Harper's Rules (17 page)

“No, Donny, it was me. All I could think of then was what children would cost me. How would I be able to still be the top producer in the company? I didn't think I could handle the costs.”

“I understand,” he said.

“No, listen. What I wish someone had told me is that when they are your kids, you don't want to do the things you used to do. I'm so sorry I made you wait, Donny.”

“When did you figure this out?” he asked.

“I can pinpoint the moment. When Sheila woke up and wouldn't eat breakfast until we went out and got the mail. We started walking up the driveway, and she reached out and took my hand. And the way her tiny little hand felt, it was only a hundred feet to the mailbox, I don't know, it just hit me. There was no way the day was going to get any better than this.”

Donald politely waited until I had stopped crying, told me he had to go, and said he was glad that I had called.

“And Casey,” he added, “it's not too late for you. Whenever you are ready, you will be an incredible mother.”

How about that? After all that's happened, Donald is still willing to be my reference.

My cell buzzed; it was Harper. I was feeling so cleansed by my confession to Donald that even Harper couldn't ruin my mood.

“Harper, before you start in on me—you have never been divorced or unemployed. So you don't know how liberating it can feel, how nice it can be to not be a part of anything. It's a shame you will never know this simple and sweet feeling. I feel sort of sorry for you.”

There was a dead pause. I thought we had lost the signal.

“I called Wallace Avery and told him exactly what you told me to tell him,” he said, finally. “Now it's my turn, young lady. I need to know from here on out that you are going to do exactly what I tell you to do until you are drawing a paycheck.”

“You are such a buzz-kill, Harper. Deal. Was Avery furious?”

“Oh yeah, but not at you. Turns out your old boss T. J. and Wallace are tight. So Wallace is furious at Doria and at me, for not knowing the story. You he loves. The blind loyalty, the principled stand, the rising above the mean-spiritedness—he was impressed.”

“What about you, Harper? Were you impressed?”

“I thought you were being foolish and stubborn. Anyway, game on with InterAnnex. Wallace wants to set up a final interview, but he needs a couple of weeks so he can get to the Pacific Rim and set up some supply channels. That gives us a chance to send you out on more interviews.”

“Harper, if Wallace wants to hire me, I don't want . . . okay, right, whatever you say. I'm in, boss.”

“Good. And . . . I am aware of what feeling liberated is like.”

Was he finally going to talk to me? Earlier the day before, when I told myself I would check
Indeed.com
for job postings, I went to Harper's website and found pics in the “About Us” section: the principals and their wives dancing, a group photo of all the attendees. Harper stood alone in every picture.

“You know when I feel liberated?” he said. “You land at the airport after a business trip. You take the valet shuttle to your car, and that's the moment. It is thrilling to be back in your car. You realize you love your car, and even though you are just minutes away from having been in a plane going 600 mph, it is now that you feel fast and loose and free.

“But it doesn't last long. And before you know it, you're home, and the feeling's gone.” His voice was distant, muted, and sad.

CHAPTER TEN

I knew I was supposed to keep expenses down to the absolute essentials, but I decided my massage therapist qualified.

“So how are things, chica?” Lucy asked. “Same old same old?”

“Things are good,” I said, and it surprised me to realize that I wasn't lying. I have always had a built-in survival mechanism. I expect the worst possible outcome. Always. So when I get a punch to the solar plexus from life, it not only doesn't throw me, but I can legitimately say to myself, “Is that the worst of it? Is that all you got? That's not so bad.”

And as Lucy did her magic, I took stock. My final interview with InterAnnex was back on; I still had a couple of months of severance; and since our showdown at the gym, Peter and I had gone out twice, and it was great. The second date was a totally safe daytripper. I went to his softball league playoff game and played the role of cool chick. I wore their team cap on backward, cheered loudly, and when a foul ball came into the stands, I caught it and threw it back to the umpire with confidence and skill. A couple of nights later, trying to show some range, Peter took me to a lecture series about the changing technological world order by
New York Times
guru Thomas Friedman. Peter was lost, but I so appreciated the sweet gesture. He had clients at 5
A.M.
the next morning, so we brought separate cars, and other than a very well executed good night kiss, it was a pretty old-fashioned date. We both knew our next date meant we were about to cross over into intimacy. I couldn't wait.

