Page 7 of Afternoon Delight
Our house had been the fanciest in the cul-de-sac when I was growing up. Oak Bay was full of well-kept heritage homes and modern mansions with ocean views. Dad had been a family doctor, so we weren’t poor, but we weren’t “mansion with ocean view” money. That was Joel’s family.
No, we were “tear down a post-war bungalow for a custom-built eighties-colonial middle-class” money. Mom had insisted on an Oak Bay address. She had wanted a bay window in the living room—our view was the street—an island in the kitchen, and a patio out back. Dad had wanted to be close to his office and a good school for me. He had also wanted a small lawn and a short driveway so he could golf and fish rather than do yardwork.
It was a very nice location with a short walk to the beach, but the neighborhood had grown up over time. New, twenty-first-century behemoths made our house look like what it was: dated and in desperate need of TLC.
Like me, haha.
Mom’s gardens were still in the barren stage, choked with moss and full of last year’s rotting stems. The concrete steps to the porch were cracked, the stucco stained, and the front door key needed an extra wiggle to make it open.
I kept threatening to call in a handyman to change it out for a button lock, but every small job was part of a bigger one. The door actually needed leveling—replacing, if we took the warped panel into account. If we changed one door, we’d have to change all of them. If the doors were coming out, we should probably look at the windows. The seals were shot on at least three of them.
The bigger the job got, the less prepared we were to tackle it. And so it goes.
“I’m home,” I called as I entered what had always felt like a claustrophobic foyer. It was a postage stamp of tiles with a tiny closet next to the stairs that doubled back over the door to the basement. On the left were double doors into the living and dining room. Straight ahead was the door into the kitchen and family room. Hang a right and you’d find the powder room and Mom’s bedroom.
As I toed off my boots and hung my jacket in the closet, my palms grew clammy. I was such a child.
“You bought more wine.” Vickie Crutcher came to the door of the family room, drying her hands on a tea towel. Her white-blond hair was in the chin-length bob she’d worn all her life, framing a face that had accumulated a few lines over the years, but she mostly looked exactly as she always had—short, slim, and stylish. “Is Georgia not improving?”
Mom seemed to think my alcohol consumption was due to concern over Georgia and had nothing to do with the fact that she was stonewalling on selling this house.
I had a flash of Zak moving home to look after his father and reminded myself that I was lucky to have a parent whose only affliction was an obstinate belief that she was always right—along with a distressing ability to prove it.
“She’s worried about her shop.” I was laying the groundwork for my announcement. “Let me change, then I’ll help with dinner.” I handed her the wine before I started up the stairs.
“I bought a frozen lasagna,” she called after me. “It’s in the oven.”
I bit back a sigh. I understood Mom’s loss of interest in cooking, but I liked making food from scratch. My roasted chicken breasts and riced cauliflower pilaf always earned compliments. Would she let me touch so much as a carrot peeler in her kitchen? Hell, no.
The house was a three-bedroom, but after Mom had a string of miscarriages, she’d settled on raising an only child whom she had resolutely refused to spoil. The spare bedroom became her craft room, and nowadays, you couldn’t get near the sewing machine without running an obstacle course of an open ironing board, two standing fans, and several tubs of craft supplies.
Down in the basement—what we had always called the rumpus room—Dad’s fly-fishing gear was littered amongst the furniture he’d brought home from his office when he retired. The hide-a-bed sofa was covered with his clothes, but that was as far as Mom was prepared to take them.
I already had a full-time job cleaning out this house, yet I had agreed to work for Georgia. What had I done?
I tapped my laptop to wake up the screen while I peeled off my damp jeans and pulled on a pair of yoga pants. I glanced at my email as I took off my bra without removing my top.
Peterson, Londale, and Funk had a policy that you weren’t expected to check email while on vacation—but it was absolutely expected. I had nine from Cameron, most of them shoving work onto me that was now in his purview like scheduling and reports.
I’d gone in to work Monday, on my first day of vacation, to be told “Maybe next time,” about the promotion I’d applied for. I was still trying to see the silver lining in not having the extra responsibility of managing a team when I had so much to do for Mom, but there was no silver lining to sexism. That’s what my being passed over was, and I’d said so. HR hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
“Cameron is seen as a team player, Meg. He’s seen. You’ve worked remotely a lot in the last three years.”
Only because my father had been dying and I’d been going through a divorce, but I had never missed a meeting or a tax filing. For the last eight months, I’d performed the death march known as commuting into downtown so I could be in my cubicle full-time, trying to earn that stupid promotion—but what-ever.
In other ways, Monday had been the happiest day of my life. I had handed Joel the certified paperwork on our divorce. It had been my last act as his unpaid personal assistant. Then I’d hopped a plane, planning to spend two weeks getting this house emptied and ready to list. Instead, I was taking on managing an adult toy store.
I stared at stupid Cameron’s stupid emails. It was the story of my life that I put other people’s needs before my own. I was the daughter of a doctor. A teen mom. I married too young. After Joel cheated the first time, I stayed for the kids.
I couldn’t change the way Peterson, Londale, and Funk were treating me, but I could change myself and how I reacted to their decision.
That’s what Georgia was really giving me a chance to do. Georgia had always lived on her own terms. I wanted to live my life the way she did—even if it was only for a few weeks. That thought had been burning like gasoline in my stomach since she’d made her outrageous suggestion.
Did I feel bad about pulling the rug out from under Cameron? Sure. He seemed like a nice enough dude. He had a wife and kids and probably a dog, and a boat he couldn’t afford. It wasn’t my fault he’d been promoted above his level of competency, though.
As for the partners who had promoted him over me? They would soon have to decide what I was worth to them—as tax season loomed.
Mom was right. Georgia did ignite my rebellious streak.
