Mrs. Perfect

Marta gestures to the chair opposite hers at the conference table. “Have a seat, please.”

“Marta—”

“Are you looking for a job or not?”

Swallowing my pride, or what’s left of what was once immense pride, I nod and sit, perching carefully on the chair edge.

“I’m looking for a new office manager. My current office manager has a new position—a great position, and I’m very happy for her—but I need someone smart, organized, and reliable to take over when Susan leaves at the end of the month.”

I nod.

“The job responsibilities include handling the phone, scheduling meetings, invoicing clients, following up with the printers on projects, and generally doing whatever we need done to keep the business going.” She pauses, looks hard at me. “Can you do that?”

I’m mortified. Beyond mortified. Can I handle the phone? Schedule meetings? Pick up documents at the printers? I’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school, organized virtually every fund-raiser the school has ever had, headed the PTA, represented the parents of Points Elementary at the Bellevue Unified Foundation.

My face flames. “Yes.”

Her gaze rests steadily on my face. “It’s a busy office with some intense, as well as creative, personalities.”

Spine stiffening, I sit taller. “I have a degree in communications, and before I married I worked in event planning and public relations, two fields that attract the creative types.”

She shrugs calmly. “You’ve been out of the workforce for over a decade.”

“I might not have earned a paycheck, Marta, but I’ve worked every day this past decade.”

Marta’s lips twist, and she studies me for a long moment. “So why do you want this job?”

I can’t quite manage to stifle my exasperation. “I’m not sure that I do.” I see her eyebrows rise, and I add, “I want a job, and I know I can contribute. I’ve always been successful at whatever I do, but I’m going to be honest and say I don’t know that I could work for you.”

She doesn’t even flinch. “Why not?”

I shouldn’t say it. I need to bite my tongue, do some serious self-editing here, because I can’t tell her that I don’t like her. I can’t tell her that working for her would be akin to drinking rat poison. “We don’t have a lot in common,” I answer as delicately as I can.

“I don’t think having commonalities is essential in this position. I own the company. I’m the boss. You’d work for me.” Marta stands, slides some brochures and glossy magazines across the table toward me. “Here’s what we do. These are samples of Z Design’s work. Take a look at them. Read up on us. If you’re interested in being considered for the final interview, call Susan at the office. Otherwise, good luck, Taylor. I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

I’ve been dismissed. Hot color floods my face, and I rise on shaking legs to awkwardly gather the brochures and periodicals. “Thank you.” My voice, pitched low, cracks as I head for the door.

“Taylor.”

I stop, turn my head toward her but don’t make eye contact.

“Eva heard at school about all the . . . changes . . . you’re going through.” Marta pauses. “I know it’s small comfort, but I am sorry. It can’t be easy for your children.”

I leave Starbucks as fast as I can. I’ve got to get away. Have to escape.

It’s too awful, too painful, too horrible at every level.

Marta Zinsser pities me.

I get the girls up and off to school Friday morning and am in the car now, driving Tori to preschool. As I drive, I clamp my jaw tight to keep from making a sound.

I’m lost.

Absolutely, terrifyingly lost.

My fingers squeeze convulsively on the wheel. My left high heel grinds into the floor mat. I’ve no idea who I am. No idea who this woman in this car is. I’ve no idea who is behind all this makeup and in these elegant, extravagant clothes.

Every day I dress myself and do my hair and put creams and lotions on my face, but I see now I’ve been creating someone else, someone not new, just someone better. It’s as if there’s a better version of me out there in the universe and I’m determined to find it, determined to make that better me a reality. Because God knows, the me that is, isn’t good enough.

A small sound escapes from me. I press my lips together harder even as hot tears fill my eyes. Can’t cry. Mustn’t cry. Blinking very hard, I concentrate on driving.

“Mommy?” Tori’s voice pipes up from the backseat.

I sniff. “Yes, honey?”

“You sad?”

I swallow hard, so hard that it hurts my throat. “No, honey. Mommy’s just getting a cold.”

After dropping off Tori, I consider going to the club. It’s Friday. I could do one of the yoga or Pilates classes. It would help. It might make the yawning sadness go away. But I’m too sad to go to the gym, too sad to change, too sad to face people. I can’t face anyone. I can’t even face myself.

Instead I go home and unzip my black boots and strip off my lovely black knit Donna Karan sweater dress and climb into bed in my lovely black lace bra and panties. And in my lovely $500 bra and panties set, I cry.

How could I possibly have thought that a $500 bra and panties set would change anything? How could I have thought clothes, even gorgeous, expensive clothes, would change me?

Oh, my God. All this money spent. All these things we bought. For what? To feel what? Better? Happier? Different?

I’m still in bed hours later. I’ve slept for a couple of hours and am awake again, but I can’t drag myself up.

I need a job. Marta Zinsser’s company might have a position for me. If I wanted the job, I wouldn’t have to interview anymore. I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. I could start earning income right away. No more garage sales. No more worrying about Nathan and what he decides. I’d at least be able to provide.

But Marta. Working for Marta. Being Marta’s assistant . . .

I squeeze my eyes shut as I picture her free-spirit ways, and maybe that’s what I resent most. She’s successful doing things her way. It’s so obvious she enjoys being a renegade.

I’m still lying in bed staring at nothing, thinking too much, feeling absolutely desperate, when the phone next to the bed rings.

I don’t want to answer it. I won’t answer it. Voice mail can take a message. But as it rings a third time, I fight my own exasperation and reach for it, taking the call. “Hello?”

“Taylor?” It’s Lucy, and her voice is thick with tears. “Are you busy?”

“No. No, I’m not busy. What’s wrong?”

“Oh God, Taylor, oh God. What have I done?” Her voice rises to a keening, grieving pitch. “I’ve ruined everything, and I want to die. I do. I can’t do this anymore—”

“Where are you?” I interrupt.

She sobs harder. “I don’t know. On the 405 somewhere. I’ve been driving in circles. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know where to go. I’m afraid to stop driving, afraid of what I might do.”

She’s hiccuping and sobbing, and I’m worried about her driving like this. It’s dangerous. Glancing out the window, I see that the sky is a steely gray, but at least it’s dry. There is no rain.

“Come over, Lucy. Come over right now.”

“I can’t,” she gasps. “I can’t. I’ve been crying so hard. I can’t let anybody see me this way.”

“There’s no one here. It’d be just you and me—”

“You’d hate me like this. I’m wrecked, just wrecked, Taylor.”

“That’s okay, I’m wrecked, too.”

“Not you. You’re Taylor. Taylor Young.”

I put a hand over my eyes. “Lucy—” My voice breaks. “Lucy, no one knows, but I’m in trouble, too.”

“You are?” She sniffles, sounds surprised.

“Yes. So it’s okay to have a bad day. I’m having a bad day. Maybe we should both just have bad days together.”

>

Silence stretches, and she draws a shuddering breath. “I don’t know, Taylor. I don’t know.”

I sit up, swing my legs out of bed. “Where are you, Lucy?”

“Um. Uh, somewhere between Woodinville and Mill Creek.”

“So turn around. Head to my house. I’ll see you in twenty to thirty minutes.”

Chapter Fifteen

“People keep telling me it’s going to get better, but it’s not. It’s been six months, and every month just gets worse.”

Lucy sits curled in one of the wheat-colored armchairs in my living room, a butterscotch cashmere throw over her lap, clutching a cup of warm tea.