“I know girls develop at different ages,” she answers, “I was just telling you that some are wearing bras. And Katherine Kelley is already big, really big. Everyone’s always watching her when she has to run because her . . . um”—Jemma puts a hand out in front of her small chest—“they go up and down. A lot.”
I put down my pen. “Do you stare?”
“No.” She pauses. “Maybe. It’s just . . . weird. Last year nothing, and now these big . . . breasts . . . and people treat her different. One boy, I don’t think he was a fifth grader, tried to kiss her and grab her there, and he got suspended. For a week.”
“That’s sexual harassment,” I say, surprised that such things are even happening at Points Elementary.
“What’s sexual harassment?” asks a deep male voice from the living room.
Nathan?
Jemma lets out a scream and leaps from the counter. “Dad!”
Brooke chases after, and Tori comes shrieking from her bedroom.
“Daddy, Daddy!”
Stunned, I follow a little more slowly, emerging to see three little girls throw themselves onto Nathan. Within seconds he’s covered in arms, legs, and kisses.
I don’t think he’s even aware of me there with all the shrieks and hugs and love, but then his head lifts and he looks at me. He is shockingly thin, with deep creases and shadows beneath his eyes. He looks at me for a long moment. “Hello, honey.”
Honey.
Honey.
I try to smile, but I can’t. I sag weakly against the wall, my heart so tender that it hurts to speak.
The past rushes over me, the girl I was, the years we shared, the babies we had, the baby we lost, the house we built to fill the emptiness. And looking at him, I feel no anger, no sadness, just peace. Here is my man. Here is my partner. “Welcome home.”
Nathan takes the girls to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. I was asked to come, but I said I’d stay home and drag out the boxes of decorations from the storage unit (decrepit shack) that’s been attached to the carport in the backyard and start untangling all the lights.
Nathan and the girls are back within the hour with a tree that’s way too tall for the living room. I don’t even have to say anything to Nathan. He walks into the house, looks up at the ceiling, then sighs. “They are eight-foot ceilings, aren’t they?”
“Yep.”
Fresh lines run from his nose to his mouth. The furrows in his forehead deepen. “I should have called you.”
“It’s okay.”
“Dammit.”
I glance at the girls, who are hovering in the doorway. “We have a saw. We’ll just cut the bottom off.”
He turns away, stares out the living room window. “I can’t—” He breaks off, shakes his head, his expression infinitely sad.
My insides squeeze. Not this, not this, not this.
“Nathan,” I say quietly, calmly, as much for my benefit as his.
“It’s too much, Taylor.” There’s anguish in his voice, anguish and heartbreak, and my eyes burn, my throat tightening.
Something bad is coming. Something bad.
“Mom?” Jemma asks uncertainly.
I look at the girls again, make a shooing motion to send them away. “What’s too much?” I ask once the girls have disappeared into their rooms.
“Everything.” He turns to look at me, and he’s so pale there’s a grayish tint to his skin. “I don’t know how to do this anymore.” He makes a rough sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t know that I can.”
My legs suddenly don’t feel strong enough to support me, and I sit in one of the living room chairs. “Maybe it’s time you told me whatever is it you’ve needed to tell me. Maybe it’s time we just got it all out.”
He gestures toward the hall. “But the girls are waiting to do the tree.”
“They’re okay.”
I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he stands, hands on his hips, his gaze fixed toward the fireplace. He runs his hand over his jaw with its day-old shadow of a beard.
“I’m not in a good place, Taylor,” he says at last. “I haven’t been in a good place for a long time, and I keep trying to protect you from this . . . whatever this is . . . but I can’t anymore.
“I was in trouble,” he continues wearily, “crashing and burning, and the worst part was I couldn’t tell you.” He looks at me, damning shadows beneath his eyes. His exhaustion is real. He seems to have aged ten years in the past two months. “I couldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t know how to tell anyone. It’s still something I’m ashamed of.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He stares at his hands. “Playing football, you never blame anyone else. You learn mistakes cost games. You learn to suck it up, take the hit, and get back out there. I’ve been trying to do that, but it’s not working. I’m back out there, but I’m not the same. We’ve lost so much. We’re out of the game—”
“No, we’re not. We don’t have the big house, but we don’t have the debt anymore, either. We both have jobs, we’re both working, we’ll soon be able to have another house. It’s just a matter of time.”
