Kim shooed Barry toward the door with his briefcase andnewspaper. “It’s not snobbery. It’s called having standards. I’m not raising our girls in the armpit of America.” Just the wordarmpitwas enough to get Cece and Wynonna giggling. “Armpit! Armpit! Armpit!” they yelped in unison.
Barry held up his hands in cheerful defeat and blew kisses to the girls before pushing his way out the front door through the maze of shoes and abandoned toys. The moment is one of Cece’s first memories, or at least one of her earliest happy memories, when she and Wynonna were still a team, when they laughed at everything because they didn’t know any better.
Before answering her mother’s question, Cece quickly runs through all the things she can’t tell her: the job at the oyster farm, Jonathan’s efforts at reconciliation, certainly not Morgan, or the palpable feeling that she’s making mistake after mistake. What does that leave to discuss? Not much.
“Job search. What’s the news?” her mother repeats, her voice louder this time.
Cece can see her leaning forward, lips nearly touching the center console, seat belt straining against her clavicle. “Hi, Mom. How was your vacation? It’s nice to hear from you. I’m well,” Cece says in a mocking tone that surprises even her.
For a moment there is only the hush of traffic. “The vacation was nice. Thank you. I’ll speak with your father about when we can pick up Bernard.”
Cece kneels and runs a finger over a rusted nail sticking out from the warped deck. She presses down hard on it, but to no avail. She’ll have to tell Lorraine about it later.
“Well?” Kim says impatiently. “Job update. What’s happening?”
The idea of returning to an office—chilled air pumping indiscriminately, murmurous meetings behind thick walls, the smoosh of beige carpet underfoot—brings a sudden wave of nausea. “I’m not rushing into anything.”
“What about health insurance? You can’t not have health insurance, Cece.”
“I’ve got time to figure it out. There’s a grace period before I lose coverage. And there’s always COBRA.”
“That’s hardly a plan, Cece. There’ve got to be a hundred places looking for actuaries.”
“What if I’m not interested in being an actuary anymore?” The question isn’t a serious one. In Cece’s mind, she hasn’t quit the risk management world permanently; this is just a break, but her mother, whom she wants to antagonize, doesn’t need to know that.
She doesn’t go for the bait. “Don’t be ridiculous. Let me talk to a few colleagues. I’m sure they know places looking for your expertise. It’s impossible to find good employees these days. I swear, the paralegals at this firm are barely literate.”
There’s no use in telling her mother she doesn’t need to find Cece a job. This is the only way she knows how to help. “How’s work going?”
“Oh, you know,” Kim says, her voice going flat. “It’s the same everywhere. The associates do all the work while the partners get all the credit.”
Ever since Kim didn’t make partner back when Cece was in high school, this has been the common refrain, although the complaints have grown more bitter and resentful of late, a fact Cece attributes to her mother’s expectation that she’d be longretired by now. The plan had always been for Barry and Kim to start their golden years early, splitting their time between New York and a summer cabin up in Maine. The internet had other ideas, however, and by the early 2000s, it was clear print advertising was a losing proposition. Barry shuttered the Manhattan office, cut his staff, and hung on for dear life. There were vain attempts to digitize, misguided efforts to learn graphic design. By the time Cece was applying to college, Barry’s once-proud business had been reduced to designing ads in local magazines, and Kim was working more than ever to make up for the reduced income and to keep up appearances. There were certain luxuries—a newly leased car every three years, a perfectly manicured lawn and garden, her membership to the local racket club—she’d grown accustomed to and simply couldn’t live without. And while Barry had seemed more than willing to adjust his spending and slip into social obscurity, Kim suffered from that uniquely pernicious conundrum of the American upper middle class—just wealthy enough to appear financially unburdened, but below the surface, paddling frantically, like a duck swimming against the current.
A knock on the glass pane. Lorraine holds up five fingers, tomato sauce and olive oil dotting her already-stained apron. Cece summons a smile and gives her a thumbs-up. “I gotta get going, Mom. I’m in the middle of dinner.”
“The cottage has a kitchen?”
“Sort of.”
“Have you spoken to Jonathan?”
Cece doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Of course Wynonna’s told their mother about Jonathan’s recent overtures.
“Why would I? We’re broken up.”
“You know we just adored Jonathan.”
“You’ve said so many times.”
“I just hope there’s a chance for reconciliation.”
“He didn’t make me happy,” Cece says, even though she’s not certain it’s true. “Don’t you want me to be happy?”
“You seemed plenty happy. You wouldn’t have stayed with him for four years otherwise. You wouldn’t have said yes to his proposal. And not that you’re asking, Cece, but let me tell you, happiness is overrated. Happiness is fickle. And you know what isn’t fickle? Family, money, and stability. Jonathan had all that in spades.”
“That’s why you married, Dad, right? For his family name and all that money?”
“Things were different back then. It was the seventies. But if you must know, I thought your father would be an incredibly successful businessman. And he was! He didn’t have much when we met, but he had vision. It’s not his fault the internet decimated his business.”
