Page 2 of Mr. Principal

“Insubordination is a fireable offense.”

“So is sexual harassment,” I shot back.

His demeanor instantly changed. His eyes darkened in anger and he growled, “I’d be careful if I were you.”

My heart was pounding and I could feel sweat pouring down my back. I hated confrontation, but ever since my divorce, it was like I couldn’t help but get confrontational. Maybe I was a bitter divorcee, snapping at everyone. But this guy deserved it. He wasn’t a good person. He didn’t respect me, and he’d thought that he could intimidate me. I wasn’t going to let him.

“I’m sorry, that took longer than expected...” Mo’s voice trailed off as he looked from me to Terry. I hadn’t even noticed he’d come back.

“Everything okay?” he asked with uncertainty. Mo was a good guy, but he hated confrontation even more than I did. There was no way I was going to get him involved. If Terry continued to objectify me, I would just report him to corporate, not that I planned to stay at Primrose much longer.

Terry shot me a warning look and gave Mo a big fake smile before clamping him hard on his shoulder as if they were buddies.

“Everything’s fine. Ms. Dana here and I were just getting to know each other—”

“It’s missus not miss. Mrs. Dana Duran.” Technically that was a lie since I was no longer married, but he didn’t need to know that my husband had divorced me. And the last name was mine. My ex had taken everything else, but I was determined to keep the name. I’d earned it. I’d been a devoted wife for seven years.

“Mrs. Duran, then,” he said through clenched teeth. “You should get back to work. A line is forming. Work is what we pay you to do, right?” He turned away without another word. Mo shot me an apologetic look and jogged to catch up with him.

I sighed to myself wondering what I’d done so wrong in a past life that the universe wanted to punish me by making me broke and lonely, and now I was at the mercy of a total creep. The universe just wasn’t fair.

Nearly a year ago I’d been leading the perfect suburban housewife existence. I had disposable income, a 3000 square foot home, a three-car garage, and a swimming pool. Now, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I was struggling financially and I didn’t know where my life was going. I lived in a tiny home with my kid that barely had a backyard let alone a swimming pool.

I rolled my shoulders a few times in an attempt to de-stress. I tried to count my blessings and think of all the things I was grateful for, but I was in too much pain to focus on being positive. My shoulders hurt. My back hurt. And I was starting to get a headache courtesy of my encounter with the creepy new manager. It was hard to believe that almost a year ago I’d been happy. Unemployed but happy. I’d only been unemployed because my husband had told me that I didn’t need to work, that I could trust him to take care of us and I’d trusted him. And at the end of the day he had taken all the money he’d earned, divorced me and married a nineteen-year-old. Trust in a marriage was clearly overrated.

“Hi, how can I help you?” I said to the next customer. I was doing my job, but my head was elsewhere. I was in a full-blown pity party because my encounter with Terry Baxter had really rattled me. I probably needed to see a therapist, not that I could afford one, but I felt I spent every moment since Tom had told me he wanted a divorce, expecting the figurative “other shoe” to drop. But things did seem to have gone from bad to worse over the past eleven months.

Life was hard. And maybe I was just a spoiled whiner, but I couldn’t help but compare my life then to my life now. I’d been a stay at home wife for seven years and a stay at home mom for five of those years.

I’d been really happy. And to be honest, I hadn’t missed working. Before marrying Tom, my only work experience had been as a cashier anyway. I tried to ignore the irony that eight years later, post-college degree, I was working pretty much as a cashier again.

When I’d tried to get back into the workforce after I realized that Tom was definitely serious about getting divorced and there was nothing I could do to stop him, I’d tried to get a job in marketing. After all, my degree was in marketing. To my surprise, I was vastly underqualified. Even with my fancy degree from a fancy school, I knew nothing about digital marketing which is what all the firms I applied to wanted. My knowledge of social media marketing strategies was nonexistent. I didn’t get one call back.

“Thanks, and have a great day,” I said with a forced smile as I finished up with the customer. My shoulders still hurt, and I watched as the woman I’d just helped exited the store. A family came in as she exited. It was a woman about my age, with a son around five years old. I could tell from their clothes and her expensive handbag and shoes that her socio-economic status was similar to what mine had been. I figured she was another stay-at-home mom. Hmmm, I thought to myself, maybe she’ll be lucky and her husband won’t leave her for a nineteen-year-old.

