Photo credit: morgamic via Scandinavian / CC BY-NC-SA
This is Part III of a series, so if you haven’t done so already, you might want to read Part I and Part II before continuing.
Alex waited a few minutes after ringing the doorbell. It didn’t open, but she heard Julie inside screaming at Sarah to give something to her brother. Alex decided Julie was too busy to come to the door and figured they were good enough friends she could let herself in.
Julie looked ready to collapse when she saw her friend. “Oh, thank God it’s you!”
Sarah let out a shriek and pointed at Alex saying, “It’s a murderer! There’s a murderer in our house!” She threw the stuffed dinosaur she was holding over her shoulder and ran out of the room yelling, “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”
Alex did the only reasonable thing she could, which was to run after Sarah, saying, “Get back here so I can grind your bones to make my bread!”
Once Alex had thoroughly worn out Sarah and herself, she collapsed on the living room sofa next to Julie, who was already half asleep with Jack curled up next to her with his thumb in his mouth. “I should really have kids,” Alex said. “It’s such a great workout.”
Julie rolled her head just enough to glare at her friend and Alex had to stifle a laugh. “What? You can’t tell me you didn’t know how much fun this was going to be when you decided to have kids.”
Julie tried to glare harder at her friend, but couldn’t help smiling despite herself. “Yeah, they are pretty great.” She looked down at her sleeping son and gently brushed a few hairs away from his face.
“Now just try telling me you don’t want to wake him up just so you can play with him.”
“Rule number one of parenting.” Julie held up one finger. “Never. Wake. The baby.”
“He’s hardly a baby anymore.”
“He will always be my baby.”
“I won’t tell him you said that.”
“You’d better not. Unless he refuses to behave and the only way to get any response at all from him is by humiliating him in front of his friends.”
“I’d say you have a good ten years before he reaches that stage.”
Julie groaned. “I can’t even bear to think as far as the end of this week, much less ten years from now.”
“That bad, huh?”
“You could say that. Mike still hasn’t found another job. His severance package ended months ago and our savings aren’t going to last much longer. That’s why I asked you to meet me here, even though it means we don’t get to spend as much quality time together. We’re really cutting back our spending and eating out was one of the first things to go.”
“Hey, no complaints here. I haven’t gotten a new client all this month or last month and my current client list is not enough to pay the bills. If something doesn’t come up soon, I might have to face facts and admit defeat.”
Julie furrowed her brow. “Really?”
Alex nodded.
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry, Alex.”
“Hey, it’s not over yet.”
“Have you started thinking about looking for a new job?”
“I’ve thought about it. Even applied to a few, but I haven’t tried very seriously yet. I figure I can give it about three more months before I’ll really need a job.”
“The timing is just so unfortunate. If Mike hadn’t gotten laid off, we’d be happy to give you some money.”
“Don’t even think of it,” Alex said as she waved a hand in the air. “I would never accept any money from you anyway, except as a loan, which I would, of course, repay. With interest.”
To be continued…
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