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Thankful that, twenty-four hours after sending that email, I still hadn’t had a response.
Weird, right?
Maybe. But I figured that if I never got a response, I didn’t have to suffer the rejection I’d ultimately get because I was the proud owner of a vagina.
Hell, at my last interview, I’d been informed they didn’t have a place on reception open and they were very sorry.
I hadn’t even bothered. I’d told them I’d got the wrong building and went home.
I rapped my knuckles against the glass of the back door twice before I pushed it open. “Hello?”
“Jamie? Is that you?” Mom called from another room.
“Are you expecting anyone else for dinner?” I shouted back, closing the door behind me.
“Well,” she said, walking into the kitchen with a checked towel slung over her shoulder, “I did see Lou Porter earlier today…”
I pointed my finger at her. “Don’t you dare. I am not dating Stuart again.”
She burst into laughter, the melodic sound ringing through the room. “Don’t worry, honey. I don’t want you to date Stuart either.”
I blew out a long breath and slipped onto a stool at the kitchen island. “Thank God for that. If I have to listen to another rendition of his ill-fated relationship with his bitch ex, I’m going to scoop out my eardrums with a bent paperclip.”
“That’s more visual than I’d hoped for,” Mom said, whisking a full chicken out of the oven. She set it on the side in one swift movement, kicked the oven door shut, and threw the oven mitt over her left shoulder.
Between that and the tea towel, she looked every bit the housewife. The apron didn’t help, either…
“You’re welcome. Where’s Dad?”
She walked to the fridge as steam rose from the chicken. “He’s in the garage, tinkering with that old Chevy truck he’s been playing with. I think he’s almost to the root of the problem.” She pulled out a bottle of wine and held it up, as if to ask me if I wanted it.
I nodded.
She slid it over to me along with a corkscrew.
I got to work.
“Why do you ask? Did you need him?”
“No,” I said, working the corkscrew. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Mom set two wine glasses in front of me and leveled me with her blue eyes. “Which is?”
“I applied for a job today.”
“Where?”
I eked out the cork. “The garage that used to be ours.”
“Hoooooooey.” Mom blew out a long breath as she grabbed the neck of the bottle and poured two pathetic excuses for glasses of wine.
She paused, bottle still in hand, and topped up both glasses.
Well, that said a lot about what she thought about what I’d said.
Mom was a lady—from wine to hemlines, if you could make her British, she’d be a damn royal with all her manners and etiquette.
The fact she’d just poured a whole damn glass of wine… Well.
She grabbed hers and took a big mouthful. Her cheeks puffed out as she held it in her mouth before swallowing it. “That’s…unexpected.”
“No kidding. Haley saw the ad on Facebook and told me when I did her oil yesterday. They need a new mechanic, and it’s not like I have anything to lose.”
A change from my thoughts of yesterday, I know, but whatever.
I reserve the right to change my mind a hundred times a day.
I am a woman.
“You’re right,” Mom said, setting down her glass. “Don’t you worry that it’ll be weird?”
“Honestly, I worry more that I’ll be dismissed because I’m a woman,” I replied softly. “That’s usually the way it goes.”
She turned. Her expression was gentle—her eyes understanding without pitying the way only a mom’s eyes could express. “I know, honey. But you can do this. You might have to prove yourself—a fact I believe is bullshit, by the way—but you can.”
“I shouldn’t have to prove myself. I have the experience. I have the qualifications. Why isn’t that good enough just because I wear a bra and turn into a demi-demon once a month?”
“Because.” She stopped, as if she didn’t know herself. She reached for her glass and cradled it against her chest.
The timer on the stove went off.
She sipped quickly and put the glass down, then grabbed the pan and drained the potatoes, somehow turning off the stove at the same time.
“Because what?” I asked, spinning the stem of my glass between my finger and thumb.
Mom sighed as she turned off the veggies and pulled the boiling pan from the heat. “Because, Jamie,” she said softly, “You will always be second best in your industry. You will always be chasing the lights as long as you stick with it.”
Her words rang true, but… “You want me to work with you.”
She turned. “I want you to do what makes you happy, Jamie. I would love for you to work with me, but I know cars are your passion. I’m terrified that these constant rejections will hurt you.”
