Chapter 3
“ O h, hey, hon,” was her mother’s familiar greeting when she arrived home. Her accent was in full force, which meant she had something further to say. “Someone called for you today.”
“For me?” Paley said. Her world had become small; it consisted of Aaron and her friends from work. She couldn’t imagine who would be calling for her.
“You betcha. I left her name and number on the table.” Not taking any chances, she scurried to the table and handed Paley the message.
“Acacia Billings,” Paley read before setting the note back onto the table.
“Aren’t you going to call her back?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Paley shrugged. There was no way to explain the complete inertia that had taken over her existence, the inexhaustible nothingness that now inhabited inside her. She didn’t want to do, didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to be. It took as much energy as she possessed to simply wake up and keep going, to keep putting one foot in front of the other day after day after day. And when she thought about all the days that stretched out ahead of her in an endless barrage of nothing, she could barely lift her arms from her body, let alone her feet.
“Honey, about the car…” her mother began tentatively.
Paley sighed. “I know, Mom. I know. I need to get my car fixed so I can stop using yours, but it’s going to be an expensive repair, and I don’t have the money.” Especially because today she was demoted and now making even less.
“Can’t you ask Aaron…” her mom began, but Paley cut her off.
“No, I can’t ask Aaron. I can’t ask him for anything,” Paley said tiredly.
“He’s your husband,” her mother said.
“Not for much longer.”
Her mother huffed in frustration, and Paley looked up, startled. “Paley, you haven’t done anything to try and mend fences.”
“There’s nothing to do,” Paley said.
“How do you know if you don’t try?” her mother asked.
“Mom, nothing I can possibly do will make his girlfriend un-pregnant,” Paley said.
Her mother’s mouth rounded in a little “O” of surprise. Paley stood and headed for the back door. It was as if the soil was calling to her, physically pulling her in its direction, promising hope and healing, if only she could get her hands in the dirt. She opened the door, one foot dangling out.
“Off the grass,” her father called from somewhere unseen like one of those recordings at the airport that reminds people not to leave bags unattended.
Sighing, Paley drew her leg back inside, went to her room, and collapsed onto the bed. Sleep was a welcome friend lately, and she slid into it with ease. Sometime later her mother’s voice echoed down the hall, calling her to supper. Yawning, she stumbled down the hall and sat at the table. She wasn’t especially hungry, but she didn’t have to be. Food was an anesthetic and always had been. Her nose smelled chocolate. She scanned the counter and saw a tray of brownies behind her mother’s head. Brownies were the equivalent of her mother’s atomic bomb, a recipe so good, so decadently perfect she only pulled it out when she needed to relay something serious. Paley tensed, not certain if her mother was trying to relay heavy-duty comfort or something more sinister.
They ate in silence. Paley stuffed bites of beef, gravy, and mashed potatoes between her lips while her eyes darted between her parents.
“So,” her mother said at last. The heavy northern American accent was so thick it made it sound as if there were a hidden U somewhere in the word, drawing it out to make it a statement all its own.
“So,” Paley replied. Unlike her parents, she had been raised mostly in Maryland, giving her no accent that made the word anything more than one syllable with a long O.
“It would seem some things need to happen here,” her mother said. She reached behind her to the tray of brownies and began to dole them, sliding a hefty one onto a plate and setting it before Paley. Her father watched jealously, abashed the first piece hadn’t gone to him like normal. It amazed Paley the two of them could have been married for three decades and yet her father remained clueless to his wife’s ways. He had no idea of the undercurrents taking place in his kitchen. All he knew was brownies were being bandied about and he didn’t yet have one.
“What, Mom? What needs to happen? Because I really don’t know.” Paley sniffled. Her mother pushed her plate closer. Paley dutifully picked up the fork and took a bite, the sweet, heady brownie mixing unpleasantly with the salty taste of her tears.
“Let’s look at the practicalities. You need to get your car fixed.”
“I have two thousand dollars to my name,” Paley said.
