She didn’t care.
The light turned and she accelerated, enumerating those who had wronged her as she blazed her way down Democracy Boulevard. “And fuck you, Leo.” He’d been at the dinner that night. “Go to hell, Lauris.” So had she. “And a big fuck you to Michelle, too!”
She went on, screaming until her voice hurt and her chest ached and there were tears streaming down her face. She needed the release. Without it, something inside her might have imploded.
“And by the way,” she added, gripping her hands on the steering wheel until her knuckles went white. “Thanks to you, Mommy and Dad, for bringing me into this stupid world and then leaving me”—her voice shook, and the tears really began to flow—“to figure out the hard parts by myself.”
She realized then that this was about twenty years of pent-up anguish and frustration. A lot of people would have said she “had it easy” until her father died, and financially, that was true. But she would have given up all the money and creature comforts she had just for a feeling of family and security. Even though she’d tried for years to have a close relationship with her father, he was always a little distant. She figured it was because he worked so much. And maybe a little bit because she looked so much like her mother.
But whatever had caused the detachment, he’d always taken care of her. Michelle never acted badly toward Lexi when her father had been around, so obviously there was some sort of understanding that he loved her.
There just wasn’t much of a feeling of it.
She’d felt it once, though, so she knew what it was. Maybe that was the difference between Lexi and Maribeth and all those other jerks—maybe they were like they were because they didn’t have any clue what genuine human warmth was.
Lexi wasn’t sure whether she was better off for knowing or not. It sure seemed like Maribeth was happier than she was.
When she pulled into the driveway of her house—“her” house, that was, at least for a little while longer—she was spent. Every ounce of her energy had gone into walking out of the mall without crying and driving home without stopping.
So it wasn’t exactly a pleasant surprise to see Greg’s truck out front.
It was even worse to literally run into him as they both rounded the corner behind the pickup from different directions.
“Whoa! Where’s the fire?” he asked.
She kept her head down. “Excuse me,” she snapped, and brushed by him.
“Wait, are you okay?” He caught her arm just long enough to stop her but let go immediately.
Still, she whirled around and faced him. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“Sorry.” He put his hands up. “Impulse. You looked upset.”
“And you thought mauling me would help? Or maybe you just wanted to take a bad situation and make it worse.” She felt like a boxer facing an opponent, out of breath and out of energy.
That this particular opponent had kind blue eyes and a look of deep concern should have stopped her anger, but instead it raised her ire further. She didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her.
No one.
“So you’re one of those people,” he said, nodding.
She shouldn’t ask. She knew that. But she couldn’t stop herself. “What people?”
“Those people who get nasty to the rest of the world when they’re hurt. And”—he gave a low whistle—“you look like you’re really hurting.” There was nothing in his expression to indicate he meant this in a cruel way, but it felt like a dagger to her heart.
“Who says I’ve been hurt?”
“It’s obvious you’ve been crying.” He kept his eyes on her for a minute, then said, “But what do I know? I’m just the contractor. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s none of my business.”
“That’s for sure.”
“So, look, I do have a question for you. The guys are going to be working on the room next to yours tomorrow, gutting the closet and so on. Is ten A.M. too early to start?”
“Do whatever you want,” she said, her voice cold, though she actually appreciated his asking. “It’s not my house.” She walked away from him.
“Okay, then. They’ll be there ten, ten thirty.”
She turned back to him. “And where will you be? Isn’t this your job?”
“I’ll be out doing estimates for the rest of the week. But here”—he took a card out of his front pocket and walked over to hand it to her—“if you have any problems or concerns, that’s my cell number.”
She took it. “Fine.” As she walked away, she could feel his eyes on her back. She wanted to stop and thank him for his concern, but she was so filled with bitterness and toxicity that if she said anything, it was liable to be more negative than positive.
He was right about that—she always had defaulted to mean when someone else hurt her. For some reason, she was black-and-white—there were no grays in her personality. Gray was vulnerable, and she couldn’t afford that.
She let herself into the empty house and went to the kitchen. Michelle kept a wine cooler there filled with champagne. Lexi took out a bottle. Charles Heidsieck 1996. Good choice. She didn’t know anything about the year, but she knew she liked the label.
She popped the cork and took out a coffee mug. This was no time for a fussy glass.
The light was blinking on the phone, indicating there was a voice mail. Lexi ignored it at first, figuring anyone who wanted to call her would call her cell phone, but then it occurred to her that maybe Maribeth had called to apologize and had just wanted to leave it on the machine because she was embarrassed.
Not that Lexi was in a very forgiving mood, but she took the handset and dialed the code into it and listened. There was one message, and it wasn’t Maribeth; it was Michelle.
“Alexis, it’s Michelle Henderson.” Like Lexi wouldn’t know which Michelle. “There are contractors working on the house and a great deal of that work will be on the area you’re currently occupying. If there is any way for you to get your things, well, and yourself, out before the first of the month, please do so. And remember to call Mr. Larson to come over before you take anything out of the house. That’s for your protection, you realize, as well as mine.” She hung up without another word, though there was the distinct sound of festive Latin music in the background. Presumably, she’d returned immediately to the fun of widowhood after hanging up.
