Chapter 10
Jules
“Honey, please, just try not to get the peanut butter on your—”
I turn the corner to find Gus sitting at the breakfast bar with peanut butter already smeared over his shirt. He gives me an adorable, lopsided smile and says, “Okay, Mommy. I won’t.”
He follows that with a thumbs-up, which is also covered in peanut butter.
Swallowing the frustration, I turn back into the hallway, throwing my towel in the overflowing hamper and reaching into the dryer, praying one of his school shirts will be in here.
“Yes,” I whisper, pulling out a little navy blue collared shirt that, while not ironed, is at least not covered in peanut butter. It’s not like I was going to win awards for most put together in the drop-off line anyway.
Really, it was my fault for giving him waffles and peanut butter unsupervised. Whose idea was it to make waffles a breakfast food for kids? Everything that goes on them—maple syrup, sprinkles, peanut butter—is sticky and messy. A nightmare.
“Up,” I say, after wiping his hands and face and pushing the remains of the waffle—which is fully desiccated—away from his little hands. He lifts his arms dutifully, and I slide the shirt over his head.
Muffled by the fabric, he asks, “Are you going to send my letter today?”
“Yes,” I say, carefully closing the tiny little navy button on his collar, and getting a whopping helping of peanut-butter breath as my prize. “I promise.”
At this point, Gus can dress himself, but on mornings like this I find myself slipping into a robot mode where I take over, not willing to spare the ten extra seconds it would take for him to put the shirt on backwards first, before finally turning it around.
I’m lucky enough to have a patient kid. I’ve seen the tantrums and fights other parents get into, but Gus has always been mild. Even a little spacey.
Which occasionally sends me into a worried tailspin.
Is that dreamy look on his face due to the fact that his heart isn’t beating quite right?
Or is that just his personality? Now, I scan him quickly, looking for signs that the worst has happened—that the little hole in his heart could rapidly turn into a big hole without me knowing.
But he looks fine, squirming in his chair, ready to get down.
“Alright,” I say, glancing at the lime green clock on the oven. “We have to leave five minutes ago.”
“Mommy,” Gus says, while I kneel down and help him get his heel into his light-up shoe.
“Yes?”
“When will Santa get my letter?” Gus leans forward, putting a hand on my shoulder, and I resist the urge to just scoop him up and head to the couch, where we could snuggle and watch Paw Patrol together all day.
No—he needs to go first to Ettie’s, then to school, and I need to go to work, unless I want another full day of passive aggressive comments about the company core values, one of which is always be prompt.
That’s a shitty core value, in my opinion. But what do I know?
“Uh, it just depends on how fast the mail goes,” I say, pulling myself from my thoughts and answering his question. “The North Pole is really far away.”
I take his hand, and we push out into the hallway. Ettie’s place is just a few doors away from mine, but some mornings it feels like this is the longest stretch, from our door to hers.
“Do you think he reads every letter?” Gus asks, turning his head to look up at me, his hair a little too long over his forehead. He’ll need a trim soon—I can probably get away with doing it myself.
“I’m sure he does,” I say, wishing I had a bit of Santa’s magic. “He’s very good at his job.”
“How does he decide if you get what you want?”
“You know the answer to that,” I say, nudging him a little, which makes him laugh.
“If you’re good?”
“If you’re good,” I agree, knocking on Ettie’s door. Usually, she’s prompt. Of course, on the mornings I’m late, it takes a minute longer.
“How do you know if you’re good?” Gus asks, and when I glance down at him, I register that this is one of those moments—a moment in which your kid asks you a question that’s impossible to answer.
What’s goodness? What does it mean to be a good person? Is doing no harm enough? Would Santa bring me a present if I wanted one? Or would I get coal?
“Sorry!” Ettie swings open the door and beams at us, Dawson dancing along to a morning cartoon behind her, already in his school clothes, just like Gus. “Busy morning,” she says, rubbing her hand on a dish towel.
