"Planning on jumping? I wouldn't. Blood's hell to get out
of silk." "I'm just checking the weather," Kate Svenson
said patiently and continued to stare out her apartment
window, knowing that Jessie would lose interest and go back
to her newspaper if she ignored her long enough.
She'd pulled back the thick drapes to let in the
earlymorning August sun. Even with her best friend sitting
behind her, rustling her paper and slurping her coffee,
Kate felt alone, mired in a despair that not even Jessie's
pragmatism could dispel. This is doing you no good at all,
she told herself and moved away from the window to sit at
her linen-covered dining-room table. She tried to
concentrate on her breakfast coffee and the business
section of the Sunday paper, but her mind kept wandering to
the miserable state of her life.
Well, not exactly miserable, she thought. Actually, not
miserable at all. I have a great career in a top management-
consulting firm. Of course, I could wish that my father
didn't own the firm,and sometimes it's boring,but it's a
great career" Well, an okay career".
With an effort, Kate pushed her career out of her mind and
went on with her catalog of blessings. Her life was good.
She had her health, and enough money, and terrific friends,
the best of whom she was having breakfast with right now in
a beautiful apartment full of exquisite French Provincial
furniture that she certainly couldn't afford if she didn't
have this damn job".
No. Kate clamped down on her negative thoughts and peered
over the top of her paper at the brunette across from her
who was reading her paper and drinking her coffee with the
same total absorption she gave everything else.
Jessie Rogers jerked her head up, her dark curls
bouncing. "What?"
"Nothing," Kate said. "Just counting my blessings. You're
near the top."
"I am the top, which is a real comment on your lousy life,"
Jessie said and went back to the paper.
Trust Jessie to cut to the chase, Kate thought. She sits
over there looking like Audrey Hepburn at twelve, and here
I am looking like Grace Kelly at fifty. And we're both
thirty-five. Doesn't she care that life is slipping away
from us while we carve out careers we don't want?
Of course, Jessie didn't care. Her life wasn't slipping
away, she was living it. She wasn't carving out a career
she didn't want, she was completely involved in one she
loved, if you could call cake decorating a career, which of
course, Jessie did, although how she lived on it, Kate
would never know. Jessie just went with the f low, no plan
at all. Maybe if Kate hadn't planned her career out so
precisely, maybe if she was doing something elseรขโฌยฆ
Stop it, she told herself. She was a damn good management
consultant, and she'd made a lot of money. It wasn't her
career that was bothering her, it was her empty personal
life. Of course, Jessie was happier than she was. She
hadn't gotten herself into three horrible engagements in
the past three years because she didn't care that she was
thirty-five and not married. I'm the one who cares, Kate
thought. She was the one who was guilty and miserable. It
shouldn't matter but it did, and there was nothing she
could do about it.
Pathetic. Kate sighed and went back to her paper. Jessie
slapped the newspaper down on the linen-covered tabletop
and said loudly, "This is all your father's fault."
Startled, Kate looked up from the paper. "What? The
recession? The construction on 70? Calvin can't find
Hobbes? What?"
"Don't play dumb." Jessie folded her arms and glared at
her. "You're unhappy."
"No, I'm not," Kate said, forcing a smile. "You read that
in the paper? What are you reading? I told you not to read
the personals. You get too upset about all the lonely
people and you transfer it to me. I'm fine. Read the sports
page." She went back to her paper, holding it like a shield
in front of her.
Jessie, as usual, did not give up. "You keep sighing. I
can't concentrate on Travel and Leisure with you sighing."
"I'm not sighing," Kate said without looking up. "It's
sinus."
"No, it's not." Jessie narrowed her eyes. "You're not still
pining over that jerk Derek, are you?"
"No." Kate stuck to her paper. "I don't pine over jerks.
It's not time-efficient. Go back to Travel and Leisure."
Jessie hooked her finger over the edge of Kate's paper and
pulled it down so she could look into her friend's
eyes. "You want to get married."
"Of course I want to get married," Kate said
reasonably. "Some day. Get your finger off my paper. You're
crumpling the Dow-Jones."
"You want to get married now." Jessie looked
disgusted. "It's your biological clock or something."
"Your nail polish is chipped," Kate said. "It's also a
really ugly color, but I'm not mentioning that because it
would be none of my business."
"You've been engaged three times in the past three years,"
Jessie said. "Not one of them could keep you. You said yes
to three men and then dumped them. Why would you say
รขโฌหyes' to three men you couldn't bring yourself to marry?"
