Chapter 3

Her pale blue eyes were framed in more stylish glasses than the last pair I saw. The cute bob hairstyle she wore in school was gone, strawberry blond waves flowing over narrow shoulders and spilling onto her compact breasts. She was taller than I remembered, but I guess I was too. “I wondered if I’d ever see you again, Katie.”

“I lost touch with everyone from high school when I went to college. It’s hard to get a job in this area with a B.A. in Journalism, so I’m working here.”

“Full time?”

“I’m seasonal help, but I take all the hours I can get. This week I should clock about sixty. Too bad the pay is so low.”

“What will you do after the holidays?”

“Supposedly they’ll give me twenty hours a week minimum, so I’ll stay on here while I look for another job waiting tables or something and try to figure out what to do with my life. I won’t starve. I moved back into my old bedroom at home. I was stupid. I assumed it would be easy to find a good job with my degree here like I did in the city where I went to college. Wrong.”

“Why did you leave that job?”

“I left my husband. With my school loan to pay off, I could barely afford the rent on a crappy studio apartment there alone. Joel and I worked in the same building. We saw each other almost every day. We either bickered or tried to pretend the other one wasn’t there. The whole thing got too awkward. It was time to cut my losses, so I moved back here to start over.”

“I didn’t know you got married.”

“We both thought it was a great idea junior year. After all, we were in love and living together. Things worked for a while. Now we’re getting divorced. We don’t hate each other. We just can’t be together. His idea of a wife’s role in a marriage is different than mine. I won’t be subservient. If I’m going to be with a man, he has to treat me as an equal.

The whole Tarzan and Jane thing was fun as a campus couple, but we were grown-ups trying to start careers. He loved the income, but he hated the idea that I earned as much as him. That was our problem. I don’t play ‘little woman’ well.”

“What kind of job are you looking for?”

“At this stage in my life, pretty much anything that pays a decent wage. Selling gloves and scarves isn’t my dream career. In January my payment is due on my college loan. If I don’t have enough, Mom will bail me out with money she’s saved from tips at the diner over the years. She hides it from Dad. If he knew, he’d take it and build the bar in the basement he’s been talking about ever since I was a kid.

When I got that scholarship, and we looked at the expenses it didn’t cover, Mom started cleaning houses when she wasn’t at the diner so I wouldn’t have to borrow as much. She deserves something for all she does. I need to pay her back too.”

“I guess I’m lucky. My parents paid for a lot of my college, and I had a campus job for beer and pizza money. My problem was my major. A bachelor’s in English Lit. turned out to not be the ticket to fame and fortune. I went back to my summer job after I graduated from college. About three months ago, Dad told me about an opening where he works now.

His old employer, Somerset Labs, was sold when I was in my sophomore year in college. The new owner replaced all the managers. Dad got a better job right away at Tompkins Technologies. Now, I’m a product test technician.”

“You’re doing a science job, Ed?”

“No, not really. Our department does work for small client companies who need independent quality control testing or certification. All I do is sit in a comfortable chair at a table with some simple equipment and compare production samples to specifications and standards. It’s easier than high school science and math classes. Everything we need to know is printed out for us. They’re hiring, but it’s all second shift. That’s when I work.”

“I’d work with you?”

“Would that be a problem?”

“Not for me. But I’m the one who broke up with you.”

“Katie, it’s in the past. We talked about college all senior year. I knew what could happen. It was the only sensible thing to do, so I wasn’t mad at you. I think we can act like adults.”