“Both the US and the European sizes would be helpful,” Jane added.
“Oh gosh, I have no idea, to be honest. In US clothes, he is mostly around a 6, but you know kids’ sizes are all so approximate and Scotty is in a little bit of a pudgy phase and I don’t want him in clothes that are too small and make him feel fat, you know...?”
“Oh, I know,” Jane said, possibly too emphatically.
Kirsten, holding a phone to her ear, stepped forward and discreetly whispered to Lauren, “Trevor’s calling to find out how the Peter Miller meeting went.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “I’ll call back, but tell him that I met Peter, I did him a solid, but it was a total waste of time, he is so not my cup of joe.”
Overhearing this, Jane realized how far Peter Miller had fallen. After she’d worked for him, he was fired and rolled into a producing deal that only yielded one movie, which was a big,expensive flop. The deal was not renewed, and now he was groveling for a development position in the vanity production company of a movie star who rarely acted anymore—the misogynist was trying to get hired by a woman. Was this poetic justice? No, Jane thought, nothing to do with Peter Miller could contain the wordpoetic. Maybe she should tell Lauren she used to work for Peter, and that he was not her cup of joe either.
“Anyway,” Lauren said, picking up right where they’d left off, shaking Jane out of her reverie, “it’s complicated with Scotty and all these clothes in all these sizes. People constantly send him stuff to wear, hoping for a placement, way more than he can ever use—so he hasn’t ever even worn a lot of it, and I have no idea what even fits....”
This kind of vagueness perturbed Jane and activated her to take control.
“Okay then. We’ll approximate and do our best with the European sizes. We’ll sort and shelve what we think you’ll want to keep. We’ll make a quick run to The Container Store for storage systems that children like—they have items specifically for children.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“When we’re done, we can go over the items we’re unsure about with you, or you can just do it at your leisure.”
“Leisure! Ha.” Lauren turned to Kirsten, who chuckled softly in assent.
“I realize you’re super busy.” Jane wondered if she was sounding defensive. “But I recommend, at a bare minimum, going through the discard pile with him, to make sure we aren’t tossing anything he’s especially partial to. Children can have fervent sentimental attachments to things sometimes, as I’m sure you know.”
Lauren seemed to listen intently. Jane wondered if this sounded like a lecture, but it didn’t matter, she felt the need to be authoritative. If the little five-year-old could have agency, shouldn’t she?
“That sounds perfect,” Lauren said. “I’ll check in with y’all later, and let me know if you need anything!” “Let me know” clearly meant “ask Kirsten.”
“Oh, one other question,” Esmé interjected. “What should we do with the girls’ clothing?”
“Yeah, you know—we wanted Scotty to feel comfortable wearing whatever he wanted to, let him express himself, explore gender, but he actually seems to have no interest in dresses. He’s all boy, what can I do? Discard for sure!” Lauren proclaimed, then briskly strode off, Kirsten on her heels.
Esmé drove to The Container Store, and Jane was relieved not to be the one battling the surly narcissism of LA drivers. Even the parking garage was a nightmare, warrens of color-coded concrete slabs and directionless ramps, crammed with hordes of cars, filled with viscous air thick with poisonous exhaust and impatience. Esmé seemed entirely unperturbed by it.
As they entered the store, Esmé put her hand on Jane’s arm.
“Jane, I need to tell you something.”
Jane tensed, wondering if another accusation of theft was in the offing. “Okay.”
“I’m going to be leaving this job.”
Jane, relieved, exhaled. If Esmé had any judgments about her predilection, she had set them aside, forgiven her.
“Oh, wow... I’m sorry to hear that. When?”
“This is my last week,” Esmé replied with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “I realized—especially when I work with someonelike you, who’s so efficient, like a machine—this isn’t really my passion or something that I’m all that good at.”
“I think you’re great at it! I like working with you.”
“You’re sweet, Jane. But I feel like I’m deadweight. The only stuff I really like doing is the photographing and the Insta curation, and I found a gig at a place that manages people’s socials for them. They sort of like, soft-recruited me, because they loved my Insta feed.”
Jane, to her own surprise, leaned in to hug Esmé. “That’s so great, Esmé, congratulations! Sounds like a great move for you.”
“Yeah, I hope so,” Esmé said brightly. “I mean, it’s a whole new decade and I am ready for some change.”
“Me too.”
