card. He wrote something on the back and handed it to her. “My cell number. I don’t very often find myself at the Burger Bomb in south Santa Rosa. Call anytime.”
She turned it over and saw it was a business card. Kerrigan Cleaning Services. Industrial, business, residential. Riley Kerrigan, President and CEO.
Emma looked up into his eyes with a question.
“The work is hard but she pays over minimum wage and promotes from within the company. She’s a good leader.” He shrugged. “If desperation for rent and food ever take precedence over bad feelings about the past.”
“Never gonna happen, Adam,” she said, handing back the card.
He closed his hand around hers, refusing to take it. “The first thing you’re going to have to learn about scrabbling to get back on your feet—never turn your nose up at an opportunity. Especially for pride’s sake.”
“You’re reading me all wrong,” she said. “I don’t have any pride left. But I do have to protect myself in the clinches.”
“As you should. And know this—my sister has done a lot for women, women like you who are trying to get on their feet, start over, build a functional life and their self-esteem, usually out of the ruins of divorce or being widowed.”
“You’re proud of her,” she said.
“Oh, yes. Riley amazes me. Keep the card. It has my number on the back.”
She slid it into her purse, thinking it would be a cold day in hell before she’d ask Riley Kerrigan for help.
The very next day the mean little tyrant at Burger Belch fired her.
Riley Kerrigan ran a tight ship and an efficient workplace. She kept her office in Santa Rosa, for easy access to Marin County, San Francisco, Davis, Napa Valley. It had been her goal from the start to service companies and individuals who could afford the best. The fact that this demographic was also the most difficult to please, the greatest challenge, was irrelevant to her. She was confident she had the best service providers.
There were only two full-time office staff: Riley, and her secretary, Jeanette Sutton. She had had five rooms—a spacious office for herself, a front reception area for Jeanette, an office for Brazil Johnson, the CFO and numbers woman, a conference room for meetings and a small lunchroom and restroom. Brazil was rarely in the office; she worked from home whenever she could. Riley’s director of operations, Nick Cabrini, worked in the field, but there was space for him in the office if he needed it, either in Brazil’s office or the conference room. Makenna Rice was the head housekeeper and trainer; she used the conference room occasionally.
Riley kept an office because customers responded to it, particularly business clients, although some home owners also liked to see her base of operations. It gave her credibility. Nick drove one of the company cars; he dressed sharp, carried a computer in his expensive briefcase and when he gave estimates or checked on cleaning crews he looked professional. She had two hundred employees, most of them part-time by choice. Some of her full-time employees took care of the same properties on a regular basis. She had night crews who cleaned office buildings, day crews in residences and crews on call for emergencies like fire or flood damage—regular hazmat duty. Her liability was high and well managed, her income was in the mid hundred-thousand range, her business net worth was now extremely high, her mother’s house was paid off, her retirement savings gaining strength, Maddie’s college fund nearly maxed and her state of mind—excellent.
It had been a long time coming. Many years of eighty-hour weeks.
When Riley was eighteen and a new high school graduate, she took a few classes at the community college that very summer and helped her mother with her housecleaning jobs. Back then they worked for cash, under the table, and too often they were treated like they belonged under the table, out of sight. Customers would take last-minute trips or vacations and forgo housecleaning service for a couple of weeks, not paying them. Clients complained about the cost; they added duties without making preparations in advance, without asking or offering to pay extra. “Oh, June, I have to run a couple of errands. You don’t mind keeping an eye on little Eric, do you?” or “June, I’m way behind on the laundry, can you pitch in?” and “Junie, darling, looks like it’s time for a good window washing.” And as far as Riley knew, her mother hadn’t had a raise in at least ten years.
“We have to fix this business,” Riley had said. “Even some of your oldest customers take complete advantage of your good nature.”
“I think of some of these people as my friends. I just like to help when I can,” June always said.
“Well, they don’t think of you as a friend. They treat their friends with far more respect, so don’t be fooled. And none of them are worried about your retirement. We’re going to find a better way to get it done and earn a decent living. And maybe a little security.”
Riley set up a business plan at the age of eighteen, recruited a couple of college girls who were going to school part-time just as she was, got a business license for two hundred dollars and went looking for more clients. She called her company Kerrigan’s Kleaning and had business cards printed. At first, she didn’t have any overhead except the personal time it cost to do paperwork because Riley was paying taxes, social security, salaries and issuing 1099 statements to employees. Within months Kerrigan’s Kleaning was humming along and even growing.
Then she got pregnant.
What a dark, terrifying time that was. Emma abandoned her, which came as no surprise, and Jock was suddenly MIA. He offered to give her money for an abortion, then he offered to marry her, but he had a black eye in the suspicious shape of Adam’s fist. She turned down both offers. She did threaten to sue him for support, however, because in all areas she had a mind for business. She remained at home with her mother, brother and grandparents, where she had loving support.
She continued to work with her cleaning service. The bigger she got, the more she thought she’d better make this idea work because there was certainly no man waiting in the wings to take care of her. In fact, not only were Jock’s support payments spotty at best, he didn’t even show up at the hospital when she went into labor. Adam and her mother were with her, her grandparents waiting in the hall.
Jock came much later, after her family was gone, and though she tried to forget it, the image of him crying as he held the baby was forever burned into her mind. But she wasn’t falling for his malarkey again.
The whole pregnancy was emotionally difficult and Riley felt she’d ruined her life with one terrible choice. But when she saw Maddie’s perfect little face, everything changed. She might’ve had regrets, but now she also had purpose. And she worked like a demon because she had a daughter, and her daughter was going to have a devoted family, a good home and opportunities.
Jock started coming around after Maddie was a few months old, and the hurt and anger were almost too much for Riley. How dare he pretend to act like a father now! Every encounter was a strain; they fought and sniped at each other and not to be left out, Adam got into it, threatening Jock. Maddie was about nine months old when they had a blistering fight because Jock wanted to take her to his mother’s house so his family could meet her, and Riley said she’d be damned if he was taking her anywhere.
“Stop!” June said. She took the baby from Riley, passed her to Grandma and sat the three of them at the table. “Don’t anyone say a word if you value your life. That child is a happy baby who will live to be ninety if I have my way. But if all she hears from her parents and her uncle is fighting, what do you think that will do for her self-esteem?”
“We don’t have any joint custody thing going on here,” Riley snapped.
“You have money for a lawyer?” June asked Riley. She turned to Jock. “Do you?”
“If he wasn’t responsible enough to take care of the mother,