Help Wanted

By Kat Folland

Amy's generosity exceeds her means, but when an old friend is down on his luck, she offers her couch. Paul is troubled, but Amy thinks she can help. Little by little, she realizes she's in over her head. What begins as a simple gesture of kindness becomes a struggle to survive.

Fifty percent of royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to WEAVE (Women Escaping a Violent Environment).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kat Folland
• Release date: Oct 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301406432

Kat Folland

Kat Folland was born in 1970 and adopted six weeks later by some really excellent people who, for some reason, opted to keep her. She grew up comfortably middle class – you could be comfortable in the middle class in those days – getting a fairly useless degree in History and an even more useless minor in Anthropology. Dabbling in writing all her life, she finally got around to finishing a novel in her forties, and is now publishing with some regularity.

Book preview

1. THE MAN IN THE BOX

Bonk.

Amy looked away from the television to the laptop on her desk. Her Gmail tab was flashing Paul Fournier. She clicked on the tab and looked at the chat window.

Paul Fournier: * poke *

She considered whether or not she should answer. She had set her status as busy, so she had the choice of pretending she was away from her computer. She was tired, but three week old Maggie was sleeping like an angel and could probably be counted on to do so for at least another hour. She decided chatting with Paul was probably going to be more interesting than the re-run of Mythbusters she had on the television.

Amy: * tickle *

Paul Fournier: Hi!

Amy: How're you today?

There was a pause and gmail's chat window put up the words Paul Fournier is typing

Paul Fournier: Okay

Amy thought that was a lot of typing to come up with four letters.

Amy: Just okay?

Paul: Rita is pissing me off.

Amy: I'm sorry

Amy wasn't really all that sorry. She thought Rita had been kind of a bitch from day one, possibly a bit unbalanced, and certainly not worthy of Paul.

Amy: What did she do?

This time, she thought to herself, but refrained from typing.

Amy and Paul - and for that matter Paul and Rita - had come to know each other through a website called yarly.net. Yarly.net was a news-of-the-odd aggregator website with discussion forums where users could post and discuss strange news items. The name came from the O rly? Ya rly! meme.

In the discussion forums people sometimes formed connections with each other that went beyond the bounds of the website. In the case of Amy and Paul, it was friendship; in the case of Paul and Rita, it went a bit further. That relationship was complicated considerably by the fact that Rita was married, with a jealous husband.

There was a moderately lengthy pause while Gmail assured Amy that Paul Fournier is typing.

Paul Fournier: She told me that she needs some time. Six months! She said she needs six fucking months to think about our relationship and I'm supposed to leave her alone.

Amy: What happens at the end of the six months? Does she decide whether or not to leave her husband?

Paul Fournier: I don't fucking know! She expects me to just wait around? I called her a cunt. Do you think that was too much?

Amy: lol Maybe

Amy thought that, in fact, it might not be too much, but she had always tried to be respectful of Paul's feelings towards Rita. He said he'd never felt for anyone the way he felt about her. Amy kept her mouth shut - or her fingers still, as the case may be - on her own opinions about Rita. Besides, Paul knew Rita much better than Amy did. He'd met her in person; done quite a lot more than met her. Amy tried very hard to give Rita the benefit of the doubt that she might just possibly have hidden virtues.

Amy: I bet she didn't much care for that, though.

Paul Fournier: LOL! Noooooo. She started crying and telling me that if I loved her I would do this small thing for her. Bitch.

Amy: Well at least she had the balls to do it over the phone. So to speak. At least I'm assuming it wasn't in person.

Paul Fournier: No, her husband's gotten really suspicious. She's afraid to come see me.

Amy: It's a long drive. Anyway... so you're angry with her for wanting to take some time to make a decision?

Paul Fournier: Fuck yeah. Either she loves me or she doesn't. I don't need to deal with headgames. This is bullshit. Six months?

Amy didn't know what to say. She'd really like to see Rita out of Paul's life, but she didn't want to say so. It wasn't her place.

Amy: I guess in that much time she'll either decide she can or can't live without you.

Hm, Amy thought, I don't think that really came out how I meant it to.

Paul Fournier: Fuck her anyway. I don't need that shit. I don't need someone who's going to play headgames with me. I told her that. I told her not to contact me, not ping me, not call me, since that's what she said she wanted. Fine. I yelled at her and called her names.

Amy: Okay

Paul Fournier: She's already called me three times.

Amy: Huh

Paul Fournier: I didn't answer.

Amy: It's good to stand by your words, I guess.

Paul Fournier: Fuck yeah. That cunt.

Amy: Paul, have you been drinking?

Paul Fournier: =) After that bullshit? All day long.

