Shoe Addicts Anonymous (11 page)

Joss was taken aback. “Gosh, Mrs. Bradley, that’s flattering, but with everything I’m doing here, it just wouldn’t be possible for me to fit another job in.”

“You wouldn’t be working
here
anymore—”

The words were like the angels singing.

“—you’d just work for us. You could have whatever two days off you wanted every week, though I’d prefer you took the weekends off—”

The
weekends off
! Joss might actually be able to have a social life!

“—plus, of course you’d have your own car, and your suite at the house—”

Suite!

“—has a private entrance and full bath.” She stopped talking and looked at Joss expectantly. It was like the quiet between
One!
and
Happy New Year!

“Thank you so much for the offer, Mrs. Bradley.” This was painful. “But I can’t leave the Olivers. My contract is for a year, and that’s not up until next June.”

Lois looked at her as if she’d just said she preferred squirrel over filet mignon. “Are you saying you prefer to work for the Olivers?”

Lord no, Joss wanted to say, but she knew she couldn’t be quite that honest about her employers. “Well, I have a contract,” Joss said evasively. “I’m committed through June.”

“And there’s no way I can persuade you to leave it?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Not for the first time, Joss wished to heaven she’d never signed that document, but it was thorough and included a no-compete clause, meaning she couldn’t work for anyone within fifty miles of Chevy Chase for the next year.

Lois’s expression was a mixture of disappointment and irritation, but there was also a small shine of admiration in her eyes. “I wish I’d gotten a hold of you first,” she said, a bit wistfully. “Please at least
think
about it, would you?”

It was foreign to Joss, this apparent longing for her. Even Joey McAllister hadn’t looked at her with this kind of desire, and she’d gone out with him for
two years
. She’d never even
heard
the term
blue balls,
or learned of the condition’s supposed ill health effects, until Joey had pleaded with her for sex in the backseat of his 1985 Chevy Impala, and even he hadn’t looked at her with such intense interest.

That was just sad.

“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Bradley.”

Lois Bradley reached into the little purse she had slung over her shoulder and handed her a card. “That’s my home phone number and e-mail address,” she said. “If you reconsider, or even if you just want to talk about the possibilities,
please
contact me. I’ll be very discreet.”

“I really don’t think I should—” Joss tried to hand the card back, but Lois closed her fingers over it.

“Shhh. Keep it. Just in case.”

Rather than argue, Joss decided it was best just to keep the card and dispose of it later so as not to embarrass anyone. “I appreciate your interest, Mrs. Bradley,” she said, sounding like an operator who was trying to sell a magazine subscription or something. “Thank you.”

Lois left, as stealthily as she’d come in, gesturing as she went for Joss to put the card into her pocket.

After she’d gone, and Joss was still staring after the door, Carrie came over to her. “Was she trying to nanny-nap you?”

Joss turned to her. “What?”

“That woman. She wanted to steal you and have you come work for her, right?”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, honey,” Stella said, coming over to join them with three glasses of Mrs. Oliver’s champagne in her hands. “We see it
all
the time. More business connections are made at these little rich-folk get-togethers than you could imagine.”

“So what did you say?” Carrie asked.

“I told her I had a contract with the Olivers.” Joss sighed, taking the glass that Stella had offered. She’d never tried champagne, but she’d always wanted to. “It’s too bad, because she seemed so nice.”

“They
all
seem nice when they want you,” Carrie said, and Stella nodded her agreement. “All that changes once they have you. The nannies are always prettier on the other side of the fence.”

In the distance, though as loud as if it were in the next room, Joss heard a shriek of laughter.

Colin!

She knew—she just
knew
—Deena had heard it, too, and she was probably on her way upstairs to reprimand Joss right now for letting the boys be so loud.

“I’ve gotta run,” Joss said, setting the glass down untouched. There was no time to regret lost alcohol opportunities now, though. “Thanks, ladies, you’ve been real nice.”

“Good luck, honey,” Stella called as Joss hurried from the room.

“What are you two
doing
?” Joss demanded when she found the boys in front of the computer in her room.

Two faces, illuminated by the dull greenish-white glow of the computer screen, turned to her in surprise.

“Nothing,” Colin said, instantly belligerent.

