I smiled and nodded. I’d been planning to remind him of our daughters’ connection to help me, but it seemed I didn’t have to.

“No, I just mean a brilliant gal like you can’t sit at a desk in this rattrap all day.”

I put my hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Mr. Montoya.” I paused. “Gabe, I’m going to level with you. My husband is in jail—wrongly, I might add, but there all the same—my accounts are frozen, and I have a daughter to raise. So I’m not really in a position to be picky. I need a paycheck. I’m super smart, and I’m the hardest worker you’ve ever met.”

He was studying me but didn’t say anything, and my nerves almost got the better of me, but then I thought of Bill. He needed me to do this. He needed me to be strong for our family. If he were beside me, he would say, “Char, you’re brilliant and resilient and you can do anything.” And so I would.

I read Gabe for a moment, and then, remembering Julie’s advice and deciding he would think it was funny, added, “If I told you how much cocaine those finance bros were doing to keep up with clean and sober me, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

He burst out laughing. The gamble had paid off. “Charlotte, honey, I’m not trying to make you beg here. I’m just thinking.” He chewed the end of his pen and said, “As soon as we heard about your situation, the Mrs. and I wanted to help you and Iris.”

I had to control my eye roll. “The Mrs.” a.k.a. Ruth Montoya a.k.a. the ringleader of the snotty moms who seemed bound and determined to keep me on the fringes of their little clique. But that was fine with me. As long as Iris was happy, I was happy. And, as standoffish as Ruth and the other moms had been to me, the girls had been equally as accepting of and loving to my daughter. And that was everything. I nearly choked on my “That’s very nice of you, Gabe. Of both of you.”

“I’m just saying that you need to be out in the field; you need to be with people. How about I make you a sales rep?”