Life After Coffee (15 page)

“That’s the plumping sensation,” I reply. Or, I don’t know, she could be having a reaction to the niacin . . .

“It’s more like a burning sensation.”

“It’s a tingling sensation that soothes while it plumps.” Or that’s what Sylvia said anyway.

“It feels like somebody just punched me in the mouth.” Whoa. That stuff works fast. Jasmine’s lips have gone from reedy to Angelina Jolie on a pouty day in just a few seconds. And it doesn’t look like she’ll be needing the lipstick either as her lips have turned a blistering red.
Hmm.
I think this might not be the intended effect. “I’ve got to get this stuff off!” She jumps from the chair. “Have you got a wipe?”

“Nope,” I answer, thinking about the dried-out pack back in the car.

“Here,” says Perfect, and hands Jasmine a pack from somewhere. “Use these.”

Too late I realize they are in fact the Miss Havisham wipes that somehow got stashed in the makeup kit. Jasmine pulls the first one from the pack and puts it straight on her mouth. The mummified wipe instantly bonds with the semen plumper, and Jasmine now has a coating of wipe dust over everything. She looks like she’s been making out with a snowman. She runs straight out of the room. Everyone else is frozen to the spot in horrified delight. A second later a howl comes from the bathroom.

“Fuck’s sake, no soap!” A couple of the gigglers start up again. “It’s not funny!” Jasmine reenters the living room. “I’m going to have to go to the ER.” Lizzie has had the presence of mind to find a damp cloth and some ice and nervously offers them up to Jasmine, who furiously wipes at her lips and then presses the ice pack to her mouth. I can see that the lower half of her face is flushed red. Goodness. Perhaps she
should
go to the ER. From the corner of my eye I see Violet pulling out the sponge tip from the plumper, about to eat it.

“No, Violet.” I rush forward and grab it out of her hands. “Don’t touch that stuff.” Jasmine removes the ice pack from her mouth. The right half of her upper lip is fantastically swollen. If I didn’t know better, I’d presume she’d been in a brawl. “You seem to have had a bit of an adverse reaction to the lip plumper,” I observe unhelpfully. Though looking at her now, her entire face and neck are actually turning a little pink. But that may just be because she’s super angry.

“That stuff is toxic,” she says. “It should be kept away from the public.” She probably has a point. “How much did you pay for all that junk?”

“Six hundred dollars.” Come to think of it, that does seem an awful lot now for a relatively small amount of crappy product.

“Why?” asks Jasmine. Honest to God, it looks like she’s done a round in the ring.

“Why what?” I ask.

“Why are you intent on selling these awful products to innocent people?”

“I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t destroyed my only other employment opportunity.”

“You were going to work for Bean à la Bean?” asks Lizzie.

“
Was
going to. Until Jasmine shut the whole thing down. Now I’m trying to do
this.
I need to feed my children.” I point toward Violet, who’s chewing on the corner of the makeup case as if to demonstrate she’s so starved she’s been reduced to chomping on faux leather for daily sustenance.

“I’ll write you a check right now”—Jasmine scrambles through her purse and pulls out a checkbook—“for one thousand dollars if you promise never to inflict these products on anyone in this room ever again.” The red-faced titterers have become stony silent. Jasmine’s crossed the line from entertainingly rude to embarrassingly hostile, and the whole room is feeling icky. She rips the check off the stub. “Here, take it.” She presses it into my chest and then snatches the makeup case away from Violet.

“Hey!” says Violet. “I was eating that.”

Jasmine flings open the front door with an unnecessary flourish and stomps to the curb, where the garbage bins are perfectly lined up. She throws open the lid of the first one—again with an unnecessary essence of heightened drama, in my opinion—and proceeds to empty the entire contents of the case into the trash.

“Wow,” says Lizzie. Wow, indeed.

“I feel like at least some of that stuff should have gone in the recycling bin,” I say.

“In the future, don’t take your problems out on us,” Jasmine says, throwing the emptied case in after the makeup. “I appreciate that you and your husband are having financial issues, but that doesn’t give you license to poison half the women in your neighborhood.”

“We may be ‘having financial issues,’ but at least Peter isn’t banging the nanny,” I murmur. Lizzie looks at me sharply. Oops. I think she might have heard that.

“What was that?” asks Jasmine, gripping the rim of the garbage bin. Jeez, she must be really rattled by all of this. She’d never consider putting her hands anywhere near there otherwise.

