Read Online Goodbye To All That by Judith Arnold - Free Book Online Page B

First-Rate. You know, the discount chain.”
    “A clerk?” Doug was clearly appalled. “A clerk? You’re going to wear one of those ugly red bibs?”
    “It’s more than a bib. It’s more on the order of an apron. You could call it a smock,” she said. “Or a pinafore. Like the Gilbert and Sullivan opera.”
    “Mom.” Doug sounded indignant. “You’re an educated, cultured woman. A musician. You shouldn’t be running a cash register.”
    “I won’t start on the register. That comes after I’ve been there a while,” she explained. “Lots of educated, cultured women are clerks. As for my music, it’s not as if anyone’s going to pay me to analyze the Goldberg Variations for them.”
    “But a discount store clerk?” Melissa chimed in. “Couldn’t you be a secretary instead? It would be easier on you. You could sit at a desk.”
    “I’ve been a secretary,” Jill’s mother reminded them. “When your father was in medical school I worked as a secretary. I don’t know if they still call that job secretary anymore. Administrative assistant.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to do that. It’s all about serving the interests of others, making everyone else look good. You knock yourself out and your boss gets all the credit. Forget that. Anyway, I’ll meet more people at First-Rate. It’ll be fun.”
    “Fun?” Doug shook his head.
    “I want to earn money,” she said. “I don’t want your father paying my rent. That would defeat the purpose.”
    “What purpose?” Jill asked, lowering her voice in the hope of defusing the tension that churned the air. “The hell with the job, Mom. We want to know why you’re doing this.”
    “Yes,” Jill’s father agreed, giving her mother a pointed look. “We’d all like to know that.”
    She scowled at him. “You and I have discussed this, Richard. I’ve told you. It’s  . . . ” She considered her answer, then sighed. “It’s nothing in particular.”
    Jill’s father gazed at his children, eyebrows raised and his hands spread palm up, as if to say, See? She’s nuts.
    More silence. Shocked silence. Nothing in particular? “You can’t just end a marriage because of nothing in particular,” Jill said.
    “It’s lots of things,” her mother explained, sounding less defensive than thoughtful. “Big things and little things. The remote, for example. He sits in front of the TV with the remote and channel-surfs. Every two seconds, this channel, that channel. Click, click, click. It drives me crazy.”
    “Dad,” Melissa whined, “for God’s sake, can’t you stop channel-surfing?”
    “I like to channel-surf,” he argued. “You never know, there could be something good on another channel. Anyway, she’s not watching the TV,” he added. “She’s usually reading. What does she care if I channel-surf?”
    “You can’t read in another room?” Doug asked Jill’s mother.
    “I like my recliner. I like to be comfortable. And he’s going click-click-click. I ask him to stop, but he won’t.”
    “I work hard all day, saving lives. In the evening I’m entitled to channel-surf,” Jill’s father declared.
    “Okay, so he channel-surfs,” Doug said. “Big fucking deal.”
    “Doug,” Jill’s mother scolded.
    Doug shrugged an apology. “You don’t break up a marriage over something that trivial.”
    “To you it’s trivial. To me it’s a thing that drives me crazy.”
    “So you’re going to wear a red smock and work for minimum wage at First-Rate?” Doug faked a contemplative expression. “I think it has driven you crazy.”
    Jill’s mother refused to back down in the face of his derision. Though Jill opposed the divorce—correction: the separation—she was proud of her mother for standing her ground.
    “It’s not just the channel-surfing. That was one example.” She folded her hands on the table in front of her. Her nails were short and unpolished, giving her fingers a stubby appearance. If she intended to venture out