“Yeah, nothing,” Bart added, not helping his brother’s case one iota.

“Okay, guys, move over.” Joss didn’t wait for a response, but pushed between them to get to the computer screen before they exited out of whatever godforsaken Web site they’d wandered onto.

“What the heck is Gregslist?” she asked, more to herself than the boys, as they clearly weren’t going to give a straight answer.

“I was, uh, just looking for used dirt bikes for sale,” Colin sputtered. “My mom thinks you’re stupid, you know.”

“You must, too,” Joss responded, looking closer at the list on the computer screen. “Unless the dirt bike you wanted was a blonde with blue eyes and—” She looked closer. “—a passion for stargazing.”

Colin looked at her slack-jawed. “Huh?”

She turned her gaze to Bart. “Was it you or Colin that wrote back to this
dirt bike
saying,” she read,
“‘I like your tits. Meet me at Babes Friday at seven’?”
Joss turned her attention back to Colin. “That sounds like a
very
interesting dirt bike.”

“Don’t tell our mom,” Bart said impulsively. He was always the first to break in these situations.

Colin flashed his brother a silencing look, then said to Joss, “Yeah, she’d be really mad at you for letting us on your computer, so you better not tell.”

“You know darn well I didn’t
let
you on this computer,” Joss said. “You were supposed to be in bed. And unless I miss my guess, your mom is probably on her way up here to find out why you’re being so loud right now.” She stopped and listened for what she honestly thought would be footsteps on the stairs, but heard nothing. Still she said, “I think I hear her now.”

Colin looked like he’d seen a ghost. “I’m outta here!” Leaving his brother behind, he dashed back to his bedroom.

Bart stayed still, apparently frozen with fear. “You’re not gonna tell her, are you?”

Joss’s anger relaxed a little. Poor Bart was more a victim of his brother’s bad behavior than anyone. Bart was
always
the one who got caught during the getaway.

“Not this time,” Joss said, more gently. “But you have to go to bed.”

“Will you read to me?” He glanced reflexively toward the door, clearly hoping his brother wasn’t there to taunt him for his request.

“Sure.” Joss smiled. These kids needed so much—if she could help them even a
little
bit, it was worth trying. Ever since she’d found a black snake tied to her bedframe with kitchen string, she’d been pretty sure it was too late for Colin, but she thought Bart still had a chance. “Let’s go.”

She took him to his bedroom, where he picked a picture book called
A Day with Wilbur Robinson
from his shelf. It was a children’s book, probably a little young for him, but Joss figured the significance of his choice shouldn’t be overridden.

So she read.

Bart fell asleep before she finished the book the second time, and Joss pulled his sheet up over his shoulders, the way he liked, and put the book away before turning off the lights and leaving his room with a real feeling of freedom for the first time that day.

She went back to the computer and checked her e-mail. There was one from her mom, chatting about her dad’s new project: a 1965 Mustang he was fixing up so they could drive across the country.

There was also one from Robbie Blair, the guy she’d dated since senior year of high school. Joss had broken up with him last Christmas, but he still wanted to get back together with her. She read his note with a combination of dread and melancholy.

Joss sighed. Robbie was a nice guy, so her feeling of overwhelming horror at the very idea of going back to Felling and becoming Mrs. Blair felt really mean. But Robbie didn’t want anything more than to be a plumber in Felling, with a nice little wife and a couple of kids, and to watch TV with a beer in hand every night and all day on the weekends. There wasn’t anything wrong with that plan, but it wasn’t what Joss wanted.

What Joss wanted was to travel the world, to see things that she’d seen only in the out-of-date books in the Felling public school system. She wanted to have her own business, and to make a difference in the world she would explore.

Being Mrs. Robbie Blair was so much like death in her mind that it made her stomach hurt for him even to suggest it like it was possible. She shut down the e-mail program and was about to turn off the computer when she noticed the Gregslist window was still up from the boys’ little adventure. It seemed to be a virtual classified Web site full of local D.C. events.

This could turn out to be lucky.

She went to the search bar and typed in “Sunday meetings support groups” and pulled up a long list of hits.

This was
great!

But when she browsed through the list, she saw that most of them were either religious groups or substance abuse groups. Joss was neither religious nor a substance user—heck, she hadn’t even been able to try her first sip of champagne tonight!—and she was pretty sure that joining in with either group would be catastrophic.

