Page 69 of Filthy Little Midlife Fling

The phone rings as I turn onto Georgia’s street. I park in her driveway. When I go to answer the call, a text from Remy pops up: Still available for this afternoon?

The phone screeches again, Paula’s name flashing on the screen. I flick Remy’s text away. I don’t remember us deciding to meet up this afternoon, but it’s going to have to wait. My business is in the process of imploding. I pick up the call.

“Audrey,” Paula says, “we’ve run out of drawer organizers. They’re sold out at every store I’ve been to, and we can’t get any ordered in until next week. We need them for the McCurdy job, and we’ve already rescheduled twice. Mrs. McCurdy said she wouldn’t tolerate any more delays, and half of our new clients are from her knitting circle.”

“Fuck!” I slam my hands on the steering wheel.

There’s a tense silence. “Audrey?” Paula sounds worried. I’ve never sworn around her before.

I suck in a deep breath. “Okay.” I exhale. Inhale again. “Okay, Paula. Thank you for telling me. I’m pulling up to a job right now, but I’ll deal with the drawer organizers as soon as I’m done. There’s a shop in Eugene that sells them; I can make the drive tonight and have them for tomorrow afternoon.”

The drive is five hours with zero traffic. It’ll take six with bathroom breaks. I’ll have to drive all evening, find a motel to sleep for a few hours, and then drive all day tomorrow. But if I get the supplies by tomorrow afternoon, we can finish the job on time. Maybe somewhere closer sells them. I’ll call every store in a two-hundred-mile radius. I can fix this.

“I’m sorry, Audrey. I miscalculated how many we’d need, and I forgot to order extras.” She sounds like she’s about to cry. “With the last-minute bookings this week, I forgot to cross-check, and…”

My fault. My fault. My fault. “It’s okay, Paula. It was my mistake. I should have checked the orders over and made sure you had done them correctly.”

“I really wanted to do a good job. I really like doing the schedules and inventory. I’m so sorry—”

“Paula, it’s fine. We’ll figure it out. Okay?”

She sniffles. “Okay.”

We hang up. One more deep breath, and I’m ready to go inside. Georgia answers the door with a kind smile.

“I’m so sorry about this,” I tell her. “I promise we’ll make it right.”

“It’s not a problem,” Georgia answers, leading me to the bedroom. “These things happen.”

All of Georgia’s clothing has been pulled out of the closet. There are portable clothing racks lining the far wall, and half the bed is stacked with sweaters and pants. Typically, we would have had the closet reorganized and all the clothes put away within the day.

Now, Georgia will either have to live with a bedroom where a bomb went off, or we’ll have to put everything back and then pull it out again when we can come back.

I find Meg on the walk-in closet floor, sniffling, measuring the space between two vertical supports. She looks up when I enter, and her bottom lip wobbles. The tape measure trembles in her hands, with shelves littered around her kneeling body in a semi-circle.

“I’m sorry—”

I kneel beside her. “No more apologizing, Meg. These things happen. I was distracted, and I should have checked the numbers. It isn’t your fault.”

She sighs, staring at the shelves which are now useless. Worry gnaws at my gut. There are too many things slipping through my fingers. Too many mistakes piling up. My business might fall apart before my eyes.

I need to fix this immediately. Panic tightens my throat. My business is an extension of me. The name I’ve built for myself was proof that my divorce didn’t break me. If the Organizing Goddess fails, it means Audrey Scott failed too. Just like everyone thought she would. Just like Terry said I did.

I can’t let that happen. I can’t.

“Let’s get this cleaned up and get Georgia’s things back in here. We’ll get the measurements and get these fixed. Okay?”

Meg nods. “Okay. You’re really not firing me?”

“Of course not, Meg. You’re one of my best team members. Now come on.” I fish a tissue out of my purse and hand it over. “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

As we put the clothes away, I nab the drawer organizers that had been allocated to this job. Meg packs up the rest of our supplies, and we meet Georgia downstairs. She’s in the kitchen, tapping on her laptop at the island. She smiles tentatively when we enter.

“Mission aborted?” Georgia asks. She doesn’t seem mad, but there’s definitely disappointment in her eyes.

I grimace. “I apologize about this, Georgia. It’s not the way I like to do business. As soon as the shelves are fixed, I’ll call you to reschedule.”

“That works for me. Anything I can do to help?”

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