The Night I Got Lucky. Laura Caldwell

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СКАЧАТЬ put on a serious face and nodded. I pointed at the phone and mouthed, “Client. One minute.”

      Roslyn sighed, gestured toward her office, then left.

      “Is Hadley still trying to get pregnant?” my mom said. If it was possible, her voice became more heartbreaking. She knew little about Hadley’s procreative attempts, and since Hadley had sworn never to move back to the States. (“Why should I?” she’d said. “It’s more civilized here and people aren’t so nosy.”) We’d probably never see the result of those attempts, even if she were successful.

      “I think so,” I said.

      “Ah, well, I’m sure she’ll be calling to tell me soon.”

      “I’m sure, Mom.”

      I opened my e-mail program. You have 67 new messages, it said. “Shit,” I muttered.

      “What’s that, Billy?”

      “Nothing.” It was hard to cut her off, even when I had no time to talk. Somehow, I’d become my mom’s only daily social outlet. She had sisters who lived on the North Shore, but they hadn’t had much contact since my mom married my dad so many years ago. My aunts had foreseen what an utter schmuck he’d be, and my mother was too embarrassed to give them the satisfaction of admitting they were right. And since her second husband, Jan, died three years ago, she’d almost secluded herself, rarely visiting with the few friends she had in Barrington.

      “What are you doing today, Mom?” I asked. “You should get out of the house.”

      “I know,” she said simply. “I’ll try.” My mom kept saying how she wanted to move on—she wanted to get over Jan’s death and get on with her life, but her motivation seemed to have disappeared.

      “So anyway, sweetie,” she said, changing the subject, “are you still seeing that therapist?”

      I groaned and began reading my e-mail in earnest—one from Evan reminding me about the Hello Dave show on Friday night, one from my husband asking me to buy his flaxseed oil when I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. “Yes,” I said. “I’m seeing her tonight, actually.”

      “And what will you discuss? You and Chris, I assume. How is he?”

      “He’s fine, mom, and I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.”

      “Maybe you can talk to her about your father, too. I was able to let that go when I married Jan. But you still need to work on that.”

      “I know, Mom, I will. Love you. Bye now.”

      “Bye, baby doll. And don’t forget to talk to that therapist about work, too. I think you’re angry.”

      My mother was right. I did have some anger socked away. It had started small, somewhere in my rib cage. I’d trapped it there for a while, ignoring that tiny but festering wound, because I didn’t want to be one of those people who hadn’t a single good thing to say about their life. Yet that pocket of anger had grown over the past few years, despite my best intentions. I expected certain rewards from my life, I had worked to achieve certain milestones, and yet I’d missed the meeting when recognition and happiness were passed out.

      The vice presidency was one issue. I’d earned it.

      My mother was another. I loved the woman so much. She had raised three girls on her own, for years taking in stride the ridicule of a small Illinois town that gleefully watched as her rich husband escaped to the glitz of the west coast; a town that somehow enjoyed the carnage my father left in his wake. Much later, she finally moved to another suburb and found some peace with Jan, but he’d suffered a stroke while standing at the barbeque on a warm September day. Now she was alone again. Alone, and way too invested in my life. She needed one of her own.

      On the other end of the parental spectrum was my father. I’d never gotten over him leaving. At seven, I was the youngest, and for some reason I’d always assumed it was his disappointment in me that had pushed him to flee. I wanted desperately to get over that notion. To be done with him.

      My husband was the remaining piece of the anger puzzle. My clichéd attempts at seduction were too painful to recount—feel free to insert stereotypical woman wearing lingerie waiting with cold dinner image—and so I’d given up trying to entice him, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. With us. With me. We were roommates now. Roommates who occasionally, very occasionally, scratched an itch.

      When I was in one of these black moods, there were two things that would help—throwing myself into work or hitting a bar and seeing some good, loud live music. The Hello Dave show was coming up, but Chris didn’t like seeing bands as much as I did, and we’d committed long ago to visiting my mom. I hated to disappoint her. So work would have to be it.

      I went and spoke to Roslyn about my press release. When I came back, I opened the computer file that read Odette Lamden. Odette was a local chef who occasionally went on the news shows as their cooking expert. Odette’s restaurant, Comfort Food, was one of my favorites, because it served just that—comfort food, stuff like mac and cheese (with four cheeses), overly buttered mashed potatoes, bread pudding, gooey with caramel, and fudge sundaes as big as your head. I’d met Odette on a TV set one day when I’d gone to visit a publicist who’d enlisted us to handle extra work. Two days later, Odette hired me, or I should say hired Harper Frankwell, to publicize her cookbook, also called Comfort Food. Her own publisher had done little to promote it, and she wanted to get the word out there. It was the type of client I loved—someone who needed help with a product I truly liked.

      But Roslyn had been less than thrilled. “It’s not even ten thousand dollars worth of work,” she’d said, scrunching her mouth disapprovingly. This was Roslyn’s main complaint with me, and why she asserted I wasn’t ready for a vice presidency—I wasn’t pulling in any big fish, and I was wasting the firm’s time on the small stuff. “It could turn into something big,” I said.

      “Doubtful,” Roslyn answered.

      “I think we owe it to the community to help certain people once in a while. People who can’t afford big campaigns.”

      “We owe it to this company to make money, don’t we?” Roslyn looked down at her desk, my cue to leave.

      I understood her protests, but I believed in the smaller clients I brought in. There was something rewarding about helping shed a little media light on products and people you believed in. And Odette and I had such fun working on her cookbook. I’d stop by the restaurant after she closed early on Sunday nights, and we’d huddle in her colorful office, eating leftovers and brainstorming about how to get her on Oprah. Odette, a forty-five-year-old black woman, whose family originally hailed from New Orleans, had become a friend as well as a client during this process. I wanted to get her book the best possible PR, no matter what Roslyn said.

      But I wouldn’t think about Roslyn now. I wanted to work on a press release for Comfort Food, one that would land Odette interviews with newspapers and spots on radio shows. I started writing. Sick of the Atkins Diet? How about the South Beach Diet? Tired of eating boiled chicken breasts and dressing-less salad? Renowned Chicago chef, Odette Lambden, owner of the acclaimed restaurant, Comfort Food, introduces a cookbook to soothe us all.

      Once I’d begun, I barely noticed the beige walls of my cubicle that had seemed tighter and more constricting lately. I ignored the ring of my phone, the beep from the bottom of the computer announcing an instant message. СКАЧАТЬ