There was, however, a ski club that met in Dupont Circle at 3
P.M.
on Sundays. With the Metro ride down and back alone, Joss could kill a couple of hours. And it wasn’t like the group would be skiing anytime soon. After all, it was summer and still hot as blazes.

She clicked the link and gave her e-mail address for more information.

Then she typed the same information in for Tuesday nights. It was the usual assortment of sports groups—volleyball, badminton, softball, and bowling. There was also a grief group at the Episcopal church right down the road, but Joss had already tried one of those, and it was a lot more depressing than dealing with Deena Oliver.

So she continued to click until she saw the weirdest, most quirky ad she’d run into yet.

Shoe Addicts Anonymous.

She read the ad with interest. The fact that her feet were six and a half might be a problem, but the likelihood that this was a bunch of women who would sit around talking about something other than depressing stuff was great.

Therefore, Joss would make sure the shoe size wasn’t a problem. There were vintage shops all over the place where she could find good shoes in the right size for not too much money. All it would take was a little research, and a little legwork.

Fortunately, taking time for both would be time spent away from the Oliver house so, with that criterion alone, it was perfect.

M
s. Rafferty, this is Holden Bennington from Montgomery

Federal Savings and Loan. Again. There is a confidential matter that I need to discuss with you as soon as possible. If you could call me at 202-555-2056 as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it.”

“I don’t think so,” Lorna said lightly to the answering machine before pushing
DELETE
. Holden Bennington was
always
calling her when her balance was getting low and he thought she might have checks or charges coming in that would bounce. Granted, it
seemed
like a nice thing for the bank’s assistant manager to take the time to do, but Lorna was convinced that he was simply angling for a raise by taking on the Big Debt Girl as his pet project.

She’d met him a couple of times at the bank, and he struck her as a real prig. He was probably in his late twenties but had an air of seriousness about him that made him seem older. Although…his face was actually sort of handsome, and it looked like he might have a decent build under those stiff Brooks Brothers suits, but who could possibly tell for sure?

Lorna could totally picture him forty years from now, still looking and sounding very much the same, wagging his finger at every customer who had the misfortune to dip a tiny bit lower than they should in their account.

Like it really cost the bank so much as a dime when a person bounced a check.

The phone rang.

Lorna, who had always had a weakness for a ringing phone, answered it immediately, and to her regret.

“Ms. Rafferty, I’m glad I caught you.”

It was, of course, Holden Bennington of Montgomery Federal Savings and Loan.

Caught, indeed. “I’m sorry?” Lorna asked, still unsure whether she was going to play this like it was a wrong number, or like she was a friend answering the phone while she, Lorna, was out—or if she’d bite the bullet and take the call for herself.

“This is Holden Bennington from Montgomery Federal Savings and Loan in Bethesda.”

In one of the stupider impulses she’d had since seventh grade, she decided to play it as a friend. “Oh, sorry, you must mean Lorna.” In her attempt to do a false voice, she ended up with an accent that sounded between Britain and New Jersey.

There was a long silence.

“You’re not really going to try to fool me with a bad accent, are you?” Holden asked.

Lorna’s face burned, but she persisted. “Sorry?” The less said, the better. She pulled her shirt up over the mouthpiece the way people did on TV when they wanted to disguise their voices.

But then she didn’t say anything else, so she stood there like an idiot with her shirt yanked up and over the phone, waiting for Holden Bennington to make the next chess move.

“Ms. Rafferty, come on. I’ve heard your outgoing answering machine message enough to know every inflection of your voice.” Brief silence. “You’re not fooling me.”

“She’s not here,” Lorna said to her shirt. “Can I take a message for her?”

Another long pause.

“Yes, if you could tell
Miss Rafferty
that the manager of her bank called—”

Lorna resisted the urge to point out he was the
assistant
manager.

“—and tell her to call me back as soon as possible, I might
perhaps
be able to save her quite a lot of money in returned check fees.”

“Really.”

“Yes. So you can tell your, uh,
friend
Ms. Rafferty that if she doesn’t come in and get this straightened out, I’m going to return the checks
and
assess her the thirty-five-dollar charge that everyone else has to pay under the same circumstances.”

