“Hold on a moment Tommy and Ellen, Mummy needs to take this call.”

I was almost outside the school where my five-year old was a pupil. As was normal, I was taking my son Tommy and my friends daughter Ellen to school.

I answered the phone.

“Hello Sam. What can I do for you this fine morning?”

“Hillman Chemicals? Yes, I know it. What is the job?”

“Editing lab reports? Yeah, I can do that. Do they have my CV?”

“Good.”

I looked at my watch.

“I’m just outside Tommy’s school. I can be there in half an hour. I will need to arrange for him to be collected this afternoon but that should not be a problem.”

“That’s fine Sam. I’ll let you know how things go.”

I ended the call with a smile on my face. It looked like I could have a job for the next few weeks.

My revelry was short-lived as the school bell rang. I took the two eager children in my care into their classroom and after a nod to their teacher and a word about the possibility of someone else collecting them in the afternoon, I said goodbye.

Half an hour later I parked my car outside Hillman Chemicals. My agent Sam Walsh, had arranged for me to go see them about a temporary position covering for people on holiday and taking maternity leave.

I walked into the reception area and after taking a deep breath, I said to the woman manning the desk,

“Hello, my name is Roberta Taylor. I’m here about the temporary position.”

“Oh yes. Your name is on the list. I’ll call through to HR to let them know that you are here.”

The woman picked up the phone.

“Maria, Ms Taylor is here about the copy editors role.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell her.”

She put the phone down.

“Ms Muir will be out in a moment. Please take a seat.”

“Thanks,” I replied and headed for a seating area near the door.

Almost ten minutes later, a woman appeared from one of the doors next to the reception desk. She saw me and smiled.

I stood up and waited for her to come to me. I didn’t want to seem too keen.

“Ms Taylor? I’m Maria Muir head of Human Resources. Will you please come this way?”

I followed her through the door and into a small office. It was obviously hers. There were several photos of her with some children on both the desk and the tops of the filing cabinet.

“Please sit down. I do have a few questions.”

As I sat down, I said, “that is to be expected.”
I hoped that my sigh had not found it’s way into what I’d just said.

Nothing was said for a few seconds as she looked at my CV.

“How can I help you?” I asked trying to break the silence.

“There is a gap of some ten years in your employment history. Care to explain?”

I was expecting that. It was a pretty glaring hole after all.

“When I left school, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Well, apart from going to University. I had no idea what sort of career I wanted to follow. As a result, I sort of drifted in and out of all sorts of frankly dead-end jobs. Fast food places, street cleaner and well, some jobs that I should have waked away from after the first hour but didn’t. Then I met someone who changed my life. They got me back on the straight and narrow. We fell in love, got married and had a child. Tommy is coming up to five years old now. As you can see, I returned to working more or less full time a year ago when Tommy started school.”

“I see. What does your husband do for a living?”

I tried to look sad.
“He died a little over seven months after Tommy was born. He was killed by a drunk driver while on a business trip to California.”

She looked at me for a long second.

“I’m so sorry.”
“These things happen. It hit me very hard but with a new baby to look after, I had to get on with life for both of us.”

“Indeed,” she replied.

“Now this position is for up to twelve weeks. We have a number of staff scheduled to go on holiday and another has gone on Maternity leave. You said your son was at school. The school year will end in a couple of weeks. Can you cope with working full time while he is not at school?”

“Oh yes. My Mother will be looking after him. That includes taking him to school and picking him up in the afternoon and then full time in the holidays.”

“That’s good. What did your agent say about the role?”

“He said that I would be taking reports from the laboratory and putting them into proper formats and correcting obvious mistakes and the like. Sort of a copy-editor role.”

She smiled back at me.

“That’s good. It is also good that you have an ‘A’ level in Chemistry as well as English. Some of the terminology will be familiar to you.”

“I will be a bit rusty but I’m sure that I’ll get the hang of it after a couple of days.”

She looked at my CV once again and let herself have a little sigh. Then she put it down.

“I think that will be all. Let me take you over to the Lab building and introduce you to the people you will be working with.”

I followed her out of the main building and into a 1950’s style two story block. The upper floor was clearly offices.

We went up the stairs and into a bright and airy office space. I counted four people working at desks and one partitioned off office. There was no one inside.

Ms Muir stopped at one desk and asked,
“Do you know where Ms Clarke is?”

The woman broke off from her typing and after a brief smile said,
“She’s in the storeroom doing inventory.”

Ms Muir looked puzzled.
“Didn’t we do the company inventory less than two months ago?”

