“Come on in, Adele,” Fran said. “We talked it over. We need someone at that desk, and if you’re willing to work for fifteen dollars an hour, we’d like to give you a try. Our receptionist isn’t coming back, and the woman we hired to replace her didn’t work out. But there’s considerably more to do than those few office chores I gave you today.”
Adele’s smile was so big she thought her face might crack. “I’m pretty smart,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“The receptionist has to double as the janitor,” Ross said.
“My father was a janitor!” Adele shot back.
“I was kidding, kid. Except for the fact that we all pitch in to make sure the place is tidy. You know—wash your dishes, wipe out the sink, sweep up. You know—if you see a mess, clean up the mess. Right?”
“Right,” she said. “I have a job?”
“You have a job. You fell into our laps and we fell into yours. Let’s see if we can make this work. We’ll get your paperwork done in the morning,” Fran said with a smile.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Maybe my luck is changing! she thought happily.
* * *
Adele wanted to tell someone, of course. Not Justine. What would Justine say? She wouldn’t compliment Adele’s cleverness. She’d probably warn her to do extra careful work to keep the job. Not Beverly; Beverly would want to bring her a cake. She texted Jake. Have you eaten yet?
Not yet.
Can you come to dinner? Stir-fry? Chicken.
Love to, what time?
Seven?
I’ll be there.
She hurried home to chop her vegetables and set the table. She checked her makeup to be sure it was fresh, brushed her teeth and reapplied her lipstick. She wasn’t trying to impress Jake so much as look like it wasn’t a total accident they wanted to keep her. Then she decided on a sip of wine as she waited for him, and of course that first sip contradicted her toothpaste and made her pucker. She made the rice and had her chicken and vegetables ready to go. Finally, she heard the doorbell.
She threw open the door and there he stood, holding flowers. Jake had stopped bringing her food, so intent was she on her new eating program.
“You will never believe what happened! I have a job!”
“Well, that was fast.”
She poured him a glass of wine and told him every detail of how it happened, from beginning to end, while she began to feed the chicken and vegetables into the wok. She explained how she wasn’t sure why she just answered yes when Fran asked if she was there for the job. “I guess I was there to get a job after all.” And she told him all the possibilities she had thought might come to pass, like they might say, Good, now that we know what you can do, let’s look at the job openings. “It doesn’t work that way, I guess. But I didn’t know that.” She told him how much she enjoyed talking to the women, finding that they were all so different from her and yet so much the same. “They’ve all been held captive, of their own free will, of course, and yet when set free, they are lost. It didn’t really matter if they were homemakers, moms, caregivers, whatever—suddenly they need work and have nowhere to turn. They all looked better when they were leaving—if not entirely joyous at least relieved. It’s an amazing place, this office, this program.” And in the end, when they explained to her it had all been a misunderstanding, she practically begged for the job. “And it wasn’t because I so need a job. At least not totally. I really wanted to stay there. I wanted to watch what was going to happen next. I don’t have any idea what their success rate is, but some of those women who were feeling so scared and hopeless are going to get work and get on with their lives.”
“Like you,” he said.
“Like me!”
While they ate, she told him about some of the women,