Hope nodded, sipped, nodded some more. “That is the perfect analogy, Angie. I spend my days dealing with assholes and writing orders that will net me a hundred bucks here and eighty bucks there because I know that if I just hang in there long enough, that big order will come in, the one that pays me a few thousand in commission.”
“And then you can breathe.”
“And then I can breathe.”
“But only for a little while, because then it starts up all over again.”
“Ugh.”
“I know.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“Then,” Angie said, “there’s the added joy of having a lucrative program, but worrying all the time that you might lose it.”
“Along with the steady income you’ve gotten used to.”
“Exactly.” The slug of vodka was too big and burned Angie’s throat as it went down. “I lost Davis Direct today.”
Hope set down her glass and stared at Angie. “Shit. Really? I’m so sorry.”
Again, as she’d done with Matt, she tried to wave it off. “I saw it coming. Though dumping me by fax was a nice touch.”
“That guy is such a prick,” Hope said.
“I haven’t told Guelli yet.”
“Speaking of pricks.” Hope sipped.
“He’s going to think it was me. It wasn’t, but he’s going to give me that look, like I’m just a girl, and if he’d set up Jim Carmen with a male salesperson, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Tell me again why we stay.” Hope winked, and Angie snorted a laugh.
“Fuck him,” Angie said. “Forget it. I don’t want to give him another ounce of energy. Tell me about your day. Why were you ready to drink at ten o’clock this morning?”
They commiserated for the next hour as the crowd around them thickened and the volume of the music increased. This time with Hope was vital to Angie, vital to her sanity. Somebody who didn’t work in the ad specialties business had a hard time understanding the stress, the hoops that needed to be jumped through, the bubble gum and string and paper clips it sometimes took to close an order. Not to mention the fancy footwork that was often the only way to hold on to a good customer. Talking with Hope, complaining, bitching, and supporting each other, was often what helped Angie stay sane in a business that could seem utterly cracked.
As Mindy hit them with thirds, Angie asked suddenly, “Do you think we drink too much?”
“Yes,” Hope answered immediately.
“No, no, take your time. You don’t have to answer right away.”
Hope laughed, but at Angie’s suddenly serious expression, she asked, “Why?”
With a resigned sigh, Angie told her about the previous night. All of it, even the horrible thing she’d said to Jillian.
“Ouch.”
“I know. The look on her face . . .” Angie shook her head, not wanting to relive it. “I’m a complete fuckwad.”
“I hope the sucking up has already begun,” Hope said, arching one eyebrow.
“I sent flowers to her work.”
“That’s a good first step. Why are you out with me and not home making it up to her?”
“She’s at her dad’s.”
“Until when?”
“No idea.”
“Okay, come here.” Hope ducked her head down low, as if she had a secret plan to share. In a way, she did. “Here’s what you’re going to do . . .”
Sixteen
Hyacinths had the most amazing smell of any flower Jillian knew; it was one of the few things she and her mother had agreed on. The purple, pink, and white plants lined the side of the house as well as the garage, and she could still picture her mother from years ago, on hands and knees, painstakingly burying each bulb in her family’s backyard. Surprisingly, some of them were still in bloom. As far as Jillian was concerned, their only drawback was that they didn’t last long enough.
Boo came bounding through the yard toward her and dropped a tennis ball at her feet. She dutifully threw it.
This was Jillian’s favorite time of year. The evenings began to stretch, the sun staying up a little longer each day. Warm air was pushed around by a gentle breeze. The smell of freshly cut grass was one of the biggest, most prominent markers of the season. In the distance, she could hear the buzz of a lawn mower, probably Mr. Jacobs a couple of houses down. He was a freak about his lawn.
Her dad handed her a glass filled with ice cubes and Sprite. “Here you go, sweetheart.” It was the only soda he kept in the house, but she didn’t mind. Folding himself into the patio chair next to her, he groaned.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Just old,” was his usual reply. Then he patted her knee and gave his other usual reply. “Don’t worry about me.”
Since her mother’s death, Jillian did worry about him. She supposed that was natural. It made sense that losing one parent would cause a child to become overly concerned about the other. He seemed to have handled his wife’s death as well as could be expected. He’d dropped weight in the first six or eight months, but then seemed to turn a corner. Jillian had dinner with him once or twice a week, to keep tabs on his eating habits, among other things. She tried hard not to be ridiculous about showing up unannounced, and she knew that her brother was doing the same thing. They visited often, popped in unexpectedly with some lame excuse—he wondered if he could borrow a tool, or she needed to get something she thought was packed in the attic. To his credit, it was pretty obvious that Ted knew exactly what his children were up to. Also to his credit, he didn’t tease or mock them about it. Jillian thought he probably understood, and she was grateful that he let them do what they felt was necessary to check up on him.
He sipped his Sprite. “So what’s new with my girl?”
Boo’s ball was getting slobbery. Jillian picked it up and tossed it with her thumb and finger, grimacing as she did. After a moment of gathering her thoughts, she asked, “Did you ever wish you did something different? For a living, I mean.”
“Do I wish I didn’t run my own business? Or do I wish I’d done something other than real estate?”
