33. Being Realistic
33
BEING REALISTIC
A lmost two weeks later, Tori got a call from her mother first thing in the morning.
“Hello,” she said. “Everything okay, Mom?”
“I got fired,” her mother sobbed into the phone.
She let out a sigh and looked at her watch. She had work to get done and a meeting to prepare for, but she’d give her mother some time too. “What happened?”
“Dan broke up with me again over the weekend.”
She let out a snort. “You said nothing about it.”
Actually she was happy to have not known, but maybe if she had, she could have avoided whatever caused her mother to be terminated.
“Because it was such a shock for him to do this to me a second time.”
She wasn’t even going to ask what caused it to happen. She didn’t really care.
“Have you been missing work again?” she asked.
“I called in on Monday and Tuesday. Today when I went to call in they told me I was terminated. That I’ve exceeded the number of times I could call in without a doctor’s note. I said I’d get them one.”
“You could get a doctor’s note for this reason?” she asked.
“I would have told them I had a stomachache. I’ve been nauseous and haven’t eaten in days and when I eat, it wants to come back up. That’s not a lie.”
She wouldn’t argue that point. It’d fall on deaf ears.
“What did they say when you told them that?” she asked.
“Someone said they saw me at the store last night and that I couldn’t be that sick. That I was whining about being heartbroken to someone else.”
“Were you doing that?” she asked.
“What I do on my time is my business,” her mother argued. “They have no right to fire me.”
“They actually do,” she said. “I told you over a month ago not to miss too much work the first time Dan did this to you. I think you were already on shaky ground to begin with, right?”
She was positive there were more instances with her mother’s job than the disciplinary action over her posting on social media, but there was no way she was asking details. The less she knew, the better.
“I guess,” her mother said. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I didn’t sign my lease and now I’m not sure what to do.”
“Why didn’t you resign it?” she asked, grinding her teeth.
“Because when Dan asked me back I thought we’d end up together somewhere.”
Her face was twisting over that stupid statement and her head went back on her chair. “Guess that wasn’t smart, was it?” she said.
Lecturing did no good anymore.
“Why are you being so mean?” her mother asked.
“I’m being realistic. Can you sign it now?”
“No,” her mother said. “They took that as I wasn’t going to stay and they gave it to someone else.”
“Do they have anything else available there? Did you ask?”
“No,” her mother said. “I didn’t. It’s probably only a one bedroom and that is smaller than I’ve got.”
“It’s better than sleeping in your car, isn’t it?” There were still twenty days left in the month, so she was sure her mother could find something by then, but without a job, that might not be so easy.
“I can come live with you,” her mother said. “Now could be a good time.”
“No,” she said firmly. “Mom, I have a one-bedroom apartment and I’m not having you sleeping on my couch.”
“You’d let me be on the street?” her mother asked, whining.
“No,” she said. “But it’s not only that, I’ve got a boyfriend and I can’t deal with this right now. I might change jobs too.”
“You haven’t told me any of those things,” her mother said. “Why?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Because every time we talk you spend the whole time talking about yourself and you never ask about me. I was going to tell you about Hyde on Thanksgiving, but the entire ten minutes we talked was all about you being back with Dan and then he got there and you hung up on me.”
“I’m sorry,” her mother said, sobbing into the phone. “You’re always there for me and I take it for granted.”
“You do,” she said.
“You don’t have to agree with me now when I’m at rock bottom. What am I going to do?”
Tori balled her hand into a fist, her nails biting into her palm. “I’m going to call and see if there is anything available there you can move into. Since you’re a tenant already and they have your deposit, with any luck they will allow you to switch over and not worry about checking any job references.”
“I guess I can do that,” her mother said.
“You can, but you’re liable to give them a sob story about what is going on in your life and then they might not let you sign another lease. Do you want to take that chance?”
There was silence on the other line. “No.”
“Give me the number to the place there, please?”
“I don’t know it,” her mother said.
“You can’t look it up? Never mind, I’ll do it on my computer right now.” Thankfully she remembered the name of the place her mother lived at, found the number, and then said, “I’ve got it. I’m going to call for you now.”
“Thank you, Tori. I owe you so much.”
She didn’t answer and just hung up.
“Hi,” she said when the apartment complex answered. “My name is Tori Miller and my mother Emily Miller currently resides in one of the two-bedroom apartments.”
“Yes,” the woman said. “She didn’t renew her lease.”
“She didn’t,” Tori said. “But her plans fell through and I was wondering if there are any one-bedroom apartments open? It’d be so much easier if she could just stay there since she likes the area and the location. She doesn’t need a two bedroom.”
