Read Online Every Other Saturday by M.J. Pullen - Free Book Online

animosity of her own parents’ split, Julia would do anything to avoid putting Brandon and Mia through that. Lots of moms had it so much worse. Her father had always said, “Some battles aren’t worth scuffing your armor.”
    Still, the economic carnage of this battle stared up at her from the kitchen table. Between Brandon’s therapy and the seemingly endless stream of birthday parties and special events for both kids’ schools—requiring time, money, supplies, or all three—Julia was constantly on the verge of drowning in it all. The irony wasn’t lost on her that she was now the purveyor of many of these obligations at Mia’s preschool, which made her feel both better and worse. Sometimes she rationalized that giving her time meant it was okay to give less financially. Other times, she felt awful standing up in front of the preschool, trying to pressure other parents to do what she herself struggled to manage. And the expenses were only going to go up as the kids grew, especially if Brandon could make enough progress in therapy to get back out on the baseball field in the spring.
    It was either sell the store or get a second job. If they sold the store, Julia was officially defeated. She’d have an art degree with no prospects, and no recent experience doing anything but raising kids and running a failing business. And the last bit of her father’s legacy would be gone forever. If she worked for Caroline for a few months…
    Her phone’s email notification lit up, and Julia thumbed at it. From Dr. Vega, the preschool director: a bold, red safety reminder that ALL parents must stay with their OWN cars during car pool and wait for children to be brought out. No exceptions.
    Awesome.
    “Ugh!” Julia let her head fall to the table. She sat like that for a while, inhaling the scent of the wood and the faint remnants of maple syrup from Brandon’s morning pancakes. She would do this. She had to. She would drink the wine, put on her big girl panties, and call a few of the overdue customers. Then she would scour the fall schedule again, and make a list of every potential sitter besides Ms. Elizabeth. There was a solution and she would find it. If not, tomorrow she would start over. She had no choice.

Chapter Six
Dave
    When he saw the unknown number pop up on his phone Thursday morning, Dave almost let it go to voicemail. After hearing the voice on the other end, he wished he had.
    “David? I mean, Dave. Sorry. It’s Julia Mendel.”
    Damn. It was too late to pretend she had the wrong number, right? Dave sighed. “Hi, Julia. What’s up?”
    “First, I just want to apologize for my behavior in the car pool line yesterday. It was inappropriate for me to be angry with you, and…well, apparently I violated car pool safety as well.”
    There was an odd, nervous lilt in her voice. Dear G-d, was Julia Mendel actually making a joke about preschool safety rules? What was going on? “Yeah, I saw the email from the school,” he said cautiously.
    “Anyway, I apologize.”
    “Think nothing of it. If I got my feelings hurt every time a woman yelled at me, I’d be unemployed. And maybe extra divorced.”
    Julia forced a laugh. She wants something, Dave realized. She’s hoping I’ll change my mind about the stupid babysitter.
    Elizabeth was Lyric’s favorite teacher and had babysat for both him and Debbie on several occasions. She was never late. She knew Lyric’s favorite foods, lullabies, and bedtime schedule, and always brought some little craft project when she came. After Lyric went to sleep, Elizabeth even did the dishes and folded the laundry.
    Elizabeth was Dave’s favorite of the preschool teachers, too, because she was the only one who hadn’t looked at him with a mixture of pity and suspicion since the divorce. Snagging her for the J-Date experiment had been the only move he’d been sure of in the last few weeks. He was not giving that up.
    “Listen, Julia, I’m sorry for the inconvenience with