Page 20 of The Do-Over

7:15: Debate calling in sick.

7:20: Stare into Sal’s unblinking eyes of love. Feel mildly braver.

7:25: Haul myself to my car.

7:30: Stop at my favorite donut shop. Buy fifteen donuts—one dozen for my co-workers.

8:15: After fighting my way through traffic, arrive at work, three donuts heavier and fifteen minutes early.

8:30: Sit in the parking lot in my car until the last possible moment and pray for an apocalypse-sized meteor, spontaneous combustion, or alien invasion. None of that happens. Unfortunately.

As Mimi would say, “You can’t avoid the elephant in the room, ’specially when you’re the elephant.”

When I graduated from college, a freshly minted business degree I hadn’t wanted in hand, I’d taken my first job at a small start-up. With only five employees, it was a mad scramble of disorganization and flailing hope. To be on the ground floor of something new filled us all with mindless excitement, even if the product was a little questionable.

Turbo-Loops were marketed as the latest craze in outdoor games for kids. It involved an enormous slingshot and children wearing vests with bull’s eyes printed on them.

Okay, so a lot questionable.

My mother hated that job. “It’s a ridiculous idea. Someone will shoot their eye out.”

Seemed like parents agreed with her. The ensuing bad publicity led directly to the demise of Turbo-Loops and my job.

Next, I found employment as an executive assistant to the vice president of a car rental company. The hours and pay were good, and I got along well enough with my co-workers. I might have stayed there for the next thirty years if I hadn’t accidentally sent a lovely bouquet of anniversary roses along with a scandalous little note written by the boss-man to his wife instead of his mistress.

I was asked to clean out my desk.

For the record, he’s divorced now, and his wife cleaned him out.

“You’ve gotten all that out of your system now,” Mom said. “Your father has a job waiting for you.”

And so, I broke down and took a position at Mayfield Home Mortgage, where dreams go to die.

Namely, my dreams.

The company had five branches now, but I worked at the flagship office in the Energy Corridor off I-10. Although I’d made my way through several positions, I was now working as a loan officer.

Here’s what I did: when a person wanted a mortgage loan for one reason or another, I dissected their finances, asked them seven thousand questions, and made a judgment call based on what I’d learned. And hopefully, in the end, a deserving couple got to buy the house of their dreams.

That was number one on my list of Things I Liked About My Job. It was the only thing I liked about my job. It was a short list.

Balancing the box of donuts, I pushed open the door. Miss Ruby hunched over her desk, pecking away at the computer one finger at a time. Hunt, peck, hunt, peck. Repeat. She paused and tilted her head toward me, hands frozen clawlike above the keyboard, and peered over tiny half-glasses.

Ruby mainly answered phones, kept up with her online dating profiles, and barked at people to take a seat in the waiting room. She excelled at all three. At the end of this year, she was finally retiring. It would be strange to not see her sitting at this desk.

When I was very small, Mom had been Dad’s Girl Friday. She’d worked side-by-side with him, dragging me along to the office. I’d spent hours doodling on the backs of discarded mortgage applications and climbing into empty copy paper boxes. When he could afford it, Dad had hired Miss Ruby as his first official employee.

I plastered on a smile. The box of donuts slid sideways, and I mashed it to my chest. “I brought treats. You know, to say welcome back.”

Miss Ruby’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “I heard what that boy did.”

No need for her to clarify what she meant.

With a suddenness that startled me, she stood and slid around the desk, surprisingly spry. Pausing in front of me, she seized the box and tossed it on her desk. “He sure done you wrong. I’d like to snatch him bald-headed for the way he treated you.”

She wrapped her arms around me in a rib-cracking hug, pinning my arms to my sides. Before I could respond in kind, she pulled back and retreated to her desk.

I blinked, fighting with a strange urge to both cry and blush at once. “Um, thank you.”