Mrs. Perfect

With that e-mail sent, I’m inspired to tackle more of my to-do list, and I knock off another dozen e-mails, notifying the kids’ schools that we’re moving and giving the effective transition date and new address. I e-mail magazines, place a change order with electric, phone, water, garbage, and DirecTV. I restart our newspaper subscription, reasoning it’ll just feel more homey with a paper arriving every morning in our driveway (in front of our carport). I call U-Haul and reserve a large pickup truck along with a dolly and moving blankets. I inquire about their packing materials and resolve to go by on my way home from work tomorrow (it is a half day, after all) to get everything I’ll need for packing up our clothes and our dishes.

I send one last e-mail before wrapping up my business: Hi, Nathan, Just a quick update re the house and move. I’ve nearly finished painting the rental house and we’re almost ready to move this weekend. The girls are really excited you’re coming home tomorrow. It wouldn’t have been Thanksgiving without you. It’s been a hard couple months, but I know we’re over the worst now. From here on out it’s going to be better. Love, Taylor.

E-mail sent and my lunch hour over, I shift gears again, finishing letters that need to be written, resending invoices on statements that haven’t been paid, photocopying the color handouts for Marta’s presentation in the morning.

Marta’s been out much of the day, arguing with one of her big printers. She’s not happy with the calendars she designed for one of her clients. The calendar is the client’s Christmas gift to their customers, and the dark burgundy wine color isn’t the color Marta ordered, and she’s not going to take the calendars. She wants them redone. And she wants them done now.

Knowing that Marta is not in a good mood, the other team members have slunk out of the office to avoid potential storms.

When Marta returns at one-thirty with a slam of the door, I know she still hasn’t gotten the printer to do what she wants.

“Hi,” I say as she slings her purse into her chair.

She grunts a hello.

While the copy machine in the supply room continues copying and collating, I attack filing. A tall filing cabinet is sandwiched between the wall and my desk, and I start finding homes for the huge pile of paperwork that has been accumulating on my desk over the past two weeks.

I’m trying to straighten the files in the second drawer but can’t seem to make the folders line up right. Instead of going in horizontal, they are twisting to the side. Sliding my hand to the back of the drawer, I feel something wedged back there. It’s a book. With a twist and a yank, I manage to free it.

I blink at the title: How to Be the Most Popular Girl in Your School. I had no idea there was such a book, and the bigger surprise is that it’s in Susan’s filing cabinet.

“Did Susan read stuff like this?” I ask, studying the back cover blurb.

“What?” Marta asks sharply, looking up.

“This.” I turn the cover toward her so she can see it. “How to Be the Most Popular Girl in Your School.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In the filing cabinet, at the back of the second drawer.”

Marta shakes her head. “So that’s where that is.”

My eyebrows arch. “It’s yours?”

She glares at me. “It was Eva’s. I was her project last year. She was determined to make me popular.”

I’m struggling not to laugh. “No offense, but I don’t think her plan worked.”

“Really?” she answers with a roll of her eyes as she turns back to her computer. But not before I see she’s smiling.

Nathan replies to my e-mail that afternoon: I can’t wait to get home. It feels like I’ve been gone forever. Do you need me to arrange a moving truck?

Feeling very pleased with myself, I e-mail back: I’ve taken care of the truck, but we do need you.

Two hours later, the phone rings. “Z Design,” I answer, picking up the phone without checking caller ID.

“Marta?” a voice quivers at the other end.

“No, this is Taylor. Would you like to speak to Marta?”

The woman doesn’t answer. A long silence ensues. I’m not sure what to do next. “How can I help you?” I ask after a moment.

“Marta?”

“No, this is Taylor. I work for Marta. Can I help you?”

The line goes dead. I replace the phone, perplexed. Such a strange call.

“These look good,” Marta says, emerging from the supply room where she’s been flipping through the handouts that I just finished binding into books. “We’re set. Now all I need to do is dazzle them, win the account, and close the deal.”

“Piece of cake.”

Her eyebrows lift. “How many did you make?”

“Sixteen. A few extra just in case.” I glance at the phone, the call still very much on my mind. “Marta, there was just an odd call. Someone asked for you but then wouldn’t talk. I’m wondering if we should check caller ID, make a note of the number, just in case.”

Marta frowns and picks up the phone from my desk. She hits the last number. Her expression clears. “My mom.”

She returns the phone to me, grabs her cell phone, and walks out, heading toward her house. She doesn’t return for fifteen minutes, and when she does she sits at her desk but doesn’t do anything except stare out the window, troubled emotions flickering over her face.

I’ve never seen Marta this way. She looks lost.

It’s not the way I think of Marta, and even though I’m just an administrative assistant, I feel I should do something, say something, but I don’t know what.

Shuffling the papers on my desk, I tell myself to get back to filing, but instead I stand at the filing cabinet, biting my lip, wondering what to say.

“Is your mom okay?” I blurt out.

Marta nods once. She looks even more sad, if anything.

I realize I don’t know Marta. I’ve made snap judgments based on appearances. I suppose I’ve taken a look at her and labeled her. Long hair, combat boots, motorcycle equals pothead, druggie, outlaw, bad lady.

But seeing her here, knowing what she’s already done for me, I’m ashamed.

Marta’s not that hard. And she’s not that wild. She’s actually—surprisingly—not that different from me.

“Marta,” I say tentatively, “why did you have Eva on your own?”

A small muscle in her cheek pulls. “I wanted to be a mom.” She looks at me, slim shoulders shrugging. “And I didn

’t want to wait for a man, or try to snare a man. I just wanted to be a mom and get on with my life.”

I nod. It makes sense in some ways, but in other ways it doesn’t. I can’t imagine ever wanting children without Nathan. Nathan made me want to be a mom. I wanted to have his children, raise his children, I wanted something that would always be part of him.

I’m just picking up the next paper to file when Marta’s voice stops me.

“My mom has Alzheimer’s. That’s why Eva and I moved here from New York.” She pauses, exhales. “Eva had never spent time with my mom, and I wanted her to before it was too late.”

“I’m sorry,” I say awkwardly.

She shrugs. “I wasn’t close to her for years. Moved to New York to get away from her. But when I found out time was limited . . .” Her voice fades away, and she sits staring at her computer monitor. “I told myself I moved back for Eva, but it’s not true. I moved back for me, too. My mom’s a good person. She’s just different from me.”

I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. “Marta, most people are different from you.”

She grins crookedly. “I know.” Her grin grows. “I like that.”

And looking at Marta, I decide I might just one day really like her.

Nathan calls me later that night to give me his flight details. He’ll arrive around seven o’clock tomorrow night on Northwest Airlines and won’t return to Omaha until Sunday morning.

He sounds almost like the old Nathan on the phone, and for a moment I believe everything is going to be okay. Nathan and I will be fine. We’ll be back together the way a family should be.

Because we’re going to do a lot of the move on Thursday morning, I make a reservation for Thanksgiving dinner at McCormick & Schmick’s. We’ve never eaten Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant, but this year I think it’s better to go out, take a break from moving to have a proper meal, even if it is prepared by someone else.

Reservation made, I stay up late Tuesday night packing. Even though I’m leaving most of the furniture behind, and even though I’ve been sorting and organizing and disposing of things for the past two weeks, I don’t seem to be making any headway. It’s a huge house, nearly seven thousand square feet, and every room is full of things—trophies, vases, books, picture frames, little figurines. I’m taping boxes as fast as I can, filling them even faster, yet the entire house stretches before me.