Chapter 31
Jamie agreed with her mother that changes were necessary.
If there was one thing every rich housewife had in common – not that Jamie saw herself as a future housewife, mind – it was some esoteric or equally broad hobby that kept them somewhat sane when dealing with the pressure.
Monique had her business and a deep love for the lifestyle she lived.
Gwenyth, if Jamie listened to the rumors, still moonlighted as a sought-after bartender at many upscale clubs and was writing a cocktail cookbook.
Back west, Nala was going to school and lived a low profile enough life to go out and do whatever she wanted.
Lara, while not a housewife by any stretch of measure, made flirting and seduction her main hobby outside of work and marriage – and had one of the biggest shoe collections anyone had ever heard of.
While I’m thinking about it… Kathleen was the farthest from being anyone’s housewife, but she had her charities that she was passionate about.
What did Jamie have? Nothing.
Okay, so she didn’t have nothing, but she didn’t have her own business, and she didn’t have some all-encompassing hobby.
Jamie didn’t count playing first-person shooters, whether in co-op or solo.
She also didn’t count playing with or grooming the cats, taking strolls through the garden and woods, or shopping.
Those were fun in short bursts once in a while, but they weren’t things that fulfilled her emotionally or spiritually.
Luna was right. Jamie had to stop clinging to her relationship and all the external drama it brought.
She would never be able to avoid being Mrs. Etta Coleman and the accompanying trappings.
Jamie would have to continue to do her best to be a model wife of a CEO when it was pertinent…
but she couldn’t let it control her. She couldn’t let it cloud her mind and turn her into someone she wasn’t.
Damnit, her mother was right! Jamie hadn’t done anything meaningful just for her in much too long.
Before, it was about survival. Her life revolved around the next job, the next paycheck so she could pay rent and have some food to eat without drooling over the cat.
When she ran herself down doing that, she turned to the video games and window shopping for quick fixes.
They were escapism. They weren’t meaningful.
Now that Jamie didn’t have to worry about work, she had to find something else to do with her life. Even though she knew she should focus on this after the wedding, she couldn’t help but think about it constantly over the next couple of days.
She was downtown on Thursday, having met with Jenny and finally choosing a baker for the cake and other goodies.
Jamie was sent home with fresh cake samples for Etta to try out later when she returned to the penthouse from work.
The woman had already texted her to announce she was having meetings all day, so there was no point in going to the office.
So Jamie put on the bravest face she could muster and went to her favorite upscale restaurant, where the staff pretended she had experienced no recent social gaffes but everyone else patronizing the place gasped at the sight of her.
“She’s bold, showing her face after what she did to Hyacinth Winston,” some old woman said, not even hiding her voice. “I heard Ms. Coleman had to pay for the cleaning…”
“The closer we get to this wedding, the more I suspect something is afoot. She must have cheated and become pregnant. I suspect an iron-clad prenup and then she’s out in another two years when Coleman finds her replacement.
Hopefully a proper woman this time. Sometimes someone of a certain age – thirty, of course – doesn’t realize she doesn’t have to settle down with the first tart who pays attention to her for more than a year.
I’m still going to the wedding, though. I’m sure it will be divine, and I want to show off the outfit I got in Paris. ”
“The audacity of her coming here… doesn’t she know the owner is a friend of Lady Winston’s grand-niece?”
Jamie walked quickly past the gossipers, but it didn’t shield her from them.
I don’t give a fuck who the owner knows.
Jamie knew the owner too. They weren’t friends, but sometimes when she was around, the owner would come out and chat with Jamie.
It pissed people off, and Jamie was starting to appreciate that.
The other regulars were there. People Jamie was never formally introduced to, thank goodness.
Yet there was one regular, Kathleen, who took up a whole table in the corner, swigging a bottle of red wine as she poured over binders and tablets full of important-looking information.
Jamie caught a glimpse of colorful graphs, charts, and printed emails covered in E-signatures.
