HUDSON'S CHOICE

2.

Observing her drawn and tired face in the mirror after washing and wiping her hands, Lauryn made sure that her ponytail was still properly held by the discreet black elastic before deciding that her lipstick also required a small update. Nothing too joyful or exuberant. Surely not red or bright pink. This wouldn’t suit the Morgan’s dress code: the small brokerage firm where she had worked as a clerk since the disgrace of her ex-husband. Striking pay dirt with the Maybelline Eternal Rose from her handbag, she used it to repair the damage caused by her tuna salad lunch and latte coffee.

Stepping back to better observe herself in the mirror, Lauryn stopped to admire her new suit. What it lacked in colour and style, it made up for with its cut. Having the body needed also helped, thanks to the gym sessions that she managed to follow twice a week after work. The impeccable white button on the bottom of the shirt was not really to her taste, but it was the best of the options approved by her boss, so she had chosen it. Straightening her collar, she picked up her purse and walked to her office for five more hours of torture working on conciliations and settlements.

“Hey, you had lunch?” Penny asked as Lauryn walked past her seat before reaching hers.

“Yes, sorry. I just got back. I had a few errands to run­—that’s why I didn’t ask you to come along. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No problem. You’re still up for a drink tomorrow night, aren’t you?” Penny asked.

“Anita said that she was certain that she was coming... after what she subjected us to last month standing us up,” she added.

“It doesn’t surprise me that she’s coming. You have no pity,” Lauryn replied, remembering the jokes they had made to Anita, her best friend at work, for standing them up to go on a date. Her first date in almost a year, but that didn’t matter when it came to their monthly girls’ night out.

Lauryn had met Anita at the orientation session on her first day at Morgan’s. Like Lauryn, Anita had chosen to work for the brokerage firm after serving for many years in a much higher position and before the financial sector took a hit, sweeping over the brokerage firms and banks as if they had never existed. In the whirlwind of financial disasters, Lauryn and Anita were part of thousands of experienced financial experts to find themselves with nothing, struggling to adapt to a new financial landscape.

Another parallel that brought them closer was the fact that their ex-husbands had not only suffered the consequences of the financial disaster but had also planted the seeds of their destruction long before the collapse of the market.

While Lauryn’s husband, Tony, had developed an addiction to cocaine that had sunk their finances, as well as those of his prestigious clients, Anita’s husband had left the fruits of his success to develop a serious leaning towards gambling. The two men were already on a very slippery slope before the financial collapse that was, for them as for their families, less an event than an immense vortex propelling them into a new world. A world in which, years later, the two women would fight for their survival and that of their children.

Lauryn often considered herself lucky to have only one child. She couldn’t imagine the stress of Anita raising three on her own. On the other hand, the penchant for her husband’s gambling had not resulted in financial losses exacerbated by poor investment decisions. Their loss had been limited by the amounts that he held until there was no more money at all.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for Tony, who had tried to escape from a situation he had put them in by jeopardizing their savings and bonuses that he’d not yet pocketed. They could have survived, at least financially, if these investments hadn’t lost their value overnight. Also, Lauryn knew, like everyone else who worked in finance, what a margin call was, but now she also knew the devastating consequences on the idyllic middle-class way of life she had always dreamed of.

The cars were the first to disappear when their savings could no longer pay back the bank. It was then that the gulf in which Tony had precipitated them began to widen. Whenever she wanted to make a run to pick up something from the store, Lauryn would go through the garage without realizing it before remembering it was empty. She knew in a way, even if she didn’t know how things were going to get worse. Drastically.

Of course, it didn’t take her long to realize how much worse things could be. To get out of the catastrophic situation he had created, Tony had used their dream home as collateral for a loan. It turned out that he’d used this loan to invest in highly speculative stocks. In his escape forward, he’d then used these stocks as a surety to invest in still more stocks, always at high risk. When stock prices tumbled to a few pennies in a few weeks, he’d not only lost the stocks but also the house they had worked so hard for.

After the vultures of the banks and collection companies had finished using what they had left of their lives, they were left penniless. No assets and a pile of debts that they weren’t able to repay. Even Jane’s high school asked to be paid, forcing them to look for a public school so they could repay the $20,000 debt, which they weren’t going to be able to do for a long time.

