Mrs. Perfect

I stand in the doorway of our room. “What do you want to do?” I ask gently.

“Be with you.”

“Then come be with me.”

In bed, he lies close, wraps his arms around me. He’s silent, but I can tell he’s awake and something else is on his mind. I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t and yet his misery is tangible. After another ten minutes, I can’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong, honey?”

He takes a deep breath, exhales. “I said some terrible things to you before I moved to Omaha. I said things I regret, and then I just kind of abandoned you.”

“It’s okay. I survived.”

“How?” he asks, genuinely bewildered.

I let out a breath. “I had to. The girls needed me.”

He hesitates. “Have you . . . been making yourself sick? You know . . . that eating disorder thing?”

“I don’t throw up anymore, anyway. I haven’t in years. But I still binge-eat a bit. But now instead of a whole bag of chips, it’s a half. Instead of a carton of ice cream, it’s a half box of Cheerios.”

“That’s progress.”

“Yeah.” And it is. I’m not “cured.” I’ll probably battle with food for a long time, but I’m learning to make better choices, and I just try my best every day. That’s all I can do.

“And you’re not shopping?” he persists.

“Definitely not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s like the eating thing. I realized I don’t have to be self-destructive. I realized I can take a hit and be all right. I’m not afraid to take a hit, either. I might get knocked down, maybe even knocked out, but I know as long as I get up again it’s okay.”

Nathan draws me even closer to his chest. “You sound like a quarterback.”

I laugh softly, and lifting his hand, I kiss it. “I just love my quarterback, that’s all.”

He kisses the top of my head. “Your quarterback loves you.”

“I know,” I whisper. “I’ve always known.”

By the time Nathan catches a flight back to Omaha Monday morning, we’ve agreed on three things: 1) He’s taking a full week off between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to be home with us (which reminds me, I’ve got to cancel our Sun Valley tickets). 2) He’s going to start looking for a job in the Seattle area again. Immediately. 3) And if he can’t find a job in the Seattle area by June 1, we will move to Omaha to join him until he finds a job in Seattle.

I arrive at work late Monday morning, as I had to drop Nathan off at the airport first and traffic was a bear on the 405 heading north toward Bellevue. I don’t do the commute that direction, so I was shocked that it took forty minutes for what is usually a twenty-minute drive.

Fortunately, it’s quiet at Z Design when I arrive. Marta’s not in the office. She apparently had a doctor’s appointment. Robert and Allie are at their desks. Mel is traveling. Mel spends almost half her time in Chicago and New York with two of Marta’s biggest accounts, accounts that seem to require endless hand-holding.

When Marta appears it’s close to noon. Her cheeks are flushed, and it looks as though she may have been crying. Knowing that she’s been at the doctor’s, I’m worried but say nothing to respect her privacy.

At noon Tiana Tomlinson, Marta’s famous TV anchor friend from Los Angeles, calls on the office line. I step into the supply room, where Marta’s hunting down a legal pad, to hand her the phone. Marta takes the phone and walks outside with it. I can see her pacing the yard as she talks to Tiana. I can’t really see her face but know something’s up.

Later in the afternoon, when I see Marta just sitting at her desk, staring off into space, I ask her if everything is all right. She answers a blunt yes. I don’t press.

At home that evening, I’m just about to sit down with the girls and watch Rudolph on DVD for what feels like the hundredth time when the doorbell rings.

I open the door to discover Marta and Eva on our doorstep with a cake and a gift wrapped in festive purple-and-gold paper.

“It’s a housewarming gift,” Eva explains, handing it to Jemma. “We thought we’d get you something for your new house for the Christmas holidays.”

Jemma slowly takes the gift. “You celebrate Christmas?”

Eva’s frowning. “Yes, of course. Why?”

Jemma shrugs. “I just thought you didn’t believe in religious holidays.”

“The cake looks wonderful,” I say, a little too enthusiastically.

