“You don’t already have an assistant?”
“I do, but I already keep her busy with other things. I’m thinking this could turn into a permanent position.”
“What kind of help will you need after you buy it?”
“Someone to take calls from the other tenants, collect the rent, manage the people we hire to maintain the property, help with monthly reports. Stuff like that.”
“But I don’t know how to do any of that.”
“I’ll teach you. Or someone else in the office will teach you. It won’t be hard. Look, I’d never throw you into a job and let you sink or swim. We’d help you every step of the way. And then in time, I’m confident you’ll be able to do things instinctively. What do you think?”
“I guess I’m not sure.”
“It would be income until you find something else more suitable. Although, I must say I’d rather not invest in your training just to have you leave in a month or whatever. But that would be up to you. And I’d run into that no matter who I hired.”
They discussed pay and benefits. Jessivel would be making significantly more than she did at The Busy Bean and would have health insurance in just thirty days. Jessivel agreed to give it a shot.
“And one more thing. I’m going to buy a small espresso machine for the break room. You’d be in charge of coffee.”
Jessivel relaxed for the first time since arriving and smiled. “That I can do.”
Chapter 45
Paige checked her phone before getting out of bed. One text message.
coffee ready when u r
If someone had told Paige that twelve years after her divorce, she’d be waking up to her shirtless ex-husband in the kitchen making coffee for them, she would have called them delusional. But she did, and this morning she felt a little out of her mind for allowing it. Now, the day of her mother’s funeral, she didn’t know what she was going to do with him.
“You’re sleeping later than normal, as I remember,” he said to her as he poured their coffee. “Still take it black?”
“Twelve years is a long time, Lee. People change. Creamer is in the fridge.”
“Yes, they do. Fortunately or unfortunately.”
“Change is usually for the better…if you let it be,” she said.
“Especially if you’re the one who initiated it.”
“Can we please not go down that road again?” she asked. “I thought we resolved this last night.”
“Maybe you did.”
The sensation in her chest that she’d experienced the previous night returned. This trait had always bothered her about Leland—he couldn’t let go of something that hadn’t gone his way. He hadn’t been able to do that in their marriage and, apparently, he couldn’t do that now.
“Lee.”
“Paige,” he said, using flirty eye-play to get her attention.
“You’re hopeless.”
“You could say that.”
She’d needed him last night—his comforting words, the familiar feel-good spot of his body where she had nestled and become blissfully removed from the stress of her mother’s death. No making out, no sex, just his presence. But then he had ruined it with talk about their relationship—past and future—asking her difficult questions that she couldn’t or didn’t want to answer.
“I would like to attend the funeral, if that’s okay,” he said.
“Of course. Visitation at ten followed by the funeral service.”
“With you.”
She didn’t know where he was going with this.
“I have to go early to meet with the funeral director.”
“What about Natalie?”
“What about her?”
“Will she be there?”
“I haven’t talked to her since…” Paige had gone back and forth about telling her sister of the funeral arrangements, repeatedly asking herself if it was the illness that drove Natalie to her reprehensible behavior or something she could control.
“You should call her.”
“Or if she cared at all, she could have called me.”
She picked up her half-finished cup of coffee, dumped it into the sink, and walked away from him.
“Paige,” he called after her.
“I’ll see you later,” she said to him halfway down the hallway, hoping that would be his cue to leave.
Paige’s parents each had a smattering of aunts, uncles, and cousins still alive—all of whom were connected only by Christmas cards, births, graduations, and funerals—and Paige had notified them of her mother’s death. Then, after giving it considerable thought, she had decided to call her estranged Aunt Bernice and her daughter Wanda. She called Wanda first, anxious about what her reaction would be to her call and wondering if she, her half-sister, would bring up their shared parentage.
“I’m so sorry to hear this, Paige. Your mother was a good woman. I always liked her. Look, I’m thirty-nine weeks pregnant and won’t be able to attend her funeral, but I’ll tell Mom about it…if you want me to. Unless you’d rather call her yourself.”
“That would be great. Thank you, Wanda.” She gave her details of the service, thankful for how the conversation had gone, but more curious than before if Wanda knew the identity of her biological father.
On the way to the church for her mother’s funeral, it hit her that with the matriarch of the family gone, there was an obvious shift in the dynamic for the little family now left. “Change is usually for the better,” she’d said to Leland earlier. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Paige had never given any thought to becoming an adult orphan—she was too young for that—nor had she ever considered losing her role as her mother’s child. The impact of her father’s death had been somewhat softened by Paige focusing more on her mother afterward—a distraction of sorts. And with Natalie now estranged, Paige sensed the lack of familial ties even more.
It all seemed so surreal. A stew of emotions churned inside of her—guilt, sadness, sympathy, and anger. A sick feeling curled in her stomach as she walked through the enormous double doors of the church in which her father’s funeral had been held. She entered wishing she had someone with her to lean on. Someone like Leland. Leland—the man whose offer to accompany her to the funeral she had dismissed.