Jillian smiled, thinking how much she loved her dad. He didn’t ask her why she’d posed such a question. He didn’t try to analyze. Instead, he simply clarified it. “Do you ever wish you had a career other than real estate?”
“Hmm. That’s a good question.” He scratched his head. “I’m sure I’ve had times where I wondered if I should’ve done something different. Instances when deals fell through or clients jerked me around a few too many times or the market was in the crapper. I think mostly, though, I’ve enjoyed it. I’m good at it, and I’ve made an okay living. I’ve been lucky.” He gave her a shrug. “Do you wish you did something other than teach?” he asked. Boo had shifted her attention to her grandpa, so he picked up the soggy ball and threw it.
“That’s just it,” Jillian replied. “I don’t. I love my job. And I’m even finding that I like teaching the little ones. I don’t care if I move up to the high school any more.”
Ted studied her. “That’s good, to be happy where you are. Isn’t it?”
“It is.” The rest of it was harder to put into words. Angie’s comment had rolled around in her head all day. Had she settled? She was only thirty and was completely content in her career. She’d wanted to teach art. She was teaching art. And she was happy doing so. Was it supposed to happen so easily? When she looked at Angie, guilt flooded her. Angie was not using her degree. When asked what she did for a living, Jillian knew she did not want to answer, “Oh, I sell T-shirts and pens and other useless crap to people who don’t really need it.” But that wasn’t Jillian’s issue. It wasn’t her concern. Angie’s unhappiness with her job didn’t mean Jillian should have to rethink her own happiness. Did it?
“You sure?” Ted was studying her face now, trying to read her thoughts.
“It is,” Jillian said again, this time adding some firmness. “I’m good.”
“Good.”<
br />
Boo dropped her tennis ball to the patio, the sound like a wet sponge falling to the ground, and loped over to the bowl Ted left out for her. The sound of her slopping up water made both father and daughter chuckle.
“She’s so dainty, isn’t she?” Jillian asked as she watched water pool around the bowl. “Thanks for helping me poop her out. She’ll sleep good tonight.”
“I’m always happy to play ball with my grand-doggie.” Boo came to him and he grabbed her big, square head with both hands, ruffling her ears even as she dripped a combination of water and drool on his pants. “Where’s Angie tonight?”
So many things had shifted in the three years since her mother’s passing, and this was one of them. Jillian wasn’t sure if her dad was trying to make up for the past, if he’d had a change of heart, or if he just finally felt that he could express his own opinion because he no longer had a wife he worried about pissing off. Whatever the case, he was much more receptive to Angie, and to Angie and Jillian as a couple. Even now, it caught Jillian off guard, made her take a moment before answering.
“She had to work late.” It wasn’t a lie. It was more like an educated guess. The chances that Angie was working late were pretty high, so Jillian was most likely not lying. Plus, she didn’t really want to get into the details of the previous night with her father. He didn’t need to know that stuff. He’d worry. Then she surprised herself by blurting, “She sent me flowers today.”
“Really?” Ted smiled. “That’s a nice thing to do. Every woman should get flowers once in a while. I sent them to your mother all the time.”
Jillian looked at him. “You did?”
“Yep. Probably once every month or two.”
“Why?”
He looked at her like she’d asked something silly. “Because it’s romantic, Jilly. Why do you think?” He gave her cheek a gentle pinch, something he had done often when she was a kid.
“It is romantic.”
“She loved getting them. No matter how mad she was at me, what stupid thing I’d done or said, the flowers were always the first step in my apology.” He gave her a wink. “And they always worked. What did she send?”
“Roses. A dozen.”
“Oh, nice. She must have really ticked you off.”
Jillian found herself chuckling, despite the unfamiliarity of almost talking about her love life with her dad. “She did.”
“She’s obviously trying to fix it.” He asked no details, his gaze on the bird feeder, straight ahead from where they sat.
“I think so.” Jillian, too, kept her eyes forward.
“You going to let her?”
“I probably should.”
“You love her?”
“Big time.”
“Then you probably should.”
They became quiet, but the smile stayed on Jillian’s face as she and her dad avoided eye contact and sipped their Sprites and lounged in the evening air. Boo snuffled in her sleep, crashed out between their two chairs. Jillian inhaled the floral scent that would always remind her of her mother. And for a short moment, she wished not only that her mother was sitting there with them, but that she’d heard their conversation, that she’d participated and was of the same opinion as her father. If only . . .
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Any time, sugar.”
Jillian smiled as she glanced in the rearview mirror. Boo was barely conscious in the back seat of the car on the ride home. She loved visiting Grandpa. His yard was much bigger than theirs, so she ran her furry little butt off chasing the ball. Not to mention all the new, fun things there were to sniff and pee on.
Jillian’s father was a good man. She had always thought so. Despite that, they’d never been close, although if she were to be honest, that probably had as much to do with her trying to keep her private life away from her parents’ scrutiny or criticism. In her family, if you didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist. Simple.
