It’s not as if what I did was easy for me. For weeks I was heartsick about upending his world—and mine as well. It meant being single again, and at thirty-seven. In recent weeks, my best friend, Megan, hasbeen urging me to at least set up a profile on a dating app or two, even if I don’t take immediate action, but right now I have zero interest in romance again.
With my pulse racing, I edge as quietly as possible away from the door, praying they don’t decide to take their conversation outside.
“I better go in,” I hear Jamie tell Sam. “I need to manage this situation, so it doesn’t turn ugly.”
“I’m going to have to take off early, by the way.”
“Okay, let’s catch up later this weekend. There’s something I want to circle back to you about.”
Jamie’s voice grows fainter, indicating that the two are retreating from the mudroom. Still, I don’t want to reenter the house through the back door in case they spot me coming in and realize I’d heard them. Instead, I make my way along the strip of land between the house and the driveway, so I can go in from the front.
My heart is still thumping as I walk.Not at all who she pretended to be.I can’t believe Jamie thinks that about me—though there’s no doubt I’m a different person today than I was on our first date, two and a half years ago. When Jamie and I met, I was at the tail end of my recovery from the major career disaster I’d experienced in my midtwenties, a disaster that had stripped away most of my nerve and initially sent me into the field of human resources with my tail between my legs. I’d already started my career counseling business at the time of our meeting—thanks in large part to tons of encouragement from Ava—but I was still struggling at times to gain all my confidence back.
I creep along the side of the stone house, passing my rental car in the process. Though the invitation for the party had instructed guests to park in the field behind the barn, Ava suggested that I leave my car behind theirs in the driveway in case I felt uncomfortable and wanted to make a quick exit. For a moment I feel the urge to do just that, tohead back to the inn and curl up with a book. But my friend has put too much effort into tonight for me to just bolt.
Finally, I reach the front of the house and climb the stoop for the second time tonight. Behind me is the near-deafening roar of crickets and katydids, but as soon as I step inside and close the front door, I discover how quiet the house is. And then I realize why: Ava is toasting Vic, both of them standing in front of the hearth in the parlor. I slip inside as unobtrusively as possible and position myself at the end of the room.
“It’s five hundred and twenty pages long, but I guarantee you willdevourthis book,” Ava is saying. “It’s a fascinating, provocative look at not only the trials, but also mass hysteria, paranoia, mean girls, and religious extremism.” She chuckles. “Sound familiar? This book offers wonderful insight into Salem, as well as many of the issues we are being forced to wrestle with today.” She raises her glass. “To my brilliant, amazing husband, Victor. Bravo on an extraordinary achievement.... And now dinner is served.”
The crowd breaks apart and I follow a group into the dining room. The meal is buffet style, and after filling a plate with poached salmon, couscous, and green salad, I return to the study to get a glass of wine. There I spot Vic, talking with two middle-aged men I don’t know, and though I hate the idea of interrupting, I don’t want to go any longer without greeting him.
“Vic,congratulations,” I say, approaching. “I downloaded the book as soon as it came out on Tuesday, and Ava’s right, if I didn’t have to work and sleep, I’d never put it down.”
“Oh, Kiki, how lovely of you to say that—and how great to see you.” He cocks his head—with its lion’s mane of silver hair—toward a card table set up in a corner. “We were just about to commandeer that spot for dinner. Won’t you join us?”
I graciously accept the invitation and, after securing a glass of white wine, take a seat. Vic announces to the men that I’m a career coach, and they immediately pepper me with questions, but our dinner conversation soon returns to Vic’s book. As he regales us with insights from his research, his deep, full voice carries over the sound of nearby chatter and clinking glasses, and his almost violet-colored eyes pin us one by one at moments. Even though I find Vic very charismatic, I’ve always been a tiny bit intimidated by him.
From time to time, I sneak a peek around the room. Through the doorway, I see that Jamie is at a table for eight that’s been set up at the far end of the parlor. With him are Sam, Vic’s agent, Dan, a woman I think is Dan’s wife, and Jamie’s date. Oddly, she’s sitting at the opposite end of the table from him.
Our plates are eventually cleared by a waiter, who reappears soon after to pass around a platter of brownies and lemon bars. I’m about to rise from the table, worried that I’m hogging Vic’s attention, when Ava heads in our direction. She kisses Vic on the top of his head and announces she needs to steal me away.
“Time to meet your future agent,” she whispers with a smile. Guiding me by the elbow, she leads me into the solarium, where she introduces me to her friend Daphne Kudlow, who’s sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine. She’s wearing an attractive printed wrap dress, revealing a substantial amount of tanned cleavage. Her shoulder-length ash-blond hair is flipped up a little at the ends in a kind of retro sixties style.
Instead of rising, she pats the spot next to her on the damask sofa. “Join me,” she says, “and we can talk for a bit.”
She has a Waspy air and a clipped way of speaking, but she’s smiling, and her light brown eyes seem friendly enough. My immediate takeaway: she’s happy to chat as long as I don’t waste her time.
“So, you and Ava worked together?” she asks once I’m seated.
“Yes, for almost five years. She was my boss in the HR department of New Horizon Media. From there, thanks to everything I learned from Ava, I took a job at a boutique coaching company and then started my own coaching business just over three years ago.”
Daphne takes a long sip of wine and sets the glass on a small antique wood table next to the couch.
“What made you make the switch from recruiting to coaching?”
I chuckle. “I’d begun to realize that I spent half my time in interviews with job candidates wishing I could give them advice instead of asking questions. Tell them to smile more and make eye contact and not be afraid to show they’re hungry for the job.”
This is not the moment to tell her the full story, but if she signs me, perhaps I will one day. HR was never a field I’d set my sights on. I’d nailed a job right after college at another media company, a more cutting-edge one, and within two years I’d already been promoted to creating content, earning a generous salary for my age. I loved every minute of it—until my boss’s boss, a hard-charging guy in his early forties, pushed me against an office wall one night when we were both working late and rammed his tongue down my throat and his hand down my pants. It took everything I had to fight him off, and I fled the building, completely shaken.
This was a few years before Me Too, and though I considered reporting the incident, I eventually decided against it, fearful my actions would backfire on me. During the next two months nothing else happened, and I was able to avoid the predator—a guy I called only R in my mind—convinced it had been smart not to rock the boat. But then out of nowhere, I was fired, not even by my boss but by someone in HR. I knew R had to be behind it.
I tried to find another job creating content, but I kept coming upagainst brick walls and I sensed that someone from my old company had spread rumors about my work. I was living off my savings by then and desperate for a paycheck. Through an alum of my college who I connected with on LinkedIn, I learned about a junior HR position at New Horizon and said yes without hesitation when it was offered. It felt like I’d managed to heave myself onto a life raft. I prayed I’d find my way back into content creation, but I soon realized that I associated that work too much with what had happened. In time, with Ava’s guidance, I began to recognize that I’d love to transition into career coaching. Though I’ve stumbled along my own professional path, I’ve developed good objective sense about other people’s careers—the mistakes they’re making and the strategies they need for success.
“So, tell me about your book idea,” Daphne says.
“It’s about five key risks women need to take at various points in their careers—in order to end up where they want to be.”
“Such as?”