She met with the funeral director and then spent a final private moment with her mother. Afterward, she waited in the visitation room for the mourners to arrive, many of whom had attended her father’s memorial service. An hour into it, Natalie arrived—on Leland’s arm.
Stunned by their appearance together, Paige focused on her mother’s hairdresser with whom she had been speaking, refusing to believe what she saw. Then, when her eyes forced her to look back at them—strolling through the room, appearing to be in deep conversation, arm-in-arm like a couple—everything around them faded into a blur.
Minutes later, still in shock that Leland and her sister had come together, she struggled to maintain a half-smile while she talked with her mother’s next-door neighbor. She observed Leland and Natalie walk the perimeter of the room, half-listening to Mrs. Gaganshaw talk about how she and her mother used to have a glass of wine some afternoons…before five o’clock. I could use one now, and it isn’t even noon.
Paige received sincere condolences from her staff members and many of the agents she employed. Tracy from the Backstreet Kitchen also came to offer consolation for Paige’s loss.
Natalie and Leland eventually approached Paige. She took in a deep breath and reached out to hug her sister, the smell of alcohol making her gag. This, combined with the stiff embrace she received in return, she feared was going to be a harbinger of things to come.
Natalie wore a navy-blue pant suit that Paige recognized as their mother’s. “It’s nice you can fit into Mom’s clothes,” she said to Natalie, glancing down at the fabric of the outfit stretched over her blossoming stomach and wondering when she had taken it from her mother’s closet. “Be sure to let me know if there’s anything else you
want of hers before I donate them.”
“Drop the attitude, sis. And Mom said I could have this in case you’re wondering,” she said before walking away.
Paige doubted that was the case but saw no point in making an issue out of it.
She headed in the opposite direction of Natalie and Leland. When she spotted “the girls,” she rushed over to them.
“Hey, sweetie, are you okay?” Sandy asked.
Paige pointed toward Natalie and Leland, arms around each other, conversing tête-à-tête.
“Is that your ex?” Valerie asked.
Paige nodded.
“Who’s he with?”
“My sister.”
“Huh? What’s with them?”
“Who knows?” Paige said.
“Is she sober?” Gayle asked.
“Is he?” Valerie asked.
When Jessivel and her mother walked into the room, Paige left her friends to greet them. She gave Jessivel a hug.
“Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me,” she said and meant it.
Jessivel introduced Paige to her mother, Crystal, and they also embraced.
The three chatted until other mourners interrupted them, at which time Jessivel and Crystal headed toward a seating area at the back of the room.
When the time came to enter the chapel for the funeral service, Paige swung by to where Jessivel and her mother were seated and led them to the front row to sit with her. Natalie and Leland soon followed.
“I suppose people would talk if we didn’t sit together,” Natalie whispered as she sat next to Paige. “Otherwise, I would sit as far away from you as possible.”
“I love you too, Natalie.”
Paige avoided looking at Jessivel and her mother, embarrassed by the unseemly verbal exchange she’d just had with her sister.
The service was felicitous, but like her father’s, impersonal. The same balding, middle-aged funeral director wearing the same dull-brown suit stood at the podium and pretended to reflect on her mother’s life as if he had known her.
Neither she nor Natalie had great singing voices, but Natalie must have thought differently about herself because she belted out the words to the funeral hymns louder than anyone else in the room, off-key and not in tempo, sometimes improvising the words, and clapping at the end of each one. Embarrassed for her and for herself, Paige stared down at the hymnal as she mouthed the words for the rest of the hymns.
Paige had invited certain mourners—some neighbors, close friends, and any relatives who had showed up—to join her afterward for lunch at a nearby restaurant. When it was time to go there, she realized she hadn’t mentioned this to Leland and was hesitant about inviting “him” because it meant “them.” She searched the room. When she didn’t see him or Natalie, she called his cell phone.
“Did I tell you there’s a luncheon at Ricardo’s? I’m sorry if I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t.” She heard him ask Natalie if she wanted to go there. “We’ll see,” he said before hanging up.
I did the right thing. Now, please don’t show up.
At Ricardo’s, Paige felt comfortable sitting with the people she considered her closest allies—Jessivel, Crystal, and her three best friends. They settled into chairs at one end of the u-shaped table configuration, in a windowless but otherwise cheerful room, where they engaged in small talk waiting for the others to arrive.
At one point, Crystal leaned toward Paige and said, “I hope I don’t make you too uncomfortable being here, dear.”
Paige placed her hand on hers. “Not at all, Crystal. I’m so glad you came.”
“When things have settled down for you a bit, maybe the three of us can meet somewhere and get to know each other better.”
“I’d like that.”
The mourners arrived and stopped by Paige’s chair to reiterate their condolences. The last two to arrive were Natalie and Leland.
“C’mon everyone, order up. Drinks are on the house!” Natalie said as she plunked herself down directly across the table from Paige. “Mom’s dead, but we’re not!”