I can smell their breakfast hanging in the air—knowing Ettie it was something like vegan chorizo, egg whites, and freshly sliced avocado on whole wheat.
“No apology necessary,” I say, as Gus runs past her, dropping his T-Rex backpack and joining Dawson in front of the TV, his question about being good completely forgotten. I watch the two boys for a moment.
“Everything okay?” Ettie asks, and when my eyes skip to hers, I wrestle with my usual jealousy. She’s an amazing person, and an amazing mother. Without her, managing my life with Gus would be a million times harder.
But that doesn’t stop me from wishing I had a trust fund to lean against. It seems like just a little more money is always the answer, but I don’t have a partner—or an inheritance—to provide that.
“Yeah,” I rush out, realizing I let the moment linger a beat too long. Reaching out, I squeeze her shoulder, choosing to focus on gratitude. “I’m just really grateful that you can help me with this. You know I couldn’t do it without you. And just…remember to keep an eye on him?”
Ettie smiles, glancing back at Gus, who’s dancing around with Dawson and laughing at the show on the TV.
“You know I will,” she laughs and turns, bumping her hip against mine.
“When you come to get Gus tonight, you and I are having a margarita. And I’m not taking no for an answer—you clearly need it. ”
I’m halfway through taking my lunch break at my desk—like I always do—when I remember I’m supposed to send Gus’s letter to Santa.
“Shit,” I whisper around a bite of the dry chicken wrap I packed today. Standing, I grab the wrap to bring with me, pulling the letter from my bag and making my way to the elevator.
There’s an outgoing mail slot in the building’s lobby. If I eat while I walk, I’ll have time to finish my lunch and deposit his letter before my break is up.
At this point, even with my occasional lateness, I should have a whole bank of time that I’ve saved from eating lunch at my desk, working through breaks. But Peter—my boss—doesn’t take note of the time you give to the company—only the time he perceives you to have stolen away.
“Julia,” he says, giving me an oily smile when the elevator doors open and we’re facing one another.
I hide a grimace and slide past him, trading places so he’s in the hallway and I’m in the elevator.
“Don’t forget we have that meeting with Wag Staff,” he glances at his wristwatch, which I’m sure cost more than my car. “I’d hate for you to be late.”
A reference to the fact that I walked into the office three minutes after nine this morning.
I bite my tongue and resist the urge to tell him about that my car was recently totaled in a pile-up, how I had to wait on a Lyft driver who was running late, how traffic was even more congested than usual, about the peanut butter incident.
About the fact that I was far from the last person to come in this morning.
“I’ll be there,” I say instead, just before the elevator doors slide shut.
The moment Peter is out of sight, my body relaxes.
He’s never liked me—maybe because my first week here I accidentally called out a mistake he made in front of the account managers.
That his catastrophe planning is never more than a generic template, and that’s just not going to cut it when shit hits the fan.
They’d drilled into him and told him to fix it. As far as I know, he hasn’t.
Or maybe it’s not that I called him out—maybe he just hates women. Maybe he just hates me. I have no idea.
Ever since he was promoted to team lead, he’s been on my ass. The day he took over the position, he called me into his office and told me I would need to be on site a lot more than I had been. As though my original position hadn’t been remote.
When I applied for this job, a huge part of the reason I wanted it was for the remote aspect.
I could work from home, coming to the office every two weeks for meetings and special occasions.
It meant more time with Gus, and it meant I didn’t have to pay for childcare.
Didn’t have to take time off work when he was home sick, or leave him with someone I knew wouldn’t watch him as closely as I did.
Then Peter decided he needed me in the office. Which meant a commute and gas money and finding parking and total relief when Ettie said she could watch Gus during the day, could take him to school when she took Dawson, and pick him up, too.
And even with all this time in the office, Peter still doesn’t listen to a word I say. This week, I reviewed the catastrophe plans for Wag Staff and realized they’re still all too vague to be much help when we need them.
A catastrophe plan should offer a clear course of action for the worst-case scenario—for Wag Staff, that would include something terrible like one of the dog-sitters kidnapping a pup, or news spreading that their dog walkers had been abusing their clients.