“Nothing,” I say.

I’d dearly love to tell her that her husband’s infatuated with the woman she’s employed to watch her child. Especially as Jasmine’s cost me a much-needed job and just completely embarrassed me in front of a bunch of women I’m going to have to hope and pray I never run into ever again. However—I’m not the kind to bring a gun to a knife fight. Her marital mayhem is not my mess to sort out. It’s partly her own fault anyway for employing a nanny with an inhuman hip-to-waist ratio.

“Come on, Violet.” I retrieve Jasmine’s check from the floor where I let it fall earlier. Embarrassed to the point of nausea, I fold it in two and try to subtly tuck it into my pocket—but I’m clearly fooling no one. This has done nothing for my generalized inferiority complex.

“I want to stay. This party’s fun!”

“We’re going,” I say, grabbing her hand.

The distance from Lizzie’s porch to mine has never seemed so long. The second we’re home, I draw all the blinds on the east side of the house and blast Journey as loud as I can so I don’t have to hear the drunken laughter as they pack themselves into their SUV hybrids and swerve on home. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to carry on being Lizzie’s insufficient-but-more-or-less-okay neighbor after this. She knows I’ve seen her catty side. I know she knows we’re broke. The delicate ecosystem of our relationship has been more or less ruined. The O’Haras might be moving to Riverside much sooner than anticipated.

CHAPTER 18

“Twenty minutes, Peter!
Twenty minutes!
It’s nine in the morning—I’m not going to hear back from any college student within twenty minutes!”

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll have been up all night partying and drinking and doing all the things we’re always too tired to do since we turned thirty, and now they’ll be
sleeping
.”

“Not necessarily,” says Peter. And just to annoyingly accentuate his point, my phone makes a lethargic
ding
right at that moment. It’s a text message from the girl who watched the kids the night of our failed attempt at drinks with the writing room. It shows my level of desperation that I’m more relieved than annoyed at Peter being proved right. My relief evaporates in a hearty puff upward the minute I read the text:
Sorre cant help u got econ this am.

“Damn it. Arielle can’t do it.” I show Peter the text. Well, at least that proves my point about her being up all night drinking. Or maybe she’s always that shitty at spelling and grammar. I am currently anticipating text messages from three more potentially sleeping college students. Peter and I have a problem right now. Or, actually, it seems to be metamorphosing into
my
problem, as it looks like Peter is putting on his shoes.

“Wait! Are you going? You can’t just
go
!”

“Amy. You’ve got no fewer than three babysitters about to text you back. One of them will certainly be able to come over and watch the kids.”

“Not to get here within twenty minutes. And what if they’re psychos?”

“They will be fine. It will be fine. We don’t live at the end of the earth. People have cars. People can get from one place to another place within twenty minutes. I have to go.”

“You can’t!” He can’t!

“Amy, I’ve got to.” And with that, he holds up his hand in what is probably supposed to be an apologetic gesture, and before I can physically stop him from doing so, he heads out the door and he’s gone. What. The. Fuck.

So, as you may have gathered, Peter and I have a scheduling conflict this morning. It’s all about as messed up as it can be. I got a call yesterday asking me to come in for an interview this morning for an agronomist position I applied for a couple of days ago. And then first thing this morning, Peter gets an e-mail summoning him to a meeting—apparently, some fool he e-mailed
Draker’s Dark
to is interested in producing it. Peter’s so eager to get to his meeting with these people that he won’t dare ask them to postpone. I’ve called FMC Trading to ask about rescheduling my interview, and the soonest they can get me in after today is three weeks from now. I know someone else will have that job three weeks from now, so I told them I’d keep today’s meeting.

About seven thirty, in an act of Herculean pride swallowing, I knocked on Lizzie’s door and asked if she could watch the kids for a couple of hours. Billy’s school is closed for “teacher training”—don’t they know what they’re doing by now?—so he’s lumped into the whole equation too. Things were a little cool between us, kind of understandable given what happened last week, and she said she was too busy to watch the kids this morning. Doing what, she didn’t say, but she did pointedly remind me that she recently gave me the numbers of four babysitters to be used exactly in situations such as these, so here I am. Waiting for texts. Like a desperate teenager.

