Chapter 10 #3
Cece sees that her reprimands won’t have the desired effect, so she decides to let it go.
If Lorraine wants to die because she needs to scrape some paint off her decrepit shed, so be it.
Cece can barely take care of herself; she’s not about to start looking after others, too. “Job interview in the city.”
“You don’t seem pleased.”
Somewhere on the street, a screen door slaps, and a car starts, the engine turning over once, then twice before catching. “It didn’t go well,” Cece says. “Mostly because I didn’t want it to.”
Lorraine picks something off the tip of her tongue and flicks it into the night. “Ooooo! Sabotage. So, you didn’t want the job?”
“No,” Cece says. “I guess not.”
“Do I need to start worrying about your rent check being late?”
“It’s not like that. I’ve got something going on now, but this was a better opportunity. A no-brainer.”
“How so?”
“It’s a real job. Generous benefits. Well paying. Good company, too. Kind of like my old gig.”
Lorraine shrugs. “I never met a real job I didn’t just hate to death.”
Bernard’s barks crescendo. “I don’t know…I just think there’s something wrong with me.”
“Could be something wrong with you if you take it, too,” Lorraine says, before patting Cece’s shoulder with a filthy hand and hobbling off to the house.
Reminder to self, Cece thinks. Don’t end up like that—alone, at risk of perishing at the hands of a ladder.
After a long shower, Cece takes Bernard out for a walk around the neighborhood.
Twilight deepens to night, and Cece wonders if the answers to her questions are out there somewhere.
What will she say to her mother? How will she explain her reasoning when she can’t even explain it to herself?
Kim will surely call her every name in the book: entitled, spoiled, and delusional.
She won’t fight it. She’s deserving of her mother’s wrath.
And what will Jonathan say? Will he understand Cece’s predicament? Will he see the choice she sees?
A creature of habit, Bernard quickly veers in the direction of Morgan’s house, but Cece isn’t in the mood to remember her mistakes. It was fun, a whim—now it’s time to forget it. She has bigger concerns at the moment. If only he didn’t live so close!
Bernard quickly embraces their detour, snout to the broken sidewalk, vigorously inspecting the new sights and smells: crabgrass sprouting through cracked pavement, newly bloomed irises, purple and majestic, a forgotten recycling bin still on the curb.
With flip-flops on, the breeze feels good against her oxygen-starved feet as she walks down to the water, seeking respite from the lingering heat.
Tree branches hang low, and Cece ducks underneath, shrouded momentarily in cooler shadows.
From open windows, the murmur of televisions and calls for dinner.
Bernard strains the leash and tugs them forward.
Cece, not ready to leave her reverie, holds firm, until she looks up and sees the reason for his excitement.
In the distance, two figures—one big, one smaller—walking toward her.
Cece doesn’t have to see his face. She knows that gait and bulky frame, baseball cap pushed back on his forehead—Morgan.
She looks back, hoping she might be able to retreat into the darkness, but it’s too late; Bernard is barking, Morgan raises his hand in a tentative wave.
Is this the other woman? The girlfriend?
The wife? Cece wonders, preparing herself for the worst. Men are dogs!
Why had she ever let herself forget it? Maybe he’s the one who should be dashing down a side street!
But the figure is too adolescent, awkward, and rangy.
A girl. Twelve or thirteen if Cece has to guess.
“Is he friendly?” she asks as they move closer.
“Absolutely,” Cece says, looking at Morgan for some kind of explanation.
Bernard licks the girl’s open palm inquisitively and promptly rolls over, groveling for belly rubs. She obliges him, running her cherry-red fingernails through his fur.
“This is Lacy, my daughter,” Morgan says. “Lacy, this is my neighbor Cece.”
“Nice to meet you,” the girl says without looking up. “Your dog’s really cool. What’s his name?”
“Bernard. He’s actually my parents’ but I’m watching him for a while.”
Morgan mouths a silent I’m sorry. Cece is too bewildered to respond. Morgan is a father.
“We were just going for our postdinner walk,” Morgan says. “Lacy’s visiting from Providence.” His eyes are wide, and it seems like he’s trying to communicate some unsayable thing to Cece from across the space between them.