Kate took a deep breath. "Derek insisted on a premarital
agreement. Paul informed me that my success threatened him
and if I loved him I'd stop working so hard. Terence wanted
me to quit my job because my social duties as his wife
would be too pressing. And you think I should have married
one of those men?"
"Frankly, I don't think you should have dated any of them,"
Jessie said. "I just think being raised by your father has
given you a warped idea of life, marriage, and men. And I
think you're unhappy, which makes me unhappy. And I don't
like being unhappy, so we're going to fix you."
Kate put down the financial section. "No, we're not." "Yes,
we are," Jessie said. "We're going to improve your life.
We're going to make you more like me."
Kate started to laugh. "I don't want to be like
you." "Hey," Jessie said, not fazed at all. "You should be
so lucky."
"You decorate cakes for a living," Kate said. "Beautiful
cakes, admittedly, but still!"
"I'm an artist," Jessie said.
"You're a nut," Kate said. "But I love you, so I overlook
it."
"I may be nuts, but I love what I do and you don't," Jessie
said. "Remember when you were with the Small Business
Administration? You used to tell me about all those little
businesses you'd help get started, and you'd feel so good,
remember?"
"The pay was terrible and the career possibilities nil."
Kate picked up her paper. Jessie pinned it down with her
hand.
"Remember Mrs. Borden's day-care center?" Jessie
said. "It's still going strong. She's got a waiting list."
"Of course, I remember." Kate smiled at the memory. "What a
lovely woman she was."
"Is," Jessie said. "She didn't die just because you sold
out."
"I didn't sell out."
"And that old man"what was his name, Richards? The one with
the shoe-repair shop."
"Richter," Kate said. "Mr. Richter. How is he?" Jessie
shrugged. "How should I know? Like it's my job to keep an
eye on all those little businesses you played midwife to."
"Very subtle, Jess," Kate said. "And I didn't sell out" I'm
doing the same thing." At Jessie's skeptical look, she
added, "I am. I'm just saving much bigger businesses for a
lot more money. I'm still helping people."
"You're helping a bunch of suits," Jessie said.
Kate held on to her patience. "Why don't we just agree that
we have no respect for each other's career choices and
forget the whole thing?"
"You used to have respect for my career choice," Jessie
said. "You helped me save my career."
"I couldn't help it," Kate said. "You were such a mess,
standing in the middle of my office at the SBA, raving
about creating the greatest cakes in the civilized world."
She smiled at Jessie and shook her head. "I'd never seen
anyone like you before."
Jessie grinned back. "I felt the same way. I'd never seen
anybody as polished as you. You looked like you'd been
varnished. I thought, Oh,good,I'm in big trouble and they
send me to Wall Street Barbie." She tilted her head and
looked at Kate with deep affection. "And then you saved my
business."
"It was a business worth saving," Kate said. "You truly do
make the most beautiful cakes in the civilized world."
"Uncivilized, too," Jessie said. "Which brings us to the
subject at hand"men."
"Jessie," Kate said. "You're even more inept with men than
I am. You keep dating those boneless, purposeless men who
need someone to take care of them."
"Yes, but that's because I don't care," Jessie said.
"When I care, I will be ept."
"Well, when you're ept, I'll listen to you." Kate tried to
pick up her paper, but Jessie put her hand on it again.
"Listen," Jessie said, leaning forward. "I'm willing to
approach this your way."
"My way?"
"Right. Logic and reason." Jessie made a face. "I prefer
instinct, but we've gotta go with what we've got, here.
Now, you want to get married, right?"
Kate looked wary. "Right."
Jessie spread her hands apart. "So what have you done all
your life every time you wanted something?"
Kate looked even warier. "I made a plan?" "Exactly," Jessie
said. "So we make a plan. What do we do first? I've never
planned anything before, remember? You were the one who
came in and did my business plan." She stopped to
consider. "Which means I owe you this plan. It's the least
I can do."
"The least is what you always do," Kate said. "If you'd
followed the timetable in that plan, you'd be a rich woman
today. What happened to all the promotion plans? The growth
plans?"
"Too fast," Jessie said, waving the idea away with her
hand. "If I'd stuck to your timetable, I'd have lost all
the fun of designing the cakes. I'd end up turning out
sugar roses like a robot, and after a while all my work
would look like everybody else's, and nobody would be
paying my prices, so I'd have to lower them, and then I'd
have to make more cakes ...
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