“Call Mr. Larson,” Lexi said, pouring more wine into the cup. “Right. I’ll be sure to add that personal humiliation for your entertainment.” Not only did she have no intention of calling Larry Larson before leaving the house for the final time, but if she wanted anything out of here beforehand, she would damn well take it.
But what would she want? All the wonderful old mission-style furniture that occupied the place before Michelle moved in had been replaced by what looked like Donald Trump’s personal collection: gilded mirrors and frames, chintz sofas, Louis XIV chairs, hand-painted china with patterns so ornate and detailed that Lexi got dizzy just sitting close to them.
Once upon a time, this had felt like home. It wasn’t home anymore.
Nothing was.
And for the next hour, she poured, and repoured, the champagne and packed the pieces of her fragmented life into moving boxes to take wherever she ended up going next.
Lexi was prepared for job interviews to be nerve-racking or tedious or both.
What she was not prepared for was how difficult it would be to get an interview.
She began by looking in the “Help Wanted” section of The Washington Post. Almost none of them said in the ad what they paid, but she began by approaching any company she’d heard of. Some of the jobs were clearly outside her range of capability, though she amused herself with the idea of applying for a job as an accountant, so she narrowed her scope to administrative assistant positions.
Every one of them wanted her to e-mail a résumé.
She didn’t have a résumé.
More than one of the people she spoke wit
h asked her if she’d “posted her résumé on Monster.” When she Googled the phrase, she figured they were referring to Monster.com, which appeared to be an enormous virtual job fair. She started by taking a “résumé readiness” quiz and found that, at least, she was ready to have a résumé. However, she wasn’t quite ready to write a résumé, and she certainly wasn’t ready to post a résumé.
She sat in front of that Web site for two hours, reading everything she could find on how to find a job as an administrative assistant. The more she read, the less likely she thought it was that she could get work in an office of any sort. But then she saw a small article on building experience by working for a temporary agency. She could go to one place, they would put her into the work pool, assign her jobs, and before she knew it, she’d have at least a few things to put on a résumé.
Determined that that was the best path for her right now, she looked up the number for Temps, Inc., and made an appointment for the next morning.
She didn’t have the blind, foolish optimism she’d had even a few weeks ago when she imagined she was going to be a painter, but she was learning the ways of her new world fast.
If she didn’t try to swim, she was going to drown.
“I’m going to have you do a computer test while I look over your application, all right?” Her name was Perry Rose, and true to her name, the tall, thin, pinched-faced woman was prickly. As soon as Lexi introduced herself, she’d looked her up and down and said simply, “Oh. I see.”
But Lexi couldn’t afford the luxury of turning and running away, no matter how much she wanted to, so she’d stuck it out, filling in the two-page application handed to her by a receptionist who looked about twelve, and then following Ms. Rose into one of several quiet cubicles that contained computers with privacy walls around them.
The whole place smelled like pencils and new carpet.
“When you’re ready, simply click on the Start button and do the tests until the computer tells you the exercises are completed. The entire series takes about twenty to thirty minutes.”
“Okay!”
“All right, then, you can return to the waiting room when you’re finished.”
Lexi looked at her watch. It was a couple of minutes past ten. Then she clicked the Start button.
First was a typing test. She’d never formally learned typing, but she thought she was pretty good at hunting and pecking. The timer told her she typed twenty-eight words a minute and gave her an option to try again.
Even though virtually all Lexi’s office experience came from watching TV, she knew twenty-eight words a minute wasn’t good, so she took the repeat option.
A couple of times.
Then there was a grammar and punctuation test. It was easy. She hoped she made up some of her lost time there.
Then there were other tests that she didn’t feel so confident about. Spreadsheets, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and others she hadn’t even heard of. She muddled her way through, but by the time she finally got to the end of the series, she felt like she’d just taken a tenth-grade math test she wasn’t prepared for.
She pushed Complete and looked at her watch.
It was eleven.
She went back to the waiting room, hoping against hope that Perry Rose hadn’t been paying attention to the time.
“You can go to Ms. Rose’s office,” the receptionist told her after getting buzzed on the phone. “It’s the second door on the left.” She raised a limp arm to indicate a hall next to the water cooler. “Down there.”
“Thanks.” Lexi went down the hall to the door. It was closed. What the hell was she supposed to do? She knocked.
Nothing.
She knocked again.
The door whipped open. “I said we don’t have a lot of time to waste here.”
Lexi stiffened. “Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
“Fine, I’ll send someone new.”
“What?” This was ridiculous. There was no call for the woman to be such a bitch. They were strangers, after all, so they owed each other the common courtesy they’d give to someone on the street.
