Interstitial #2
This is what she’s turning over in her mind when they pull up to the house and see that Natalie’s spot in the driveway has been claimed by a green dumpster. “Oh shit,” says Natalie. “I forgot all about this. Is it seriously Friday already?”
“Language, Ma,” says Scarlett. Mae snorts. Scarlett’s comic timing is spot-on.
“It just got real,” says Jordan, looking at the green hulk of it, thinking of the piles in the garage. “It just got really
real.” Soon, this house will no longer be a Shipman house. It will be a for-sale house, and then it will belong to someone
else, and then it might not exist at all. Just like that.
In the early afternoon, when she’s tying Leo’s leash to the leg of a chair so he can practice his settling, Mae calls Hal.
“Mae!” He sounds so happy to hear from her that she almost tears up. “I’m really glad to hear your voice.”
“Me too,” she says, then shakes her head, because that doesn’t make sense. She dives right in from there. “I have some bad
news,” she says. “It’s about Leo. He’s okay! He’s great, actually. But—”
“I know. Leo called me. Leo the person.”
“Human Leo.”
“Ha! Yes. He told me all about his work situation. He’s heartbroken about not being able to keep the dog. We both agree you’ve
made amazing progress with him.”
“Thank you,” says Mae. “But what—uh, what will happen to Leo? Dog Leo? When I bring him back? Will he have to go back to the
shelter?”
“Well, that depends,” says Hal. “Would you be interested in keeping him? We could see if the shelter would waive a re-adoption
fee, since he’s basically been with you the whole time.”
Here is the slot in the conversation where Mae could but doesn’t want to say I have no home in which to keep him. So instead she says, “I’d love to, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying in Boulder. I might have to make some different
plans.”
“Ah,” says Hal. “Got it.” There’s a pause, just this side of awkward, and then he says, “I’m sorry to hear that, actually.”
She says, “You are?”
“I was hoping you’d be working at Dog On It for the long haul. I have clients who have been asking for you. I posted the videos
you sent on the website and on my Instagram account, and the response has been terrific.”
She’s dumbfounded. She says, “It has?”
“One person wanted to know the name of your tattoo artist. But the rest were potential new board-and-train clients. I was
thinking you could focus on that aspect of the business, if you’d consider coming back.”
“I’m sorry, Hal,” she says. “I’d be really sorry to stop working for you. But can I let you know my plans in a day or two?
I still have a lot to figure out.”
“I’m going for a swim,” Jordan announces. The rain is still coming down.
“Doesn’t look much like swimming weather,” observes Calvin.
“I don’t need sun to swim,” says Jordan. “My veins are already part ice.” She steals a glance at her father to see if he’s
grinning at that, and he is, and that’s how she knows everything is going to be all right between them.
She walks onto the patio, holding her phone in one hand. She needs to do this now, before she swims. Without listening to the latest voicemail, she closes her eyes, does a ten-second meditation (a length of time recommended by zero meditation experts), and calls Bernadette.
No greeting, but that’s typical. “Did you do what I needed you to do?”
“I’m on vacation.”
“Screw vacation,” says Bernadette. Jordan winces. Bernadette is so harsh. “You know we never really get a vacation in our
business. Did you call the reporter?”
“No,” says Jordan.
“What?”
“I said no.”
“You need to call now.”
“No.”
“Tomorrow, at the very, very latest.”
Jordan says nothing.
Bernadette says, “If you don’t call that reporter—"
Jordan knows what Bernadette is going to say, so she says it for her. “Then I’m not going to have a job with you anymore.”
“Exactly.”
It’s time, Jordan thinks. The time is now. She says, “I can’t in good conscience call that reporter and say what you want
me to say.”
There’s a long silence. Then: “Why not?”
“Because I’d be lying.”
Bernadette says, “What?”
“Are you totally forgetting that you sexually harassed me?”
“That I what?”
“At the party, Bernadette. On Memorial Day.”
“Oh, please, Jordan. Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not even gay; how could I sexually harass you?”
For an eighth of a second Jordan doubts herself. She’d been drinking too; is there a chance she false-memoried this? Is she making a mountain out of a molehill?
No. There is no chance. It is a mountain. Bernadette is a bully and a liar and a line-crosser. She’s excellent at mind games. She will say and do whatever
she needs to say and do to make any situation move in her direction.
“You did,” she says. “You put your hand on my crotch. You threatened me when I turned you down. I could file a civil claim!”
