have to check it out yourself, starting with a phone call. And remember, you don’t have to rush. Your father and I want you to make a good start at a job with a future. Take your time and don’t rush into things blindly, dear. I’m going upstairs to shower and dress. Talk to you later.” She hesitated, then impulsively bussed my cheek. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I stared pensively at my empty coffee cup and at Daniel, who stared back in an almost unsettling way. The baby’s key ring rested on the table. I gave it to him. He jiggled it happily as I called the phone number listed for the Girl Friday job.
Daniel began whimpering as soon as the receptionist put me through to the personnel supervisor, the baby’s crabbing slowly rising in volume every time I tried to ask a question or hear its answer. His bawling, randomly interspersed with high-pitched shrieks, made it impossible to hear or think. I finally shouted an apology, promised to call back and hung up the phone. “Danny! What is the matter with you?!” I glared at him.
He sniffled, hiccupped, and leaned to the side as far as his swing chair would allow. His small hand stretched toward his key rattle, which had fallen onto the linoleum. I returned it to him and took up the phone again, determined to redial the call.
Daniel studied the phone and started his fussing whine again. I hung up again, picked up Daniel, and checked him all over. He giggled at my scrutiny, apparently abandoning his renewed crying jag with no other visible problems.
I put him back into his swing. He watched me intensely, as if gauging my next move.
“Are you afraid of the phone, Danny? Look.” I picked up the receiver again. “It won’t hurt you or me.”
I started to dial the number a third time, and saw Daniel suck his mouth into a pout, his small brows furrowing. I hung up, and his face smoothed back into the picture of a patient infant. “You are really weird today,” I told him and wrinkled my own brows into a pout. “Like mother, like son.” Daniel broke into a toothless grin at the face I made, forcing me to laugh along with him.
“Oh, all right. I’m beginning to think that you’ve been put up to this, that someone doesn’t want me to try for that Girl Friday job. Is that it?” Daniel just looked at me, unnaturally still. “I guess I’d better check out those ads again for jobs that meet your approval!”
An hour later, I had marked off three other jobs to call about: two for clerk-typist, and one for junior medical secretary. The latter especially interested me. I was a good speller and felt sure I could learn the terminology on my own, using Ginnie’s medical dictionary.
I spent half an hour playing with Daniel in the living room, singing silly children’s songs and dancing him around in my arms. Mom came downstairs in the midst of I’ve Been Working On The Railroad, smiling as her daughter and grandson swirled around the room to the old folksong.
“Don’t forget to teach him Playmates,” she said, getting her coat from the dining room closet. “I’m going out to get a few groceries. See you when I get back. Did you make any calls?”
“Danny got cranky. I’m going to try again in a few minutes.”
“Good. Just keep your voice cheerful, and tell them how much you’d love to interview for the job. Answer their questions briefly, but don’t tell them your life story.”
I grinned. “You know me pretty well, don’t you? I won’t. I promise.”
“I should know you. I raised you all these years. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I carried Daniel back into the kitchen and mixed some baby cereal with strained pears. Daniel ate about half the bowl, then pushed the spoon away.
“Full? Okay, sonny boy, I’m going to put you in your swing again. Let’s see if you can stay quiet while Mommy makes some calls.”
He didn’t protest, content and full. I dialed the three new numbers. One job was already filled, but the others were still open, and I arranged interviews for both. One was for a clerk typist position at a manufacturer in the far northeast. The other was the junior medical secretary job at Hahnemann Hospital off Broad Street in the heart of downtown Philadelphia. Their personnel officer said they would train me, if I proved a good candidate in their other test requirements. I liked the idea of working in the health field.
On impulse, I decided to also call back the number for the Girl Friday position. It couldn’t hurt to have a third interview, in case the first two fell through. I snuck a wary glance at Daniel as I dialed. He was engrossed in his key rattle, ignoring me.
I intended to explain the earlier interruption to the woman supervisor I’d spoken to, or tried to speak with, before. But now the receptionist cut short my request to be transferred to the woman, explaining that they’d had too many responses to the ad, had booked enough interviews, and weren’t scheduling any more at present.
As I hung up the phone, I noticed my son’s absolute disinterest in my job search, as opposed to his early morning caterwauling. I offered him the leftover fruit and cereal mix. He gobbled it up and yawned.
“Tired, sweetie? So am I. Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”
I left my mother a note: “Got two interviews. One on Friday at Hahnemann Hospital! The other on Monday at a paper manufacturer on Bustleton Avenue. I’m upstairs, getting Daniel ready for his nap. Leigh Ann.”
Daniel gibbered and cooed on the way up, and let out infant sighs as he lay in his crib, preoccupied with a thorough study of his fingers and sleeper-clad feet.
I rested on my bed beside his crib, watching him, the house quiet, the ticking of Ginnie’s clock audible in the stillness.
I fell asleep before the baby did.
CHAPTER 12
Mists swirl around me, white against a moderate blue background that waivers in hue, slightly lighter, slightly darker. The clouds, if clouds they are, drift by me. Yet my feet stand firmly on something soft but solid.
In the distance I spy Terence, his blond hair, white poet’s shirt, brown pants and boots cutting a sharp contrasting figure against the blue and white ether. His back is to me. He turns and looks at me, as if just noticing my arrival. Then he turns away, as if denying my presence, walking on.
“Terence!”
I want to run, to catch up, and suddenly I am there, right behind him. I reach out and grab his shoulder. “Wait!”
He faces me silently, sullenly.
“Why were you running away?”
He doesn’t answer for a minute. When he finally does, his words spew out in a pettish miserable torrent. “You and that bloody downsider! Prying into other people’s lives. Now he’s trying to destroy my soul as well as yours. Well, you can play in his bloody pit all you like. I’m climbing out, fast as I can. Leave you behind, I swear it. Let Quatama figure out how to rescue your bloody arse if you fall too low. I’m not your fucking Prince Charming. Smear your own face with the ashes from the fire. I won’t have it. None of it. I’m off the job. Ta!”
He turns to leave. I try to push in front of him. The atmosphere in this void feels thick, as if I’m under water when I deliberately try to move, yet when I think about, desire a movement or action, it occurs so fluidly, it seems to happen almost simultaneously. I give up trying to physically catch his retreating figure, and simply concentrate, imagining appearing in front of him, bringing him up short.
“Leigh Ann, please stop that! I want to go.” He glares at me; I have jolted him, materializing so close to him, we nearly collide. “You have plenty of other spirit guides. I’ve no doubt of that, having learned about you, my girl. You’ll do fine without me. Now please let me pass.”
“You’re angry. It’s about your music, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me you had other compositions?”
“Other composi . . . !”