Janet surveyed her reflection in the closet door mirror. The hour of Lisa’s party was approaching. For as long as the two of them had been friends, Lisa had always had the spotlight. Not that Janet had any ambitions to outshine Lisa tonight. Even if she could, she would not want to, Lisa’s engagement being the reason for the festivities and all, but neither did she want to be fading into the background.
“Hurry up, Janie, we don’t want to be late!” Janet heard her mother’s voice in the hallway.
A few moments later, Christine Maple appeared in the doorway. “Almost ready?”
Janet nodded. “What do you think?”
Christine walked into the room. “Classy, yet sexy,” she proclaimed her assessment of Janet’s figure-fitting black cocktail dress, navy pumps and matching clutch. “Oh, this is so exciting! I can’t believe that Lisa is engaged. I still remember when the two of you were in grade school.”
“That was a long time ago, Mom.”
“I know, but as you get older time starts to fly. I’m so glad that the two of you remained friends. Wasn’t it sweet of Lisa to get you the job?”
“Actually, Mom, I meant to ask you about that… Did you ask Lisa to get me the job?”
Christine looked back to Janet, bemused. “Well, yes, I did. Didn’t she tell you? I ran into Lisa when she was visiting her folks, and I told her that you were between jobs… And like the good friend she is, Lisa came to the rescue. I thought you’d be pleased. I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to upset you. Well, I sure hope that you’re not mad at me now, especially since my plan worked after all.”
“But next time, please talk to me first, okay?” Janet shook her head. She might have been unemployed with bleak career options, but that did not mean that she needed her mother to go around asking her friends to give her a job.
“Honey, what’s wrong? You sound awful edgy.”
“It’s nothing.” Janet sighed. “Just nerves.”
“I think I know the reason. It’s Lisa’s engagement, isn’t it?”
Janet lowered her eyes, feeling petty. Lisa was Lisa, but they were still friends, and friends were supposed to rejoice at one another’s fortune. But in Janet’s defense, it was difficult to feel happy about something that was constantly being rubbed into one’s face, making one feel inadequate.
Christine patted Janet’s arm. “Honey, it’s all right; it’s only natural to feel this way. “You’ll meet someone special soon, I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t know, Mom. I’m twenty-nine years old; as they say, the clock is ticking. I thought Alex was going to be it… If I at least had a career, I could feel less of a failure.”
“What do you mean, a career? Aren’t you happy about your current job?”
“I loved my old job.”
Christine shook her head. “Janet, honey, you’ve got to toughen up. I know you had all those dreams about bringing Wall Street to justice, but the truth of the matter is that you’ve got to keep your own bread buttered. You worked hard at the DA’s office, and how did they repay you? By firing you and promoting Alex instead. Now, Lisa has gotten you a good job, and a well-paying job, I might add. What more could you possibly wish for?”
“Nothing.” Janet shook her head. “It’s a great job – I just need to get used to it.”
“Honey, you’ve got to stop picturing the world as black and white. The truth is that it’s mostly gray. No one is ever one hundred percent right, nor is anyone ever one hundred percent wrong.”
“What about the crooks who gypped Grandpa out of his life savings? Wouldn’t you say that they were one hundred percent wrong?”
Christine nodded. “Yes, they were, but that did not stop them from taking off with their loot and hightailing to Mexico or Ecuador or wherever it was those crooks went. They never got caught, did they?”
“No.” Janet sighed. It was idealistic to the point of silliness, but her grandfather’s having been a victim of a Ponzi scheme was the main motivation behind her pursuing a career in the DA’s office. She wanted to catch the bad guys who had taken away her grandfather’s earnings. Well, she had failed at that aspiration as well. By the time Janet started her employment with the DA, the case against the Ponzi scheme organizers who had swindled her grandfather and many others out of their lifesavings had already been closed, with all the guilty parties having made their escape to unknown locations. While at the DA’s office, Janet made it her mission to prevent similar crooks from hurting any more trusting grandpas, like her own; she had worked hard, but instead of being rewarded, she got downsized. And now, in an ironic twist of fate, she found herself employed by a firm with suspect operations. Although she was fairly certain that Bostoff Securities was not out to rob widows and orphans, she had already gathered enough information about its operations to understand that they were far from kosher. She needed to figure out what to do next, and she needed to do it quickly.
Her mother’s voice brought her back to the present, “Are you going to wear your hair like that?”
Janet sighed. Both her professional and personal lives were derailed, yet she was supposed to care about her hair.
Christine eyed Janet’s French twist critically. “Men like it when women wear their hair long and loose.”
“Then how come you’re not following your own advice?” Janet looked at her mother’s practical bob that she had been sporting for as long as Janet remembered.
“I’m married,” Christine countered. “Before I met your father, my hair was shoulder-length. Unless I was teaching a class, I always wore it loose.” Christine checked her watch. “Good, there’s still time.”
“Time for what?”
“To do your hair. Don’t you move! I’ll be right back.”
“Come on, Mom. I’m really not in the mood for this.”
Christine arched an eyebrow. “Young lady, how can you ever expect to find a man with such an attitude?”
Janet fell back into a chair with a resigned look on her face. By now her mother’s incongruities had stopped to baffle her – having Ph.D. in English Literature and teaching Women’s Studies as part of her course load did not prevent Christine Maple from maintaining somewhat outdated views on life. Apparently it did not matter how smart or intelligent a woman was: if she wanted to find a man, she’d better wear her hair down or risk remaining alone for all eternity. Still, a part of Janet had to admit that perhaps her mother did have a point. After all, her mother had already been married at Janet’s age, and Janet had yet to find her match.
“I found it!” Christine Maple returned, carrying a long object in her hand.
“Oh, no – not that thing!” Janet shook her head after recognizing the alarming-looking contraption in her mother’s hands as a curling iron. It was not just any curling iron, but the same curling iron Christine had used on Janet’s hair the night of her high school prom.
“I promise I’ll be more careful this time,” Christine added sheepishly. “Come on, that was just a one-time accident; you can’t hold it against me forever.”
“You almost burned my scalp.”
“Exactly, almost. But in the end no real harm was done, and your hair still looked beautiful.”
There Janet had to agree. She had looked beautiful at her high school prom – a fact that would have been so much more worthy of remembering if she had been accompanied to this crucial event by a date she actually liked instead of a jock, Ted Hunter. Yet another disastrous date Janet had Lisa to thank for, only that one had been during one of the most important nights of her life, or so it had seemed at eighteen years of age. But this really isn’t the whole story, is it? a tiny voice inside Janet’s head whispered. No, it isn’t, Janet admitted. Had she been surer of herself, she would have gone with Justin Trenner. Wonderfully sweet and witty Justin whom Janet had a crush on her entire senior year of high school, which was the year she and Justin worked on the editorial staff of the school newspaper together. Oh, well, these days Justin was happily married to another girl, Valery Meehan, wh
o had been confident enough to be Justin’s date that memorable night all those years ago. The past could not be helped, but that did not mean that it had to be given the power to take over the present.
Janet took a decisive look into the mirror. She liked the way her swept-up hair accentuated her cheekbones and showed off the green amethyst earrings she had picked specifically to play up the green of her eyes.
“Mom, I appreciate the effort, but I’m keeping my hair the way it is,” Janet said firmly.
“It looks good this way too, baby; it shows off your long, lovely neck. You’re going to be the belle of the ball.” Christine shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry, honey, I got carried away. I just wanted to relive the past a bit. I miss my little girl, you know?”
“I know, Mom.” I miss being her too, Janet thought.
Chapter 14