June 3, 2009
Perris, California
Jack and Rose did not quit their jobs or tell Mari of the offers they had gotten until they received the paperwork in the mail two days later, confirming that the phone calls were legitimate. That day, they both quit their jobs at the pizza place and began preparing to leave.
Mari came home from work that afternoon, surprised to find both Jack and Rose there. Usually, Rose went off to work in the early afternoon, with Jack heading out at around 5:30, leaving Lizzy in her care.
Rose was on the phone, an aggravated look on her face as she pushed one button after another, trying to get a live person on the line. Finally, she gave up, slamming the phone down in frustration.
"I’ll try again tomorrow," she declared. "I swear, social services loves voice mail."
Mari gave her a confused look, then took in the stack of boxes they had gotten from local businesses to pack their belongings. "What’s going on?"
"Well…" Rose sat down on the couch next to Jack. Lizzy climbed up next to them, almost bursting with the secret she had promised not to tell.
Jack leaned forward, explaining what had happened. "Rose got a great job offer from a newspaper in my hometown of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, as a local feature writer, and I have been accepted into the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, which isn’t far away from there, with a partial scholarship and a full time internship with Counseling Services. These are great opportunities for both of us—we’re finally getting back on our feet—and so we decided to accept them."
Mari was silent for a moment, looking at them. "When did you find out?"
Rose looked a little sheepish. "Two days ago, actually. We both got phone calls, but we decided to wait until we got the paperwork to be sure that the offers were legitimate, and not from people trying to sell something or make fake offers for whatever convoluted reason was in their minds."
"I take it you’ll be moving, then?"
"Yeah. Wisconsin’s too far away to commute."
"Obviously." Mari tapped her fingers on her chin. "When will you be leaving?"
"That eager to get rid of us, huh?" Jack teased her.
Rose elbowed him in the ribs. "In a couple of days, probably. We need to pack up and cancel our social services. My new job starts June twenty-second, but we’ll be going to Wisconsin the slow way—driving. We can’t afford airfare or any other way of shipping our belongings. We could make it in two days if we pushed hard enough, but we’ll probably take three or four days to get there."
"Where are you going to live?"
Jack shrugged. "We’ll have to find a place when we get there. We don’t have enough money now to rent a place, even though the cost of living is lower there than here. We’ll have to wait until after Rose gets her first paycheck to get a place to live, but this is summer. We can camp out."
Mari shook her head. "I’m jealous. I wish I could go with you guys. What an adventure!" She paused, thinking. "Are you going to stay in Chippewa Falls or Eau Claire?"
"We haven’t decided yet. It depends upon what we find and what’s available."
Mari nodded. "I’ll miss you guys."
Lizzy tugged on Rose’s arm. "Mommy, isn’t Aunt Mari going with us?"
"Well…no, Lizzy. Aunt Mari lives here."
"We live here…"
"But we’re moving. We’re going to Wisconsin."
"Is that a long ways away?"
Rose nodded. She wouldn’t lie to the child. "Yes."
"Why do we have to move?"
"Because your daddy and I have new jobs there, and your daddy is going to go to college."
"Why can’t he go to college here?"
"Because the college he wants to go to is in Wisconsin."
"But I don’t wanna go!"
"It won’t be so bad, Lizzy," Jack assured her, leaning over and cupping the little girl’s chin in his hand. "I grew up there. It’s a nice place, and you’ll make lots of new friends."
"I wanna stay with Aunt Mari!"
Rose could see that a temper tantrum was about to begin. "Lizzy, we’re moving. All the crying in the world won’t change that. You can still talk to Aunt Mari on the phone, and when you learn to read and write, you can send her letters and e-mails."
Lizzy wasn’t soothed. "No!" she howled. "It’s not fair! I wanna stay here! Why can’t Aunt Mari come?"
"Because my job is here, Lizzy." Mari sat down next to her and tried to hug the girl, but Lizzy wouldn’t have it. Scrambling to her feet, she burst into tears and ran down the hall, slamming the door of the room she shared with Mari.
Mari watched her go, looking sad. Rose sighed.
"She’ll get used to the idea eventually. This isn’t the first time we’ve moved, though I’ll admit that five moves in four years is a lot."
"I’ll miss her, too." Mari leaned back against the couch. "You guys are like family."
"Don’t your parents still live here in town?"
"Yeah, but not for long. They’re moving to New Mexico."
"If you don’t want to stay here, you don’t have to."
Mari shook her head. "I’ll miss everybody, but I’m staying. My work is here, at least for now." She grinned wickedly. "I love having the opportunity to thwart developers by finding endangered species on the land they want to develop."
"That’s part of why I’m eager to go," Rose told her. "I don’t like the way things are going in California. There’re too many people, too much crowding, and no one seems to pay much attention to the lack of things that people need, like roads, schools, water, fresh air…"
"You and I pay attention!" Mari reminded her.
"And so do I," Jack added.
"Yes, but it seems like we’re in the minority. People can be so apathetic. The world can fall apart around them, and they’ll ignore it, at least until something shocks them out of their apathy for a while."
"The Bubble Society," Mari said. "You wrote it at the end of college."
"I still think it’s one of my best songs, and it hasn’t gotten any less true. People go around in a little bubble, never noticing what’s going on around them, until something happens to burst that bubble. Then, they scream in shock—and after a while, they forget, and go back inside their bubble. But every time, the bubble gets weaker, and one day they won’t be able to ignore things any longer—but by then it may be too late to fix things."
"I hate to say it, Rose," Jack told her, "but part of the reason why your music career has stalled might be that you use it to speak out. A lot of people think that entertainers should just do one thing—entertain—and anything else is out of their scope."
"But not all of us are that shallow, and if a person has the ability to speak out, and doesn’t use it—they’re just as guilty of apathy as anyone else. We all have a responsibility to speak out, no matter who it offends. That’s one of the great things about being an American—the ability to speak our minds. Just because I can reach more people than someone else doesn’t mean that I should speak out less. In fact, my very ability to reach all those people makes it my responsibility to speak out."
Jack threw his hands up in the air in surrender. "I’m not arguing with you, Rose. I agree with you. But there are people who get upset about your speaking your mind."
"So what else is new?" Rose shrugged. "I won’t sell out to those who would silence me and others. We all have the right and responsibility to speak out. Besides, I’ve noticed that if people agree with what you’re saying, they’re all for you saying it, but if they disagree, they think you should shut up. You both know that as well as I do."
"I know." Jack picked up his portfolio from the coffee table. "I’m an artist, too, just a different kind from you. I’ve seen how upset people get when they’re shown something they don’t want to see. I don’t know why that is."
"Maybe because it makes them think?" Mari suggested. "Because it challenges the beliefs that they cling to, even when the evidence tells them that they’re wrong? I think that’s why people get so angry at the artistic people like you two. It’s not because life reflects art, it’s because art reflects life, and it isn’t always a pretty reflection."
"I think that’s affected both Rose and I," Jack commented. "We’re both artists, and neither of us is content to look only at the surface. We both feel the need to go deeper—and that makes some people really uncomfortable."
"But discomfort turns to comfort and even habit after a while," Rose told him. "Sweeping problems under the rug won’t get rid of them—it just gives you a dirty, lumpy rug, and after a while, the dirt comes right through the rug."
"I think you’ll make a great reporter, Rose," Mari told her. "You know what to say to catch people’s attention, and I can’t see you bowing down to anyone. I wish you both the best of luck."
"Thanks, Mari. I’ll do my best. We all will."