“Well, I guess, I understand things a bit more now,” he said looking between us. I glanced at Anna; she was wearing a forced smile. “Let’s catch up when you’re back in the office, Anna.”
“Yes of course, anyway, it’s freezing, so we’d better be going before my face turns blue,” Anna said. “Have a great evening.”
We walked in silence. I turned to see how far away Al and Beverly had gotten before I let myself say another word. “Shit” was all I could manage once I’d established that Al couldn’t hear me. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Don’t let him bring up the anti-frat policy and fire you when you see him.”
“He’s not going to fire me,” Anna replied. “How far is it to go until we’re there?”
“It’s just on this next corner. You seem very confident.”
“I am.”
“I suppose you’re right. I guess it’s me that’s signed up to the anti-frat policy, not you.”
Anna nodded. “You’re not going to get fired.”
“They take it really seriously. I’m not saying some haven’t got away with it, but they have fired people before.” We arrived at Andrew and Mandy’s and Anna put her hand on my arm, stopping me from reaching the knocker.
“I don’t want you to worry about this. They’re not going to fire you. I’m working my notice period. It’s not worth it to them to fire you if I’m leaving.” With that, she grabbed the knocker herself.
Anna
I hadn’t planned how I was going to tell him. But just as we were arriving for dinner at Andrew and Mandy’sdefinitely wasn’t the ideal situation to drop this particular bomb. Or was it a bomb? Even though I wasn’t sure I would take Daniel’s job offer, I decided to resign. I wanted to be with Ethan and it wasn’t realistic to expect him to move. I liked New York and Daniel’s offer at least proved that I had options around my career.
Ethan grabbed my hand from the knocker, but it was too late, I’d already thumped out our arrival.
“What did you say?” His eyes were boring into me, but I didn’t turn to meet his glare.
“You heard what I said. Let’s talk about it later.” I could already hear rustling behind the door.
“No, I want to talk about it now. You handed your notice in and didn’t think I might want to know?” I couldn’t tell if he was mad or just shocked. But he wasn’t happy, and I suppose I’d expected him to be. Frankly, I’d expected him to be bloody ecstatic.
“Of course I thought you would want to know, which is why I said I had things to tell you.”
“So do you have a new job? Are you going to India to be a yoga instructor? Or joining a cult? What the—” Mandy’s wide smile and bouncy hair greeted us as she flung open the door.
“I’m so pleased you’re here.” She pulled me into a hug. “Get in before you let all the heat out. Andrew’s in the basement trying to find some wine that Ethan won’t spit out in disgust.”
I avoided Ethan’s glare as we stripped off our coats, boots and scarves and headed into the kitchen.
“Mandy, I just need a quick word with Anna in private—”
“No you don’t.” It wasn’t the time to talk about this.
“Okay, fine. We’ll do it in front of Mandy,” Ethansaid.
“No we won’t.”
“Are you fighting?” Mandy looked worried.
“Not fighting. I just found out about thirty seconds ago that Anna quit her job.”
“Ethan!” I couldn’t believe he’d just said that. This was between us, it should be private.
“You quit your job?” Mandy asked.
“Who quit their job?” Andrew emerged from the basement carrying numerous bottles of wine.
“Anna,” Mandy said. Oh my god, this was ridiculous.
