before I head off to a private interview with Karen herself.

  When Karen comes in the room, I almost laugh out loud. She’s wearing the exact same dress I have on. But paired with a navy-blue jacket.

  Tall and big-boned, with short brown hair and gray eyes, Karen is very serious. I’m not even sure she notices I have on the same dress. Heck, I’m not sure she sees me in the room. She sits in the chair next to me and asks Sister Mary if she had a chance to review the galleys on the fund-raising brochure.

  “Not yet,” Sister Mary says, smiling. I’m beginning to sense that Sister Mary smiles at everything. Earthquakes. Meteor showers. First-degree murder.

  Speaking of murder, Karen’s voice implies that’s what she’d like to do. “If you don’t look at it soon, we’ll miss the deadline,” Karen says testily. “And the whole program will be pushed back. It will be too late.”

  “Oh, dear,” Sister Mary says, and starts rummaging around on her desk, obviously looking for the copy. “This is why we need to hire someone right away. Too much to do!” She finally finds what she’s looking for, which seems to be the signal for Karen to stand.

  “If you could get it back to me by three, I can work late—again—and get it to the printer on my way home.” Karen turns to leave and I look at Sister Mary for some cue as to whether I should follow Karen to my private interview. Sister Mary smiles. That’s good enough for me. Grabbing my purse, I stand and thank Sister Mary for her time, shake her hand and rush out to the anteroom to catch up with Ms. Armstrong.

  She’s standing in front of a secretary’s desk, growling out orders about a newsletter’s mistakes. The secretary says nothing but her eyes narrow incrementally with each lash of Karen’s tongue until they’re nothing but narrow slits. I swear the secretary’s getting ready to growl back.

  As soon as Karen moves away from the desk, I step forward.

  “Sister Mary said we should talk,” I say. Then I smile. Maybe this is the language.

  Karen grimaces, then looks at her watch. “Okay. Come on in. I have about ten minutes.”

  After she ushers me into her office it’s clear she doesn’t want to spare five, let alone ten minutes on me. Her desk is piled high with papers and I recognize pre-press blue lines for several publications, paper samples, media directories and the college’s catalog with Post-it notes sticking out of virtually every page. Her phone rings almost instantly and she spends half of our time together arguing with what is obviously a direct-mail consultant on why she won’t use his services again and how he can take the college to court if he wants his full fee after bollixing up some recent job. When she hangs up, she smiles for the first time, a quick, satisfied grin, the kind favored by the evil stepmother after putting Snow White to sleep.

  “That’s what you get when you use the discount guys,” she says as a way of explaining. “Shoddy work.”

  “Who was it?” I ask, trying to sound pleasantly curious.

  She names a mail house I’m familiar with, one I used to work with from time to time and had no problems with.

  “Benny Mancuso is the contact I used to work with there,” I say in recognition. “He’s great.” When I see Karen’s irritated face, it’s clear she was talking to Benny and didn’t think he was great at all.

  “Uh,” I say, clearing my throat, “of course, businesses change. Haven’t done business with him in a couple years.” Uh-oh, don’t want to go there—to the couple-year drought in my career.

  Instead, I launch into an explanation of my publications experience. She nods her head impatiently, doesn’t ask a single question, then stands abruptly when I take a breath before going on.

  “Well, thanks for coming by.” She extends her hand for me to shake. “I’m sure we’ll be talking
to you soon.”

  Convinced I won’t be hearing anything from them except perhaps a postcard telling me the position’s been filled, I head back to the condo angry and dejected. Driving away from the campus, I have to screech to a halt when some students run in front of the car on the way to the tennis courts. I don’t know if I want this job even if they want me.

  When I get home, I’m discouraged and irritable. I grab the phone and call Henry to let him know where I left the car in the garage.

  “Why didn’t you just wait and come pick me up at six?” he asks, sounding amused.