In the waiting room was my entrepreneurial hero, Sophie Dunham, the owner of Drive-by Pet Sitting. She was a one-woman show. For fourteen dollars she would come to your house, feed your cat or dog, walk them or change a litter box, play with them
with a wide variety of cool toys she brought with her, and leave you a report card evaluating the visit. She graded them for things like “fuzziness,” “quality of tail thumping,” and “enthusiasm for yarn.” Sophie knew intuitively that people like me considered our pets our kids, and I often would sit Starbucks down when Donald and I would return from a weekend away and say gravely, “You couldn't have been a little fuzzier?” Sophie's husband had been transferred to Topeka, and although she made a very good living with Drive-by Pet Sitting, she could do it anywhere.

“Know anybody who wants to buy my business?” she said when I saw her. “Flex hours, you play with pets all day, and last year I made 125K.”

I told Sophie I would think about it, gave her a hug and wished her well on her move to what she referred to as “godforsaken Topeka,” and by the time I got to my car, I already envisioned my new life. I have always preferred animals to people; I prefer their company, their attitude, and their worldview. They are happy unless given a reason to feel bad. People are just the opposite.

Even I could live on 125K if I wasn't buying clothes and competing in the world of enterprise sales. This was my chance to take my life in a totally different direction! Where was it written that I had to stay on the same path? I was scrolling for Sophie's number in my Blackberry when I noticed two voice mails, Harper and an unknown number.

“Harper,” I began, with no pretense of a greeting, “I'm sorry to do this to you, but I owe it to you to be totally upfront. I have decided to go into business for myself.”

“No you haven't,” he said, sounding almost bored.

“I haven't?”

“Three words. Bed and breakfast.”

Damn. The last time Harper placed me I called him from a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire. I was on the wraparound front porch looking at an incredible view of the White Mountains. It was autumn, peak colors, I saw the
FOR SALE
sign, and called Harper to tell him I was buying the place.

“You don't want to own a bed and breakfast,” he said. “You want to live in one.”

He was right, and I knew it.

“So why did you call, Harper? I mean, besides to quash my dreams?”

“I have two other companies that need a senior sales rep in the Northeast, and they both want to talk to you. I'm having Leena send you the job descriptions. We'll get you in front of both of them before you go back to meet Wallace.”

“I have to return another call, Harper.” And I hung up. Quash my dreams, deal a deathblow to Park and Bark or whatever, and feel my wrath. I did have the unknown voice mail—at least I wasn't lying.

The voice wasn't familiar. He spoke quickly in the practiced, high-intensity inflection of the professional salesperson.

“Hi, Casey, it's Jamie Post. I have no idea if you remember me or our conversation. Anyway I don't want to get into this in voice mail; I will send you an email. But I'll take the mystery out of this for you. Bottom line, the word is out that you are available, and I wanted to talk to you about that. So call me or respond to my email. Thanks. Hope you're well. Jamie Post—555-334-4309.”

Jamie Post? I'm great with faces, but names—not so much. I had to assume this was Harper's viral marketing paying off. I had put my obligatory posting on Facebook, done a mass email blast to all my contacts on LinkedIn, and had left a message or sent résumés to every VP of sales I knew or almost knew, using the scripted verbiage Harper had supplied. Guess this guy Post has something for me. I was about to Google him before I returned his call, but his promised email showed up in my Blackberry just as I was logging into my browser. At least he followed up. I respect that in any salesperson.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Remains to be seen!

