Small Change (4 page)

“Yeah?”

Claire managed a tiny smile. “Thanks.”

Rachel suddenly felt better than she had all day. She smiled back. “You're welcome,” she said, and shut the door feeling pretty pleased with herself.

Until she remembered that in the course of one afternoon she had lost a job and gained a new debt. And somewhere, a little gremlin was laughing.

I
n her forty-four years on the planet, Jessica Sharp had learned several important truths: chocolate is good medicine, housework is highly overrated, girlfriends make the best shrinks, and—her latest lesson—job security is an oxymoron, especially if you happened to work for a bank, which her husband did.

“I still have a job,” Michael informed her when he came home from work.

Jess was in the kitchen, dumping the chicken salad she'd picked up at Safeway into a bowl. She'd had a bottle of wine standing ready in case they needed to console themselves. Now they'd use it to celebrate. “Thank God,” she said with a sigh of relief. They could take their wine out on the deck and enjoy the early June evening and congratulate themselves on how they'd dodged the bullet.

Or not. Michael was not looking thankful.

“There's one small catch,” he said. “It's in Ohio.”

“O-what?”

“That's where the corporate offices are.”

Jess felt suddenly sick. “Open that wine quick.” She plopped down on a stool at the kitchen island. “Damn that Washington Federal Loan anyway,” she growled as he uncorked the bottle. “As if they haven't screwed us enough already. They turned our stock to junk and our retirement to peanuts. Do they have to shuttle us across the country, too?” Away from family and friends.

“At my level, they do. That's the trade-off.” Michael poured a glass of wine and handed it to her.

It was all she could do not to bang her head on the granite countertop, which she'd put in only last year. She took a sip of wine but it tasted bitter. She set down her glass with a sigh.

Michael wasn't drinking either. “I'm sorry, Jess.”

She rubbed his arm. “It's not your fault you work for Monsters, Inc. I just hate to move.”

She hated the idea of her husband being unemployed even more. She got a sudden image of herself as a bag lady, pushing a shopping cart full of dirty clothes down Lake Way.

That was enough to make her pick up her wineglass again. She had a new thought. “What about Mikey?” Their son had left the nest, but after losing his first job the baby bird had returned, and once more they had another mouth to feed. And that par ticu lar mouth gobbled up a lot of food. Jess's grocery bill had doubled since Mikey moved back home.

“He can probably move in with Erica.”

“Somehow I can't picture him wanting to live with his older sister.” Their daughter had gotten married in February (an event that had cost an arm and two legs) and now lived north of them in a farming community that was turning into a suburb. It didn't offer much for a young, single guy.

“I sure don't see her husband being real excited to have a third
wheel,” Michael added, obviously remembering his and Jess's own first year of marriage.

They'd shed their clothes at the drop of a smile and made love in every imaginable location in their little apartment, including on top of the washing machine in the building's communal laundry room. She still remembered diving under a sheet when poor old Mrs. Newcombe came down to check on her clothes.

“He can come with us if he wants,” Michael said.

Jess suspected their son would be about as thrilled with moving as she was. “Oh, boy,” she muttered.

“There is one other possibility.”

Hope blossomed in Jess's heart. “Oh?” Any possibility was better than moving.

“I dropped by Puget Sound National and they might be interested in hiring me.”

He'd still be commuting to Seattle to work. Nothing would change. Perfect! “Well, then, call 'em.” Now she could enjoy that wine. She grabbed her glass and saluted Michael with it.

“There's one drawback. The position I'm looking at would be less money.”

Jess's glass went back on the counter. “How much less?” They had just finished paying off the baby bird's college loans. Another couple of months and the wedding bell blues would be over, too. She'd seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Surely it couldn't be that proverbial train barreling toward her.

“We'd be looking at about a twenty percent pay cut.”

“Twenty?” Jess stammered. She took another drink of wine. Suddenly Ohio didn't look quite so bad.

