Mrs. Perfect

Sunday night, the girls watch a Disney movie while I take a long bath.

I don’t know that I’m depressed. I just know I can’t get out of the bathtub. I’ve been here for the past half hour, floating in the dark, periodically topping off with more hot water.

Here in the dark I feel safe. Free.

Here in the dark I can almost pretend that everything will be fine.

We can’t really lose the house. That can’t be possible. Nathan’s just trying to scare me. Trying to make me realize we’re in trouble, like that program Scared Straight where they show troubled kids just what prison is really like.

Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Maybe I’m being scared straight. Maybe once the program ends I’ll find out that everything is as it should be.

I’m still Taylor Young, wife of handsome, successful Nathan Young and mother of three adorable children living in a big beautiful shingle-style house on the lake, a house I designed myself. A house I love so much that it’s become part of me.

Monday morning, I schedule an appointment with Maddox, one of Seattle’s premier employment agencies. I know they’re premier only because they said so in the phone book, and when I researched them on the Internet, they did come up with some high marks.

I’m meeting with one of their human resources specialists at the company’s Eastside location in downtown Bellevue. I call and get directions. The office is located in one of the Bellevue Place Towers near Lincoln Square.

I wear a black pantsuit with a crisp lavender collared blouse. I carry a purse that could pass for a briefcase and wear black heels. With my hair pulled back in a low ponytail, I look serious. Successful. I look as though I can do just about anything.

The Maddox personnel specialist didn’t see it that way. “Not to be blunt, but you’re a dinosaur, Mrs. Taylor,” she says, dropping my résumé and leaning back in her ergonomically correct chair. “You’re virtually unemployable.”

“How is that possible? I have worked. I have excellent experience—”

“A decade ago.” She sighs. “Mrs. Taylor, you’re competing with men and women who have just recently graduated from school. They’re hungry, they’re smart, they’re ambitious, they’re aggressive. They don’t have spouses, they don’t have children, they don’t have anything competing for their time or attention, and that’s who employers want to hire. Smart, cheap, and available young people.”

I feel myself flush once and again. “You make me sound old. Decrepit. But I’m thirty-six—”

“And you have what, two kids?”

“Three.”

“I take it you’ve stayed home with them these past ten years.”

“Yes.”

“But now it’s time to go back to work?”

I’m shriveling up on the inside, and I don’t know why. “Yes.”

“What do you have to offer my clients?”

“A good brain. Wisdom. Patience.”

The young woman sitting across the desk from me smiles. “How are your computer skills?”

“Good. I can use Excel and Word.”

“How are you with PowerPoint?”

“I’m learning.” I’m fudging the truth a bit. I’m not actively learning, but I did help a little with a PowerPoint presentation for last year’s auction.

“You’d be available to work forty-, fifty-, sixty-hour weeks? Weekends, evenings . . . ?”

I sit taller. “I know there are companies interested in part-time employees. I know companies job-share.”

“In the big cities, for employees returning from maternity leave.” She folds her hands, looks at me. “I’ll be honest. I could probably get you a job, but it wouldn’t be part-time. It’d be full-time and you’re not going to start at fifty thousand a year. You’d be lucky to make thirty.”

“For full-time.”

She nods. “You’ve been out ten years. There’s a penalty for dropping out that long.”

“Are men penalized that much?”

“You can’t compare the two.”

I look at her hard, finding it difficult to process everything she’s saying. “I can’t believe my prospects are that grim.”

My Maddox employment specialist reluctantly smiles. “It’s not all bad. It could be worse. If you were fifty-five or above, I’d have to tell you your chances for getting a white-collar job would be next to nil. Companies just don’t want to hire ‘old.’”

“But many ‘older’ employees are more experienced.”

“Experience doesn’t always excite companies as much as potential. And youth. You know in America, we worship youth.”

A week has passed since my interview. On my own, I send out a few more résumés and cover letters, hoping that someone, somewhere, will give me a chance. Every day I check my phone and e-mail to see if I’ve gotten a response on any of the positions I applied for. I did get a form rejection in the mail last week from one, and an e-mail “no, thank you” from another as well, but the other companies haven’t even bothered to respond. At least not yet.

The good news is that Nathan’s finally coming home, even if it’s a super-short trip for the weekend before Halloween. He’s promised to take the girls to pick out Halloween costumes and carve pumpkins.