How could Peter just walk out the door like that? Is that the new ruling? Whoever gets their shoes on last is lumbered with the childcare crisis? Is that a male thing or a Peter thing? I would
never
pull a stunt like that. And is that an Amy thing or am I just hardwired to please? Gender equality, my b-hole. It’s all good and fine until some dude pulls the asshole move. It’s times like this when I wish,
dream
, that we had family living closer. Even some e-smoking, alcoholic great-aunt who force-fed the children Cheetos—any viable humanoid to help us out in situations like these.

Two more
ding
s, one right after the other . . . Neither one of them can do it. Allegedly, they also have economics this morning. Are they all in the same class? Wasn’t that rather shortsighted of Lizzie? Though I suppose she only needs a sitter for date night, so it doesn’t much matter to her what they do during the day. One sitter left. There’s no reason to think she’ll actually te—
ding
.

And there it is. Sitter number four. And she can’t make it either. I feel my face go ice-cold with panic. What am I going to do? Am I really going to miss this job interview? Is that really going to happen? I am about to Google “Is it okay to leave five-year-old looking after three-year-old?” when I remember a fragment of a news story I recently heard about the government logging everyone’s web searches. They’ll have social services round before I’m halfway down the street. What do people
do
when shit like this comes up? I surely can’t be the only woman ever to have been faced with this situation. I turn to the Google oracle once more. And within forty seconds I have my plan. If it’s good enough for Michelle Obama, it’s certainly good enough for me.

The head office for FMC Trading is downtown—oh joy—so, of course, the GPS and I both got completely lost on the way there. I spent the last ten minutes following Waze around in an optimistic loop-the-loop, until I gave up and pulled out my outdated Thomas Guide, which didn’t do a lot to illuminate the situation. Honestly, give me a map with some actual land contours and I’m fine, but trying to navigate this rabbit warren of a city without some kind of insider’s knowledge is too much to ask of anyone. However, I’m pulling into the FMC lot now, amazingly with ten minutes to spare before the interview.

“Did we eat any breakfast?” asks Billy from the back. Damn it. No, we didn’t.

“Mommy, I’m still in my jammies,” adds Violet. I turn back to look at her, and indeed she is still in her jammies. At least it’s jammies and not a nightgown. The particular jammies in question might just pass as very casual leisure wear if you don’t look too closely. They’re Billy’s old ones—dark blue, with a bear on the front declaring that he’s “Not Sleepy Yet,” which can surely only help my case.

“I’m hungry. I’m so hungry I’m going to die right now, in the car.” This is Billy. Okay. I’ve got ten minutes to spare and I saw a McDonald’s one block back. I’m totally going to pull the slacker mom move. Completely justified given the circumstances.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re back in the parking lot. Billy wolfed down his entire breakfast sandwich in about twenty seconds, but Violet’s still working on hers. Showing up to an interview with kids in tow is bad enough, but I
just can’t
show up with one of them wearing jammies
and
munching on fast food.

“Violet, I need you to finish that in the next twenty seconds or you’ll have to leave it behind.” Her brother consumed a whole muffin in that time. She only has to eat half of one. Completely doable if she sets her mind to it. “Agreed?”

She doesn’t answer. I start to count down from twenty, quickly. She manages to take two bites, but she’s still not done by the time I get to zero. I’m already five minutes late; I can’t wait out the time it’s going to take her to eat this thing. Violet is a notoriously slow eater.

“Okay, put the muffin down. We have to go.”

“Noooooooooooo! No! No! Noooooooooooo!” she screams, straining against her harness and thrashing all of her legs and arms at the same time. I note that she manages to keep hold of the muffin. I have no time for this McDrama; we’re going to have to take the muffin in. If I stink out the reception area with McDonald’s reek, then so be it. I’m guessing it didn’t go down like this for Michelle.

As soon as we push through the glass doors into reception, I realize that FMC Trading is a bigger deal than I thought. I suppose I shouldn’t be this surprised at the swankiness of their head office. FMC’s the second-largest coffee trader in the world and provides the beans for the big guys: HushMush, the Penny Bean, et cetera. Before now, I’ve always purposefully sprinted in the opposite direction whenever there’s been an opportunity to work for a big conglomerate. However, as we all know, I can no longer afford to be the Picky Patricia of my past. If I have to work for an evil corporation in order to feed my children, then that is what will happen.

We head for the front desk.

“Thelma?”

“Amy?”