She could have forgiven Tony for ruining their lives, at least for Jane’s sake, if Tony hadn’t continued on the slippery slope of drugs. His moods and threatening demeanour had been the last straw for Lauryn, who had made the most difficult decision of her life by taking what was left and moving into a small apartment with her daughter.

So many memories. A promising future for each of them and as a family.

“Hey, Lauryn, are you still with me?” said Penny, waving her hand in front of Lauryn’s face.

“You listened to what I just said?”

“Oh, no sorry. I was just thinking of something. I didn’t mean to be rude,” she replied vaguely.

“I wanted to know if it suited you that we meet in that nice English pub where we went a while ago?”

“The Manchester Pub?” replied Lauryn immediately, recalling the good time they had spent there. “Only if it’s not karaoke evening, okay?”

“Come on, are you telling me you didn’t have fun? Really? You killed at karaoke. Don’t you remember?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” moaned Lauryn, thinking back to how ridiculous she must have looked singing Microphone Fever, with the help of some French martinis.

“It’ll not be karaoke night, I promise,” Penny said. “I think there’ll be a big football game, so there may be a few guys to sympathize with.”

“As if I was going to do something like that,” Lauryn said firmly, shaking her head. “You know that’s not my thing. I already have enough to do without encumbering myself with more complications.”

Despite the hard work of Anita and Penny to encourage her to think about new beginnings and consider meeting men, Lauryn had resisted without fail.

Doing extra hours to pay the bills, not to mention paying off the debts. A girl to raise on her own. Don’t even try to start on rebuilding a future for me, she thought to herself, validating the list of reasons for not meeting anyone soon.

But as hard as she tried to persuade herself that these were the only reasons, she knew deep down in her heart that it was only an excuse. Screens to hide her deepest fears. The thought of entrusting her heart to another man and the risk of losing this love when things turn into vinegar made her suffer more than she could admit. There had been a time when her love for Tony was everything, where she lived for the day they would get married and start writing their common story, one wonderful chapter after another.

In a deafening roar, hands and glasses of beer were propelled into the air, without anyone seeming to care about the resulting beer spill. This was more important. Manchester had just scored against Liverpool.

“Fortunately they don’t score too often in this game,” Anita shouted, trying to cover the cries of joy that were beginning to fade.

“It’s not a game. It’s a sport,” Lauryn corrected from the other end of the table as she thoughtfully collected grains of salt on the rim of her Margarita glass.

“Oooooh, thank you, ma’am queen of vocabulary,” replied Anita, tacitly. “What’s going on with you tonight? Three Margaritas and still not in the mood. What’s the problem?”

“Nothing. Well, everything. I don’t know. I’m sad, upset, and scared. All at the same time. Jane is in college soon and I’ll miss her. Seeing her every day allows me to remember why I work so hard to build a better life.”

“She’s growing up. You can’t stop it. You should be proud of her and happy for her. Being able to get this scholarship was a great achievement and a great help to you both,” said Anita in a reassuring tone as she put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“I know. It makes perfect sense, but I’m afraid to lose sight of my reason for living without having her with me. I’ll go back to an empty house every night and cook only for myself. But I’ll have the bathroom all to myself, which is a positive,” she smiled at the thought of that one good thing that would happen to her when she had the small apartment to herself.

“Maybe I’m only afraid of having too much time to devote to myself and I’ll not know what to do with it,” she continued, still trying to shed some light on the flood of emotions that overwhelmed her.

A new roar sounded and would have drowned Lauryn’s feelings, had she been able to utter a sound with her tight throat. Suddenly, the crowd of spectators began to groan and protest against everyone, and no one at the same time.

“Was that one of those offside things?” asked Penny, who had tried to watch the game rather than listen to her two colleagues.

“I believe so,” replied Lauryn, “if one can give credit to what emanated from the crowd.”

“I don’t even understand this offside rule,” added Anita.

“Honestly, I don’t think half the guys watching the game know either. There was one who had tried to explain it to me once. My eyelids became heavy, and I started falling asleep before I managed to understand anything. It looked super complicated,” Penny said before getting up and making her way through the crowd to order another round of cocktails.

“You know what you have to do, don’t you?” Anita asked seriously.

“NO. No. No way. I’m not going to have this conversion, again. Seriously, that’s out of the question. It’s not what I want and I’m not interested. That’s my last word. Game Over."

“No, darling,” Anita replied with a smile. “Making sure you have a little fun and improve your life isn’t a game. It’s what I call a sport.”