“How nice,” she says, peering down at Lacy’s fingernails. Do they match the nail polish she found in Morgan’s medicine cabinet? Had all those things—the makeup, the tampons—belonged to her? Cece is paralyzed by her suspicions and potential folly.
“Everything going all right?” Morgan says tentatively, like he’s wading in rocky waters.
Remembering her hot tears, the stifling car, Cece blushes. The world seems intent on her humiliation. “Much better,” she manages.
“That’s good,” Morgan says, a broad smile peeking through his beard to assure Cece there are no hard feelings. “Haven’t seen you around much, that’s all. I was getting worried.”
“Yeah. Uh…” Cece says, looking down to gauge the girl’s interest in the adult conversation happening above. “Work’s been a little crazy.”
“I thought you might have had a change of heart, or maybe there was something else.”
Cece’s forgotten this feeling—like someone’s whipping egg whites in her stomach—and does her best to breathe.
Morgan continues before she can say anything and make a bigger fool of herself. “I was gonna text you, but then I realized we never exchanged numbers, and I can’t exactly go knocking on your door. Lorraine’ll have my head.”
Bernard sneezes and Lacy is up and standing between them, wiping a hand on the back of her shorts. Cece apologizes for the dog, but the girl just shrugs. “Do you really live next door? I’ve never seen you around.”
“Not exactly. I live a few houses over but on the same street.”
The clarification doesn’t seem to sway the girl. “Can I have the key, Dad?” she says, hand outstretched to Morgan. “Me and Zoe are supposed to watch our show.”
“Don’t be rude, Lacy. Your show can wait.”
“It’s bad enough that I have to come down here—now you’re cutting into my O.C. time with Zoe.”
Cece enjoys seeing this different side of Morgan, defeated and exasperated, caught between deciding whether to admonish his daughter or apologize to Cece. “Zoe is her friend back in Providence,” he explains. “I better go.”
“I was obsessed with that show in high school.”
“It’s the best,” Lacy proclaims as she walks away, her figure colt-like, all legs and knobby knees.
Morgan hangs back, stalling. “You sure everything’s okay over at Rayburn? The offer still stands. I can clock someone if you need me to.”
“I was in the city today, actually. Interviewing for an actuary position at a risk management firm.”
Cece thinks she can spot Morgan’s brow furrow. “I thought you were trying to get out of that line of work.”
“I’m just keeping my options open. You never know.”
“Right,” Morgan says and buries his hands in his pockets.
Cece isn’t sure why, but she’s feeling defensive, like she’s done something, betrayed a promise. “You seem disappointed.”
“Me?” Morgan flashes a thin smile. “No, not at all…So what’s going on at Rayburn?”
In the dark, Cece can’t read his face, whether he’s actually hung up on her actuary work, or if she’s just being paranoid. She lets it go, too tired to analyze and ruminate. “I haven’t exactly endeared myself to the other workers…They hate me.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“Fine. They don’t respect me.”
“They’re giving you the greenhorn treatment.”
“Something like that.”
“The trick is…with men like that. Hard men. You’ve got to insist on yourself. Listen. Be respectful. Do the job. But keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other—even when they tell you to stop.”
Job advice isn’t exactly what Cece wants from Morgan, even if it seems sound. She has other needs presently. “Give me your phone.”
Morgan obliges.
“There. Now you’ve got my number.”
“Great,” Morgan says. “I thought maybe you’d had a change of heart and thrown me over.”
“To be honest, I did, but maybe that was a mistake. I seem to be making a ton of those lately. Does that matter?”
“Not really.”
Lacy turns back. “Dad! O.C. Zoe!”
“I want to see you, but just as friends. Until I figure some stuff out.”
“Whatever you need,” Morgan says, and then he’s gone, feet pounding the pavement, his keys jangling a merry tune from his belt loop.
Ahead, in the patchy darkness, Lacy laughs, easy and ephemeral.
Cece stays in the street until they turn to shadow, and then she continues toward the river, thinking about how absurd and farcical life can be in spite of itself.