Not This Time
16
Hard Life
I HAD ISSUES. But at least I could recognize them as my issues now. I’d like to say we talked until two and then I said, ‘It’s time for bed.’ But I’d come home early because I was sick. After a couple sips of wine, I passed out on the sofa with my head in Bruce’s lap. He woke me with a kiss when Lily called us to dinner. She’d made pork chops with caramelized onions and shredded Brussels sprouts served with wild rice pilaf. Maybe it doesn’t sound extraordinary, but it is one of my favorites and I felt very loved.
We did talk, of course. It just wasn’t all that night. We even decided that we should each have individual dates with each of the others each week. It was a little hard on the odd man out, and I admit that on my night at home with the baby, I was lonely and unhappy. The dating couple took the master bedroom. So, once I put Emily down in her room and made sure the monitor was working, I went to the guest room and cried myself to sleep.
I realized this must be what the others felt like when I was out with one. I felt like a big part of my life was missing. But in the long run, it was good for us. By Emily’s first birthday and our first Christmas together as a family, we were getting along pretty well. It was only one night a week that each of us spent in the guest room. We even started calling it the Oddfellows Room. And we started treating that night as our special date night with Emily. That changed the perspective immensely when I realized that it was my opportunity to be closer to my daughter.
She started to pull away from my breast when she got a taste of strained peaches. Not long thereafter, she bit me with her brand new tooth and I encouraged her to eat more solids and take the bottle. I didn’t dry up right away because I was still expressing milk for her nighttime bottle and whenever she needed something to keep her from fussing, but she nursed less and less.
I was sad about that.
I didn’t breastfeed the first time around. My mother forbade it as indecent. Willa had bottles of milk and formula, and half the time I didn’t get to give her those. But breastfeeding was so intimate and personal. I knew that I nourished my daughter with what I ate while I was pregnant, but you don’t really realize what that means until you see her actually sucking the milk out of your breast. I just felt so close to her when she came to me for food.
She was up and cruising around the condo. We’d childproofed everything, thanks to Bruce and his tools. He’d padded every sharp corner, built shelves that were hung well above her head, and installed childproof locks on the cabinets, drawers, and toilet seat. He was a good daddy.
We had a holiday party for my staff. Unlike single family detached home sales, condo sales didn’t drop off as sharply once snow flew. I was able to keep both salespeople and my receptionist on their salary. I was happy that both earned a bonus right before Christmas and I padded each of their pay envelopes with an extra hundred dollars.
It was the first time we’d really had guests in our home. Gordon and his wife, my three people and their significant others, and Jim. He brought a pleasant woman named Dana with him, but none of us figured out what their relationship was or if they actually had one. The ten of them made all kinds of appropriate comments about how lovely our home was and raised a few eyebrows when I introduced my boyfriend and girlfriend.
“Oh, like that TV show Three’s Company,” my receptionist Renata said.
“Yes,” Lily replied. “Except there’s sex.”
Carla Fiske elbowed her husband and whispered, “I told you so.” He just shook his head.
Emily, of course, was the star of the show until about nine when her little eyelids drooped and she fell asleep in Gordon’s arms. He brought her to me and practically dropped her in my lap.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he said in a panic. “Please just don’t make any comments about how natural it looks. I’m not cut out to be a father. Just… no!”
“Gordon is afraid he would have to reform,” Carla laughed. “But if he ever started talking children, he’d find my legs crossed anyway.”
“What do you do with your time, Carla?” Dana asked. I was glad I didn’t let that question escape my lips. Carla was practically a fashion plate. Perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect teeth, perfect party dress, and high heels that made her almost as tall as her husband.
“You mean besides being the perfect little corporate real estate wife?” she teased. “Well, I can’t shop all the time, so I practice law.”
“Okay. The conversation got there,” Gordon said. “You might as well go ahead and tell people.”
“What?” I asked. “Is there news in your lives?”
“What Gordon is referring to is that my name will be on the primary ballot for City Council this spring,” Carla said. “I have a committee, of course, but other than that I haven’t really said anything to anyone yet. We’ll launch the campaign near the end of January, though I’m sure it will leak well before then.”
“Since the primary is still four months away, don’t give away your whole campaign tonight,” I said. I hoped this wouldn’t turn into a political gathering. “Just tell us all how you plan to deal with the liability of your husband.”
