Читать книгу Pencil Him In - Molly O'Keefe - Страница 10

ANNA STABBED another piece of bread into one of the dips in front of her. She noticed, but certainly didn’t care, that the roasted-red-pepper-whatever fell in huge globs onto the counter and onto her Donna Karan suit.

She shrugged and ate the bread in one bite. It was a few hours later and she still felt as though she was Chicken Little and the joke really was on her.

“Sis.” Anna’s sister Marie leaned against her oven and crossed her arms over her chest, ten bracelets arranged themselves on her wrists. “Take a breath. You’re losing it. You didn’t even taste those dips,” Marie pointed out.

“Well, I’m too busy coming to grips with the total destruction of my life to notice hummus,” Anna snapped. “I get to lose it. I am completely within my rights to lose it right now.”

Marie blew out a breath and hung her head for a moment before crossing the kitchen to yank the piece of bread out of Anna’s hand. “You have been here for an hour, you’ve eaten every carbohydrate I’ve got in my house. You’ve had half a bottle of wine and I still don’t understand what’s wrong.”

Marie’s long black curly hair fell over her shoulder, escaping from the scarf she was using to tie it back.

She looks like a gypsy, Anna thought a little glumly, her own self-esteem somewhere below sea level. She looks like a gypsy and I look like… Anna looked down at her probably ruined suit that was so terribly sensible and felt like her sister’s shadow. Which, frankly, was nothing new. She yanked the piece of pita out of her sister’s hand and ate it. Marie, who had spent most of the evening trying to be calm and sympathetic, finally cracked and laughed at Anna.

Get a grip, Anna told herself and mentally tried to rally.

“Okay, okay,” Anna said. She swallowed and dusted off her hands. “I’m all right.”

“There you go.” Marie nodded her head and leaned against the other side of the counter where Anna was seated. They were in Marie’s new apartment, her freshly painted orange kitchen. Not a color Anna would have picked, but somehow an orange kitchen totally suited Marie.

Marie picked up her glass of red wine and took a sip. “Now, let’s talk about this rationally,” Marie said. Anna chuckled, knowing those words had never come out of her sister’s mouth. Rational and Marie were like oil and water.

“What have we got here, really?” Marie asked. She began cleaning up the mess of breadcrumbs and dip splatter that Anna had made in her whirlwind of stress eating.

“I’ve been fired for six months.”

“Well, I imagine it’s all in how you look at it. You think fired. I think…six months vacation.” Marie shrugged. “Sounds like a dream to me.”

“Imagine telling me to get a life and then handing me a list…I mean, what is she thinking?” Anna asked, not really listening to her sister. She was not dealing with this well, she knew that. She would feel calm for a second, then there would be an explosion in the back of her head and all she could think about was not going in to work tomorrow and how dumb it all was. How ridiculous. What was she supposed to do?

“Camilla is just looking after you like she always has.” Marie walked back over to the sink and dumped the crumbs.

Anna laughed a dry little bark. “Couldn’t she just slip me a twenty or…?”

“She’s still doing that?” Marie asked, turning from the sink surprised. “She never slips me twenties anymore.” When Anna had gotten a job at Arsenal at age eighteen, Marie had been sixteen. And when Camilla started taking Anna under her fine and gracious wing, Marie found a place there, too. Now both women looked at Camilla as someone much more than a boss or a friend. She was family of sorts, like a favorite aunt and it made the pain of this six-month betrayal even worse.

“No, no twenties, but anything would be better than this,” Anna said glumly. She fiddled with the breadbasket and because it was empty, she used her finger to scoop up more of the hummous she wasn’t actually tasting and put it in her mouth.

“You work too much,” Marie said, snatching the basket and dips away from her. “And frankly, it’s not like you are really fired. You are being slightly overdramatic here and, as a woman with a fine appreciation for dramatic, I can tell you there is no need.”

“Yeah, but do you know what can happen in six months?” Anna asked her sister. “With Andrew in charge of Goddess, I may not have a company to run when this little vacation is over.”

“Come on, Camilla is going to be there,” Marie said skeptically.

“Sure, but she hasn’t been a part of the day-to-day life of Arsenal in years.”

“Anna,” Marie interrupted sharply. “Do not sell that woman short.”

Anna blew out a big breath and rolled her eyes. Camilla was hardly the one who needed to be defended here. Anna was the injured party, why couldn’t her sister see that?

Marie poured more wine in her glass. “What’s really got you so upset?” Marie asked quietly.

“You mean it’s not enough that life as I know it is over?” Anna asked and took a sip of her wine. Marie hummed and leaned on the counter. “It’s not enough that the fall line for my pet project is going to be run by a spineless imbecile?” Anna was working herself up; she could feel her heart rate doubling. “How about I really have no idea what she wants me to do? What am I supposed to do for six months?”

“How about sleep?” Marie suggested.

“I sleep,” Anna protested, but Marie obviously didn’t believe her. “Okay, so I sleep for a week, then what. Get a life? I don’t have any idea what she means.”

“That—” Marie lifted her glass and looked over the edge at Anna “—is the saddest thing I have ever heard.” Marie drank and the buzzer on the stove went off. She turned around to deal with what had become a very elaborate midnight snack.