Marta’s smiling as they enter the house, and I close the door. “Eva made the cake. It’s a one-two-three-four cake,” she shares as the girls run down the hall to the bedrooms. “It was a favorite recipe in my mom’s family.”

“Well, thank you. Can I get you some coffee, or wine?” I ask, taking the cake and carrying it to the dining room table.

“Just water,” she answers, rubbing her nose. It’s then I see the glint on her finger. It’s not a little sparkle, either, but a brilliant sparkle from an enormous stone.

“Marta . . .” I look up at her, into her face, and she’s smiling crookedly. “Marta,” I repeat. “On your finger . . . the ring . . .”

Rich, dusky color floods her cheeks. “Luke asked me to marry him.”

“No!”

“Yes.” She smiles at me, and all the tension disappears from her face. She looks absolutely radiant.

“Have you set a date?”

“February seventeenth, during Eva’s winter break. We’re going to have the wedding at the Fairmont Springs in Banff.”

“That’s only two months away.”

“We decided not to wait too long.” She hesitates, picks her words with care. “It’s better to do it sooner, before I show too much.” She waits, sees comprehension dawn on my face, and then nods, shyly blushing and smiling simultaneously. “We’re expecting a summer baby.”

“You’re pregnant.”

She nods again, blushing, glowing. “I haven’t told Eva yet. She knows about the wedding, but I can’t figure out how to tell her about the baby.” Marta stumbles over her words. “I was thinking you might have some ideas for me, maybe help me come up with a way to break the news.”

I grin. That’s something I can definitely do.

Chapter Twenty-Four

A month has passed. A low-key Christmas came and went, along with our equally low-key New Year’s. In the past, we’ve had half a dozen parties to choose from, and this year we were invited to one party, but neither Nathan nor I could put a face to a name so we declined, choosing to stay home with the girls instead.

Now the girls have been back in school for two weeks, and Marta’s wedding is only a month away. It’s a small wedding, less than one hundred invited with maybe fifty attending. I’m both surprised and delighted to be on Marta’s guest list. She said the girls were welcome to come but there wouldn’t be any other children attending except for Eva. After talking about it, Nathan and I decide he and I will go without the girls. We haven’t had any time alone in mont

hs, and four days in Banff sounds unbelievably good.

I call Horizon Airlines to see if they’d allow us to exchange two unused Sun Valley tickets for tickets to Calgary. They agree, although there is a nominal service charge.

I’m so excited about the wedding: thrilled for Marta, thrilled for Eva, thrilled about the new baby. Eva knows about the baby, too, and she’s over the moon. She talks about being a big sister all the time. “It’s what I always wanted,” she tells me earnestly one day in the office as she sits at the conference table, poring over the most recent issue of Town & Country Weddings magazine.

In the weeks leading to the wedding, Lucy hosts the first get-together for the brand-new book club. There are just four of us for that first meeting. It’s Lucy, me, Marta, and Marta’s friend Lori Johnson, who owns the restaurant Ooba’s.

We discuss the book that Lucy has picked, The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, and it’s the perfect book with which to start our new group, warm and bighearted. Reading the book makes you feel as if you’re sitting with a close girlfriend talking about life and what we women need.

It’s also the antithesis of the books we read in our former book club.

“I think my favorite part of the book is when Kathy Patrick writes that women shouldn’t feel bad for choosing to be stay-at-home moms.” Lucy flips open her book. “I think it’s on page eighteen where she says that serving others is a calling.”

“I liked that section, too,” I agree. “I’ve always felt a little apologetic for wanting to volunteer and working at school, but I like being involved at school and with the girls. It makes me feel good to volunteer. It makes me feel good to help others.”

“You know, Taylor, when I read those passages I actually thought of you,” Marta says. “I don’t remember the words verbatim, but it was something along the lines that women tend to hide their passion for everyday things, thinking people will think less of them for enjoying these things. I’ve said to you before, that we need people like you to care about our schools and our fund-raisers. We need women who love the everyday things as, God knows, there are women like me who don’t.”