It was the Friday the world lost its mind, because after several months of searching, I got two job offers on the same day.
I’d been out at the coffee shop, back on the same grind—I’d found myself in a nice rhythm of spending some days working from home, interweaving with Bridget through the day for a lunch together or a coffee break or, my personal favorite, a break to help Bridget with her work, and spending some days working from the café I used to frequent. The familiar sights and sounds and smells of the café set me back into work mode right away, and I’d been deep in the trenches when atappulled my gaze up, and I looked at where Mark Castle set a coffee cup down at the other end of my regular table, a big smile on his face.
“Hey, Victoria,” he said. “I was hoping I’d catch you here.”
It was kind of a relief to finally run into the man when I wasn’t in the middle of some kind of weird sex thing. It hadhappened again with a certain long-wear piece of equipment involved just two weeks ago, when he’d come in to sit down across from me and chat about the office on his lunch break, and I’d never been less interested in what a person was saying.
I shut my laptop, sliding it to the side to face him. “Good to see you again,” I said, even though I didn’t remember much from the last times I’d seen him. “How are things going? Am I slated to steal your whole lunch break again?”
“Not on break. Actually came here hoping I’d find you. But let’s get to that in a second. How’s the work coming along? Job hunt?”
“A couple leads, some of them promising, none of them concrete. A few entry interviews, but nothing I’ve heard further from. Freelance work has been good to me, though.”
“Glad to hear it. And Bridget? Did you pass along what I was saying about our hunt for media management?”
“Oh, er.” I scratched my wrist. “She’s, well… I passed it along, but it’s not her field now. Moved more to the entertainment industry.”
“No business like show business,” he chuckled, and I didn’t want him to know just how right he was. “Well, that’s too bad. But let’s talk about you. You remember Gregory, don’t you? Holt?”
“Regional sales director Gregory Holt?”
“He’s stepping aside. Soft retirement, he calls it. Leaving the office but still on tap for consultations. Management is looking for someone to take his spot, and I told them you were in town looking for a job, and I figured I’d pass along the info. They loved it—said they’d be happy to interview you for the position, but even if they don’t have you for the position, they’d want to hire internally and have you fill in the vacancy that leaves, reprise your old role.”
I froze with my hands on the coffee cup, staring at him. “They said that, directly?”
“You were always good to work with. Reliable, hardworking, clever. You and Bridget both, but shame we can’t get both of you back into the office. Maybe I should look up what Bridget’s been up to.”
He really shouldn’t have. Although I could attest it was hard to track her down unless you rooted through her mail. “Oh,” was what I managed. “Well,” I said, looking down at my laptop. “I suppose… it would be a waste to turn down an opportunity like that. It sounds like it’s effectively a free job offer.”
“Pedro will be calling you at some point to talk about it. That was part of today’s itinerary, but I figured I’d take a chance, see if you were here, try to tell you in person.”
“And to sneak in a croissant while you have the excuse.”
He grinned. “A little sly fun on the side never hurt anyone, Victoria.”
Uh-huh… well, it wasn’t like I disagreed with that.
I was still reeling once he left, fifteen minutes later with his croissant reduced to crumbs and his half-finished coffee in hand, after chats about the office and catchups that made it sound like it was a foregone conclusion I’d be back in the office again soon, and I stared at my laptop screen, not really seeing anything there.
It was kind of a miracle. Job searching was brutal these days, and you didn’t just sit down and have a job come to you. Let alone with a potential promotion involved, too. If I knew much about the company, it wouldn’t come with the biggest raise, but… it was still movement. Still progress. Still security.
And then what? Stay here, around my family, around Bridget? When I’d been on the run from Seattle, I’d have jumped at the opportunity—as long as I had that security, a safe placeto land where I didn’t have to worry about how to cover bills. But now that I was here, now that the acute panic was a distant memory, the hidden questions I’d stepped over came haunting back to the surface. Was I going to spend my life like this? Here in the same place I grew up, doing the same things I’d been doing for the past five years?
I should have told Bridget. It felt dishonest to hide it from her—ever since that night at the Mountain View, I was loathe to admit it, but we were dating in all but name. Kevin and Sam had been slowly pressing on me more and more since Christmas, telling me maybe my heart knew better than my head. As if I wanted to hear that from mybrother.He’d dated even less than I ever had. Just foundoneboyfriend,onetime, and now he was the oracle of love.
I guess I could have told him firmlystop talking to me about this, I don’t want to hear it.But maybe it was the same part of me that kept hoping Bridget would say something that would chase away the uncertainty.
I spent a good hour drifting between job listings that felt like they were miles away, independent work projects that were suddenly garbled nonsense on a page, and my chat with Bridget, which was now a log of everything from banal household conversations, random anecdotes, flirting, sexting, and deep, loaded conversations that had me aching in my chest, but I didn’t say anything to her. Not yet. Couldn’t, not until something broke the floodgates, which was a call, and I almost picked it up assuming it was Pedro from management at my old office. My blood ran cold at the sight of the name—Marguerite, the woman from HR at my job in Seattle. I wasn’t in the mindset for this.
But I picked it up. “Hello, Victoria speaking,” I said coolly.
“Victoria, hello,” she said, her voice warm. “How are you doing?”
“I’m well, thank you.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it. Is now a good time to talk?”
No, of course it wasn’t. But I gripped an empty coffee cup and said, “I have some time, yes. What can I do for you?”
