Not Perfect(17)

“An interview?” he asked. “For what?”

“I told you, I’m thinking about going back to work,” she said slowly, not at all sure that she had mentioned it. “This is just preliminary.”

When Levi didn’t say anything, she said, “So, do you think you can do that? Get the two of you to school safely?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, perking up. Tabitha thought she even saw a tiny smile start at the corners of his mouth. She shut her eyes for the briefest second, hoping she wasn’t making a terrible mistake. What if something happened on the way there? What if Levi didn’t help guide Fern across the street? No, she told herself, he would. She stopped short of asking him to text her when they got there. She knew that would just add to her anxiety, and probably a lot of phone checking during the interview. She watched as Levi helped Fern gather her backpack.

“Bye, Mommy,” she said. Fern liked this, too, Tabitha could tell.

“Bye, sweet girl,” she said, trying to act like this was perfectly normal. “Bye, Monkey.”

When they left, she stood at the window and watched. It took a long time for them to get all the way downstairs and out. Once they were on the sidewalk, she could see there was some discussion about which way to go, and they ended up going slightly out of their way so they could walk through the Square, which she knew Levi was doing for Fern. Tabitha smiled a little as she watched, until she couldn’t see them anymore. Now she had a whole twenty minutes to kill. She didn’t know what to do with it. She had the time to change her outfit, but she didn’t really feel like it anymore. She felt tired. She forced herself to move toward her bedroom, just to consider other clothing options, and as she did her phone rang. She glanced at the number but didn’t recognize it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, I’d like to place an order, but not for right now, it’s a lunch order.”

Tabitha hesitated.

“Is that okay? Are you still doing lunch? I should have asked that first.”

“Um,” Tabitha said, not sure how much she wanted to say.

“Is this Tabitha’s Pantry?” the male voice asked, sounding a little embarrassed. “Your app is glitchy today—it won’t let me place an order, so I thought I would call. This is the number I had saved in my phone.”

“Yes, it’s Tabitha’s Pantry,” Tabitha said. Her former business had failed on so many levels. She would so much rather put her energy into it than any of these crazy jobs she was going for, but, of course, she couldn’t, for too many reasons. “We aren’t open.”

“Oh, okay. Are you open tomorrow? We were talking about your amazing egg salad, and I wanted to order ten sandwiches. We’re having lunch meetings all week. I know you did those boxed meals for dinner, do you do them for lunch, too?”

Tabitha shook her head and started to talk three different times before settling on her answer.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “We’re closed for the foreseeable future.” And she hung up. She looked at her phone like it was going to ring again, like the man on the other end wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He was going to demand ten egg-salad boxed lunches. And she could do it. She would love to do it. She would gently place the eggs in the pot and let the cool water pour over them. She would boil them slowly. Once they were ready, peeled, and grated, she would mix them—her favorite part—with simple Hellmann’s mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and dill. Everyone always asked what was in that egg salad? Customers were always guessing—“Was it pickle juice?” “Was it nutmeg?” It had to be something magical, something nobody else would think of, but no, sometimes simple was the best thing; sometimes simple was perfection. Once the salad was made, she would build the sandwiches on the grainy bread from Metropolitan Bakery, just south of the Square. She had tried to make her own bread, and it had turned out fine, but there was nothing better than that bread from the bakery. After that, she would put together the boxes. Maybe she would make homemade chips, using her mandoline and small deep fryer, or a pasta salad with peppers and cherry tomatoes, using her favorite cider vinegar (of which there used to be plenty) from a tiny island in Canada, and then add a miniature brownie and chocolate chip cookie to each box as the finishing touch. Or she might make an Asian slaw and peanut butter cookies. At that last thought she leaned against the back of the couch and tried not to think about the worst day, the awful phone call. But was that the worst day? Or was the other terrible day, the one with her mother, actually the worst day? It was hard to know. Without all the information, it was impossible to know. And she didn’t have all the information. Maybe she never would. Maybe it was better that way.

She glanced at her watch. She hoped against hope that Levi and Fern made it to school without incident. She thought about texting Levi, but didn’t. Better to not text than to text and get no answer. She had to get him to agree to the Find My Friends app or look for another one that didn’t require agreement on the part of the person you were trying to find. She sighed and walked out, not changing, not grabbing a sweater, not feeling ready at all.

As soon as she entered the hotel just across the Square, she was glad she hadn’t dressed down too much. She walked by the doorman and smiled, feeling like she belonged, and she knew she looked the part. She decided to walk up the one flight instead of taking the elevator. It would give her more time. At the hostess stand she struggled to remember the man’s name. Hiffen, that was it.