Lorna knew she should cut her considerable losses and hang up then, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Isn’t that confidential business? You probably shouldn’t be leaving it in a message with someone other than the account holder.”

“Under any other circumstances I wouldn’t,” he assured her, then hung up without so much as a good-bye.

Jerk.

She closed her eyes hard, thinking. He was on to her. Of course. He’d have to be a moron to not be on to her. How stupid was she, putting on a fake accent like a big old pair of size 12 Uggs, and hoping he wouldn’t notice? Jeez, she
deserved
the bounced check fees.

Except she really, really couldn’t afford them.

“I’ll give her the message,” Lorna said sarcastically to herself, sounding to her own ear like Dick Van Dyke in
Mary Poppins
. Good thing he was no longer on the line.

She hung up the phone, thought for a fraction of a second, then did what she knew she needed to do.

She hurried to the bank.

About seven minutes later, she stopped outside the doors of Montgomery Federal, catching her breath for a moment before ambling in as if casually coming by to see what Holden Bennington had wanted.

She expected to see him immediately upon entering, so when she didn’t, she was taken aback. She was even more surprised when someone tapped her on the back of the shoulder.

“Ms. Rafferty?”

She whirled to face him. “Mr. Bennington.”

“That was fast.”

Her cheeks warmed. “What was?”

He held her gaze for one knowing second before saying, “Can you come back to my office so we can talk?”

She followed him through the paper-and-ink-scented lobby. No place had bubbled up so much anxiety in her since she’d walked the halls of Cabin John Junior High fifteen years ago. Not wanting to let on that anxiety, though, she said airily, “When I picked up my messages a few minutes ago, I heard that you’d called, so I thought I’d stop by since I was in the neighborhood.”

“You live in the neighborhood, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “It’s about a te—a fifteen-minute walk. Or so.”

“I’ll bet you could run it faster.” He looked like he was suppressing a smile.

Now, if she hadn’t just spoken to him, she would probably ask what the hell he was getting at. Then again, if she hadn’t just spoken with him and didn’t
know
exactly what the hell he was getting at, she might not think anything of what he was saying at all. She might have just thought it was small talk.

She decided to take that tack.

“I’m not much for running,” she said, gesturing vaguely at hips that were a little too curvaceous to belong to someone who exercised regularly. Of course, the slight breathlessness she was still feeling from running four blocks to the bank was also ample evidence of that.

“I don’t know, you look like you could get someplace fast if you wanted to,” Holden said, still looking like he was suppressing amusement.

That irked Lorna. “I don’t have a lot of time, Mr. Bennington, so if you could tell me why you called—”

“Let’s go to my office,” he said again. “This is a private matter.”

She followed him to an office so narrow that when he opened the door, it extended halfway into the room. Lorna struggled to get around it and sit in the chrome-and-mahogany-fabric chair before the desk, while Holden, much more lithe than she, maneuvered himself into his chair in what seemed like one smooth move.

“So what is this all about?” Lorna asked.

“Let me pull up your account.” He began typing on his keyboard, staring intently at the computer monitor.

Lorna waited in silence, like a teenager waiting for the principal to pull up records of a bad report card.

“Here we go. Check number eight seven one two came in yesterday in the amount of three hundred seventy-six dollars and ninety-five cents.”

“Well, okay, but I also deposited a check for four hundred and fifty something.”

“That’s not from our bank.”

Lorna looked at him in surprise. “So what?”

“So it will take two days to clear.”

“Other banks’ money isn’t good enough for you?”

“Because we can’t verify the funds on site, we have to wait from clearance from the other bank.” He leaned back and looked Lorna over like a painting he’d decided not to buy. “Surely this concept isn’t new to you.”

“I know you hold out-of-town checks,” Lorna said evenly. “But that bank is half a block away. You couldn’t park your car closer to this place than that bank. In fact, you probably
pass
it regularly on the way to the parking lot.”

“That’s not the point,” Holden said.

Actually, make that
Holden Bennington III said,
because Lorna’s eyes had fallen on the name plate on his desk and decided, in an instant, that he could never possibly understand what it was not to have enough money.