“Ms Clarke takes a full stock inventory every week on a Monday morning. She likes to know…”

The woman didn’t finish her sentence as another older woman emerged from the storeroom which was to the side of the office. The woman saw me and glowered. I knew in an instant that she’d take a dislike to me. The reason was that we were wearing the same dress. Not similar but identical. I also knew that I looked better in it than she did as I was a size 14 and she? Well, my guestimate was that she was at least a size 26 and a lot shorter than me.

I saw two of the women let out a small snigger but Ms Muir ignored it.

“Ms Clarke, this is Roberta Taylor. She’s the temporary assistant you asked for.”

“I…” came a half-strangled reply.

Ms Muir turned to me.
“I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Ms Clarke.”
Whereupon, she beat a hasty retreat.

Mr Clarke looked at me. Well, not really looked but glared.
“Come into my office!”

I knew that I was in for a right ear bashing before I had even started. I sighed and followed her into the office. I deliberately did not close the door behind me.

“Close the door when you come into my office,” she said angrily.

I closed it.

“Who put you up to this eh?”

“Up to what?” I replied trying to make light of the issue.

“This! You coming here and deliberately wearing the same outfit as me. That’s what!”

“I’m sort if I have offended you Ms Clarke. I only found out about this job when I was dropping my son off at school. I was already dressed as you see me know.”

“Don’t give me that. I’ll find out which one of those idle so and so’s out there tipped you off. When I do, it will be the end of both of you. I should tell you that I own ten percent of this company and I can get anyone fired if I want to. Understand?”

“If you feel that way then I’ll leave now.”

I hadn’t sat down so I turned and made my way to the door. As I opened it, she said,
“Where are you going?”

I turned around.
“I’m going to tell HR that I am obviously unsuitable for this role and will not be taking up the position. I think that is best for everyone don’t you?”

Two minutes later I was shown into seem Ms Muir.

“Ms Muir, I can’t do this job. Ms Clarke does not like me one little bit. I think that it would be best that I leave now before I make her even more angry than she is already. She thinks my appearance in the department wearing an identical dress to hers was part of a prank and nothing I could say would convince her otherwise.”

Before Ms Muir could answer, the office door opened and Ms Clarke came bursting in.

“Whatever lies she’s been telling are just that lies!” said Ms Clarke.

“Calm down Susan. It is only a dress for heavens’ sake,” pleaded Ms Muir.

“And who put her up to wearing it today eh? You or my slimy brother?”

“Ladies, to save everyone from saying or doing something they may come to regret, I will leave the premises now. I can assure both of you that no one put me up to wearing this dress today other than my five-year old son Tommy.”

There was a silence as the two women glared at each other.

I simply walked out and left them to it.

By the time I reached my car, I was shaking. How could I have let that woman… Grrr…

I called my Agent Sam Walsh, when I reached home. The call went straight through to his voicemail

“Hi Sam. This is Roberta Taylor. That job was a washout. I just happened to be wearing the same dress as my boss. She took an instant dislike to me so I thought it best to just leave before things got bad. I’m at home so give me a call sometime.”

That afternoon, I made several loaves of bread. Kneading the dough helped me calm down. We didn’t need the bread but I had to do something to vent my anger. The events of the day reminded me how fickle women can be at times.

I’d returned to something like normal by the time Tommy came home from school.

“Mummy, we painted our house today,” he said proudly.

I looked at the painting. It clearly showed me with him in our garden. I was wearing a dress. Well, not just any dress but the one I was wearing that very day.

A small tear rolled down my cheek.

My son noticed this.

“What’s wrong Mummy? Did I do wrong?”

“No Tommy, you did not do anything wrong. I’m just happy.”

Tommy gave me a hug before he dashed outside to clean his pet rabbit, Jasper.

I watched him through the window and even though the morning was crap seeing him play like that was all I needed to get through another day. Another day without the love of my life, Annette. It was her that had been killed by the drunk driver. I’d been getting Tommy out of the other side of the car when the crash happened, not as I’d told Ms Muir, my Husband but my Wife.

After the funeral, I’d moped around for weeks. I just didn’t know what to do. It was as if my right arm had been ripped off. Thankfully my mother had taken charge of Tommy but eventually, she’d had enough and gave me an ultimatum.

As a result, I became his mother just like Annette and I had planned all along.

I would tell him the truth when he was older but at the moment, I was 100% his ‘Mummy’ and to tell the truth, I would not have had it any other way. It was Tommy and me against the world and they’d better watch out despite the likes of Ms Clarke.

After all, it was her insecurity that was the problem not mine.

[the end]