Anna sat in her barstool and felt lost. She felt as though she was eighteen years old and her mother was leaving all over again. What was with the older women in her life abandoning her like this? Just when she felt like she was accomplishing things, someone she loved and trusted ripped the world out from under her feet. Get a life? It made no sense.

“So,” Marie was saying as she pulled a casserole dish out of the oven. The air filled with the smells of oregano, basil and buttery pastry crust. Despite having eaten everything within arm’s reach, Anna was starving. “You do what she needs you to do. You read some books, take naps, help your sister renovate.” Marie looked merrily out of the corner of her eye at Anna.

“You can’t take my lemons for your lemonade,” Anna laughed ruefully, but the gorgeous tart Marie was putting on the counter to cool distracted her. “What is that?”

“Tomato and basil tart,” Marie said and pulled out some dishes. “I am thinking of adding it to the menu at Marie’s.”

Tired and sad and lost and hungry, Anna looked at her sister buzzing around her kitchen and felt a sudden deep appreciation for her. Marie had finally moved back to San Fransico a few months ago and, after working in others’ kitchens for most of the past eight years, she had figured out, as Anna knew she always would, that she was not a good employee. She put down her savings on a little restaurant in a funky new area of town and was planning on taking the San Francisco dining world by storm. And she would, Anna was sure of it. Marie took everything by storm.

Not like Anna, she thought bitterly. Anna gets fired.

With a groan she put her head on the counter. She had not set out in this world to be an advertising executive. But she was one. A damn good one. And the only place in the world that she wanted to be was Arsenal.

Her childhood had been filled with a hundred moves. A thousand little changes over that span of years that made Anna feel as though her whole life was built on quicksand. The only concrete thing, the only real thing besides her sister was Arsenal. Ten years of work and steadfast devotion to the woman who gave her a chance to build her life and the odd twenty dollar bill when things got tight.

She had just gotten to a place with Goddess that would ensure Arsenal would always be in her life. It was all she wanted, something real to keep her going.

“Oh, come on,” Marie laughed. “You know, I still remember the day when you told Mom you weren’t going to move away with her again.” Marie was leaning against the counter again. Anna sighed heavily hoping to push away the pain that always accompanied that particular memory.

“She had that crappy car, that…” Marie paused, trying to remember.

“Hatchback,” Anna supplied, her voice muffled as her head was still on the counter.

“She had gotten fired again, remember? And we were going to go south…some relative that we hadn’t already hit up….”

“Her aunt in Arizona,” Anna said.

The memory was there, no point in trying to push it away. Anna, Marie and their mother, Belinda had lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment off Haight-Ashbury—an apartment that smelled constantly of fried chicken and wet dogs. But they had stayed in that place for a year. Anna finished her whole senior year there. She made friends. Sort of. She fell in love with California. With staying put. When Belinda had come home and said they were moving again, Anna felt sick. And she felt very mad. Her mother was so lazy, she would rather leave than do what it took to keep a job and stay. There was always a free lunch someplace else.

“It’s the last time,” Belinda had told them and Anna knew her mother believed it. Belinda if nothing else had faith and that faith had kept them going for years. Through small towns and big cities, East Coast and West Coast. Endless “uncles” and “friends.” Endless crappy one-bedroom apartments.

Belinda fed them faith and, hungry for anything, Marie and Anna ate it.

But that day when Anna and Marie walked out of the dumpy apartment into the cool and sweet-smelling California air, Anna took one look at her mother who was so willing to destroy the fragile roots she had put down, and Anna set down her bag.

She had no more room in her stomach for faith.

“I’m eighteen and I’m staying,” she had said.

Anna lifted her head from Marie’s counter and found her sister smiling at her. “I thought you were nuts then,” Marie told her quietly.

“Well, you got in the car with her,” Anna laughed, though the memory felt like rocks in her stomach.

“But I came back a month later,” Marie whispered.

Anna’s smile was wide and real and she reached out to pat Marie’s head. “The best day ever was when I opened my door and there you were sitting on your old suitcase.”

“What did I say?” Marie asked, because this was an old game for them. As two women against the world, they traced their connections.

“Arizona is hot,” Anna repeated. They both smiled.

“You are the woman who found us places to live when we had no money.” Marie reached out and twined her fingers with Anna’s. “You got me through high school and yourself through college. You kept us in oranges and peanut butter cups. There’s nothing more you have to prove, Anna. Take a break. So, you take some yoga classes, you meet Camilla for tea. Big deal. This has nothing to do with your worth as a person. This is about you relaxing. You can do anything you set your mind to. This is a cakewalk to someone like you.”

Set your mind to it.

She sighed heavily as she understood Marie was right. She had certainly survived worse things than getting a life. She would just have to put her mind to it. The heart was a messy organ, tears and hummous everywhere. Anna’s brain, however, was well used to cleaning up the mess.

Put your mind to it. Exactly.

