Markus took the gun. “Let’s stick to Tasers and pepper spray.”
Gabby rubbed her temples. This had been a disaster.
After making a call, probably to report that they hadn’t been attacked by anything but her incompetence, he made his way back to her. His initial anger had worn off. When he saw her pathetic self, he softened even more. “Don’t beat yourself up, Gabby. Sure, you’re not ready for a gun or hand-to-hand combat, but no one coming in off the street is. Yesterday, you were in the carpool lane. Today you’re at the gun range. We’re asking a lot of you.”
“How did I even do that?” She pointed at the ceiling.
Markus shook his head. “You anticipated the recoil and jerked. If you overreact to an imagined force or any problem that is not there—you create a problem that didn’t exist to begin with.” He gestured to the disaster she’d just created.
In her mind, Phil was the bad guy, but Markus’s words hit a nerve. She tended to blow things out of proportion. Every time she was worried about something, safety usually, she went straight for the panic button. That time she refused to go on vacation because of a babysitting concern, Phil had gone without her. He sucked, but she wasn’t blameless. When she wouldn’t let Lucas play outside for a whole summer because she was sure he had a bee allergy, she’d almost lost her mind indoors. She overreacted all the time.Every overcorrection had led to today, divorced and unemployed, trapped in a minivan with a happy family sticker on the back window.
The alarms still wailing, Valentina walked in. She took in the scene, rolled her eyes, and blew out a breath. There was so much judgment without a single word. She looked at Gabby. “Come with me.”
Saturday, late afternoon, EOD headquarters
Gabby scurried to keep up with Valentina as the agent clicked down the sterile EOD hallway in her stilettos. Another reason to be in awe—high heels at work. Gabby assumed that Valentina was taking her to HR, where she would be forced to sign another pack of “take me to Guantánamo” documents before being escorted from the building. You couldn’t just show up to a CIA field office and shoot through the ceiling.
“I’ve never shot a gun before. I didn’t mean to—” She didn’t say “shoot the EOD full of holes,” because it sounded too bad. Plus she needed to stop apologizing.
Valentina still hadn’t said a thing in response, so Gabby vomited more words. “It was an accident. Markus said I was too tense.” A little more desperate, she said, “Just tell me what’s going to happen. Am I going to be court-martialed?” Not that she knew what that was.
“No, Gabby. I am taking you to a salon.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“I wish I was. You are getting a makeover.” Valentina looked sincerely annoyed, and some of the pieces clicked together. InValentina’s eyes, Gabby was the little sister, getting special treatment for no good reason. All Gabby did was screw up and get rewarded—Daddy handed her a job she wasn’t qualified for, one-on-one training with Markus, and now some sort of salon appointment. Valentina wanted Daddy to love her more.
“Valentina, I didn’t want this. I would rather giveyouthe job. I just wantajob.” That was the truth. She would have liked to be a travel agent again. Booking trips for professionals on their lunch hours had been low stress and nonstop vicarious thrills. Vicarious—that’s how she liked her thrills.
Her words did nothing because Valentina was shooting sparks. “This job fell in your lap because of the way you look. I, on the other hand, have been working for this my whole life,” she said from her lips that looked like they’d been professionally plumped even though it was probably natural.
Gabby blurted out a laugh. Valentina would not be able to see the irony, but this was the first time Gabby had ever gotten special treatment for her looks, at least if you considered hotness.
“What I don’t get is what you want. The EOD is my career, my life. Why do you want to do this? For your country?” Valentina drew her perfectly groomed brows together. “You could work at any store in the mall. You could be an actual executive assistant. Throwing yourself in harm’s way for the EOD—I don’t understand. Why did you agree to this?”
“I don’t think you understand how hard it is to get a job after letting your résumé die for fourteen years, after not being that great of a job candidate in the first place.” She looked Valentina straight in the eye. “What was I supposed to put on my résumé—‘If I can handle toddlers, I can handle any fools you throw myway?’ ‘Can get stains out of all your white shirts!’” She shrugged. “No one wants a mom.”
Valentina actually laughed. “Just remember, you are only here because a facial recognition algorithm picked you. You have big eyes and a butt chin. That’s it.”
“Hey, it’s called a cleft chin.” But the rest was true. She wasn’t here because of merit.
“When you’re done with this project, you will go back to being a housewife again.”
“I’m not even married.” The divorce had been final for months now. “I’m a divorced, unemployed mother.” Which is why her résumé sucked.
“Okay, well, that’s something you might want to think about.”
No kidding. Gabby had become a housewife, but it wasn’t who she was on the inside. It was a job, a set of duties that she completed every day. Some of those duties she loved, but the laundry did not define her. Taking care of her kids didn’t even define her. Still, that was all that other people saw: housewife. If she died today, it was the label that would go on her tombstone.
If she’d learned anything lately, it was that labels matter. She had spent years bending over backwards to help the world see Phil as a professional, to see her kids as clean and happy, to support Kyle’s new exploration of her gender and sexuality. She, on the other hand, had let everything and everyone else define her.
She might not know who the new, divorced Gabby was yet, but she would be damned if she died today and her obituary said “housewife.” She wasn’t even that good at cooking and cleaning to begin with.
Valentina stopped at a door labeledDISGUISES. “We’re here.”
What a relief! She imagined a room filled with houndstooth cloaks and monocles. She might not be able to shoot a gun, but she could wear a cape and hide behind a corner.
If only she could snap a pic for Justin. A job where she got to play dress-up professionally—he would die of jealousy. A few weeks ago, she and Justin had been watchingDrag Race, and RuPaul said, “Everything is drag, baby!” Justin had shouted, “Amen, sister!” The moment stuck out to her because it was true. Everyone performs some role in life. Justin’s Betty Danger act was an amped-up version of her own performance of a housewife—more lip-synching and less laundry. Her divorce had left her spiraling, partially because of the loss of the relationship and stability but even more because she didn’t have a role to play anymore.
