Page 19 of The Party Line

“I will be more than glad to have you work for us another two weeks,” she said, “but it would bother me if I didn’t inform you of all your rights.”

“And they are?” I asked.

“I’m pulling up your file on the computer right now,” Nadine said. “You have forty sick-leave days built up and two weeks of vacation time. You will get paid for the latter, but the sick days will be lost.”

“So what does that mean?” The possibility of being finished with my job that very day had not occurred to me.

“It means, if you want to take ten of those forty days of accumulated sick days and resign immediately, I will authorize it. In that case, you would finish whatever file you are working on this morning—”

“I’m completely caught up,” I said before she could go any further.

“Well, then all we have to do is change your passwords and codes, and you are done if that is what you want. You have been such a loyal,dependable worker ...” From there on for the next several minutes, all I heard wasyada, yada, yada. Everything was happening so fast that my mind couldn’t keep up with it all. I felt like I was on a roller coaster. Did I continue to work for two weeks and lose every one of those sick days I had built up over the years? Or did I simply say that I was done?

Aunt Gracie’s voice was as clear as if she had been standing beside me.Shut your eyes, think about what would make you happy, and don’t look back.

I closed my eyes, and the picture in my head showed me standing at a fork in the road. Every choice has a consequence; I knew that from the past. Which way did I go? What would my world be like with no job the next few days or weeks while Mama and Annie figured out how they wanted to run their catering service? What would life be like tomorrow morning, when I woke up with very little to do? I was trying to decide which path to take when theyada, yadastopped and the lady on the other end said, “Do you need some time to think about it?”

My eyelids popped open. “I would like to resign immediately,” I said and then wondered if I’d really spoken the words out loud. Surprisingly enough, everything had stopped spinning, and quietness filled my heart.

“Like I said, we will miss you,” she said in a business voice. “Your insurance will still be effective until the first of next month, and your next paycheck will show the two weeks’ leave time you have accumulated. If you ever want to come back to us, the door is open.”

“Thank you. It’s been a pleasure working with you,” I said.

“Same here. Bye, now.” She ended the call.

I snapped my fingers, and the sound seemed to bounce off the walls. “Just like that,” I said out loud. “I’m done with that job as of this very minute.”

For the first time in many years, I had nothing that Ihadto do. The feeling was both terrifying and liberating at the same time. Aunt Gracie had popped into my head and told me to not look back. I tried, but it didn’t work too well. Until it was time to take lunch out to thestrawberry guys, I worried about whether this new venture that Mama and Annie had gotten me into would really make me happy. Or had that instant euphoria I’d experienced in the moment just been a passing thing? Money wasn’t an issue, but would boredom set in after a while? I would only have one client—the new catering service. There was no way that would keep me busy.

At noon I got all the sandwich makings out of the refrigerator and pantry and laid them out on the counter. “I could have easily kept my job and done the work for Mama and Annie, too,” I muttered.

I told you not to look back!For a second, it felt like Aunt Gracie was in the room with me.

The second that Connor saw the back door open, he jumped up and jogged over from the strawberry stand to the picket fence, hopped over it, and wasn’t even breathing hard when he reached the porch. “Let me help you. No sense in you having to make two trips.”

“Thank you,” I said and handed him a gallon jug of cold sweet tea and a bowl full of ice. “I’ll bring the sandwiches and—”

“We still have several of those little bags of chips left over from yesterday, but the cookies are all gone,” he said and headed across the yard. This time he went through the gate and left it hanging open.

Sassy must have been in Jasper’s house, because she didn’t come running hell-bent for leather to get out of the yard. I went back into the kitchen, picked up the sandwiches and a new bag of peanut butter cookies, and headed outside. That’s when I noticed Sassy lying beside Jasper. She had a god-awful ugly collar around her neck and a leash that looked like a rawhide chew toy.

“I thought my stomach had plumb growed shut to my backbone,” Jasper teased when I set the sandwiches on the table.

“As thin as you are, that wouldn’t take a whole lot,” I shot back.

Jasper chuckled and poked Everett with his bony elbow. “How about you?”

“I was so hungry that your dog was beginning to look good. I figured a little barbecue sauce would make her taste like pork,” Everett added.

Jasper shook a finger at him. “Don’t you even let evil thoughts like that enter your mind. Good thing Sassy was asleep, or she would have bit a hunk out of your leg. I wouldn’t punish her for doing it.”

As if she understood every word, Sassy opened one eye into a slit and growled deep down in her throat.

“See there?” Jasper said. “She’s warning you to not say such things.”

“You two sound like Grandpa and Granny,” Connor chuckled. “I loved to listen to them bicker when I was a little boy.”

Everett picked up a bag of barbecue chips and opened it. “There was never a dull moment in our house when I was growing up, so I was used to that kind of lifestyle. Dad would accuse Mom of spreading gossip with whatever news she overheard on the party line. She would argue that what she was telling him was the gospel truth and that it came from a reliable source.”

---