“We actually have different last names,” Carla said, “so I thought I’d try keeping him a secret until after the primary. That will give us ‘new revelations’ for the fall campaign. If I win the primary.”
We all wished her luck and unlike every politician I’d ever heard of, she didn’t bring up her campaign again.
“We could have a more intimate party with just Gordon and Carla sometime if you want,” Lily said as we snuggled in bed after everyone went home. “You know. If it would help your business. Don’t you think so, Bruce?”
“Well, if you two can take care of Gordon. I don’t swing that way. Otherwise, I’m game.”
“No,” I said. “I know you both. You both want me to take care of Gordon so you can pry Carla’s thighs apart and drink from the fountain of power. No, no, no.”
“How about if we just invite Carla?” Lily asked. I started tickling her and before long the three of us were tangled together in a Gordian Knot of love. I knew they were just teasing, but still… I had to consider that last option.
We ended the year with sixty-one condos sold. We were really just getting up to speed, but nine a month wasn’t bad at all. All twenty of the units in my original building sold. We had two more buildings over halfway sold and my current building was selling as the crews finished the renovations. That was about a unit every three to four weeks. We actually had contracts on the next three units under renovation, but we don’t count the sale until it’s closed.
I did some research and started offering some appliance upgrades in units. Jim still had a mindset of restoring all the woodwork to mint condition, but his restoration of the kitchens sucked. We put together a premium package for kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures. People loved the pedestal sink option. To me that was a waste. There was no place to put your toothbrush. But it was actually less expensive to put in a pedestal than to build a nice cabinet with a one-piece counter/sink combination. And they sold for a premium. For those who wanted a real premium fixture, I found a guy who was collecting and restoring old claw-foot bathtubs. Higher price for less convenience in my book. But they sold. Especially in the old residence hotel. People were captured as soon as I closed the old-fashioned gate on the elevator to take them upstairs.
There were some long-time residents in the old hotel. Miss Flora had moved in during World War II when she was working in a munitions factory. She did not want to leave her apartment and did not want any new-fangled renovations done. She’d lived there for nearly forty years and had no intention of moving at this stage of her life. Jim resolved the issue. He bought the apartment and leased it to her. I discovered he did the same with nearly a dozen other units. It was all funny money since he technically owned the building to start with, but now the units were officially registered as condos and he was personally the landlord. Of course, I didn’t earn a commission on those. They simply never came up for sale.
I still cleared $137,000 in commissions for those seven months, plus what I’d earned as a regular agent for Gordon Fiske. If I could only use some of that money to buy time to do my homework. My business classes were kicking my butt to hell and back. It seemed like every time I sat to do homework or to study, I had an emergency to take care of at the office or a baby to feed at home or a lover that needed some TLC. Life might be different than it had been before, but it was still hard.
As we moved into summer, I was seriously considering not going back to school in the fall. I had intended to have my degree finished before I started condo sales, but now they were occupying nearly all my time. And I wanted to spend time with my daughter and my lovers. Well, at least I guessed we were all still lovers. We slept together most nights. We didn’t make love all that much.
I’d heard that was pretty common. We’d been together a year and the newness and novelty had worn off. In that year, I’d had more sex than in my entire previous life by far. I guess even now a typical month would equal all my old life. It just didn’t seem like much compared to what even Lily and I did when we first got together. And Bruce had been able to go back and forth between the two of us all night long. At least, that was what it seemed like when exhaustion would finally claim me and I’d say, “You go ahead. You can owe me one.” Well, I had a big bank account to draw on there. But who kept track?
There were times when I wished he’d just do Lily so I could go to sleep.
It was as hard to spend time with my baby in this life as it had been in the past. In the past, my mother and Jesse’s mother had done their best to monopolize little Willa and I had to fight for time with her. Now it was school and my job that were monopolizing my life and I had to battle my own responsibilities to make time for her. Having my weekend in the middle of the week didn’t help. I had to go to school.
I could tell that I was getting more and more tired and bitchy. I just didn’t know what to do about it. My best times were taking Emily in the stroller and walking around the lakes. We could be gone for two or three hours and it was all part of good parenting. Lake Harriet became our favorite haunt.
Bruce had more time during the summer months. He had a summer show, but his teaching schedule was light and he was home more often. Lily had a couple of weeks off and then her schedule was the same as always. She had new students to deal with and they came in all summer long. Just like I had.