But things had definitely shifted. The idea that it had taken the death of her mother to bring her closer to her father was heart-wrenching, but true. And the ironic thing was, now that she felt she was developing a real relationship with her dad, the person she wanted to tell most was her mother.
Life could be so cruelly unfair.
Pulling into the driveway, she was surprised to see Angie’s car. It was almost eight o’clock, and after this morning, Jillian expected it would be a late night of work for her. She grabbed her bag, let Boo out of the back seat, and headed in.
The lemony smell was the first thing she noticed.
Boo scrambled past her, galloping into the house to find her other mommy. Jillian walked in slowly, following her nose into an astonishingly clean and sparkling kitchen. The counters, the sink, even the floor glimmered with the shine of a good, thorough cleaning. A vase of fresh daisies in pink and white were centered on the breakfast bar. Another vase, this one bearing four enormous sunflowers, sat on the coffee table.
“Angie?” Jillian called, hanging her bag from the coat tree in the corner.
“Up here, babe.”
The stairs were totally dust-free, as was the landing windowsill. Jillian kept going, found Angie in the bedroom making the bed with what smelled like freshly laundered sheets.
Angie stood up straight, gave what Jillian thought was meant to be a smile, but looked more like a grimace of uncertainty. “Hi.”
“Hi. What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
Jillian’s eyebrows shot up. “What do I mean? It looks like the Merry Maids spent a week in here, that’s what I mean.”
“Oh, that.” Angie smoothed the duvet cover, then sat at the foot of the bed. Boo jumped up to sniff her face, and Angie petted her absently. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Jillian stepped into the room and noticed a third vase of fresh flowers, this time pink roses, sitting on the dresser. “You’ve been busy,” she said. “The house looks great.”
“I wanted to make it up to you. For last night. For being such a jer—asshole, I mean. I wanted to do something nice, something you’d appreciate. And since I’m always working, and you’re always stuck doing the cleaning, I decided to do it. I scrubbed everything I could find. I think I took the top layer of skin off my hands.” A nervous chuckle escaped her lips. “I just . . . I thought maybe if I could clean for a change, so you didn’t have to, if I could do it for you, it would . . . make you happy.” She fizzled out at the end, as if deciding halfway through that everything she was saying was stupid, and her gaze dropped down to her lap. “I’m sorry, Jillian,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I should never have said what I did. It was hurtful and mean and I’m so sorry. I love you.”
Jillian waited a beat on purpose, letting Angie suffer one more moment of misery before letting her off the hook. Three steps got her across the room and to the bed, where she sat. Taking Angie’s face in her hands, she lifted it, made Angie meet her eyes. “I love you, too.” She kissed Angie’s lips lightly. “You’re forgiven.”
Angie blew out an enormous breath. “Oh, thank god,” she said, wrapping Jillian in her arms. “Thank you, baby. Thank you.”
Jillian pulled back so she could look Angie in the face, but kept their bodies close. “But,” she said. Angie’s face fell, and Jillian shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I still forgive you. I love you. We’re good. And the house looks amazing. But.” She held up a finger. “You need to do something about work. If you hate it, you need to make some changes. I am not going to feel guilty about liking my job because you hate yours. It’s not fair.”
Angie nodded. “You’re right.”
“Figure it out.” Jillian looked at her seriously. “I mean it, Angie. Figure it out. Take a different path at Logo Promo. Or make a change and leave. Go back to school. Whatever. I don’t care; I just want you to be happy. But figure it out.”
“I will.”
“And you have to cut back on the drinking.”
Lips
pressed together, Angie nodded again. “I know.”
Jillian held Angie’s gaze for another moment before releasing her breath and leaning her head against Angie’s shoulder. “Okay.”
“I love you,” Angie murmured into Jillian’s hair.
“I love you, too.” They sat like that for a long while, Boo spread out on the bed behind them, snoring softly. Eventually, Jillian stood and moved to the doorway. Angie looked at her, a question in her eyes. “What? Who knows when my house will be this clean again? I want to wander some more. Sue me.”
1999
Kiss Me
Seventeen
“I have to say,” Shay pointed out as she sipped a beer and watched a burly young man walk past her carrying Angie’s coffee table. “This sure beats the last time you moved.”
“We’re in our thirties now,” Angie said with a grin. “In our thirties, we hire movers.”
“Amen to that. I’m too damned old to be hauling your shit around.”
“So am I.” Angie perched on the edge of a chair and watched as Jillian directed the movers, pointing this way and that, giving instructions as to where each box, piece of furniture, or other item should go. “I will never not hire movers again.”
“We’re never moving again,” Jillian snapped as she disappeared into the kitchen.
“She seems a little edgy,” Shay whispered.
Angie grimaced. “She’s probably tired.” She didn’t add that Jillian had done the majority of the packing, given Angie’s hours, and was none too happy about it. Her brain tossed her a quick flashback of last night’s conversation.
“You’re the one who wanted this move,” Jillian said as she made lists and packed up the last couple of boxes. “The least you could do is be here to help.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Angie meant it, but it didn’t seem to make Jillian feel any better. She reached for a box, not really knowing what to do with it, feeling—and, she was certain, looking—useless.
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