Chapter 7
C
écile rolled her eyes at her computer screen. CDN had begun the process of recruiting transcription contractors, and she wasn't impressed with what she saw. If these applicants represented the quality of workers available, they'd never find good help.
She stuffed some gummi bears in her mouth, then impulsively picked up the phone and dialed Norell. The strain in their friendship last year had healed with Dana's tragedy as they joined forces to help their friend. Had they still been bickering, becoming business partners would have been out of the question.
Still, Cécile tried not to bring up her family around Norell, whom she knew was going through a difficult time with fertility problems. Cécile felt Norell would make a great mother and hoped it would happen for her. Concentrating on CDN was probably just what she needed to take her mind off of her anxiety about not conceiving. Sometimes that's all it took. She'd probably be pregnant in no time.
“Hey,” she said when Norell answered the phone. “Are you having any better luck than I am?”
“Either these people are just out of school or they don't believe in proofreading,” Norell replied. “Neither one is a trait we want.”
“Do you suppose Dana made the test too hard, using all those sound-alike words?”
“I don't think so. We want to make sure they can think, if not when they type, then at least when they read it over. I've looked at a dozen tests and only have two that are perfect, although a couple were borderline.”
“I'm about the same. We'll have to discuss this at Dana's tomorrow.”
“Speaking of which,” Norell said, “since we've been having our staff meetings at Dana's, and since that's where we'll meet with new hires for orientation, how do you feel about compensating her a little extra for providing CDN's headquarters? We both know she can use all the help she can get.”
“I think that's a great idea, Norell. We can refer to it as rent, so she won't feel like we're treating her like a charity case. She's very proud, you know.”
“I know.”
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Cécile had rejected yet another applicant when she heard shouting from the girls' room. Wearily she pushed back from her desk. Michael and the boys had gone to the Y to play basketball. Until now she'd managed to get a reasonable amount of work done.
She rapped on the open door of the small, crowded bedroom. “All right, what's the problem?”
“Mama, Monet won't move her clothes out of my drawer,” Gaby said. Seven years old and the middle of Cécile's three girls, she would never get lost in a shuffle. From the time she formed her first words, Gaby had always spoken out.
“That's right, Mama,” Josie, the oldest at ten, quickly added.
“But it's not fair. I need more drawer space. Their stuff is taking up the whole closet,” Monet said in a pleading voice.
Cécile quickly sensed a potential blowup. Monet's cross-armed stance suggested she wouldn't be backing down. Cécile guessed she was maybe two remarks away from reminding the others that this had been
her
room before they all moved in with her. She had to prevent that from happening and forming a rift that would take months to heal.
“Listen to me, girls,” she said. “I know you guys are squeezed in like ten pounds of baloney in a nine-pound bag, but until we can do something about it, you do have to share this room.”
“When are you and Michael going to get us a bigger house?” Josie asked.
“When the time is right,” Cécile said in a firm tone that cautioned against further questioning. “Now, this is what I want you to do.” She did a quick inspection of each drawer of the lone double dresser. “There's a lot of junk in here. Tomorrow I'll get each one of you a big plastic drawer. You can each have one to put all this stuff in. That'll free up a lot of room.” She turned at the flash of headlights through the partially open blinds. A red VW bug pulled up along the curb.
“Mama, it's Auntie Michie,” Gaby said excitedly.
“Wait a second.” But all four girls had already taken off for the front door. She called after them sternly. “Josette Belarge, don't you dare open that door until I get there!” In a series of smooth movements, Cécile turned the hanging bar to close the blinds, then pulled the lined curtains together so that the strong Florida morning sunlight wouldn't wake the children prematurely.
They all stood waiting for her when she stepped into the living room.
“Mama, can we open the door now?” Gaby asked.
“We can see it's Auntie Michie through the window,” Josie added.
“All right, go ahead.” Cécile stood back while Micheline greeted all four girls with hugs and lifted the youngest, Eleith. Cécile was glad she didn't leave Monet out. Her stepdaughter's round face beamed as her new auntie pinched her cheek and told her how pretty she was. But then again, if there was one thing Micheline knew how to do, it was to be charming.
Micheline walked over to Cécile, still carrying four-year-old Eleith, who gazed at her aunt with awe. “Hi, Sis!” she said, pressing her cheek against Cécile's and kissing the air.
“Hey. What brings you over this way?”
“I had dinner with some people at that Cuban restaurant near here. It turned out to be a bust, so I made an excuse and got out of there. I figured I'd stop in and say hello before I went back to my hotel.”
“You all ready to move?”
“All set. I'm flying to West Palm tomorrow afternoon. I've got a van reserved to drive back. Daddy's going to help me load a few things. I'll be back in Jacksonville early Saturday afternoon. Do you think Michael and the boys can help me get my stuff up the stairs at Dana's? It'll only take about half an hour.”
“I'm sure they can.” Cécile looked at her sister thoughtfully. “Michie ... I hope you're going to be a responsible tenant. Dana is counting on it.”
Micheline bent and put Eleith down. Josie, Monet, and Gaby hovered nearby. “Hey kids, why don't you go back to what you were doing, and I'll be in to see you in a minute, okay?” She waited a moment while the children departed, then turned back to Cécile. “Don't worry,” she said coldly. “I'm not going to embarrass you.”
“I'm not so much worried about being embarrassed as I am about Dana's finances getting messed up because Jones New York is having a sale.”
