Mrs. Perfect

Susan agrees. “And we all do different things for lunch. Some days I go home, some days I eat here. Some days everyone has client lunches—”

“Like me,” Mel answers, grabbing her coat and a briefcase and dashing toward the door. “Gotta go, and it was nice to meet you, Taylor.”

Robert and Allie decide to go grab a bite and head out together, leaving Susan and me alone.

Following Susan’s lead, I pick up my bag lunch and carry it to the conference table. As we eat, we chat about our respective Thanksgiving plans. Susan’s taking her kids to her sister’s in Olympia. I share that we’ll be packing to move. Susan wants to know where we’re moving to, and I tell her I don’t know, that I haven’t found a place yet.

The phone rings, and Susan leaves the table to check the number. She doesn’t recognize it and lets it go into voice mail. “During lunch I only pick up if it’s Marta, one of the team members, or the kids’ school,” she explains, sitting back down.

“How long have you worked here?” I ask as she peels the lid off her blueberry yogurt.

“Couple years now.”

“You like it here?”

“It’s terrific. The team is terrific. I honestly can’t complain.”

I notice she doesn’t mention Marta specifically. “No problems with Marta?”

Susan’s expression turns incredulous. “Problem with Marta? Heavens, no. She’s . . . she’s . . .” Her hands lift, outstretch. “She’s brave. She’s smart. She’s . . . incredible. I wouldn’t have my new job if it weren’t for her. She helped make it happen. She believed in me. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

Susan must see my look of disbelief because she hastens to add, “Now that doesn’t mean she can’t be demanding. She has really high standards and works very hard, and sometimes it can be a bit much. But if you’re ever overwhelmed or feeling pinched, just talk to her. Marta’s the type you can talk to. Straight up. No games. She will listen, I promise.”

The phone rings again, and Susan once more goes to her desk to check the number. This time she picks up. “Marta, hi, how’s New York?”

I can’t help listening as Susan chats with Marta and then picks up a pen and scribbles some notes. “I’ll get you on that earlier flight. . . . No problem, and I’ll line up the car service, too. . . . Okay. No worries. . . . Talk to you tomorrow.”

Conversation finished, Susan writes a few more notes to herself and then returns to the table. “You said you haven’t found a place yet?” she asks, dipping her spoon into the yogurt.

“No, and we have to be out of the house by the end of the month. Thank God Thanksgiving is late this year. Otherwise we’d be moving in between bites of turkey and cranberry.”

Susan chuckles. “I’ve done that before. No fun. So what kind of place are you looking for?”

I tell her it has to be relatively affordable (meaning cheap) and preferably in the area because I really, really don’t want the girls to change schools.

She understands. She has kids at Points, too. “You know, there’s a house on my street for rent. Nothing fancy. But I know the owners and they’re looking for a year lease and they want someone trustworthy, someone who won’t be having loud parties and lots of people over.”

I think about my life and can’t imagine loud parties or lots of people over. “How big is it?”

“Three bedrooms. Two baths. Decent-size living room. Kitchen’s old, though, never remodeled, but the backyard’s fully fenced and there’s a nice little carport.”

A fenced backyard and a carport. That’s where I am now. Unbelievable.

“Do you know how much the rent is?” I ask, biting into the second half of my very boring turkey sandwich. I hate turkey sandwiches. I don’t know why I made me one. Penance, maybe?

“Eighteen hundred a month, plus first and last.”

Not cheap for a rental that sounds like a dump. “The house is close?”

“Maybe a mile from here and within walking distance to the school.”

I put down my sandwich. “So the girls wouldn’t take the bus?”

“No. Unless you drove them, they would just walk together. My kids walk to school. Lots of the neighborhood kids do.”

I feel a pang. I’m saying good-bye not just to our house, but to our neighborhood and our bus stop. I think about our bus stop and all the moms who stand around with their cups of coffee and their dogs on leashes. If we move, we won’t be part of that stop anymore. We won’t be rushing to meet the bus. By moving, our whole routine will change.

Everything will change.

A lump fills my throat. I won’t be able to eat another bite now, and I put the sandwich in the bag and crumple it up.

“Do you want to go see it?” Susan asks, dropping her plastic spoon in her empty yogurt carton. “It’s not far. We could zip over and back in less than ten minutes.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. Come on.”

The house is a square, squat 1950s-era brick house with the original windows and a moss-covered roof. The front lawn is green but shorn short, and the shrubs have all been pruned into small, hard mounds. One or two cedars stand sentrylike along the driveway. The carport is metal and gloomy. The interior (or what I can see through the living room window) is gloomy. The front door with its screen door is a faded barn red.

It could be worse.

I know it could be worse. And it is just three blocks from school.

Okay, it’s on the wrong side of Clyde Hill’s hill, the side that isn’t officially Clyde Hill, just Bellevue, but lots of new houses are being built up and down the street. If you look past all the construction vehicles, you can see Mt. Rainier in the distance and a span of the Cascades along with some of downtown Bellevue’s skyscrapers.

Susan drove us in her car, and I walk back to her car and glance down the street. “You’re sure the owners want a year’s lease?”

She nods. “They’re going to tear this down and build a new house, but it’ll take a year to get the plans done and all the permits approved. They don’t want it sitting empty for the next year if they can make some money on it—” She breaks off as a huge truck lumbers by. “It won’t be the quietest street. There is a lot of construction going on. It drives me a little batty.”

“Where do you live? Which house is yours?”

She points to the end of the street. “The little blue one.” She makes a face as if seeing it through my eyes. “Someday it’ll be someone’s tear-down, but we’re happy with it. At least, I’m happy with it. The kids want a bigger house. I think they’re embarrassed that we live in a shoebox when their friends all have nice houses, but they don’t understand. This is nice. Far nicer than anything I had growing up.”

“I understand.” And I do. The little shoeboxes on this street still cost a million dollars. Bellevue’s not cheap. Great schools and proximity to the Seattle bridges come with a hefty price.

We head back to Z Design’s office, and although it was weird this morning pulling up to Marta’s house and walking up her drive for my first day of work, I’m not uncomfortable now. I don’t know if it’s Susan’s company or her confidence, but as we walk through the door, I smile at Robert and Allie, who are also back and working at their desks.

Inside, Susan takes my coat and tells me to go ahead and check the phone for voice messages.

I sit at her desk and, lifting the phone, use the code Susan gave me to retrieve messages. Seven. I write down everything I think I need to write down before playing the next message but save each message just in case I get some of the details wrong.

In between answering the phone and making requested copies and faxes, I listen as Susan teaches me how to do the monthly billing. She shows me the program she uses and how to invoice and how to show a payment is made.

Finances aren’t my strong suit, but I take notes and remind myself that Susan didn’t know how to do this, either, when she first started. I can learn. I can learn an

ything. I just have to be patient.

We’re practicing making fake invoices when the office door opens and shuts. I’m so used to the team coming and going that I don’t even look up anymore, so it’s a shock to hear my name.

“Mrs. Young?”

My head jerks up, and I look straight into Eva Zinsser’s wide green eyes. “Eva.”

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Young? Are you working on the auction?”

She’s so excited, I think, so pleased to see me here. I open my mouth to answer, but before I can speak, Susan is sliding off her reading glasses. “Eva, I don’t know if your mom told you, but Mrs. Young is working here now.”

Eva’s jaw drops. “She is?”

Susan nods and smiles broadly. “Isn’t it wonderful? She’s your mom’s new secretary.”

Chapter Seventeen

The positive is that I survived my first day as Marta Zinsser’s secretary.