Amy sighed. Alcohol and Paul were not a good mix. It certainly explained the excessive profanity, however. Paul tended towards mood swings stone cold sober and alcohol just made the swings worse, more intense. He also tended to lie when he was drunk. Or, Amy thought, maybe he just isn't as good at it then, and I don't catch him at it when he's sober. She put the thought aside. It was uncomfortable to contemplate and seemed rather paranoid. After all, she'd never caught him in a lie about anything important.

But the milk was spilled. There was no point in lecturing Paul about drinking when he was drunk. But she didn't really feel like listening to repetitious profanity about someone she didn't like in the first place, especially when she felt compelled by good manners to not join in.

Amy: Whoops! Maggie just woke up! Gotta go. Catch you later! * hugs *

It was a lie, but Amy didn't feel that bad about it.

Paul Fournier: Okay, sweetie. * smoochies * Talk to you later, I hope.

Amy didn't reply, as it wouldn't be consistent with the lie she had told. When you have a hungry baby you don't sit around exchanging pleasantries in Gmail chat. At least you didn't if you were any kind of decent mother.

Amy considered it and came to the conclusion that she probably wouldn't win mother of the year. She had a twelve year old daughter whose father used to hit Amy before she divorced him and took Jennifer as far away as she could. Three thousand miles: New Jersey to California. She hadn't married Maggie's father; he, too, was no winner. He hadn't met his daughter yet, and as far as Amy was concerned that could wait. It could wait forever. She knew how to take care of an infant, though.

Just then Jennifer came home from school. She came in through the back door, a sliding glass door that led to a large patio or a very small yard, depending on how you looked at it. A gate through the patio's fence led to the parking lot and the bus stopped right in front of the lot. It didn't make sense to go all the way around the building to use the front door.

Jennifer came in quietly in case the baby was sleeping. She's so thoughtful, Amy thought, Maybe I'm not doing such a terrible job after all. Jennifer gave her mother a hug and threw her backpack on the couch. She made herself a snack and settled in to munch and do her homework. Amy looked at her with pride, her heart swelling, for a few moments.

Then her thoughts returned to the conversation with Paul. She wished she could believe it was really over between him and Rita, but Rita had tried to break it off before. Amy was unsure if Rita was genuinely torn about whether or not to leave her husband, or if she was simply ambivalent about cheating. Every time Rita tried to end the affair, Paul reacted with horrible verbal abuse - or so he reported to Amy; who knew if he may not be telling her what he wanted to say, rather than what he actually said? - and somehow it ended up with them back together. What on earth is going on that I'm not getting? Amy asked herself. Something about the equation was missing, that was certain.

Through it all, Amy maintained her silence about her feelings regarding Rita's character. Rita's persona at Yarly was catty and snarky at best. And if Paul's account was to be trusted, Rita had become obsessed with Paul - to the point of practically being a stalker - as soon as they first hooked up. And the hook up was a bit on the unusual side too, Amy thought wryly. Apparently the very first time they talked by instant messaging it ended up with not only cyber-sex, but kinky cyber-sex. Love at first... something for Rita. Within a couple of weeks, she had sent him a perfume and adoration laden card in the mail, having discovered his real address on her own initiative. Coupled with her stalker behavior was her caution to him that her husband must never find out because he'd kill Paul. This sent up all kinds of crazy alarms off in Amy's head, and she said so to Paul. But he ended up as dotty about Rita as she was about him, or some reasonable facsimile.

And because she was his friend, Amy kept her opinions to herself at that point. She did her best to be supportive when he was upset while secretly cheering in her heart every time it seemed like it might be over. The other side of that coin was at least gracefully listening when he felt like he needed to wax poetic when things were going well. That wasn't as easy. At least it was all in chat, where her face couldn't give her away. She just wanted the best for him, and had a bad feeling that Rita was far from it.

From Paul's latest rant it sounded like Rita was asking for time to decide whether or not to leave her husband. It was unclear, but it seemed a very unreasonable amount of time to ask if only to consider continuing the affair. Amy didn't know if Rita was raising the stakes or trying a new break-up tactic. She sighed. Only time would tell.

2.BACK TO THE REAL WORLD

Amy didn't have to wait long for more details. Paul reported that Rita tried several more times to contact him and he rebuffed her diversely. He wouldn't answer her calls or her pings. Her emails got responses full of curses. Finally he blocked her on Gmail and that was pretty much that.

Amy: For someone who wants space to make up her mind, she sure is throwing herself at you. What's up with that?

Paul Fournier: I know! Head-games. I refuse to play them. I'm done with her.

Then Amy didn't hear from Paul for a while. She didn't seek him out because she wasn't sure she wanted to know how things went down with Rita. She figured that he'd contact her either when he needed her or when things calmed down and he was bored some day. She had better things to do with her time than pester someone for internet chatting. If she wanted online company, there was still Yarly. Amy and Paul had been friends online for years, spent countless hours talking about hopes and dreams, trials and tribulations. But every now and then a few weeks would pass without conversation.

