Wishful Thinking Read Online Free PDF Page A

Chicago. And that,” he said, pointing to one of the little boys, “was my dad.”
    At that, Alicia managed to look at Bill with some of her previous warmth. “Your father was a great man,” she said. Jennifer murmured her assent, though all she knew about Bill Truitt Sr. was that he was responsible for building the real estate company Bill Jr. had inherited, and that Bill, who had grown up summering in the Hamptons, knew about as much about growing up in the projects as she did. Bill, however, clearly pleased with his performance, set the proposal back down on his desk, solemnly thanked them both, and walked them to the door.
    His proposition was straightforward, Jennifer thought. That was for sure. If she met the milestones, she’d put an extra $20,000 in the bank. If she didn’t, she’d be fired. High risk, high reward: a familiar tenet of the business world. As she shook Bill’s hand, however, and observed the thick, diamond-encrusted watch that always hung heavily from his wrist—a watch that cost more than she would earn that year by working herself to death—she couldn’t help thinking,
Though while some of us are risking our rent, some of us aren’t even risking our Rolex.

three
| W ISHFUL T HINKING
    B ACK IN HER OFFICE , Jennifer closed the door behind her and sat down, already weary. She had two hours to prepare for a noon meeting she should have spent twice as much time getting ready for. It would take her all day to answer the e-mails that had come in just since the night before. Placing the contract from Bill on her desk, she sighed. Melissa, her babysitter and life linchpin for so many years now, had recently done something about her lack-of-direction problem and enrolled in night school, and had suggested wanting to reduce her hours, a request Jennifer had already been unable to imagine accommodating. How could she work harder than she’d been working already? She couldn’t rely on Norman for anything more than his one day a week. And she had no family to call upon—not anymore.
    A little more than a year ago, Jennifer had lost her mother to cancer. That was the blow she still couldn’t bear, the aching sadness and fear that woke her up in the night, the thing shenever would have believed could happen. When she and Norman had split, her mother had begun traveling to the city every weekend from Rockland County, where Jennifer had grown up, to help her with the boys. For her mother, who had battled depression on and off her entire life, and whose marriage to Jennifer’s father had never been much more than tolerable, the boys were just the right kind of medicine. For Jennifer, having her mother’s help had felt like the difference between sinking and swimming. This had been especially true during the first two years after the divorce, when Norman had routinely disappeared at a moment’s notice, pursuing second-rate acting gigs or attending singles’ meditation retreats to help him “heal.” Having her mother around had meant that if Jennifer needed to go to a work conference or even get away for a few days at a spa with Vinita, the boys would be not only taken care of but also as happy as they were when they were with her. Having her mother around had meant that there was someone in the world she didn’t have to pay to take care of, much less love, her children. And having her mother around had meant she wasn’t alone. When her mother had died, it had been hard to feel anything but, and Norman’s reappearance a year ago as Saturday-night dad had done little to make her feel less so. To make matters worse, within months of her mother’s death her father had moved to Arizona with the hospice nurse who had cared for her mother when Jennifer couldn’t manage it anymore. Jennifer had never been close to her father, but she’d hoped that in the wake of her mother’s loss, her dad might stay close to her and the boys. Instead he’d gone west, and she’d been left feeling as if she had lost