Run-of-the-mill disasters need carefully considered mitigation, but Peter continues to just slap a standard template on it and calls it good.
Even when he does listen to me, it’s just to present my ideas as his own.
“Excuse me?” someone says, and I startle, realizing I’ve spaced out in front of the USPS drop box, and someone is standing to the side, clearly waiting to deposit their mail, too.
Gus’s letter still in my hand. It takes a troubling amount of brain power to make sure I’m sliding the envelope in, and not my chicken wrap.
“Sorry,” I say, stepping to the side and finishing off my lunch.
For a second, I stare at the blue metal box, wondering what Gus has asked for in his letter.
I should have paid more attention when he was writing it.
It’s not like I’ll have a lot of money for Christmas, but I expect Gus didn’t ask for anything too expensive, anyway.
For his birthday, he insisted the only thing he wanted was “right” Crayons—just a new box with fresh crayons that hadn’t been used yet.
When my phone buzzes, it startles me again, and I decide I’m going to make sure I go to bed extra early tonight. I’m too jumpy, and that usually happens when I’m not getting enough sleep. I pull my phone from my pocket and look at the screen, my stomach swooping when I see who it is.
Dr. Burch: Just so you know, the offer is still on the table.
Dr. Burch: Please trust that I’ve exhausted all other options, or I wouldn’t be texting you.
Dr. Burch: I’m willing to negotiate.
I stare at the texts, feeling strangely like I’m floating slightly outside of my own body. Am I really considering this?
The day isn’t even half over, and I’m exhausted, brain heavy with responsibility. Thinking about Gus and his surgery, juggling two jobs, even trying to plan for Christmas. To balance making it special for him without digging too hard into my credit cards.
I chew on my bottom lip. It could be just another job. In fact, I reason, it’s less invasive than donating plasma, which is something I did for a few weeks when Gus was a baby, and I really needed money for formula. Before I got the job with Elemint.
“Hello?” his voice is low, rumbles through the phone. He could be narrating a fucking Old Spice commercial. Christ.
“Dr. Burch—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Juliette,” he says, with a note of realization, then, “One moment—”
There’s a shuffling noise, then a click like a door has shut, muffling the outside world. It makes the call feel private, and I have to gather my courage to pick the conversation up again.
“Dr. Burch—” I start again.
“Please, call me Russell.”
“Okay. Russell. But you have to stop calling me Juliette, then.” My cheeks are flaming. What am I, a teenager?
“Alright. What should I call you?”
“Jules.”
“Okay. Jules. What can I do for you?”
I ignore the shiver that runs through my body at the sound of my nickname on his lips. Jules. The way he says it is perfectly rounded, almost like he’s saying Jewels instead. I shake away the image of something precious and force myself to focus.
“I’ll do it.” I hear myself say it, almost like I’m watching a TV show, and I’m the main character. I clear my throat. My heart pounds loudly in my ears. “But I am negotiating for more.”
“Whatever you want,” he says, and my mind supplies me with what I want—his strong hand, braced by my head, his body over mine, his heat and the smell of his cedar-y cologne washed around me. The chance to run my nails down his torso, to touch his skin and learn the feel of him.
No, not whatever I want.
“We can talk about it in person,” I say, glancing at the clock in the lobby. I’m going to be late, so I start walking back toward the elevator. “But just so we’re clear about one thing—you are getting a fake engagement, and fake marriage. Not a real one.”
“That is very clear, Jules,” he says, and the sound of his voice is making me lightheaded.
“Okay. Great. Talk—talk to you later.”
I end the call and step onto the elevator, heart beating much harder than it should. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a job.
And I meant what I said—nothing is going to happen between us. I’ll have to remind myself that this relationship is fake. That I’m getting nothing more than a little acting practice. Keeping my distance.
A real fiancée would get a lot more of the doctor than I’m going to take.
No matter how badly my body wants me to.