“We could do it,” Michael said. “We'd have to tighten our belts.”

“Those belts are already on their last notch.”

He shrugged. “Or else find a way to bring in more income.”

As in her? What marketable skills did she have?

None. Jess had majored in music in college (with a strong minor in boys and Frisbee), and after three years she'd met Michael and bagged the BA, going instead for a Mrs. degree. Other than singing in a band on weekends—when she was young and hot and still looked like Pat Benatar—and selling craft creations at holiday bazaars, she'd never worked outside the home. She'd never needed to, not when she had Michael, her own personal patron of the arts. But now she needed to. There had to be something she could do to make up that twenty percent. Nothing came to mind, except panic.

Michael looked at her in concern. “Jess? Are you okay?”

“I could get a job,” she blurted.
Doing what? What are you thinking?

Relief flitted across her husband's face, but he valiantly said, “You don't have to. We can make it on less. And, no matter what position I take, my salary will go up eventually.”

They'd be dead before eventually. She didn't want to move, but if she wanted to stay she'd have to pay. “I'm sure I can get something,” she said. “If you want to stay here. You do want to stay here, don't you?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “Heart Lake is our home.”

“Well, then, we'll make it work. See if you can snag that position at Puget Sound National. And I'll …”
Oh, boy.

“Find something,” he supplied. “It doesn't have to be full time. We can save a lot of money just by not going out to eat so much.”

She nodded and downed the rest of her wine. She had a feeling that, at the rate they were going, what she saved on eating out she'd be spending on booze.

“Don't worry,” Michael said, and gave her a kiss. “We'll be fine.” The captain of the
Titanic
had probably said those very same words.

The next morning, Jess decided to make a list of possible jobs. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then grabbed a piece of scratch paper from the kitchen junk drawer and a pen and leaned over the counter, ready to write furiously. The blank page stared at her.

She frowned back at it. “There has to be something you can do,” she told herself.

Maybe she should start by writing down her strengths. What was she good at? She still played a mean keyboard.

Like that did any good. Even if she lost twenty pounds in two weeks and got Botox, where would she find a band that would have her? As a band chick she was over the hill and out of the loop. The band thing was hardly steady work anyway.

What else? Crafts. She had a closet full of things she could sell. Except she'd missed Slugfest and there would be no more craft bazaar opportunities until the Fourth of July. Selling crafts was too iffy, anyway—great for making some fun money, but by the time you factored in the cost of the material and renting a booth, hardly profitable enough to earn that necessary extra twenty percent every month.

So, what did that leave? Personality. She was friendly, fun, approachable. Maybe she could get a job as a salesclerk or a receptionist. She remembered the Help Wanted sign she'd seen hanging in the window of Emma's Quilt Corner, the little shop that Heart Lake residents had saved from extinction the previous Christmas. Jess hadn't gotten around to trying quilting yet, but she could learn.
She certainly knew how to cut fabric, and it couldn't be that hard to ring up sales. From what she heard, everyone loved Emma, which meant she'd be great to work for. It could be the perfect part-time job.

Jess checked the clock. Ten a.m. Emma would be open for business. She called the shop and was greeted by a cheery voice on the other end of the line. “Hi,” Jess said, making her own voice equally cheery. “I'm calling about the Help Wanted sign in your window.”

“I'm sorry,” said the voice, changing from cheery to sympathetic. “I just filled that position yesterday.”

“Oh.” A good job was like a good man, hard to find. But she'd found Michael. She'd find a job. “Well, thanks anyway.” Jess hung up with a sigh and returned to the piece of paper on the kitchen counter. What else could she do?

A temp agency, she decided. That would be perfect. She could earn income but she wouldn't be locked into anything full time. She got on the computer and looked up temp agencies in Seattle. She could handle part-time office work, and if she worked in the city, she and Michael could commute together.

The first company she found was A-Plus Office Services.
That's me, A-Plus,
she thought, reaching for the phone.

