Chapter 3: Tuesday

     “How’d it go?” Laura asked as I walked into her home from my apartment.

Or, at least that is what I thought I heard through unison “Tinas” coming from the two four-year olds who clamped themselves to my legs.

“Hey guys,” I said, rubbing their white-blond hair, simultaneously freeing myself so I could get to the breakfast bar where Laura was sitting.

Frieda, Laura’s mother, was standing across the bar in the galley kitchen. Laura had inherited Frieda’s angular features and tall build. Through the years though, Frieda’s look had softened. As I slid in next to Laura, Freida handed me a bottle of water, without asking if I needed it. I liked that about her. She had an instinctive mothering quality in her that made me want to curl up in her lap.

From the beginning, Frieda welcomed me as readily into Laura’s life as Bruce and Buddy had. It was as if she was used to Laura bringing home strays on a regular basis. Even though I had been here two weeks, I was now just one more charge of Frieda’s. She never questioned my background. She didn’t care who I knew or where my parents vacationed. I was just another person.

“It went pretty well.” I smiled, answering Laura’s question.

It was my first day at Price Bargains, a mega-warehouse grocery store where everything was sold by the case. My job was to pass out free samples to shoppers, in hopes to entice them into buying their fair share.

The job was pretty easy. I stood behind a cart, passing out small morsels of whatever food Price Bargains had on special. I was to give anyone who stopped by a taste, tell them about how great the product was and send them to the appropriate aisle so they too could find their own mega-sized box to take home with them.

The best part? I got paid a bonus for every box I sold. According to my new manager, I had sold the most of all of free sample hockers there on my first day. Who knew so many people would need a 108-count box of fish sticks?

I was telling all this to Laura and Frieda, who were graciously listening to the minutiae of my six hour shift. I was surprised at how attentive they were, considering my job probably sounded boring to someone like Laura who owned a business. But, they were kindly paying attention and asking all the right questions.

I loved my job. Standing in the aisle of a mega-grocer might not be prestigious and it certainly wasn’t my idea of a long-term career. I was looking at this as a day-to-day thing until I figured out what I wanted to do.

I didn’t tell Laura, but the most rewarding part of my new job was I was hired without using my parent’s contacts. I earned this job. It was a personal victory. It was also humbling. Nobody called in a favor. I wasn’t hired because someone knew my family or wanted to know my family. My life in Shades Crest was not of interest to my manager or the people I worked with. This was a job gained from by own merit. I was vaguely aware in just three weeks I had gone from Junior League socialite to working girl. I loved it.

Two weeks later, I was still enjoying my Price Bargains job. I liked meeting new people. I felt an ownership of whatever I was selling. When my manager, Kayla announced during our staff meeting that morning I had been the top sales person last week, I was giddy with pride.

On this particular morning, I was in the middle of telling a group of patrons the nutritional value of the Price Bargain brand pasta primavera when the hair on my arms pricked up. If I had been a cat, my back would have arched, hissing instinctively aware of a sudden and immediate threat.

“Tina? Is that you?”

I looked up and saw Amy Schaefer, Queen Bitch, sneering my direction.

“Oh, Tina! It is you. I thought so.” Amy squealed, elbowing her way towards me, oblivious to crowd of shoppers nibbling on their free samples. “Look at you!” she said by way of a veiled zinger. She gave me a one-armed hug, giving the incorrect impression to passer-bys we were long lost pals.

I was face to face with my childhood nemesis. Except only one of us was wearing a Channel suit and enough jewelry to weigh down a mafia stoolie in the Hudson River. And, only one of us had a patronizing look on her face.

I automatically wiped my hand over my hair while simultaneously glancing down to make sure none of the primavera had made it to my white apron. Of all the people in the world I could run into, Amy was farther down on my list than a sadistic gynecologist.

Amy and I were a byproduct of our mothers’ friendship. We had grown up in the same neighborhood, involuntarily traveled in the social circle and I had spent a better part of our formative years enduring Amy’s snotty antics.

In junior high, Amy announced to the boys I got my period, grabbing my purse from me and pulled out tampons as proof. In high school I missed the call-back audition for the sophomore play because Amy told me audition times had changed. Later I heard her telling her gaggle of friends she had done it on purpose. She also told her mother about my unfortunate indiscretion with Mick Perez, knowing damn well it would get back to my parents.