“Let’s go up north for the weekend,” Bruce said Monday evening. At least I didn’t have class during the summer.
“You mean tomorrow?” I asked.
“I meant Friday after Lily gets off work,” he said. “I found some cabins for rent up on Lake Superior. They say it’s really pretty up there.”
“Lily gets off work. I go to work. My weekend is in the middle of the week.”
“You haven’t taken any time off except the week between Christmas and New Year since the project started. That’s fourteen months. Certainly, you could take a weekend off couldn’t you?”
“Those condos don’t sell themselves,” I snapped.
“Listen to yourself,” he said gently. “Is this the kind of life you want? Don’t you want to live as well as earn a living?”
I looked at him and inexplicably burst into tears. Why was I making this life worse than my last life? It was stupid and ridiculous and Bruce was right. He held me in his arms and kissed the top of my head as I wept against his chest. Eventually I lifted my face to him and he captured my lips and my starving tongue.
That was where Lily found us as she walked through the door.
“That looks yummy,” she sighed. “Is this a private party or can your little lez get some loving, too?”
“Come here and get in the middle of this, little lez. I was just trying to convince our girlfriend that we should all take off Friday and go up north for the weekend,” Bruce said.
“I could do that! Especially if it meant the three of us just loving each other for the weekend. Are you convinced, lover?”
“Yes,” I whimpered. “I was being a bitch. I didn’t mean to be. I’ll call my people and let them know I’m taking the weekend off. Gordon can handle any problems that arise. That’s what he gets paid for.”
“You tell him, girl.”
“The three of us plus our baby girl,” Bruce added. “I think I hear her jabbering her agreement in the other room. I’ll get her changed and ready for dinner.”
“You’re such a good daddy,” I laughed. “I’ll get us all some dinner ready. We can sit around the table and plan what we’re going to do. And, you guys… I really want to do better. I can’t believe I’ve let this project take control of my whole life. I love you.”
I was fucking things up.
I’d already lived my life once. The second time shouldn’t be so damned hard. I’d just correct my mistakes from the first time and live happily ever after.
Except I was making a whole new batch of mistakes.
I thought that if I simply didn’t marry Jesse and went to college, life might be hard, but it would be better. Then I met Lily and she brought something into my life I’d never experienced before. She’d been a friend and I’d grown to love her. And we’d been lovers. My former self cringed. She’d have condemned those lesbians to hell because they would do unnatural acts. What did I know about sex?
God made women with a hole and men with a pole.
Jesse had fucked me as often as possible the first couple months after we got married. I even rolled away one night and said I wasn’t in the mood.
“That’s no problem,” he said. “We’ve got that KY Jelly that makes things slippery. God knows we use it almost every time. Just spread your legs so I can get in.”
And I did. He shoved into me, took about as long as usual, which wasn’t very long, and then rolled over to go to sleep. Something inside me knew I’d just been raped, but he was my husband. It was always like that, whether I was willing or not. Women, after all, were just warm meat with a convenient hole. I’d read Portnoy’s Complaint. Most men didn’t even care if the meat was warm.
Suddenly, I had a friend and lover who cared about how I felt. She made me come first. Every time. She went to all my doctor’s appointments and to Lamaze and to La Leche. She held my hand and breathed with me while I delivered our daughter.
That was it. That was the first clue and I was too dumb to notice. Emily didn’t just have a different name than the daughter I’d had in my past life. She had a different birthday. And she had two mothers who loved her. And then I met a man and brought him into our lives and she had a father.
That was all wonderful. But I’d gone without everything in my first life. I hadn’t started working until Willa was in sixth grade. By comparison, I was rich. I had a solid hundred grand in investments now, not including the condo. I’d put spare money in stocks I knew were going to do well for the next eight years. Mostly technology that I’d pull out of before Y2K. But I’d put all my energy into my business and earning money. I didn’t even have as good a relationship with Emily. When Willa was this age, I was putting all my energy into spending time with her as I fought with my mother and Jesse’s mother. If it weren’t for them fighting with each other, I’d never have gotten her. But Bruce and Lily loved her like I did. They didn’t compete with me for her attention. They were just there. All the time.
And I wasn’t.
I was off to a good start on my plan to become a millionaire by the time I was twenty-five and would never have to look back at a life of hardship.
I was trading money for all three of my relationships. I was nearly as absent as Jesse had been, working on the oil rigs.
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