“I can feel my confidence draining away, Jason. If I don’t go back to work soon, I’ll be unemployable.”
Maybe she already was. She wondered how hard it would be to morph back into work mode. Could she project confidence if she didn’t feel it? What if she wasn’t even offered the job? Was she emotionally robust enough to take rejection? “I want this and it’s a good time to do it. Melly is in first grade now and Ruby is in preschool three mornings a week.”
“But you take them and pick them up. You do activities with them. Who would do that?”
They’d reached the “juggling” part. “I thought maybe you could leave early a couple of days a week and I thought Alison might help.”
“I’m sure my mother would help, but I have a job. It makes no economic sense for me to give that up so that you can go back to work.”
“I’m not asking you to give it up. Maybe compromise a little. This isn’t about economics, it’s about my sanity. I’ve lost me, Jason. I have no idea who I am anymore. And I’m lonely.”
“You’re always complaining you never have five minutes to yourself. That you can’t even use the bathroom without Melly banging on the door or Ruby getting into trouble. You have the girls. How can you possibly be lonely?”
She felt a rush of despair followed by another emotion she didn’t recognize.
“I want to meet them, Jason. I want to find out more about the job.”
“Who is ‘them’? You haven’t given me the details.”
She took a deep breath. “Corinna has set up her own company.”
“Corinna?” The word exploded out of him. “This is the same Corinna who made your life a misery when you worked for her before?”
“She didn’t make my life a misery.”
“No? You were sick with stress. She fired three of the staff in the six months before you left.”
“It was a busy time in the company. We were all under pressure.”
“And Corinna was the source of that pressure. She used to call you up and scream at you at 3:00 a.m. There wasn’t a single moment of your day that she respected as private. If you’re looking for sisterhood, and women supporting other women, you’re not going to find it in any company she’s a part of. She’s not going to cut you any slack because you have kids, Beth.”
“I wouldn’t want her to.”
He studied her for a moment. “Fine. Go and meet them. Talk to Corinna. Let me know when and I’ll cover the childcare.”
She relaxed slightly. “You’d do that?”
“Yes. When you remember what Corinna is like, you’ll probably decide you’d rather be at home with the girls.”
He thought she wasn’t going to get the job.
Even her own husband thought she no longer had anything to offer.
What did that say about him?
And what did it say about her?
It said that she had to get the job, no matter what, if only to prove that she could.
6
Suzanne
“Can you hang those lights a little higher?” Suzanne narrowed her eyes. “They’re too low.”
Stewart took another step up the ladder and raised the rope of stars. “Here?”
“Too high.” The man was so patient, she thought. So patient.