Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jess
On Monday morning, Jess sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, her laptop open and blinking at her with a dozen tabs: job listings, partially filled applications, a resume she kept tweaking and retweaking.
Across from her, six-year-old Maisie was elbow deep in glitter and glue, her tongue poking out in concentration as she fashioned what looked like a sparkly squirrel from popsicle sticks.
“Look, Mama!” Maisie held up the half-formed creature with pride.
Jess smiled, even though her chest was tight. “That’s amazing, baby. I love how sparkly his tail is.”
Maisie grinned and went back to work, humming something tuneless.
Jess turned her eyes back to the screen, skimming the listing for anything that piqued her interest. There was an administrative assistant role.
She met every qualification. Bachelor’s degree, three years of office experience, good with calendars, people, and software she’d taught herself out of necessity.
But the job was in the city, a ferry away, and paid just enough to cover daycare and gas. She bookmarked it anyway.
Her phone buzzed on the table. She looked to see it was an unknown caller. Jess stared at it like it might explode. Her thumb hovered over the screen, then she hit the red button. Voicemail.
Immediately, it buzzed again with a voicemail notification.
She sighed and opened it. A robotic voice.
“This is a courtesy call from Goldpoint Collections. Your account ending in zero-eight-seven is now past due. Please call us immediately to avoid further action.”
Jess deleted the message and pressed her forehead to the table.
“Are you sad?” Maisie asked, peeking at her from under a sheet of construction paper.
“No, baby. Just tired.” Jess forced another smile and sat up. “I didn’t sleep great.”
Maisie considered this seriously. “Maybe you need a glitter squirrel too.”
“I think that might help.” Jess reached out and ruffled Maisie’s hair.
By ten-thirty, she had sent out three job applications, each one chipping away at her optimism.
She felt like a bird throwing itself against a window again and again.
She’d applied for so many positions over the past month: office assistant, copy editor, even a few remote gigs that paid per task, but no one was biting.
Or if they did, it was only to offer scammy “opportunities” that required a fee up front.
How do you break down all your experience into a resume? How do you tell a potential employer that you ran your own business, that you were very successful, and wore thirty different hats in doing so?
You couldn’t. And Jess didn’t want to anyway. In her heart, she knew that she wasn’t meant for a nine-to-five; she wasn’t meant to work for someone else. It’s why she was halfheartedly turning in her resume and responding to job ads.
She had to find something, though. The bill collectors would only wait so long before they started taking her to court and tanking her credit score. She let out a long breath.
Luckily, they were living with her parents rent-free, but she still had other bills.
There was health and car insurance, her cell phone bill, her car payment.
She hadn’t worried about money in years, and now the thought of being behind on everything was causing the anxiety and overwhelm to tighten her chest.
The phone rang again with a private number. She ignored it and turned to Maisie, who was now taping glitter squirrels to the sliding glass door.
“Hey, do you want to help me pick out lunch?”
Maisie looked up. “Mac and cheese?”
“Mac and cheese it is.”
They cooked side by side in the kitchen, steam rising from the pot, and Maisie narrating her process like she was on a cooking show. Jess let her talk, laughing in the right places, but her mind was spinning.
She’d check Indeed again after lunch. Maybe Craigslist. Maybe she could pick up something from Fiverr, or reach out to old contacts, even if that felt like scraping the bottom of an already-empty barrel. Especially since most of her old clients thought she was shady because of Clark’s actions.
She wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry. But she couldn’t.
While Maisie chattered on about school, Jess heard the front door open and shut.
“Girls?” her mother called, voice cheery and bright.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Jess called back.
Claudia breezed in, her arms full of canvas bags and her lipstick perfectly intact.
Her energy, as always, was a force of nature, like a very fashionable hurricane.
“I brought more candles for the party. And the lavender bundles came in early from that herbalist in Vermont. Thank God. I was worried she’d flake. ”
Maisie squealed. “Grandma! I made squirrels!”
“Oh, honey, let me see!”
Claudia crouched beside the sliding glass door, pretending to marvel at Maisie’s artwork like it was a MoMA exhibit. Jess took the opportunity to drain the macaroni, already bracing herself.
“Okay, okay,” Claudia said as she stood and dusted herself off. “Now. About the solstice party.”