He just shakes his head. “But none of this needed to have happened in the first place. If I’d been more of a man—”
“That’s not fair, Nathan,” I protest, my throat tightening. Nathan’s a perfectionist just like me.
“Yes, it is. I invested badly in the stock market, and I didn’t want anyone, much less you, to know. I didn’t want you to know I couldn’t do everything. I didn’t want you to know that I’d screwed up.” Self-loathing gives his words a hard edge. “Taylor, I hate myself. I hate what I did to you. I hate what I’ve done to the girls, and I went to Omaha to try to fix things, to try to save things, but now I can’t even save myself.” Tears fill his eyes. “I can’t do this, honey. I can’t. I can’t do this without you. Please, Taylor, forgive me.”
I go to him, put my arms around him, and hold him tight, as tight as I hold the girls after they’ve had a nightmare. “There’s nothing to forgive—”
“Yes, there is. I’ve got it all wrong. Tried to do it all on my own. Thought that’s what a man was supposed to do. But I can’t face who I am, or what I am, without you.”
I hold on. “You don’t have to.”
“Tell me we can make it.”
“We can make it, Nathan. We can and we will.”
In between decorating the tree, a trip to the mall for the girls to see Santa, and a visit to Kirkland’s Houghton Beach Park to see the Christmas ships, Nathan and I talk. And talk. And talk some more.
He hates his job in Omaha, hates it with a passion. The work is boring, the management is unstable and petty, but that’s not what’s making him unhappy. He can’t stand living apart from us, can’t stand feeling as though he failed all of us.
That evening after the girls are in bed and Nathan and I keep yawning, we agree it’s time to sleep, too. I wonder, though, where Nathan will want to sleep. We haven’t slept in the same bed in months and months.
He looks just as puzzled, too, standing in the hall between the living room and bedroom. “Where . . . what . . . should I do?”
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.
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 months, 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.”
Lucy’s nodding. “We’re all called to different things, and one isn’t better than another. They’re just different.”
“Different but equally valuable,” Lori sums up.
A week later, Lucy calls me on my cell, but as I’m working I don’t check for messages until my lunch. Her message is so shocking, I call her back immediately.
“I wasn’t sure I heard you right,” I say as soon as she answers the phone. “Tell me again.”
“Peter and I are going to counseling. Together.” Her voice is excited and more than a little hopeful.
I hear so much happiness in her voice that I’m almost afraid for her. I don’t want her hurt, and I don’t want her disappointed. “What does this mean?”
“We’re going to see if we can work things out. Maybe get back together.”
I’m silent, trying to digest this surprising turn of events.
“Taylor, it’s a good thing. I love him. I love my family.”
“But Thanksgiving weekend when we had coffee at Tully’s, you said he’d been so mean—”
“He was hurt and angry.” She takes a deep breath. “And he’s still hurt and angry, but we have the kids to think about.” Her voice drops an octave. “We both love them so much, Taylor, neither of us can stomach having them only part-time.” Now her tone turns persuasive. “Be happy for me, Taylor, please.”
“I am.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She’s silent for a moment. “I know it might not work, Taylor. I know we might not be able to pull it off, but I’ve got to try. I owe my kids that much.”
“You owe it to yourself, too.”
We say good-bye, and I hang up. I’ve just put my phone back in my purse when it suddenly rings. It’s Lucy again. I pick up.
“Oh, Taylor, I can’t believe I forgot. But you’ll never believe what I heard today.” She takes a deep breath. “Your Yarrow Point house is for sale.”
“What?”
“It’s true. I drove past it to make sure. There’s a sign in front. Your house is back on the market.”
“Why?” I ask, thinking it’s been only two months since Monica and Doug moved in.