“How did you guess?” I ask with a smile. I called ahead before I rolled up with my two monsters. I’m not a complete numbskull.

“You two must be Billy and Violet,” Thelma says.

“I’m wearing my jammies,” says Violet.

“So you are. I wish I was wearing mine too. Then we’d be matching.”

“Do you like ponies?”

“I
love
ponies.”

“Even pink ones?”

“Pink ones are the best ones of all.” And they’re off. Thelma’s at that stage. I remember it so well myself. Engaged to be engaged to her boyfriend and already spending a lot of time daydreaming about the beautiful biracial children that they’d make. She informed me of all this on the phone when I called her on the way in. She said she’d be delighted to watch both kids for me while I had my interview, and I implied that if I got the job, I’d put in a good word for her with upper management. Sorted.

“They’re running late,” Thelma tells me. “The candidate before you only just went in.”

“Thanks.”

Oh, well. At least the sweat will have a chance to dry off my upper lip before I see them. That was quite the ordeal to get here. Violet and Thelma are absorbed in a pony game, and Billy is in holy communion with his iPad. I have nothing to do. I spent most of yesterday cramming every factoid about FMC available on the Internet into my head. If I prep any more for this interview, it’s just going to make me nervous. I flick open iBooks on my phone. I need a distraction. I’m going to start that emotional-child book Billy’s nameless teacher keeps talking about. I still haven’t had four minutes straight in a row to start reading it. This is as good a chance as I’m likely to get.

And so I read. And then I read. And then I read some more. And I keep on reading till I’m so overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow that I can’t read another word. I’ve been doing it all wrong. And not just wrong in an “I put the wrong factor sunscreen on my kids” kind of way. I’ve been talking to, dealing with, and parenting Billy in a way that’s completely incompatible with his nervous system. It’s like he’s a brand-new Mac and I’ve been trying to run ancient Office software on him this whole time and then yelling at him for not working. All the things I’ve thought he was being a drama queen about: the freak-out over scratchy labels, the time he threw his electric toothbrush out the window because it was too “buzzy” and I was insisting he use it, the meltdown over any and all changes to his routine, the inability to cope with the slightest physical pain, his constantly accusing his sister of smelling of “horses,” the zero tolerance for crowds, noise, shouting of any kind—it’s all because his central nervous system is basically on twenty-four-hour high alert. He’s a bit different. Not worse or inferior. Just a little different. And there’s been no consideration made for that whatsoever. By anyone. It’s like I’ve been yelling at my dyslexic son for not being able to spell. I am a fraud.

“Amy O’Hara?” I quickly flick away a spilled tear and jump up. “I’m Lexi, Bob McLeod’s PA. Please come through.” I toss my phone into my purse. I’ll be going straight back to that later.

Bob’s office is a huge glass box, a hop and a skip away from reception. I take a seat opposite his empty desk. I’m going to be sitting with my back to the door—good—less chance of getting distracted by any potential mayhem going on behind me. “Bob will be with you in a moment,” she says.

As soon as she leaves, I jump up and try to figure out how to close the blinds so no one will be able to see any of the craziness that’s sure to erupt any moment in reception. I get them about halfway closed before two guys walk in.

“Amy? Nice to meet you. I’m Bob McLeod, head of North American operations. And this is Jay Jones, our chief sustainability adviser.”

I give both of their hands a firm shake. I see Bob flexing his hand a little after. I tend to overcompensate on the handshake thing. If this is a man’s world, then it must be said that coffee is a dude’s universe. Agronomy’s just as intense as buying, and I’ll need to prove I’ve got the physical, emotional, and mental stamina to do the job before they even think to ask themselves if I have or if I haven’t.

“So, Jay and Bob?” I ask, smiling. A couple of blank looks back. “Like Jay and Silent Bob?”

“The other guy mentioned something about that too. What does it mean?” asks Jay. Oh, dear. Corporate. Must think corporate.

“Just a film reference,” I say, and hope they don’t think to look it up later, especially as Jay Jones is tall and blond and Bob’s a little on the dumpy side.

“Are these your children?” I ask, pointing at a picture of four extremely wholesome-looking kids on his desk.

“Yeah, my crazy crew,” Bob says, glowing a little. Score. Common ground. “So we wanted to get you in today to see if you’d be a fit for our agronomy program that we’re expanding to the African region.”