Jess grabbed two bowls and started spooning out mac and cheese. “It’s next week, right?”
“Saturday. Sunset. So more like… seven-ish. But I want people arriving by six-thirty so we can do photos and mingling before the big release.”
Jess blinked. “The what?”
“The fire lantern release. I found this amazing vendor online. They’re biodegradable. Very eco-conscious.”
“Of course.”
Claudia plucked a squirrel from the door and twirled it in her fingers. “Jess, I was thinking. You know how good you are with that social media stuff.”
Jess blinked. “What?”
“You’re just so good at it. You took your company from nothing to something. And then that thing you did with the bookstore for your friend, what was it, like, the calendar posts and the staff bios? Everyone loved that. And your captions are always so clever.”
Jess stared. Her mother rarely complimented her, and if she did, it was usually followed up with some sort of unintentional dig. Not even when she graduated with honors or when Maisie was born and Jess managed the postpartum haze solo.
“I was wondering,” Claudia continued, “if you could run the social media for the solstice party. Just a little campaign, nothing major. Some photos, some behind-the-scenes stuff, a few stories. Get people talking. You know how the Vineyard is, if you don’t give them a reason to show up, they don’t. ”
Jess opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Her mother had just said “You’re so good at it.” Jess was waiting for the rude comment to follow, but there wasn’t one.
Was she dreaming?
“Uh…” Jess cleared her throat. “Sure. I mean, yeah. I could do that. If you want.”
Claudia clapped her hands together, clearly relieved. “Perfect. I just don’t have time to think about hashtags or algorithms or whatever. But you’ve always been good at getting people’s attention.”
Jess’s stomach flipped.
This wasn’t a job offer. Not really. But it was something. A project. A step.
Her mother, of all people, had noticed she was good at something. At something she loved, no less.
“I’ll need the event details,” Jess said, pushing her voice into something more professional. “And any graphics you’re already using. Do you want a Facebook event?”
“Oh, honey, I was hoping you’d ask.”
Jess grabbed her laptop and opened a new tab.
Maisie, oblivious, was humming again and eating noodles off her fork like a lollipop.
The next two hours passed in a flurry. Claudia barked out ideas like she was planning the Oscars. Jess jotted things down, surprised at how quickly her brain clicked into gear. She remembered her old workflow: graphics, posts, scheduling tools, analytics. The rhythm of it.
Her phone buzzed again. Someone had left her a voicemail.
She knew what it was. Another collection agency. Another creditor. Another unpaid bill.
She closed the notification and focused on her mother’s voice.
“…and I was thinking we could post a countdown. Maybe something like ‘seven days to celebrate the sun’ or something…you’re the word girl. You’ll think of something catchy.”
“I can do that,” Jess murmured.
Jess was still awestruck that her mother had asked for her help. Claudia Hartman was great at organizing all the social functions known to man, and she rarely asked for anyone else’s assistance, but today, she was. That meant more to Jess than her mother would ever know.
By the time her father got home from his errands in town, Claudia deemed the planning to be postponed until tomorrow, and Jess was full of gratitude.
She was also exhausted. But for the first time in weeks, it wasn’t the numb exhaustion of anxiety; it was the weariness that came from using her brain for something she loved to do.
Maisie had retreated to her blanket fort with her tablet and a juice box, narrating a story to herself.
Jess sat on the couch and opened Canva. She mocked up a simple graphic: a sun rising over the treetops. “Solstice in the Vineyard,” she typed. “Celebrate the light. Saturday at sunset. All are welcome.”
The likes wouldn’t solve her money problems. Hashtags wouldn’t pay the rent.
But what if she made the party look so good that people paid to attend next year? What if she showed her work to the event coordinator downtown? Or the wedding planner who was always looking for help?
Her mind started spinning faster than it had in weeks. Maybe this wasn’t just a stopgap. Maybe it was a door.
Her phone buzzed again, this time the number was blocked. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
Jess looked around at the messy living room—glitter everywhere, half-eaten noodles on the coffee table, crayons stuck in the couch cushions—and felt a flicker of hope.
If her mother believed in her ability to do this, maybe that meant there was still hope for Jess to pull herself out of this hole Clark had put her in.
The thought filled her with hope, and that alone helped get her creativity flowing.
This gig didn’t pay, but it was a start, and that was all that mattered.