She sat a good distance from Kathleen, but the blonde remained the one person who never once looked up to laugh at Jamie.
She was too deep in thought to care about scandals.
Jamie placed her order and flipped open a notebook she stuffed in her purse that morning.
After clicking a ballpoint pen to life she wrote down the title “THINGS I WANT TO DO” and tried to come up with a bucket list of sorts.
Except every time her pen hovered over the lined paper, her brain kept going back to what she should write and not what she wanted to write.
The only thing she could come up with by the time her lunch arrived was a list of places around the world she wanted to visit for the first time or for the umpteenth time…
with or without Etta. Could I do that? Could I make traveling the world my hobby?
Plan a trip from home one month and then go on it the next?
Jet off to Japan, South Africa, Brazil for a week…
experience foreign cultures and shopping?
Jamie knew that she could ask Etta for the money to go wherever she wanted.
She could also use the opportunity to curate collections that would at least impress the locals, even if they still didn’t like her personally.
“Jamie Coleman cordially invites you to a private viewing of her recent acquisitions.” Whatever those acquisitions were…
those country club snobs wouldn’t be able to say no.
And then plot how they were going to legally acquire those pieces from her!
That’s how I’ll make money. Reselling. Jamie laughed to herself over soup and a sandwich.
She texted Seena throughout lunch. When she mentioned her current plight to find something meaningful to do, her friend replied, “Don’t you remember what we were always told in school? When in doubt and floundering about, volunteer, asshole.”
Oh, right. Volunteering was a thing. Jamie had already forgotten that it wasn’t just about public relations.
Most of the women she knew volunteered and conducted fundraising for charities to keep up appearances with the press…
and because it was a wonderful, tax-free way to move some money around.
Jamie was already becoming too jaded, and she wasn’t married to the billionaire yet!
After she finished her lunch, she looked up.
Still sitting across from her on the other side of the restaurant was Kathleen, punching a wadded-up piece of paper into her fist and mumbling something.
She actually cares about what she does… Kathleen mostly did her charity stuff pro-bono, and not because it made her look good.
Most people knew about her temper… they let her get away with it because she was the richest woman in her own right.
Until Adele Thompson stole the title, anyway.
“She’s running herself ragged with this charity she’s trying to start up. Nobody will help her since they’re all busy with their own bullshit, or so they say.”
When Jamie suddenly put her mind to something, it was difficult to convince her that it was a terrible idea.
Granted, this was how she got herself into so many spots over the past few years.
Remember that time you decided it was a great idea to fuck Etta over?
Twice? Jamie shuddered in embarrassment, but she quickly shoved that out of her mind as she marched up to Kathleen’s table and unabashedly peered at the figures on her papers.
Wow, this is a mess. Didn’t Kathleen have a personal assistant to deal with these things?
Kathleen dropped her pen and looked at Jamie with nothing short of surprise on her face. “Can I help you?” she asked, almost sarcastically. I say almost because there’s no way to know with this woman.
“Is this for that shelter you’re trying to start up?”
“Uh… yeah. Why? You coming over to help, or are you here to distract me? I’m on a deadline. Also, I’m meeting someone in about half an hour.”
“Don’t mind me.”
“You’re sort of in my personal space. How am I not supposed to mind you?”
That cat I gave her better have done some good… this woman is more tense than a tightrope. Is that what it was like to grow up filthy rich and still somehow manage to give a fuck about things outside of oneself? Jamie would never know.
“I meant don’t feel like you have to socialize with me because I came over here.
” There were a million jokes Jamie could have taken this conversation in, but she didn’t dare.
Not in front of Kathleen, who only tentatively liked her.
Or put up with her. Whichever it was. “I had heard on the grapevine that you were struggling getting this off the ground. Do you need help?”
If Kathleen were still holding her pen, she would have dropped it. Again.
“Do you have any charity, grant, or shelter experience?” She almost sounded hopeful.