All in all, I lost many fights with Amy, but in the end, I won the battle. The third time I earned 100 percent on our biology exam, Amy announced she had seen me cheating. It wasn’t true, but the rumors didn’t stop. When all was said and done, my academic reputation was shot and, thanks to Amy, I lost my chance to get into the National Honor Society.

Burned by Amy’s mouth, got even. I slept with Jeff Boxman, her long-time boyfriend. According to my Shades Crest sources, apparently, it really broke her heart. All the enduring gossip was worth it. I triumphantly gave her a sweet finger wave at senior prom as I passed her on the way to the dance floor, holding Jeff’s arm.

Now, after years of erasing Amy’s torment from my brain, she was poised in front of me. “Oh Honey! I heard about Preston. I am so sorry. I am just floored nobody warned you. Preston is such a player. Wow. I am surprised you just didn’t see it. Oh… and, so close to your wedding too. You are so brave to show your face anywhere afterwards.” She slapped on her most sincere smile.

“Um… Hi Amy, I didn’t know you lived in Phoenix.” It didn’t strike me as odd she knew about Preston. The Shades Crest gossip squad knows no bounds. What I found strange is she found me at Price Bargains.

Amy smiled and waved her hand, laughing as if we were sharing a joke. “Oh, I can’t believe your mother didn’t tell you. I moved here right after I graduated from college,” she said, leaving the unspoken subtext: you didn’t finish college did you Tina?

Of course I didn’t know she moved to Phoenix. If I had known Amy Schaefer had lived anywhere in Arizona, I would have gone to Texas by way of Washington.

She waited for me to politely nod, “Anyway, It has been ages! How are you? My mother told me you worked here.” She looked around, appraising Price Bargains like a mangy cat on its ninth life. “I am guessing this is just temporary. You don’t strike me as the type to want, this…,” she waved her hand as to encompass the entire warehouse, “…this kind of thing.”

I smiled, pursing my lips to hold back the comment working its way to the tip of my tongue.

“And I sell real estate now,” she said, pausing for dramatic affect. “I am consistently the top producer in my office for the past three years.”

Amy handed me her card with the same arm flourish reserved for introducing royalty. On her card, Amy’s face was smiling up at me, with her name and vitals printed below. In italics it said, “Your real estate specialist for life.”

I wasn’t sure why anyone needed a real estate specialist for life. It sounded more like a perverse prison sentence. I tuned back into her nasally voice as I realized she was still talking. “…with interest rates going up, now is definitely the time to buy. You don’t want to wait too long. You know, you and I should get together sometime. I can show you some cute little condos that might be right for you.”

So, that’s why Amy came looking for me, no doubt my mother telling Rene Schaefer I was working here. Why not see about trolling up a sale? It didn’t matter. Amy Shaefer would never be my anything for life.

“Of course,” she said, making another exaggerated hand fling, “I generally deal in more high-end properties, but for a good friend, I would be happy to make an exception. I am just sure this job can’t be paying much, but with your family’s money even you can afford something modest.”

I felt my fist clench. Heat rose to my cheeks. It was one thing for Amy to seek me out to make light of my job. It was another to be so caviler about my family. As if Amy’s life was any different! I was aware Hoyt Schaefer had tucked his fair share of sagging skin off of the East Bay’s elite. Rumor had it, Amy’s trust fund would be around long enough to put her great-grandchildren through Harvard.

“Actually Amy,” I said as cheerfully as I could manage, “I had been toying with getting my license once I got to El Paso. But now that I have decided to stay in Arizona, I had been exploring starting real estate school.”

Where the hell did that come from? I had no such thoughts. What I knew about selling houses came off of what I had just read on Amy’s business card.

Amy called my bluff. Clapping, she squealed, “Really! That’s great. You know though, it is really hard work, and it doesn’t pay until you get a sale—which, could take months.” She said smugly. “Don’t take this wrong, Tina, but I just can’t see you handling something so complex.”

There was a lot to take wrong there. I couldn’t think of anything classy to say, so I balked. “You know, before I left Shades Crest, I ran into Jeff Boxman. He is still something else. Did you know him in high school?”

The plastered smile on Amy’s face melted into a cold sneer. For a moment she said nothing and my personal self-satisfaction meter went into overdrive.

“Nice seeing you Tina.” She murmured, walking off with her Manolo Blahnik stilettos clicking on the concrete.