Eventually Amy's maternity leave came to an end. It happened to occur just after Jennifer finished school for the year. Amy did some hard thinking and decided to ask Jennifer to watch Maggie during her summer vacation.

Jennifer had just turned thirteen and had been looking forward to long summer days without parental supervision, so she wasn't immediately thrilled by the idea. When Amy offered to pay her for her efforts, and suggested that there might be the occasional evening outing permitted, the teenager changed her mind. All of that would cost Amy considerably less than standard day-care. Most day-care facilities didn't accept babies under six months old. Those that did charged outrageously for them. This put working mothers - especially single working mothers with only twelve weeks of maternity leave - in a very hard financial position. With Jennifer's help, Amy would save a lot of money. Amy needed all the help she could get; she hadn't been making full pay while on leave.

I was lucky to have been making any money at all, she thought. She was a licensed psychotherapist. If she had a private practice, she would have been dependent on short term disability for income. That's not literally nothing, but it would be difficult to even pay the rent, much less bills and food. But she worked for a county hospital and had halfway decent benefits, as she thought of them. Working for the county felt precarious these days. It seemed like they were always cutting programs. She'd had a nagging fear throughout her leave that she wouldn't have a job to go back to.

Her first few weeks back at work exhausted her, and she missed Maggie tremendously. When Jennifer was an infant, she didn't have a job; she hadn't had to leave her like this. Jennifer might not be the ideal care-taker for Maggie because of her young age, but it comforted Amy to have Maggie in the care of family. Maggie probably didn't care, really, but it was a good transition for Amy.

After she got back in the groove, Amy found that her job was less tiring. She found herself spending time at Yarly again and was pleased - tickled even - that she'd been missed. A few old chat buddies pinged her as well, and she felt a little less lonely.

As August rolled around, she started looking into day-care for when Jennifer had to go back to school. To her delight, she found a place very nearby that accepted babies under six months old. Since Maggie was only going to be a couple of weeks shy of six months when she started, they were willing to waive the extra fee if Amy was willing to leave them a deposit. Done deal.

It was also the season for back-to-school shopping. Amy's fortieth birthday had come this year and she was very aware of Jennifer's youth and beauty. Nonetheless, Amy would not allow Jennifer to dress like a slut, and that was final. No "but moms were going to change her mind. To make matters more confrontational, mother and daughter had some very different ideas of what constituted dressing like a slut. There were recriminations and whining was involved. There was eye rolling. There was the pointing out of who held the purse strings. Jennifer countered with having a fatter wallet than usual, and Amy saw that and raised with the roof over your head". The clothes that went home were flattering, but conservative. The people that went home were sullen and smug, respectively.

Amy asked for a day off on Maggie's first day of day-care. She didn't know how it was going to go, and didn't want to leave her there, only to have to turn around and go back before she even made it to work.

Maggie was a happy healthy baby. She was a little small, but not skinny. That made it easy for her to be a little ahead of the curve as far as some of the strength milestones. That, in turn, made it easier for the day-care center to accept her as an older baby

After spending the summer with Jennifer during the day, Maggie didn't have much in the way of separation anxiety. She was put in a room with kids five to eighteen months old. Maggie was shy of everyone at first and didn't want Amy to put her down, so Amy sat down on the floor where the babies were doing a sort of free play. That meant they were crawling everywhere; sometimes over other babies too slow or preoccupied to get out of the way. Others were playing with blocks or other small toys that could as easily be rolled or stacked as chewed on.

Maggie sat in Amy's lap and at first hid her face into the soft comforts of Amy's chest, but after a minute or so she began to sneak peeks at the scene in front of her. One of the teachers was sitting with the children too, gently negotiating property disputes or soothing a child that had been accidentally injured. Finally Maggie had turned completely around so that she could watch it all at once.

A little girl who had been watching Maggie's arrival and shy behavior approached. She was obviously one of the oldest children in the group, for she was walking well. She came right up to Maggie, held out a shiny red plastic car and offered it to her.

Maggie instantly hid her face again, but peeked out almost immediately and saw that the car was still being proffered. She cautiously reached her hand out to take it. Handing it over, the little girl beamed with pleasure, turned around and walked away. Maggie took her prize and wriggled out of Amy's lap. She stretched out on the floor and began to gnaw on the toy. After a short time, Amy stood up and backed away, still watching Maggie and the other babies. Maggie never seemed to notice; she was now having fun, banging the car against the floor and giggling.

A voice just behind and to Amy's left said, She's going to be fine, Ms. Martinez.

Amy reluctantly tore her eyes away and turned to smile at the young woman who was responsible for the room. I have the day off. If you need me for anything, call me on my cell phone and I'll be right over.

Of course, Ms. Martinez, she was reassured. But we won't need you, Maggie is going to be fine.

Amy went home. She decided to get on the computer and play around for a bit. First things first, check