There’s a short pause, enough to let Jordan know that Bernadette is nervous. Not that she’d ever tell Jordan that. Then Bernadette
says, “Don’t be ridiculous. I was just playing around. If you don’t call Samantha and get this taken care of, you can forget
what I said about your career. I’ll put Irina on the partner track.”
There’s no way, Jordan knows, that Irina is going on the partner track. Irina’s work can be sloppy, and her instincts need serious guidance.
She doesn’t have what it takes to be really good at the job.
“So put Irina on the partner track.” Another pause. She has called Bernadette’s bluff, and it feels really good. “It doesn’t
matter to me. I quit.”
“You can’t quit.”
“I just did.”
“You have proprietary information about a lot of our clients.”
“And?”
“If any of that leaks I’ll sue the hell out of you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Jordan. “I’m a vault.”
Another pause. Jordan can feel Bernadette gathering herself, coiling like a rattlesnake before a strike. “Do you know what
your problem is, Jordan?” Bernadette’s voice is full of venom.
“What’s that?” asks Jordan. She’s a little scared, but she’s also genuinely curious. What is her problem?
“You’re good. But you’re not nearly as good as you think you are.”
“Ha!” Nice one. Jordan readies herself to unleash the zinger of all zingers. She wishes she could say it in person, so she
could see Bernadette’s expression before turning her back on her and leaving the room. She says, “That’s where you’re wrong.
I’m even better.”
She ends the call, puts her phone down, and opens the slider. Across the patio, down the steps, across the sand, and into
the angry sea.
She dives under the first wave that comes toward her. It’s bracing. No swim in the history of swims has ever felt as good
as the one Jordan takes that day, with the rain streaming down and the wind whipping the waves into a frenzy. It’s perfect.
After this, she is going to call Samantha Braddock.
Once she has Caspian down for his nap, Natalie takes a look to see what the ocean is doing.
What the ocean is doing is spitting out Jordan, who is striding up the beach in an extremely fetching athletic two-piece,
the kind that confident and fit models wear in surf or yoga catalogs. She has no towel, no cover-up; she’s holding no flip-flops
that she might have flung carelessly in the sand. No phone. She’s just in a full, beautiful stride, muscles popping. Jordan
has incredible abs. She has abs that Natalie didn’t even know were possible. Jordan’s abs have abs.
Jordan is, and always has been, such a badass.
Jordan’s high school friends had been cool and sophisticated.
They weren’t the most popular crowd but rather the smart crowd, who were cool enough not to care that they weren’t popular because they truly believed they were going to change the world.
And many of them are doing it! Clerking for Supreme Court justices or doing big things in big tech.
Doctoring without borders. Being Jordan.
“What are you doing?” calls Natalie. She grabbed a rain poncho from one of the hooks in the mudroom and now she has the hood
on. The only people left in the water are the serious surfers, the ones who will go out in anything.
Jordan continues to stride up to the patio, where she ushers Natalie under one of the table umbrellas. She says, “I just quit
my job.”
“You did?”
“I’m shaking, look.” She holds out her hand.
“Well, you’re freezing. Come in. Let me get you a towel.”
“That’s the bad news.”
“Then what’s the good news?”
“The good news is, I’m going to go out on my own, like I told you. And I thought you could be my first clients, you and Austin.”
“Us? Jordan, can we go inside?”
“You’re in crisis, right? You’re having a crisis?”
“We’re definitely having a crisis. But I thought you didn’t want to help us.”
Jordan wrings out her hair. “I didn’t,” she says. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and now I do.”
“Yeah? So what’s your plan?”
“We can figure out what to do about that article. We can reposition you.”
Natalie takes off the poncho and says, “Here. You deserve this more than I do.” Jordan waves her away. Her eyes are bright
and clear, and she looks, in fact, a lot like old photos of Theresa. “Maybe,” she says. “But I need it less. You keep it.
Listen, Natalie, here’s what got me thinking. When you were talking to Mae the other night—”
“And you were eavesdropping?”
“Yes. You were talking about how hard it is to be in your twenties, that space after college but before you’ve figured your life out? That’s the most authentic version of you I’ve seen in a long time.”
Natalie says, “Hey,” and looks insulted.
“No, but it’s true, though. I think people like you when you’re being honest and vulnerable. I think you can reach way more
people that way. So what I think would help you and Austin and maybe even your kids is a rebranding.”
“A rebranding?”
“Yes. I think you should become someone who’s honest about the messy parts of parenting. The ugly parts! People love to see
the mess. They want to know what happens when Caspian tries to run away to the milking barn and Scarlett sneaks off with the