We drive to the airport Friday evening to pick him up, and I’m stunned by his appearance as he climbs into the car on the passenger side. He’s thin and pale, with hollows and shadows beneath his eyes. “Hey, long time no see,” I say lightly, leaning over to kiss him hello.

He gives me a small kiss. “It has been a while.”

The kids all talk at once as I drive us home. Since it’s Friday night, not Saturday or Sunday, there’s no football game traffic to slow us down. Nathan yawns several times during the drive, and I catch him rubbing his eyes once, hard. He definitely hasn’t been living the high life in Omaha, I think, merging onto 520 off 405 and moving into the carpool lane.

As we pull up to the garage, we crunch over piles of fallen red and brown leaves. Nathan frowns. “The gardeners aren’t raking?”

I hit the automatic garage door opener. “They did. But it’s been a couple weeks. They’ll be back next week, though, and they’ll get these then.”

I can see Nathan giving the interior of the house a hard look. I’m suddenly glad I spent the afternoon cleaning. I made the girls help me. Jemma complained bitterly, but Brooke and Tori seemed to actually find it fun.

“Things look nice,” Nathan admits rather reluctantly, sitting on the couch only to be smothered by the girls, who dive all over him for hugs.

“We’re trying,” I answer, sitting in the leather chair across from the couch. I watch the girls wrestle with him. Nathan’s tickling them and throwing them this way and that. For a moment I imagine everything’s fine, everything’s the way it’s always been, but twenty minutes later Nathan pleads exhaustion.

“I’m beat, girls. I have to turn in, but we’ll have the whole day to play tomorrow.”

Brooke stops wriggling to look up into his face. “When are you going back?”

“Sunday.”

“Sunday?” the girls all chorus loudly.

“But that’s the day after tomorrow!” Jemma protests.

“You just got home!” Brooke adds.

Tori’s in tears, and she flings herself around Nathan’s neck and squeezes tight. “Don’t go. Stay here. We need you here. Right, Mom?”

“Right,” I answer, but Nathan’s kissing Tori

and doesn’t seem to hear.

Nathan sleeps on the couch in the family room. He says it’s because he doesn’t sleep well anymore and he doesn’t want to keep me up, but I feel utterly rejected as he leaves the room with his pillow and the plump satin quilt from the foot of the bed.

“Then take our room,” I say, jumping from the bed and meeting him in the hall. “You’re staying in some corporate motel. I’m sure the bed there can’t be very comfortable. You deserve a good night’s sleep.”

He gives his head a shake. “I’m not going to kick you out of bed. I’m fine on the couch. Trust me.”

“Nathan—”

“Do you know this is why I haven’t come home? It’s because I can’t do this. I can’t fight with you. It wears me out.”

I look at him, hands clasped together even as I battle to stay calm. “But I don’t want to fight with you, either. I just want you happy.”

He suddenly leans down and kisses my forehead just above my left eyebrow. “I’m happy to be home. All I want to do is sleep. Okay?”

I will not cry in front of him. I will not cry. “Okay.” I smile, nod. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Taylor.”

“Good night, Nathan.”

At breakfast, Nathan cooks the girls French toast and encourages Brooke to eat another piece of bacon. I refill his coffee cup and smile at them as though everything’s normal, but in truth, on the inside I’m screaming.

On the inside I don’t know who or what we are.

I did love Nathan. I still love Nathan. Unbearably, unbelievably. From the beginning he was my knight in shining armor, the hero of my story, the man who could do anything, who would do anything, who’d turn me into someone fantastic and beautiful, special and magical. Nathan was my answer to prayer.

But that isn’t the Nathan here. This Nathan’s different. He’s the Iceman, and he’s freezing me out. I’m slowly going all cold inside.

I struggle between anger and shame. Why didn’t he tell me before it was too late? Why didn’t he tell me how serious things were? Why did he have to be the savior, the answer guy, the fix-it-all-by-himself guy?

After breakfast, we spend the next four and a half hours watching Brooke and Jemma play soccer. Brooke is as aggressive as hell and scores four times for her team. Jemma actually plays better than I’ve seen her play all season, scoring one goal. She’s elated, and after the game she leaps into her dad’s arms.