“What I need,” Anna said, slowly realizing that this wasn’t a complete disaster. It certainly wasn’t going to be as hard as creating Goddess Sportswear out of a crazy woman’s daydreams. It wasn’t going to be as hard as paying her sister’s way through culinary school. It wasn’t going to be as hard as watching her mother drive away for the last time. “Is a plan,” she said, dusting crumbs off her hands.

She thought hard for a few moments trying to create a todo list. She tried to give herself a clear objective. A task. But there was nothing there. Just day after day of tea and yoga.

“It’s going to be okay, Anna, you’ll see.” Marie slid a plate filled with tart and salad in front of her.

Anna shrugged and dug in. She felt better. Not great, but better. Part of her still believed she was very small in this world and the sky was, in fact, falling.

ON THE FIRST DAY of unemployment Anna was staring up at the ceiling over her bed at 5:30 a.m. There were thirty-two cracks in her ceiling that she had never noticed before and if she stared at them long enough—which she had been doing since five o’clock—the cracks started moving, making shapes, spelling words.

Right now the cracks were spelling “get a life.” It was better than the “loser” she’d read there at 3:00 a.m.

She flopped over onto her stomach and closed her eyes trying hard to fall back to sleep.

You’re unemployed, she thought. You can sleep all day.

After a few moments of trying to call up sheep to count, Anna gave up and flopped back over on her back, considering as she had been since yesterday evening, what exactly “getting a life” entailed.

She still lived in the first apartment she’d moved into after she could afford to get her and Marie out of that smelly one-bedroom up on Haight. Marie had just graduated and Anna had gotten a promotion from receptionist to Camilla’s assistant. Marie, instead of sticking around, had decided to go to Texas. Or was it Minnesota? Anna wondered.

Well, whichever it was, Anna was still rattling around in an ancient, one-story, two-bedroom condo close to University of California at Berkley because she’d had no time to even look for a new place. But the apartment suited her. She was very rarely here anyway.

Maybe it’s time to move on, Anna thought. Maybe I should buy a house. The soft pastel houses of Sausalito lit up her brain for a moment, but Anna quickly got rid of that idea. A house meant commitment and upkeep and responsibility. Maybe she’d think about it when this sabbatical was over, but right now she simply wasn’t ready to make those kind of long-term changes.

No matter what Camilla wanted.

Cosmetic changes, that’s what she was looking for. She liked her life as it was and she would jump through Camilla’s hoops long enough to get back to that life, while giving the appearance of change without really changing. Smoke and mirrors. Anna smiled just thinking about it.

Looking around, she realized she didn’t have one single thing on the wall. Not a poster or a picture, not even a bulletin board. Nothing. She should get some home decor. Camilla had a modern art collection with some kind of weird chrome sculpture in her living room. Camilla had, at one time, tried to get Anna to care about the crap she had up on her walls but Anna had been occupied with Goddess Sportswear’s quarterly numbers and, if she remembered correctly, she couldn’t be bothered.

Anna grinned and decided she would take some time, which she had plenty of, and buy some crap that Camilla might like and put it on her walls.

“Step one,” she told her ceiling. “Get crap.”

See how easy this was going to be?

Camilla had long been telling Anna about the inherent relaxing and mind-expanding properties of “having a hobby.” For Camilla a hobby was something entirely creepy, like pottery and Tai Chi. Those were two of the things on Camilla’s list.

Anna grimaced at the idea of all those weirdos in the park swaying in the breeze. And pottery? Who was Camilla kidding? A bunch of middle-aged women sitting around playing with mud. Anna would rather take up dentistry. She looked up at the ceiling. The hobby question would require more thought.

Anna let out a big sigh and reluctantly turned her mind to what she was sure was Camilla’s big hang-up.

Don’t you want a family?

A boyfriend. In Camilla’s eyes Anna needed nothing more than a boyfriend to marry her and give her babies. Camilla had said so only about four million times in the years Anna had been at Arsenal.

“If I get a boyfriend—” Anna jabbed her finger at the cracks in the ceiling “—it’s game over. I win.”

A boyfriend. Anna didn’t particularly want one. She certainly wouldn’t mind some of the naked benefits that came with having a boyfriend. She wouldn’t really even mind having someone to drink Sunday morning coffee with. In bed. And then some being naked.

That would all be fine. It was the other stuff Anna didn’t want. She and Jim had had a fun and happy relationship for about a year. A year that she had thought was pretty normal. They went to movies, out to dinner. They laid on a blanket in the park on Sundays. She had felt normal, and while not exactly in love, she did like Jim. But as she got promoted at work, her job demanded more time and things between them fell apart and everything about Jim began to bother her.

He used to clean his ears and then put the Q-Tips in the toilet, but he wouldn’t flush the toilet. It made Anna crazy. The sharing of space. The family obligations. The arguing over the amount of work Anna did. That was the stuff she could do without. That was the stuff she didn’t have time for.

Poor Jim just didn’t understand what Arsenal meant to her. And so Poor Jim had left. And that had been mostly okay with Anna.

Anna looked up at the cracked ceiling and frowned. Poor Jim had been really good with the naked stuff.

But Anna was looking for smoke and mirrors, not a relationship.

“Nope,” she told the cracks in the ceiling. “A boyfriend at this point just isn’t in the cards.”