she shut down her laptop and stuffed it into her bag along with the rest of her things. On her way through the kitchen she deposited her cup in the sink and hauled her bag to the bench by the front door. Now to find her keys.
“Jenna?” she called up the stairs as she scanned the surface of the small console table inside the front door. “Are you ready?”
“Almost. Do you know where my iPod is?” Jenna shouted back.
Kristi put her search for her missing keys on pause. Exactly where you left it, she thought. Ditto for my keys.
“Haven’t seen it, sweetie.” And she didn’t have time to look. Her daughter could survive for one day without Justin and Selena. She, on the other hand, couldn’t get her day started until she found her keys.
She should have taken less time going through photos, less time checking email and a lot less time fussing with her hair and makeup. Then she had put on her blue sneakers, realized they were scuffed and grimy from clearing out a previous client’s garage and changed to the pink ones. But her blue T-shirt didn’t go, so she changed to a white one, decided against it and dashed downstairs to retrieve a pink shirt from the dryer. Then she’d let herself get distracted and had folded the rest of the laundry and put it away.
How she managed to stay on task in a client’s home while being so disorganized in her own was a constant source of frustration for her…and an endless source of amusement for Sam and Claire. And now, because of it, she was going to be late.
Back in the kitchen she picked up a dish towel to see if her keys were hiding beneath it. They weren’t. This was rapidly turning into one of those mornings when nothing went the way she wanted it to. She quickly folded the towel, hung it on the handle of the oven door, moved on to the dining room table. No keys on the half she used as her office. The other end was Jenna’s homework space, and the two halves met in the middle in a muddle of personal items, assorted junk mail and a pair of hurricane candle lanterns, placed there to create a little ambience after their last cleaning session.
No sense looking there. Had she put the keys in her bag? Claire, the poster girl for organized efficiency, had suggested attaching a lanyard to the strap of her handbag and clipping her keys to that when she wasn’t using them. An excellent suggestion and it had worked like a charm, until she’d switched purses and didn’t transfer the orange lanyard because it didn’t match the purple bag. Note to self. Buy a lanyard to match every bag.
She retrieved her bag from the front hall and set it on the kitchen counter. Wallet, makeup bag, lint roller, dog leash, but no keys. She shoved those items aside and dumped the rest onto the counter. The loose contents included a handful of spare change, two Milk-Bone treats, the tube of lipstick she’d hunted for earlier that morning…and one condom.
She picked it up and stared at it, recalling in excruciating detail Nate McTavish’s embarrassment when he’d realized what he had in his hand. She had been every bit as mortified. Did he think she was one of those women who was always ready for a little action? Ugh. Nothing could be further from the truth. She avoided as many blind dates as possible, and the only action she saw when she did date was never more than an awkward good-night kiss. No condom needed.
Yesterday she had been even more embarrassed when Nate told her about his research. Something about poor reproductive barriers in flowering plants. She still didn’t completely understand what he’d been talking about, even though she’d tried to look it up on the internet last night. He might as well have been talking Greek.
“For sure he was talking geek,” she said, smiling at her own cleverness.
Fourteen years ago she had learned the hard way that at least one brand of condom had provided a very poor barrier to reproduction. Thank goodness she hadn’t revealed that yesterday. Bad enough she’d blurted out some nonsense about sperm. What had she been thinking? His laugh had been a few registers lower than his speaking voice, deep and sexy with a flash of perfect white teeth. He might be a geek, but he was a darned sexy one.
Jenna thundered down the stairs. “Mom? Are you sure you haven’t seen it?”
Kristi shoved the small plastic packet into her bag and hastily put everything else back on top of it. “Have I seen what?”
“My iPod.”
Right. “No, I haven’t.”
“Well, crap.”
“Excuse me?”
“‘Crap’ isn’t swearing, Mom.” Jenna dropped her backpack by the front door and glanced around the living room.
Kristi didn’t have time to argue. “Do you remember what you were doing the last time you used it?”
“No. If I did…” Jenna was halfway across the room when she stopped. “Sleeping! I fell asleep listening to Katy Perry.” She whirled around and dashed for the stairs. “I’ll bet it’s still in my bed. Thanks, Mom!”
“You’re welcome.” Now if only the same strategy would work for her. She had come home from work yesterday afternoon, brought in a handful of mail, picked up the paper…aha, that was it. She must’ve left her keys on the coffee table where she’d deposited everything else.
Sure enough, there they were, under the newspaper. Jenna had flipped it open to check the movie listings, not wanting to wait until Kristi had finished uploading photographs to her laptop so she could check them online. Being a typical teenager, she had used the inconvenience as an opportunity to bemoan the fact that she was stuck with her mother’s retired cell phone instead of the iPhone she so desperately needed.
A car horn sounded in front of the town house and Jenna raced back down the stairs. “That’s my car pool. Gotta go.”
“I’ll be home early,” Kristi said, as much a warning to her daughter that she shouldn’t bring boys home after school. One boy in particular. That strategy would work until next week when school let out for the summer. Then she wasn’t sure how she would do her job and chaperone a teenager who was too old for a babysitter but too young to be left on her own all day.
“See ya later, Mom!”
“We’re having pasta for dinner. If you could make a—” Her request that Jenna make a salad to go with it was cut off by the slam of the front door. She could leave her a note, but Jenna would say she didn’t see it. Better to send her a text message. Teenagers never let a text go unread, and her daughter was no exception.
Kristi opened the door to their backyard patio and shooed Hercules outside. “Go on. Do your business, then I have to get out of here.”
While he was outside, she checked her bag to be sure she had everything she needed for the day, then glanced at her watch. She hadn’t packed a lunch, but if she left now she would only be a few minutes late. Ten minutes, max. She’d have to take a break at lunchtime and run out to grab a bite to eat, and that would waste more time. She opened the fridge and scooped up a couple of bottles of water, an apple and the makings of a cheese sandwich. Now she could work through lunch to make up for not being on time. She took out a plastic container filled with the cupcakes she had baked on the weekend. She hated to see them go to waste, and Nate and his daughters might like them.
“Come on, Herc.” She picked him up when he scampered inside, gave him a scratch behind the ears and set him in his bed. “Keep an eye on Jenna when she gets home. I have to dash.”
Worrying
