The Last Chance Read Free Page B

at home ?
    Hank was stubborn. He was sure the economy would turn around. But he was also frightened, Ellen could see that. The worst thing of all was that years ago, when they were first married, Hank had been offered a wonderful chance to switch from big cars to the then-new Volkswagen, and he had refused. His friends had advised him to consider it, and Ellen had agreed with his friends. “People are used to quality,” Hank had said stubbornly. “They don’t want it any other way. I’m known for quality.”
    Now he would be known for bankruptcy. How like Hank to have missed his chance, and to keep pretending even now that he had some kind of foresight. He said that over the holidays people didn’t buy cars. He said wait until spring. They were just words.
    They were living on their savings. Ellen wondered if there would be enough for the girls’ private school next year and she worried. She didn’t want them going to public school, she’d heard too many horror stories about how the kids carried knives. And drugs—thank God the girls weren’t into that. They had always been open with her. She figured out how much money they had left in the bank and how much it would cost them to live this year if they were frugal, and she realized it wasn’t going to work. She would have to get a job. She couldn’t imagine what she could do that would bring in enough money to support them all, but at least her salary would be better than nothing.
    That was why she had called Margot. Margot knew everything about working in interesting fields. Margot would help her. Margot didn’t like Hank, because she considered him spineless and dull, so she would be sympathetic to Ellen’s plight. It was going to be all right, it had to be. There was just no other alternative than all right.
    In Wilton, Connecticut, Nikki Gellhorn woke up at six o’clock. The first thing she always did was look out the window to make sure it hadn’t snowed during the night. She hated snow, it seemed a personal affront just to make commuting more miserable. She didn’t mind getting up at six, but she hated all the rest of it—the fear that the car wouldn’t start in the cold, the rush to the train and the hope it wouldn’t get stuck or be late—which it usually was anyway—the hike from Grand Central Station to her office lugging all those heavy manuscripts because there never were enough taxis when you needed them, and then the same rotten thing all over again to get home, except that by then she was exhausted and had different manuscripts to lug. She was a senior editor at Heller & Strauss, she loved her job, she adored her husband and her children and was delighted with her life except for the total inconvenience of their illogical living arrangement.
    Robert, her husband, was a lawyer in Stamford, which was nearer to Wilton than to New York, and therefore, since they’d lived in this reconverted farmhouse ever since the twins were born nineteen years ago and it was their home , he drove easily to work in Stamford and she had to commute a total of four hours every day to get to and from her job in New York. It was always the woman who had to make the sacrifices. It annoyed the hell out of her.
    She went into the kitchen and plugged in the electric coffee maker, which she’d prepared the night before. Robert could sleep until seven. At least that gave her solo bathroom privileges, although now that the twins, Dorothy and Lynn, were away at college there were two free bathrooms she could use. There was no reason any more to live here except that she and Robert loved it on weekends in the summer—and that was not much of a compensation for the rest of it. They could use it for weekends and have a place in New York, but then he would have to make the long haul, and his job was more important.
    Who says his job is more important? Nikki thought again as she was beginning to think every morning. His job is more important to him, but mine is just as