“I wear it this way when I’m not at work. While we’re at the restaurant, I’ll try harder to pretend I’m calm. Without a plan,you should be nervous, too. We’ll steer our way toward what we want to achieve tonight. If we do that, we might have a chance of reaching our goal. Otherwise, if we bring up the prenup point blank without easing into it, we risk them shutting down and leaving. We both heard Malcom’s threat to do that, and I don’t doubt he will. Tell me you’ve come up with something and help me relax.”
“We have a goal. I don’t think we can plan how we’ll get there. It doesn’t work that way and depends on the conversation.” Now she was fidgeting with the sleeve of her dress. “Why does that stress you out so much?”
“I grew up in total chaos, and organizing my life as much as possible makes me feel more in control.”
That explained the spotless townhouse. “Tell me about the chaos,” he said, curious about her childhood.
“I already shared things about my parents. You really don’t want to know more. We should spend our time strategizing.”
“I’m genuinely interested. We have time—it’ll take us a good twenty minutes to get to the restaurant. I know your parents are divorced and they both like to party. What else?”
“Now who’s playing therapist?” she teased, then blew out a sigh. “All right, since you asked… I don’t remember my parents ever not fighting. Even when they went out together they were at each other’s throats. It’s a wonder they ever conceived Rose and me. They both worked, of course, and didn’t have the time or energy to do much around the house. Rose is five years younger, and I pretty much took care of her. Meals, packing our lunchboxes, dinner… It was a lot.”
Blake shook his head at that. “Sounds to me like you raised her. You carried a heavy burden on those young shoulders.”
“I really did. Gran and Gramps helped when they could, but they worked, too. I was glad when my parents split up. Things got a lot quieter at our house. Then, when I was fourteen,Gramps passed away. Mom was juggling two full time jobs to pay the rent, buy groceries, and party when she could. Which wasn’t as often as before, as she was dead on her feet.
“Gran needed a place to live and Mom needed help, so she moved in to take care of us. She did her best, took over some of the cooking and helped with the laundry, but being a waitress, she also worked long hours. For as long as I can remember, I was in charge of the house. I learned at an early age that making a schedule and a plan helped me feel in control. Now, aren’t you sorry you asked?”
“Not at all.” He felt for her. Before his father had died, his life had been great. “Your childhood sounds truly chaotic and you had way too much responsibility. That sucks. But there are times when having a plan doesn’t work. Like tonight. As I said, we have a goal, and that’s enough.”
“But if we have a plan to reach that goal, we’re less likely to fail. We can’t be sloppy about this, Blake. It’s too important.”
“I hear that, but there’s no way to predict what Malcom and Caroline will say or how they’ll act. The only thing to do is wing it.”
“You may be good at that kind of thing, but I’m not. Tonight is really important. Too important not to have a plan. How can you be so calm?”
“This is the way I am when I’m stressed.”
She gaped at him. “I’m jealous. What’s your secret? How do you do it?”
“I don’t know. Somehow I figured out that in times of stress, keeping my cool helps me think clearly. Sure beats driving myself nuts. Plus, it helps lower the anxiety levels of people around me.”
“Not mine. I can’t help how I’m wired. Give me an example how playing it by ear works for you.”
“Think about dinner at the 709 the other night. We didn’t have a plan then. We had no idea what was coming.”
“Oh, I had a plan.”
“How could you possibly? They sprung their marriage idea on us.”
“My plan involved Gran and no one else. I’d tell her what’d happened at work and offer her an alternative to being out on the street.”
“Moving into the extra room upstairs.”
“That space is too small, plus there’s no bathroom up there. I can’t imagine her waking up in the night and having to come down the stairs to use the toilet. She’s still steady on her feet, but what if she fell? My sister has a place with enough room, but her husband wouldn’t like having Gran as a guest. Gran wouldn’t like it, either, so it’d be a place to stay in the short-term. That was my plan.”
“Then when Malcom and I were sitting with her at the same table, your plan went out the window. Yet you survived.”
She exhaled a grudging breath. “True, but I was very uncomfortable. And I did follow my plan, just not at dinner. I told Gran when we talked later.”
“That was an uncomfortable evening for all of us. Tonight will be different because we know what they want and what we want.”
“Yes, but how do we lead them to agree to what we want?”
“You’re a sales manager. Surely you know how to move the conversation toward a sale.”
“With an internet or cable plan, yes, but using some of those techniques on my grandma… I’d feel dirty.”