It’s funny, but the way I found my first job, post-divorce, was exactly by shopping. When I tried to make a purchase on my husband’s debit card and it was denied, I’d been in a Primrose Grocery Store and the cashier who had seen me shopping there for years, had kindly mentioned that the grocery store was hiring. I guess everyone had heard I was divorced. I’d lived in a small town and it was true that word traveled fast.

Up until that moment, I think I’d still been in denial. I’d been spending money irresponsibly as if Tom was still footing all the bills. It had been a shock when our joint account had no money in it. I’d cried then, right in front of the cashier and that’s when I’d met Mr. Jeffries who was visiting from a store in the city. He had taken me into his office and offered to pay for my groceries and then offered me a job.

We’d talked forever. It turned out that he too was going through a bitter divorce. I’d still been in denial that my divorce had been anything but amicable, so I’d felt sorry for Mr. Jeffries. He, in turn, had felt sorry for me. Mr. Jeffries’s wife of thirty-four years had left him. She woke up one day, told him that she had never wanted to get married or have kids. Mr. Jeffries recounted to me that he had stared at her in shock. Not only had they been married since their twenties, but they’d had five kids together.

Mr. Jeffries had then told me that his wife had moved to Vegas and had become a lounge singer and that she was really happy while he was absolutely miserable and lost without her. We’d bonded over the feeling of being lost, thrown away, and depressed. He’d hired me on the spot.

That night, I packed the last of my stuff from the house I’d shared with Tom and our daughter. I’d packed my tiny car to the rooftop and had driven straight to the city. I’d rented a hotel suite at the last minute in a sketchy part of town just so that I could figure out my next move. Through the thin walls, I could hear a couple arguing next door and I could smell the funk of boiled cabbage in the air.

My daughter had handled the move swimmingly. She was a ball of enthusiasm even though everything in her life was changing. As she’d lain next to me sleeping that night, I’d cried silently for the life that I’d lost. I cried for my daughter who was now from a broken home. I cried for all the things I wouldn’t be able to give her. I didn’t know how I would pay for our next meal let alone her college tuition in thirteen years.

My parents had offered to let me live with them, but I wasn’t interested. Their marriage had been more dysfunctional than mine. In hindsight, they were probably the reason I married the first man who was nice to me. My dad had been mostly absent, and my mom was a narcissist who always played the victim. I’d escaped their household and was not looking to go back. And they didn’t believe in divorce. When I’d first told them what was happening, they were upset but kept pushing me to work it out with Tom. Finally, one night, I remember yelling, “There’s no working anything out. He doesn’t love me anymore, okay? He wants out! He just doesn’t love me!”

My dad had scoffed, “Marriage isn’t about love. It’s about duty.”

Mom had visibly winced at Dad’s words and for the first time in a long time, my heart went out to her. She was in a loveless marriage. Maybe that’s why she was so nasty to me growing up. Dad hadn’t been mean, just vacant. Even when he was home, he had been on the phone with customers or just absent emotionally. He answered questions from me with monosyllabic words and never showed up to any of my events at school unless his boss was going to be there too.

It was no wonder that I didn’t notice my own marriage was falling apart given how my parents had rarely spoken to each other, I thought that was normal for all marriages. I thought Tom was content playing his role and I was content playing mine. Apparently, he had wanted more. Or maybe he had just wanted younger.

But who was I kidding? Tom hadn't been very interested in me since we’d first gotten married. The first two years of Meredith's life were a blur to me because I’d been so sleep deprived. She had been a colicky baby and hated bedtime. I’d had no help. Tom had been like an absentee dad. It wasn't until Meredith was three years old that he’d taken an interest in her and they’d been inseparable ever since. He had more than adequately made sure she was cared for during and after our divorce proceedings. He paid her private school tuition and paid child support, but I was on my own otherwise. Hence his debit card had no funds on it. I guess he didn’t think paying for food was necessary.

The Primrose Grocery store chain that I worked for was local and family owned. The pay was laughable but the benefits were great. Mr. Jeffries had been generous enough to let me work eight hours in split shifts so I had time to drop Meredith off at school and pick her up. Sometimes her father arranged a transportation service for her, but I still preferred to pick her up whenever I had time.