  “I thought you’d want to, you know, drive yourself,” I say. Of course I’d thought of picking him up. But it seems like a big step, a familiarity I don’t want to take without permission. Or maybe I was just afraid I’d see some of the Squires folks.

  Then I tell him about the crazy interview, and he says it sounds like I’m better off without the job.

  “Something will come along,” he promises.

  As soon as I put down the phone, it rings again and it’s Sister Mary offering me the job. I’m so flabbergasted that I ask her why it’s all so sudden even before I thank her for the offer.

  “We told you,” she reiterates, the smile still in her voice. “We want to fill the position very quickly. No time to lose.”

  All of this should be ringing alarm bells loud and clear. But my alarm bells don’t work from lack of use. They’ve been overridden by my internal PA system squawking out that I better get a job and quick or I’ll be dependent on Henry, or homeless.

  So when she says “no time to lose,” the PA system starts echoing that and I’m asking her when I start.

  “You can come in tomorrow and begin by filling out some paperwork.” She doesn’t ask if I can. She tells me I can. I don’t argue. It’s a job.

  When I get off the phone, I don’t know if going in tomorrow to fill out paperwork will mean I actually start work then or just, well, fill out papers.

  But I can’t worry about that. I have other things to worry about. Like a work wardrobe. I wonder if I can still borrow some things from Wendy. I try to reach her again to no avail. She’s in a meeting. I try to reach Henry to tell him the good news but he’s in a meeting, too. I call Gina to let her know and half expect her to be in a meeting, too, but she’s there. We’ve only touched base briefly since I moved in with Henry, though, and it’s clear she’s stored up a bunch of questions, so she’s more interested in my moving in than with the new job, and we spend most of the time talking about that.

  “I’ve been thinking some more about you and Henry,” she says. “It’s just that it’s kind of sudden. He must really like you.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. “He’s just doing me a favor because Wendy’s allergic to cats.”

  “A guy doesn’t ask you to move in to do you a favor,” she says incredulously. “I’m amazed you were willing to commit to him so soon. You’ve been so tentative.”

  “I’m not committing to anything!” I protest. “I’m renting his spare room, that’s all.”

  “Renting?”

  “Yeah. Like a boarder.” I am making this up on the instant but I like the way it sounds. The word committing had me scared there for an instant. Henry’s not committing to anything. Not serial-flower-sender Henry. And I’m not going to be the first one to ante up my heart. Note to self: tell Henry you intend to pay him rent.

  “Well, that sounds weird,” she says. “He gets you to pay rent and have a relationship at the same time?” Translation: why should he buy the cow when you’re paying him to take the milk?

  “He’s not getting me to do anything. I’m volunteering to do it. It’s, well, neater this way. Like you said, we’ve hardly known each other.” Unless you’re calculating in love-affair time. Like dog years, remember?

  “I don’t know…”

  “I thought you liked Henry.”

  “I do, I do,” she says, ruminating. “I just don’t want you setting the wrong tone.” Translation: why should he buy the cow when he can make the cow dance to his tune, and pay him to take the milk?

  “Well, I’ll have to have you over—you and Fred—to dinner,” I tell her. Yup—that should make her feel better. Seeing us together, the picture of domesticity. Ms. Cow and her friend. I see myself at the stove, an apron embroidered with Little Woman tied around my waist.

  “No, me first. I said I’d have you and Henry over.”

  Then we start talking about food and what she’s cooking for dinner (beef stroganoff with sugar snap peas and citrus salad.) By the time we get off the phone, she’s said a total of two words about my new job—“that’s great.”

  If I expect Henry to be more enthusiastic, I’m disappointed.

  He comes home a little before seven, yelling up the stairs, “Honey, I’m home!” with a laugh in his voice. But when he comes into the kitchen where I’m drinking a reviving cup of tea, he looks at the cold stove as if he’d really expected me to be at it stirring a pot, dressed in that frilly apron with the embroidery.

  “There’s nothing in the fridge,” I say.