The woman held up her index finger and looked away, saying, “I’m sorry you’re dissatisfied, but there’s nothing else I can do.”
“It’s not that I’m—” Lexi stopped, realizing Perry must have a Bluetooth earpiece on under her mop of red hair.
Sure enough, she said, “All right, then, you let me know by noon if you think she’s going to work.” She looked at Lexi. “I am not impressed.”
Lexi sat down and waited silently.
“Ms. Henderson?”
“Yes?”
“I was speaking to you.”
Lexi was immediately irked. “I didn’t realize it.”
“You need to be absolutely on the ball when you are interviewing for a job.” It was easy to imagine her punctuating her words with a rap of a ruler. “And make no mistake, you are interviewing for a job.”
“I’m aware of that,” Lexi answered crisply.
“Your testing went abysmally. I guess you know that.”
It was then that Lexi first realized this was going nowhere and would continue to go nowhere until it got there. “I felt stronger in some areas than in others.”
“Really?” She looked surprised. “For example, in what areas did you feel strong?”
Lexi straightened in her chair. Every muscle in her body wanted her to bolt. “I’m a good proofreader.”
Perry tightened her lips and gave a half shrug. “What good is that if you cannot apply the corrections?”
“That would depend on the application, wouldn’t it?”
“As far as I can tell, Ms. Henderson, there is not a single computer application at which you are even moderately proficient.” She raked a judgmental eye over her. “I imagine you are adept at text messaging on your telephone, but you are hardly qualified to communicate with the business world, much less do so on behalf of an executive.”
“What are you saying? I’m unemployable?”
“Utterly.” She leaned back in her chair and spread her arms. “It’s my opinion that you need to go to a technical institute and become versed in at least the most basic Windows programs so that you are at least employable as a basic office assistant.”
Lexi felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Actually,” she said, standing up, “I don’t think I want to work with you at all.” She began to walk out the door.
An incredulous Perry Rose followed her. “I’m sorry?”
“No need to apologize, it’s obviously who you are.” Lexi stopped and turned back to her, staring her in the eye. “Ms. Rose, are you aware that corporate headquarters occasionally sends prospective employees”—she used air quotes—“to branch offices to see how they are treated and to look for areas where there may be a need for”—she brought out the air quotes again—“personnel adjustments or education?”
It was satisfying to see her face drain of all color. “I . . . have heard of such things before.”
Bingo! Lucky guess. Lexi was enjoying this, even though as soon as she left, they’d be able to check her application and find out she was lying. Meanwhile, a few minutes of squirming would do this bitch some good. “How do you think corporate would feel, knowing you’d spoken to me with such disrespect?”
“I . . .” Her shoulders collapsed. “I apologize deeply, Ms. Henderson. It’s been a very rough couple of weeks around here. We’ve had a lot of no-shows, and have lost quite a few employees to Telesec. Naturally, it was disappointing that someone as outwardly poised as you appeared to have no skills at all. I mean”—she laughed—“it was ludicrous, in retrospect.”
“But not impossible for someone to come in with that level of experience.”
“Unlikely. You took it pretty far. I should have realized that, in and of itself, was a test, of course, but sometimes pressure makes good people do bad things.”
“And sometimes, Ms. Rose, pressure makes good people do bett
er things.” She shook her head and turned for the door. “Think about it.” She opened the door, but it was lighter than she expected, resulting in a dramatic swoosh and then a bang as it hit the back wall.
Good.
It was the most fun she’d had in weeks.
She stopped at Wagshal’s Delicatessen on Mass Avenue on her way home to pick up a celebratory knish for lunch. She would have liked one of the shepherd’s pies, but they were too much for her pitiful budget.
While she waited for them to heat the knish, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “Hey, Blondie.”
Oh, God. It was him. The guy from her house. The contractor. Greg. She turned and put on a bright smile. “I’m sorry, have we met?” This was a ridiculous act; they both knew exactly what she was doing.
He had a bottle-shaped bag in his hand. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered with a straight face. He took a moment to order a turkey sandwich with what seemed to be every single thing in the fixin’s bar on top of it, gave his name, then turned back to her.
“Oh, yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be at my house in Potomac, taking a sledgehammer to all my childhood memories?”
“Nah, I’ve got the crew working on that. I came to Spring Valley to do an estimate.”
She stared at the guys behind the counter, willing them to hurry up and give her the knish and let her go. “I’m glad to hear there is room in the future for you to do more than destroy my home.”
“Hell, we’ve got time to destroy hundreds of homes in the area.”
She shot him a look and noted he had a dimple denting his cheek. Someone else might find that cute, but Lexi just rolled her eyes. “Charming.”
“So, is your name Anna?”
Lexi was startled. “Why do you ask?”
“Mrs. Henderson didn’t say much about you, apart from making the point that you’re not her offspring, but we found some things with the name Anna on them behind the wall of the closet upstairs, and I thought they might be yours. Nothing big. I think there were some old birthday cards and papers. Things like that.”
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