“Hang on and let me check,” the woman said. She sat there watching the clock on her computer and had to send off an email to the staff she was going to be meeting to push it forward an hour. She wanted this taken care of as quickly as possible. “We have one apartment opening the first of the year for a one-bedroom.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Can she just sign a lease on that? Would her deposit on the other apartment slide over to that lease?”
“Sure,” the woman said. “Your mother has been here a few years and makes her payment on time. We can allow that, but she needs to come in today to sign it.”
“She’ll be there soon,” she said. “I promise. Can you tell me the rent amount?” She waited while someone was clicking on the keyboard, then she was told. “Wonderful, that’s even less. She’ll be thrilled. Thank you so much.”
She hung up and called her mother back, when it went to voicemail she wanted to scream.
Rather than leave a message, she texted for her mother to call her back immediately.
It was ten minutes before her mother returned the call.
“Sorry,” her mother said. “I was on the phone with Marjorie. She’s always been a good ear.”
She didn’t bother to ask who that was because she didn’t care. “Go to the main office and sign a new lease. They’ve got a one-bedroom opening the first of the year. You can move in then. My guess is there might be a few days overlap they can work with you to do that.”
“How am I supposed to get my stuff there?” her mother asked.
“Figure it out, Mom. This place is four hundred less a month than what you were paying. That works for you. It’s smaller so less space to clean on top of it. You were complaining about your new neighbors so you won’t have that problem either.”
“I guess it sounds like it’s all working out then,” her mother said. “Are you sure I can’t move in with you?”
“No,” she said. “You can’t.”
“Can you tell me about this guy you’re dating and your new job?” her mother asked.
Since her mother never asked, she’d volunteer a few things. “His name is Hyde Person. He’s an engineer and works with Raina on the fourth floor of my building.”
“That’s great,” her mother said. “But if you are thinking of changing jobs then you won’t see him anymore and he might not like that.”
“Mom,” she growled. “You’re the last person to give me dating advice. I don’t need to be around a man every waking moment like you.”
“Don’t bite my head off,” her mother snapped. “What has come over you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “Maybe it’s the fact that I had to put off a meeting with my staff just now to clean up another one of your messes. When are you going to take responsibility for your actions?”
“I don’t need you talking to me like this,” her mother said, sniffling.
“Sorry,” she said. “Reality tends to bite. I know. And I’ve got to get back to work. Maybe you should try to find a job now too. After you go sign your lease. And don’t forget it. If you don’t get this place, you will be sleeping in your car or a friend’s place. But you’ll have to figure that out on your own.”
She hung up after that and felt sick to her stomach that she lost her cool when she never did before with her mother.
Tori could still make her meeting but since she’d asked her staff to give her an hour because something came up, she did something she hadn’t done before.
She texted Hyde that she was having an awful morning and if he could talk.
He replied quickly asking where she wanted to meet.
Since she was feeling emotional, she said her car was in the parking lot.
She grabbed her purse and jacket and walked to the front desk. “I’ll be right back. I need to go out to my car for something.”
By the time she was in the parking lot, Hyde was calling her name and she turned to see him come jogging over to her. No jacket on. Nothing. It’s like he ran out the door to get her.
Just seeing that had her bursting into tears when she cried over very little.
“Hey,” he said. “Let’s get in your car and you can tell me what is going on.”
“I’m so sorry that I’m bothering you right now.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “What’s going on?”
She unlocked her car and they got in. “My mother again. And I pretty much told her off.”
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
He listened while she explained it all. “I’ve never talked to her like that before. I think I just had enough. I don’t even know if she’s going to sign the lease and I don’t care. She can’t come live here with me. I can’t do it. I can barely do it from states away.”
“You probably don’t want to hear this,” he said, “but I think you did the right thing even if it feels like shit.”
“It totally feels like shit. She even asked me about you and then made some stupid comment about us not being in the same building and you getting mad if I took a new job. It set me off. But what did I do? Call you to come talk to me.”
“And I would have been annoyed if you didn’t,” he said. “We talked about this, remember?”
“We did,” she said. “And I hate that I’m crying like this. I never do.”
“And look at that,” he said. “You never cry and you say you never lose it with your mother, but you did. So it’s not just me bringing it out of you. Do you know how good that makes me feel?”
She laughed when his words registered and made sense. Then she was laughing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath.
“Maybe like you, this is me all along just locked up. That I’m not changing, but going back to the way I should or want to be.”
“There you go,” he said. “And since I’m here with you because you called me, I don’t care what explanation you put on it.”