Micheline met Cécile's cool stare. “I told Mama not to tell you about that.”
“She was worried you'd be evicted.”
“That was a long time ago. I'm expecting a large bonus very soon. I can go on a shopping spree and still pay my rent.”
Something about the smug way Micheline raised her chin made Cécile suspicious about the origin of the bonus she bragged about. It came to her suddenly. “That was a lie about being laid off, wasn't it?”
“No, it wasn't. I did get laid off. I just worked out a more favorable separation package than your average ex-employee.”
“I can just imagine,” Cécile remarked, her voice dry as hay.
Micheline's smile faded. She spun around gracefully and walked off in the direction of the girls' room.
Cécile decided to go back to work. She was engrossed in another applicant's test when she heard approaching footsteps behind her.
“There you are,” Micheline said cheerily. She glanced around at the work area and the family photos on the wall. “Isn't this cute.”
Cécile could tell she didn't mean it and was just being facetious. Her jaw grew rigid. Only her promise to her mother and the nearby presence of her children made her keep her temper in check.
“Mama does her sewing here,” Josie volunteered.
“And her tran ... transcription, too,” Monet added.
“Getting ready to go?” Cécile asked, hoping her bright tone covered how badly she wanted Micheline to leave.
“Yeah, time to head on back to the hotel.”
“Auntie Michie, you never stay long when you come to see us,” Gaby sulked.
“That's because I've got a lot going on. You guys know I love you. Besides, you're going to see me again on Saturday.”
“I'll walk you out,” Cécile offered.
But Micheline had picked up a framed photo. “Oh, how lovely!” she exclaimed.
Cécile smiled warmly at the studio portrait of Michael with his jacket-and-tie-clad sons, Jonathan and Damon, as well as Monet, wearing a beige flowered dress with a big lace collar. “That's the picture Michael had taken the day we met at the studio. Here's the one the girls and I had done that day.” She handed Micheline the heavy ceramic frame containing one of the poses she had taken with Josie, Gaby, and Eleith, in the maroon velvet dresses she had just gotten out of layaway.
“Oh Cécile, you looked so different!”
Cécile stopped smiling. She knew Micheline meant she looked much better in the photograph, which was nearly three years old. She'd still been slim, her hair was freshly cut, and she wore lipstick and blush. Hearing Micheline's innocent exclamation bruised Cécile's ego, but there wasn't a damn thing she could say, because her sister was right. She'd let herself go, going months between haircuts and messing up her diet with those addictive gummi bears.
She became uncomfortably aware of the difference between her appearance and her sister's. Micheline's side-parted hair had been styled in a shoulder-length blunt cut that looked like it required little maintenance, her eyebrows had been professionally waxed, her nails were perfect ovals painted in a French manicure, and she wore carefully applied blush and rose-colored lipstick. The ring fingers of both her hands were adorned with rings, and she wore a delicate-looking gold-banded watch on her right wrist and a series of gold bangles on her left.
Cécile, on the other hand, wore her “work uniform” of T-shirt and sweatpants, which only made her more conscious of the twenty-five extra pounds she still carried. She wore simple gold ball earrings, the kind babies and very little girls wore when their ears were first pierced, and she had a plain Timex with a brown leather band. The only good thing that could be said about her nails was that no dirt lodged under them. She wore her curly jet-black hair short, but the flattering style she'd originally had it cut in had long since grown out into a shapeless mass. Seeing Micheline made her realize how badly she needed to get to the salon for a cut.
“I think that's so sweet that you two met when waiting to have your pictures taken,” Micheline went on, not noticing Cécile's lack of reaction to her previous remark.
“Yes,” Cécile said, brightening at the memory. “I had just left Louis maybe three months before. I wanted to get a portrait done of the girls and me while they were still small and so adorable, so I bought all of us those beautiful velvet dresses. The photographer was on schedule, so Michael and I didn't really get a chance to talk, other than telling each other how nice we looked. Michael told me afterward that he asked the receptionist to schedule him to see his kids' proofs at the same time I was coming in to see mine. He got there early so he'd be sure to see me. That was when we started to talk, and one thing led to another.”
“It just goes to show, you can meet the man of your dreams anywhere.”
Cécile looked at Micheline curiously. Had she imagined it, or had she caught a note of wistfulness in her sister's voice? She was closer to thirty than twenty. Had she begun to have urges to settle down?
Micheline carefully placed the photographs back on the top of Cécile's desk. “You've got a nice family, Sis.”
Together they walked toward the front door. “I'm sure you'll have the same once you settle down,” Cécile said. She felt generous, now that she sensed she had something Micheline wanted. That definitely beat out the dumpy feeling she'd had just minutes before.
“I'm sure I will, too. But I'm only twenty-seven. I've got plenty of time yet to get married. No man is going to saddle me with a bunch of kids. When it's time there'll be one child, so I can regain my figure right away with no hassle. No starvation diets or ruthless exercise regimens to get back into shape after the second, thank you.”
“That's a myth, Michie. Every woman is different. Some women bounce right back into shape even if they have five or six, while others struggle to lose the weight they've gained after having just one. Look at me. I was fine with all three of mine. I didn't gain weight until after I married Michael.”
“Well, that's in the future. I'm not ready for a husband and child yet.”
“When will you be ready?”
Micheline smiled confidently. “The day I meet someone who will take care of me in style. And I've got a feeling I'll find him right here in Jacksonville.”