“I don’t know, but if I hear anything, I’ll call you right away.”
We hang up again, and this time I just leave the phone lying on my desk.
My house . . . my house . . .
My house could be mine again.
My house could be mine again.
I close my eyes, picture us the way we were, the beautiful sunsets, the barbecues, the little dock where the girls jumped off to swim in the lake.
We could buy our house back. We could pick up our lives, be Nathan and Taylor Young with a gorgeous house and three model-perfect daughters . . .
Then I remember. We can’t afford the house. We can’t afford a million-dollar house, much less four or five million.
The excitement turns to disappointment, and then the disappointment transforms into quieter acceptance. Acceptance isn’t as fun as excitement, but it’s not so bad, either.
I’m just wondering if I should even bother to call Nathan to tell him about our house when once again my cell phone rings. It’s Nathan. How weird. He must have read my mind.
“I was just thinking about you,” I say, answering.
“How’s your day?” he asks.
I look at the stack of receipts and expense reports in front of me. Marta and Mel have been traveling a lot lately. “Good.”
“You sound tired.”
“I am. A little.” Allie enters the studio and nods at me. I lift a hand in greeting. “But it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Feel like a date night Friday night?”
“Are we talking a real date or phone sex?” I tease, trying to be funny.
I get a laugh. “A real date,” he says, pausing. “I’m being flown in for an interview. One Friday morning, and another Friday afternoon.”
“How? What? When did this all happen? And are they good companies?” I’m tripping over my tongue. I can’t get my questions out fast enough. “Would you want to work for either of these companies?”
“Yes. I’d love to work for either of them.”
“Nathan, this is wonderful. This is . . . unbelievable. Who are the companies? Would I know them?”
He laughs. I hear eagerness in his voice, and optimism. It’s been so long since he’s had anything to be really excited about. “Microsoft, and a company called BioMed. So how about a dinner date Friday? Somewhere nice, you and me?”
Unwillingly, I flash back to all the years we ate out, all those thoughtless, careless meals in expensive restaurants. Fifty-dollar bottles of wine. Appetizers and salads and lobster at market price and dessert along with an after-dinner drink.
Filet mignon, crab-stuffed mushrooms, pan-sautéed Chilean sea bass . . .
“I’m happy eating at home, honey,” I answer firmly, because I don’t want to think about what we lost anymore, but what we have. And that’s love.
Courage.
Grit.
Balls.
I sit taller in my chair. “Home’s great, baby, really.”
“That may be so, but I’m taking you out. It’s time I took you out—”
“Nathan, we don’t—”
“Please, Taylor, don’t fight me on this. We can afford this. We can spring on one night out.”
A night out would be fun. My lips curve wistfully. “Okay,” I concede.
As soon as I’m off the phone, I Google BioMed. They’re located in Bellevue (awesome), they’re a huge international company with offices in Australia, Germany, London, Dublin, and Japan (impressive), and their founder and CEO is a thirty-nine-year-old billionaire named Luke Flynn.
Luke Flynn.
I sit back in my chair. Marta’s Luke.
My excitement over the two interview possibilities fades. I don’t think Nathan knows that BioMed’s founder is Marta’s Luke. I don’t know if I should talk to Marta about Nathan’s interview. I’m worried she was behind the interview, worried that she went to Luke. It’s possible that Luke has connections at Microsoft, too, and helped set up both interviews.
If he did, what does it mean?
As the day goes on, I’m increasingly troubled. I’d love nothing more than to have Nathan home with a great job with a local corporation. I’d love to have him home, making great money, would love for him to be happy again. But how will he feel when he finds out that Luke Flynn, CEO and president of BioMed, is Marta’s Zinsser’s soon-to-be husband?
Will he feel awkward?
Worse, will he feel pitied?
Thursday morning, the same day Nathan’s set to fly home for his Friday interviews in Bellevue, I get a phone call from Marta’s friend, TV personality Tiana Tomlinson. Tiana’s flying into town Sunday morning to throw a surprise bridal shower for Marta on Sunday night. She hopes I can attend and would love it if I could put together an invite list for her of people Marta would want at the shower.