  He nods his head, then opens the door to make sure I’m telling the truth. “We can go out,” he tells me. I half expect him to give me a little peck on the cheek.

  “Yeah, I need to go out,” I tell him. “I need to get some clothes.” And I proceed to tell him the story of the job offer. While I do so, his eyes narrow and his brows come together.

  “They offered you the job this afternoon?” he asks skeptically.

  “You don’t think I’m good enough?”

  “It’s not that. It usually takes longer. And let’s face it—you’ve been working outside your field for a couple years. They must have candidates who are working in public relations already.”

  “I don’t think they interviewed anyone else.”

  He raises his eyebrows and peers at me with wide eyes. “What kind of outfit is it?”

  “A small liberal arts college in northern Baltimore County,” I say. “Our Lady of the Glade College.”

  He laughs. “A college named after an air freshener?” He opens the fridge again and pulls out a water, unscrewing the cap with one movement of his fingers.

  “It’s not named after the air freshener, silly,” I say, but of course I’d thought the same thing when I’d heard it. “And it’s been around since 1943 or something. Started as a small all-girls teachers’ college, then went co-ed in 1975. Only has an enrollment of twenty-five hundred.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them,” he says, swigging back some water. “What’s the student body like?”

  “Uh, locals, mostly commuters. Some Pennsylvania students,” I murmur, then change the subject. I don’t want to delve too far into this topic. One of the things I learned about the college as I asked polite questions during my interview with Sister Mary was that the average SAT score of incoming freshmen is only a shade above what you get for just filling your name out right on the score sheet. But hey—they have to go somewhere, right? And maybe Our Lady of the Air Freshener College is the place where they can learn and live in peace.

  “I need to go shopping for office clothes,” I tell him. “And stop by Wendy’s. She might lend me some stuff. I thought we could grab a bite while we’re out.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  While he changes, I try Wendy but she’s not home yet, so I leave a message that I got the job, and that Henry and I might be by later, and I’ll call her when we’re on our way. If nothing else, this should keep her from having Sam over. I’m not convinced she’s completely given him the boot.

  Since no stores are open in the city at night, Henry drives us to a mall in the suburbs, but it’s not one I’m familiar with. Away from my natural shopping habitat, I have trouble adjusting. I buy only a few outfits—a navy blue suit, which I immediately regret because it might make me look like a nun, and a herringbone jacket and camel slacks.

  Shopping with Henry is a new experien
ce, too, that makes me a wee bit uneasy. He’s patient but opinionated. When I hold out a gray silk pantsuit, he wrinkles up his nose as if he’s smelled something bad. “Too plain,” he declares. Then I remember that Tess wore gray silk to the law gala and I smile smugly to myself.

  I top off our evening of credit-card max-out by buying a too-expensive white cotton blouse to complete my nun look, and a pair of burgundy loafers with tassels. We grab a slice of pizza in the food court, and I feel really comfortable with all this—sitting with Henry at one of the wrought-iron tables with shoppers to the left of us and shoppers to the right of us. I quickly banish the thought.

  On the way back to the condo, I try Wendy on the cell phone. When she picks up, she’s groggy. I’ve awakened her.

  “It’s only nine o’clock,” I say by way of apology.

  “I’m bushed.”

  “Then I guess this isn’t a good time to stop by.”

  “Well…”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow. I’ll stop by after work, okay?”

  “Okay. You’ll have to tell me about this job, kiddo. Congratulations. That’s got to be a record.”

  It isn’t until we arrive home that I realize I have not told Fred that I have a new job and won’t even be pretending to work at the flower shop the next day! Sure, I told Gina, but I didn’t specifically tell her to tell Fred. And besides, I should do that, not her. I should be professional.

  As soon as we get home, I call Fred’s office, knowing he won’t be there. But I leave a cheery message on his voice mail about the PR job, telling him I’ll be happy to stop by the shop on Saturdays for a while to keep things on track until it shuts down for good.