Hi Casey,

I just left you a voice mail. You are young, and the young answer their email and text long before they check their voice mails. My daughter (don't pretend you recall), a 15-year-old force of nature, tells me to stop wasting my time leaving her voice mails. If I want to talk to her, text her. (“Really, Dad, dial in, enter a code, listen to a playback? Life is too short for voice mail.”) So . . . okay, there is no segue that is not impossibly awkward here. I am the guy who you chatted with five years ago on the train from Norwalk to Grand Central. I hear through the grapevine, (There I go dating myself. I'm supposed to say “network.” Well give me credit, I just stopped saying “rolodex.”) that you are divorced. I was when we chatted and still am. I wondered if you'd consider having dinner with me this week sometime. Pick a day, I am all too available.

Warm Regards,

Jamie

PS . . . The guy on the train with the chalk-stripe suit and the umbrella trying desperately to get your attention away from the
Times
. Damn Maureen Dowd.

Jamie Post! I had a married woman's crush on him; I knew our relationship would end when the doors of the train opened at Grand Central. He was late thirties to early forties then, but already lots of silver in the thick wavy hair he would clearly never lose.
His eyes kept darting over to me, waiting for me to put the paper down and give him a way in.

“Maureen Dowd, right?” he said after I chuckled out loud. “The piece on Bush channeling Brad Pitt in
Troy
?”

I nodded.

“She's cheerful, yet vicious. Kind of hot, too.”

“I'm pretty sure she's single.”

“She'd eat me alive.”

“Not many men would admit that.”

“Oh, I still have illusions. Maureen Dowd just isn't one of them. Actually that piece kind of made me sad. It's about our obsession with celebrity, right? When I was a little kid, Elvis died, and my dad cried. When I was a teenager John Lennon goes down, and my older brother flipped out. When my turn came with Kurt Cobain, I didn't feel anything but that he had made a stupid choice.”

Okay, maybe this was his standard procedure for hitting on women in trains, but if it was, it worked. I was caught up.

“Don't you think that's a good thing,” I asked, “that you care more about the people who are actually in your life?”

“I'm not sure. It makes me wonder if I'm just too hollow. You look like you're my ex-wife's age—”

Adroit. A nice touch . . .

“—Crying jags over Princess Diana? Calling in sick so you could watch the funeral?”

“No, I'm more like you. I felt terrible for the children, but to me the saddest thing was giving Elton John an excuse to plug another name into ‘Goodbye Norma Jean.'”

“We could form a club!” he said when he stopped laughing. “We'll meet every time a celebrity dies and toast to the unknown loved ones we care nothing about.”

“Sorry,” I said. “No can do.”

“Because of that ring on your finger?”

“Well that, and I don't qualify. JFK, Jr.? I was a basket case. He and I were going to end up together.”

He laughed again, and his eyes made me wish Grand Central were farther away. “I'm Jamie Post, by the way.”

An hour after I got Jamie's messages, I was sharing a smoothie with Hannah at the juice bar of the health food store less than two blocks from the gym. Even being this close to Peter and discussing another man made me feel awful, but since I called the emergency meeting, I had to let Hannah pick the place. She
had
to have a smoothie.

“So,” she began, “Jamie Post would fall into Category One.”

“He would?”

“The ones that got away. You regret it, you romanticize them out of proportion to what they were, you look them up online and stalk from afar. It's why I'm on Facebook. Go out with the guy.”

“Hannah, I am dating Peter.”

“A couple of times! There's been no sex.”

“Sex is looming.”

“Now you sound like Ben, then I come back from brushing my teeth and you're snoring.”

“You're saying I go out with Jamie?”

“How can you not? You talked about that damn train ride for months.”

“I did? I guess I did. What about Peter?”

“How do you know he's not seeing other people?”

“He would tell me.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Okay, then tell him the truth. This guy resurfaced, you have feelings, you need to play this out, you don't have a commitment with Peter, you are being upfront and you hope he can appreciate it.”

“Is that what you would do?”

“Honey, I would have slept with him on the train.”