“I wouldn’t think it would be more than that,” her mother said, squinting questioningly at her still-oblivious husband who was now happily eating a brownie. “If it’s more than that, your father and I will help. I know you like working at the bakery, but you need to get a better job, something that pays more with benefits.”
“Easier said than done,” Paley muttered.
“You need to get back out there on your own,” her mother added, more gently this time.
Paley’s head snapped up. “You’re kicking me out.”
Her mother shook her head. “Sometimes baby birds need a nudge.”
“I haven’t been in the nest for a lot of years,” Paley said.
“No, but I can see you settling back in here, almost like the marriage never happened. You’re hurting, and we hurt with you.” Her gaze darted to her husband who was now scraping his plate, apparently not even listening to the conversation. “But you have to keep going, to keep doing. You can’t hide in the basement and watch action movies all the time.”
The dam on Paley’s emotional reservoir was about to break. She was going to lose it, big time. Their family wasn’t into big, dramatic, emotional scenes. They were soldiers, the kind who did their duty without chatter or complaint. It was the gist of what her mother was telling her, to get back on the horse, to keep on keeping on. But all Paley wanted to do was sleep and cry and sleep and cry some more. When the phone rang, she lunged for it, if only as a distraction from the coming turmoil.
“Hello,” she said, fighting hard against the press of tears.
“Hi, may I speak with Paley Marshall, please?”
“This is Paley,” she croaked.
“Hello, Paley, this is Acacia Billings. I’m positive you don’t remember me, but we met several months ago at a mixer my firm offered for prospective law students. You arrived with your husband, Aaron.”
“Yes,” Paley gasped, her chest spasming with pain at the mention of her husband’s name. She cleared her throat. “I remember you. You’re a legal secretary for, um, one of the big names I can’t recall.” She did recall that Aaron had salivated over the possibility of working for the firm.
“Piedmont Bonvoy,” Acacia supplied. “I remember you brought cookies to the mixer.”
Paley winced. She wasn’t supposed to have brought food, but in her family bringing food was an absolute. Aaron had been livid when she presented the tray of cookies at the fancy, catered event.
“Yes, sorry about that,” Paley said, her face flushing from the memory. Was that why their marriage hadn’t worked, because Aaron saw her as some kind of unsophisticated rube, too crass and undignified for the life he desired?
“Oh, goodness, sweetheart, please don’t apologize. Those were the best cookies I’ve ever eaten. I’ve been dreaming of them since that night.”
“You…you have?” Paley said uncertainly.
“Yes, that’s the entire reason I tracked you down and, let me tell you, it wasn’t easy.”
“Oh. I’ll make you some more, if you like,” Paley offered.
“Could you make a thousand of them?”
“Uh,” Paley stammered.
“We’re having another function, and those cookies would be the perfect topper for the event, decorated in the style of our choosing, of course.”
“When would you need them?” Paley asked.
“Next Saturday night.”
Paley mentally calculated her budget. She could probably afford fifty bucks to buy ingredients. “Okay, sure. Would you like me to bring them to your office?”
“We haven’t discussed a price yet,” Acacia said.
“A price for what?” Paley asked. She tensed. Was the woman planning to charge her?
“A price for your cookies. A bit of online research assured me fifteen hundred dollars is the going rate.”
“Wait, you want to pay me?” Paley asked.
Acacia chuckled again. “Were you going to do it for free?”
“Yes,” Paley admitted.
Acacia clucked her tongue. “Don’t do that again, honey. This is business. You’re going to spend money on the raw materials and time to make them.”
“Okay, sorry,” Paley said, feeling flustered.
“Do you need an advance for the ingredients?” Acacia asked.
“No, I can cover it.”
“Very well. I’ll have your check ready on Friday when you drop off the cookies,” Acacia said. “Give me your email address and I’ll send you a picture of what we want.”
“Okay, thank you.” Paley gave her address, disconnected, and turned to survey her parents.
“What was that about?” her mother asked.
“I’m making a thousand cut out cookies for a party,” Paley said.
Her mother beamed. “See? Good things are happening already.”
Paley nodded, not sure a thousand cookies would be enough to make up for a cheating husband and his forthcoming baby, but at least it was a start.