“Oh, dear,” Paige mumbled, loud enough for Jessivel and Crystal to hear. She glanced at one, then the other, and shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she said to them.
Natalie’s behavior worsened throughout the meal—her voice getting louder with a significant amount of foul language laced in. Some of her drink sloshed out of her glass each time she raised it to her mouth, and when she talked, her words slurred to the point of barely being discernable. She clung to Leland as if she’d fall off the chair if she dared let go. Paige wanted to grab the drink out of her hand, for the baby’s sake, but knew if she did, it would cause even more of a commotion in the room.
Leland appeared to be amused by Natalie’s behavior at first, but after a while, he seemed more annoyed by it and tried to keep her in check by putting his arm around her and talking to her softly. This apparently irritated Natalie, and at one point, she attempted to get up to leave. After struggling on her feet for a few seconds, she went down.
Paige, who couldn’t stand it anymore, apologized to the twenty or so people in the room while Leland scooped Natalie up off the floor and led her to the bathroom. The sound of her vomiting cleared the room except for her three friends.
“She’s got a lot of nerve coming here like that,” Sandy said. “But I don’t understand why Leland and she are together. Do you?”
Paige shook her head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t really care. They can have each other.”
“When is the last time you even saw him?” Gayle asked.
Paige hesitated.
“Paige?”
“Hmm?”
“How long ago was it that you saw your ‘ex’?”
She looked past them. “Yesterday,” she muttered.
“What!”
“He stayed the night.”
Valerie gasped.
“You’re kidding.”
“We didn’t have sex or anything. He was just there to…comfort me, I guess.”
“But he stayed the night. In the same bed.”
“Yeah, the big jerk.”
When the girls finally got over the shock of Paige being with Leland the night before, they asked her if she wanted them to hang around until after Leland and Natalie had left the restaurant.
“No, you can go. They’ve humiliated me in front of others enough for one day.”
Paige waited for the bill, head in hands, any previous thoughts of making amends with Natalie long gone. Disease or not, she had no business causing a scene at their mother’s funeral. And shame on Lee for allowing her to do it.
Paige was reviewing the bill when Leland and Natalie finally emerged from the bathroom.
Natalie stared at Paige for a few long seconds, her suit amply stained with vomit residue. Turning to Leland, she said, “C’mon, honey. Let’s get outta here.”
Chapter 46
“So what did you think?” Jessivel asked her mother as they pulled away from the church.
“I like her.”
“Who?”
“Paige, of course.”
“And Natalie?”
Her mother gave her “the look,” which Jessivel recognized as a warning that something hard-nosed was about to be said. “If she were my daughter, I would have dragged her outside by the ear and whupped her hide.”
“I think Paige was embarrassed,” said Jessivel.
“Who in that room wasn’t? Shocking behavior. Shouldn’t have happened.”
“I have to admit that it made me feel good when Paige introduced me to people as her sister.”
“I picked up on that too.”
“So what did you think about seeing us side by side? Any family resemblance?”
“I can see she takes after her father. You take more after me.”
“Welcome to Castle Realtors!” Paige said to Jessivel on her first day on the job. “Let me show you where you’ll be sitting.”
Paige led
the way through the office, with Jessivel feeling like a five-year-old on her first day of school. Paige introduced her to a few other employees before showing her a small cubicle not too far from her own office.
“You can put your bag in here,” Paige said and then invited her into her office for the first portion of her new-hire orientation.
Paige explained the philosophy of the company, the services they offered, and a basic understanding of what Jessivel’s duties would be. She added that Olivia, whom she had just promoted to Office Manager, would go over their policies and procedures, benefits, and the new-hire paperwork. She ended the orientation by saying, “I know this may not be exactly what you want to do for a living, and you may not stay long, but look at it this way—you can learn a lot about the real estate industry, different computer systems, and how to deal with a variety of people. You’ll gain some skills that you can bring to other jobs. You’ll make decent money, and who knows, maybe you’ll really like it here. Fair enough?”
A bit overwhelmed by it all, Jessivel gave a quick nod in response.
“And now I’m going to ask you if you’ll break in the new espresso machine and make me one of your famous raspberry lattes. I think you’ll find everything you need in the break room. When Olivia finishes with your orientation, she’ll show you our office management programs. In the meantime, I have a speaking engagement at Wright Community College this morning. If you need anything, Olivia is your “go-to” person.” Paige gave her a welcoming smile. “Good luck.”
When her first workday was over, Jessivel drove home feeling exhausted both physically and mentally. The job was so much more complicated and involved than her barista job, and she had doubts whether she had made the right decision accepting the position. But at least she didn’t have to wait on people all day. And her being employed kept the people at CPS and CDFSS happy—a big load off her mind.
Paige had been patient with her, as had Olivia, and everyone else in the office had been nice, but that hadn’t made up for how stupid she’d felt asking dumb questions, especially when it came to computer-related things. Like, “What does reboot mean?”
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