As it turned out, Ms. A-Plus could fit her in for an interview at one. Could she come in?

Why not? Jess wasn't exactly excited as she hurried to her closet, but she was determined, which was nearly as good. Velvet Revolver's version of the song “Money” began to play in her head. She was going to come through for Michael, even if it meant chaining herself to a desk somewhere in the city. She could do it. Millions of women did it every day. Maybe she'd even get a job assignment for the next week. You never knew. It would be good news to share
when Rachel and Tiffany came over for their monthly craft night.

She encountered a challenge in her closet. Denim jackets, hot pink tops, and various articles of clothing dotted with sequins greeted her. When was the last time she'd worn a dress? There had to be something here. She flipped hangers along the rack. No, no, no. Noooo. Hmm. Here was a black knit dress, not too low-cut. How about that and her red denim jacket? Red denim was not very dress for success. And black wasn't exactly summery. That decided it. She'd leave for the city right now and detour by Nordstrom's before going on her interview.

At Nordstrom's she managed to find a cream-colored linen suit jacket and pants that fit well but bored her to tears. The price made her want to cry, too. She couldn't believe how much she was paying for boring. She dressed it up with a sleeveless top sporting a great pattern in black and Amalfiblue, perfect colors for a winter. (Jess had had her colors done back in college. With her dark hair—still completely dark, thank you, Wella Color Charm—she was a winter.) The top was no bargain either, but it was worth every penny. This she would wear till it turned to rags.

Small consolation. She had just spent a fortune to audition for a job as a temp. Well, you had to spend money to make money. Unbidden, the lyrics to ABBA's “Money, Money, Money” came to mind.

A-Plus Office Services was in one of the many tall Seattle buildings that looked down on the city's waterfront and its more humble architectural beginnings like the Smith Tower.

Jess had grown up in this city. She'd attended the University of Washington, and met Michael at the Blue Moon Tavern. He'd looked like Andy Gibb and, although he couldn't sing a note, he
danced like John Travolta. Within a year, they'd managed to fall in love, elope, get pregnant, and celebrate Michael's graduation. Michael had gone on to become a lawyer and she'd worked on turning herself into Mother of the Year—a far more noble occupation than band chick.

Although they'd left the city for the 'burbs, they still drove in on a regular basis to take his mom to dinner at the Waterfront Seafood Grill on Pier 70 or to enjoy Indian food thali style up at Poppy's on Capitol Hill. Visiting the city was great, but Jess wasn't sure how she felt about working there. Seattle had grown far beyond the little big town it had been when she was a girl. And, at an hour each way by freeway, it wasn't exactly a short commute.

She rode the elevator to the twentieth floor and found the A-Plus office in a far corner of the skyscraper office maze. The reception area was small, with a love seat and matching chair upholstered in retro ugly, a fish tank, a blocky coffee table littered with business magazines and, on one side of the wall, a bank of computers. On the other side, at the reception window, sat a twenty-something babe wearing an outfit that looked even more expensive than Jess's, talking on the phone.

“I'll have Mrs. Withers call you as soon as she can,” said the girl. She hung up and looked Jess over. “May I help you?”

Jess stepped up to the window. “I have an appointment with Caroline Withers.”

The girl nodded. “Have a seat.”

Feeling a little like a patient waiting to see the dentist, Jess perched on the couch. It was hard.

She looked over at the computers and felt her pulse rate start to rise. You have a computer, she told herself.
You can type. E-mail
counts.
In spite of her positive self-talk, her pulse scooted up another notch. She should get out of here. Was she too old to sell her body on the street?

“Jessica?”

Jess tore her gaze away from the computers and looked up to see a thin woman with shoulder length gray hair, expensively cut, and stylish glasses looking down at her. The woman was dressed entirely in black. Maybe an escapee from New York? Jess thought of all the money she'd spent to avoid wearing black and sighed inwardly.