Drive Me Wild

“Apparently not,” she said, a touch wryly.

“Beg pardon?”

She shrugged. “Well, I was here to apply for a job, but apparently I’m not properly qualified.” She resisted the childish urge to say, That mean, spiteful Luke Stewart wouldn’t give it to me.

Mr. Bailey’s brow lowered. “What job? I didn’t think there were any teaching positions open.”

Grace cleared her throat lightly. “It wasn’t a teaching job.”

“Not teaching?” He wasn’t going to let this go. “Was it administrative?”

“It was driving. The bus. Driving the school bus.” There. She’d said it. She’d admitted out loud that she’d been turned down as a bus driver.

It felt even worse now.

“Driving the school bus?” the older man repeated, with the same incredulity he might have shown if she’d said she wanted to become a trapeze artist. “That’s no job for a Perigon. Let’s go talk to Luke Stewart and see if we can’t find something reasonable for you here.” He took her arm and started leading her to the building she’d just left.

“No. Please.” Her reaction was too strong. He dropped her arm, startled. She smiled. “I mean, the driving position really was the one I wanted. It had flexible hours and would allow me to be with Jimmy when there was no school.” She tried to imagine Luke’s reaction if she reappeared with a big gun like Fred Bailey, demanding that a new position of some kind be created for her. “But it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t think I’ll be able to get the license on time.” She didn’t know why she felt like she had to defend Luke’s decision suddenly.

“Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, I must confess I don’t know much about that.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate your concern, but I’ll find something else.”

“I’m sure you will.” Mr. Bailey looked at his watch. “I must go. I’ve gotten so caught up in talking to you, I forgot I had a board meeting. I want to see more of you now. Welcome back, Gracie.”

The endearment took the edge off her anger toward Luke. Nobody had called her Gracie since her father had died.

“Thanks, Mr. Bailey.” The lump in her throat expanded like a sponge. It was silly to feel a melancholy nostalgia for her childhood, but she did. She watched Fred Bailey walk away, noticing his gait was now that of an old man, a little creaky, stiff in the knees. It was then that she really realized that home hadn’t just waited for her, unchanging, while she went off and started a new life up north. Things had moved on here, too. People had died, grown older; some had moved away years ago, never to be seen again.

Thomas Wolfe was right, Grace thought, you can’t go home again.

But sometimes you have to.

“You’ll find something,” Grace’s mother, Dot Perigon, said, patting her daughter’s shoulder sympathetically. “If you like, I could speak to some of your father’s old friends and colleagues. They all loved Daddy so much, I’m sure at least one of them could find something for you to do.”

Grace shook her head and fiddled with a sweating glass of iced tea her mother had put on the table in front of her. There was a twist of lemon and a mint leaf in it, just the way she had always made it. “I’m desperate, but not so desperate that I’m willing to take a job at someone else’s expense. It’s one thing when there’s a job that needs to be filled—” she thought angrily of Luke “—but quite another when someone just creates a position as a favor to an old friend, then has to pay for it.”

“But anyone would be lucky to have you around, helping out.”

“Only if they needed the help, Mom. And I think most of Daddy’s friends have got highly qualified personnel working in their offices already.”

Dot sighed and topped Grace’s glass off with tea from a pitcher. “All right, dear, but I’d be glad to speak with Fred Bailey. Or anyone else,” she hastened to add. “If you change your mind.”

Grace smiled. “Actually, I spoke with Mr. Bailey today.”

Dot looked surprised. “You did?”

“Yes, he was on his way to the school when I was leaving.”

“What did he say?” Dot asked sharply.

Grace was afraid she heard, in her mother’s voice, a determination to speak with her old friend on Grace’s behalf. And Grace definitely didn’t want that. “As a matter of fact, he did offer to twist some arms for me,” she said, deflecting the idea she hoped, before it could take root. “But I told him no thanks.”

“You did?”

“I had to,” Grace stressed. “I don’t want charity.”

“I understand. Still, it was very nice of him to offer.” Dot looked quite pleased. “Very nice.”

“Yes, it was.” Grace took a long draw of the cold tea. “You know, it was almost like having Daddy around for a moment. When I saw him, it brought all of that back to me.”

“I know what you mean,” Dot mused, with a small smile.

“So you’ve known him since high school, right? Mr. Bailey, I mean.”

“Yes, why?”

Grace stirred her tea thoughtfully. “I was just wondering why he never got married.” But she was really thinking, again, of Luke. How come he hadn’t gotten married? Was he going to end up like Mr. Bailey, a lifelong bachelor in Blue Moon Bay?

“I couldn’t say,” Dot answered, looking out the window. “Looks like Jimmy’s having a good time with the Bonds’ old spaniel out there.”

Grace took a cookie off the plate her mother had set out. “He loves dogs.”

“Maybe you should get him one.”

“Mom! I can barely take care of the two of us as it is, despite Michael’s meager monthly payments.” It was then that it truly hit her. She had to take care of herself and her son, and if things continued the way they were, she wasn’t going to be able to. She’d have to…she didn’t even know what she’d have to do. Go on welfare? She shuddered at the thought. “What if I could find a job as a cocktail waitress or something over in Ocean City? Do you think you could keep Jimmy at night?”

Dot frowned. “I don’t want to say no to you, honey, but…well, I sometimes have things to do in the evenings. I just can’t commit to staying home according to your schedule.” She assumed a pleasant expression and added, “But, as I told you, he’s welcome to stay with me any time during the day.”

Grace swallowed her shock. Though she wouldn’t say she’d ever been spoiled, exactly, and she’d always been careful not to take advantage of her mother, at the same time she never thought her mother would say no to her. Especially on something as important as this.

But Grace was well aware that Dot had already been very generous in letting her daughter and grandson move in with her. Grace wasn’t going to argue for more. “Do we still have today’s newspaper?” she asked, trying to sound upbeat, although she felt anything but. “Maybe there’s something there that I overlooked before.”

Right. Like a classified ad offering a miracle to the most desperate candidate. Now there, Grace thought wryly, was a position she definitely was qualified for. High qualified.

“So what’s she doing at night that she can’t reschedule?” Jenna Perkins asked Grace a few nights later. After an unproductive week of job-hunting, Grace had reached the end of her rope. She had to get out. Now she and Jenna were in a crowded downtown bar called Harley’s, shouting to each other over the throbbing beat of a terrible band. Jenna was Grace’s oldest friend and had once shared Grace’s dream of leaving Blue Moon Bay, but she had stayed when the time came to decide. In reflection, it seemed like the better choice. She’d married a carpenter and had twins two years after Grace had Jimmy.

“Think she’s got a secret life you don’t know about?” Jenna went on, then raised an eyebrow. “Maybe a boyfriend?”

Grace laughed. “I don’t think so. Can you imagine it? Mom dating? Good lord!” She shook her head and reached for the peanuts. “Like life hasn’t gotten weird enough as it is.”

“Ten years is a long time to be alone,” Jenna said lightly. “And your mom’s a very attractive woman.”

“Come off it, Jenna. She’s known everyone in this town for sixty-three years. I don’t think anyone new has come in to sweep her off her feet.”

Jenna shrugged. “You never know.”

“You said you had a great job idea,” Grace reminded her, steering the conversation away from her mother. “What is it?”