I promise to e-mail her an invite list within the next couple of hours. Since Marta’s not in the office at the moment, I confer with Allie and Mel to get their input on whom Marta would want at the shower.
Nathan will still be in town Sunday night, so I won’t need a sitter for the girls, but I will need to get a gift. I use my lunch to head to the mall to see if I can’t find an appropriate present. The shower doesn’t have a theme, it’s just a chance for everyone to let Marta know how happy we are for her, but still, I want a great gift, the perfect gift. Marta’s been so good to me. I want her to know how much I appreciate everything she’s done for me.
At the mall, I start at Nordstrom but can’t find what I’m looking for (maybe because I don’t know what I’m looking for), so I leave and walk the rest of Bellevue Square without finding anything that screams “perfect present.” In the end, I return to Nordstrom and buy a beautiful Italian negligee and robe for her honeymoon.
It isn’t until I’m back at the office that I remember that being pregnant, Marta might not want a sexy negligee.
Frustrated with my inability to be unique or creative, I type up the list of names for Tiana and double-check the phone numbers and e-mail addresses before sending them off.
As I push send, I can’t help but think back to the beginning of the school year, a year that started so promisingly with Patti co-chairing the auction with me and great teachers for the girls. I didn’t know then that Nathan had been having some midlife crisis and was still blissfully unaware that our personal lives were in the toilet bowl.
But the toilet bowl taught me lessons, and I’m far stronger, and maybe happier, now than I was then.
Nathan arrives home at dinnertime. The girls and I fight the traffic heading south to the airport to pick him up and then stop at Rainforest Café at the South Center Mall for dinner. Tori loves the Rainforest Café. It’s her favorite restaurant on earth, and suddenly dinner with Nathan is a festive celebration with loud elephants, noisy gorillas, thunderstorms, and birdcalls.
The restaurant lights flash and the thunder booms, and Tori shrieks with anticipation. Nathan looks across the table, catches my eyes, and smiles.
“I feel good about tomorrow,” he says as the thunder and rain finally let up.
“That’s great,” I answer.
I want him to get a job here. I want him to be home with us. But I also know that he needs the right job and job offer, one that will build his confidence and not destroy it.
Friday, Nathan is up early to prepare a little more for his interviews. While he sits at the dining room table researching the companies on the computer, I get the girls up and out the door for school.
Nathan calls me while I’m driving Tori to preschool. “Luke Flynn,” he says so bluntly that I know he’s figured out the Marta connection. “Marta’s fiancé, right?”
“Yes.”
He’s silent a long time, and then he exhales hard. “Did you put this together?”
“No.”
“Did she?”
I’ve asked myself that a dozen times easily. “I don’t think so,” I finally answer. “Would you not want to interview with them if she did?”
“I don’t know.” At least it’s an honest answer. “I guess I just have to interview and see.”
Marta is in and out of the office all morning, and I can’t seem to find a quiet moment to ask her if she had a hand in Nathan’s job prospects. I’m not even sure I should ask. Would it be so awful if she did put in a positive word for Nathan? Would it be so awful if something good happened to us?
Just before I leave work at one, I get a call on my cell. Mrs. Slutsky, who had originally promised to stay and watch the kids tonight, is canceling. Apparently she’s needed somewhere else, and she has to do that instead of be at our house.
I’m disappointed that Nathan and I won’t have our special dinner out, but at the same time I’m a little relieved that we’re not spending money we don’t have to spend. On the way home I call Nathan to give him a heads-up, and he’s remarkably upbeat. “Sounds like it was a good day,” I say.
“Very good,” he agrees. “I actually ended up having a third interview today, meeting with the executives from Hal-Perrin Technology at lunch.”
“Aren’t they a rival of the McKees?” I ask.
“They are, and they’re doing a lot of international growth right now. Lots of exciting things happening with them.”
“Their office is in downtown Seattle?”
“Their headquarters, yes.”
“So what do you think? Any one interview stand out? Is there one job you’d want more than the others?”