“But
you know
the bank is right there. You
know
you could verify the funds, or whatever, instantly. In fact, I think I’ve heard that these days funds
are
verified instantly because everything’s done electronically.” She was working herself up. “In fact, this whole notion of hanging on to a check for days comes from, like, the pony express days.”

“But those are the rules,” Holden said, looking for a fraction of an instant as if he might actually agree with something of what Lorna had said. “You agreed to them in writing when you opened your account.”

“Which was, by the way, fifteen years ago.”

Holden bowed his head in agreement. “You are a longtime customer. That’s why we try to take special care of you.”

“Huh,” Lorna said, looking into blue eyes that weren’t altogether displeasing. If she were a few years younger, that was.

And if he were a few ratchets less anal about
her
money.

“But we cannot continue to cover for you when you don’t do your part,” he went on.

“When I don’t do my part,” she repeated, disbelieving. The guy was, what, seven, eight, maybe nine years younger than she was, but he was accusing her of
not doing her part,
like he was a science teacher reprimanding her for letting Kevin Singer do all the dissecting of their frog in seventh grade.

“Exactly.” Holden smiled insincerely, showing two nice rows of even white teeth, and some creases—
almost
dimples but not quite so pert—that Lorna hadn’t noticed before.

All at once, Lorna knew there was no fighting this. The guy was too good at parental-style disapproval. There was no way in the world she could charm him into bending the bank rules.

“Okay, okay, I get what you’re saying,” Lorna acknowledged. “I do. But just this once, can you clear the check? I mean, come on.” She gave what she hoped sounded like a very laissez-faire laugh. “The check in question is from Jico. They’ve got a reputation in this town. You don’t seriously think it’s going to bounce.”

“No way to know.” He was lying. He had to be.

Lorna sighed. “Then can you just give it a day. Just a
day
? I’m sure it will have cleared by then.”

Holden gave a noncommittal nod, then said, “But the problem is, there are these other three checks.” Again with the clicking on his keyboard. In a room as tiny as this one, that clicking was disturbingly loud.

Lorna shrank a little inside. Three more checks? For what? She racked her brain. Usually she used a credit card—she knew because she felt so damn guilty afterwards each time—so where could she possibly have written three more checks in the past week?

Macy’s. That was one.
But
that had been to pay off the remaining forty bucks on her Macy’s charge, so that was certainly…well, if not
noble
exactly, it was at least
worthwhile
.

And…where? Oh, yeah, the grocery store. Literally two dollars and ten cents. Literally. She’d gotten a quart of milk and some gum.

But she couldn’t remember another check.

“…this one for two dollars and ten cents will end up costing you thirty-seven ten,” Holden was saying. Then he turned those blue eyes on her and said, “Can’t you see that’s ridiculous?”

“Can’t
I
see that’s ridiculous?” Was he
joking
? “Yes,
I
can. Of course
I
can. A child of three could see that’s ridiculous. The question is, why do you do that to us?”

“Those are just the terms—”

“Stop blaming everything on some stupid terms I agreed to a thousand years ago.” She heard herself, felt appropriately embarrassed, and pulled some of the hysteria out of her tone. “You know darn well those papers contain a million words a page in negative ten point Ariel sans readability font.”

He gave another quick bow of the head, a gesture she was quickly coming to recognize as his acknowledgment that the bank was totally out to screw its customers. “I can’t change the rules.”

“And I can’t change the facts,” she said, waving an arm in the direction of his computer. “You can see my situation. I don’t want to pay a bunch of overdraft fees, and I don’t want you to send my checks back, so what can I do? Did you call me here just to shame me?”

Holden Bennington III looked genuinely surprised, then hurt, by this accusation. “I’m trying to
help
you.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, and meant it even though it sounded completely sarcastic, even to her own ear. “No, really. I do.”

“Can you just promise me that you’ll make sure you have the funds in your account
before
writing checks from now on?” he asked. All at once he looked like a tenth-grader playing a weary dad in a high school play.

But it touched her anyway. He cared. He actually
was
trying to help her. And she’d just been a snarky bitch to him.

“I will,” she vowed. “I promise.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about Phil Carson, but that would have been going too far. She didn’t need to trot her problems out like dolls at show and tell, especially since she hadn’t had enough time to prove she could stick to the program. No, it was better just to let it go at this and be grateful he was going to waive the bounced check fees this time.