Parker
P.S. Want to have another lemonade stand? Maybe with vodka this time?
I chuckled. Yes, this was much better. And it would make her laugh. Some twenty-five years ago, we had gotten the notion to create a traveling lemonade stand in the back of Amelia’s small boat. It would have been a great idea except that the first large boat that passed us nearly capsized our vessel, the lemonade dumped over, our signs were soaked, and we were out of business before we started.
Next I texted my Mom,Can I have Amelia’s new address?
She responded,Sending her flowers? ;)
You wish.
I sort of wished, too, actually.
While I waited, I sent a memo to my father-in-law. He only worked down the hall, but we tried to limit our conversations during the day because a simple exchange could turn into an hour and a half. He still liked to get handwritten notes. I scrawled off:
I’ll meet you at the Tattersalls’ cocktail party next week at 7. RSVP’d for both of us. Can we discuss theSea & Skyacquisition? I’d love to know your thoughts and I have some as well.
—P
P.S. Are you wearing your velvet slippers? I don’t want us to be twins.
I teased my father-in-law mercilessly about the gold-trimmed velvet slippers that he wore to cocktail parties. They were atrocious.
I closed my laptop, stood up, slipped my wallet in my back pocket and my phone in my front, and waved bye to Brian as I walked out the door.
I was meeting a potential new hire for lunch at Sant Ambroeus. She had just finished graduate school at UNC, and the dean had personally emailed about her interest in our digital media position. That had been Greer’s pet project, and since she had left, we hadn’t been able to find anyone to suitably fill her role. Or maybe it wasn’t that they weren’t suitable. Maybe it was that they weren’t Greer… I wasn’t sure.
The job listing specified at least five years’ work experience, but Lindsey Underhill didn’t let that deter her. When she sent her résumé, I deleted it right away. When the letter came from the dean, I dragged it over into my “Potential Résumés” folder. When I hadn’t contacted her after a week, Lindsey called, and I politely said, “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you don’t have the experience we’re looking for.”
She called back the next day. And the next. And the next.
And, while it was annoying, it was also kind of impressive. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had an employee who wanted a job quite that badly. And after five interviews with five perfect-on-paper candidates who’d fallen completely flat in real life, I thought,Why not?I still didn’t think Lindsey Underhill had enough real-life experience to be able to take on such a high-level position. But I figured, if she wanted to work for McCann that badly, maybe I could find another job for her.
I liked to be earlier than my interviewees, but I had missed the boat on that end. The maître d’ pointed me toward my usual table, the corner booth by the window, and as I approached, a blond girl in her early twenties wearing a red dress stood up to shake my hand. She was as tall as I was, and I was over six feet. After we had made our introductions and sat down, she said, “I know what you’re thinking.”
I smiled, amused. She was confident, no doubt about it. I motioned to the waiter for a black napkin instead of a white one so I wouldn’t go back to work with lint all over my pants, and said, “Please enlighten me, Lindsey. What am I thinking?”
“You’re thinking that I don’t have enough experience for this position.”
I pulled a piece of bread from the basket and buttered it. I nodded, glancing down at the résumé she’d slid in front of me. “Wow,” I said. “Mind reader isn’t on your list of skills.” I paused. “Although I’ve told you that no fewer than a dozen times, so it’s not really a stretch.”
“Look, I know I haven’t had years and years of job experience, but I think that’s a positive. I have ideas. I can bring afresh perspective. I can do things differently.” She paused, searching my face, as if deciding whether to forge ahead. “I can shake this position up like Greer did.”
No one, ever, in the history of the world, could do things like Greer did. My face must have changed, because she stumbled.
“I mean, no. NotlikeGreer did. I don’t mean I could replace her or anything like that. I just mean that she brought a fresh vision to McCann Media, and I have a new perspective that I could bring, too.”
She was clearly flustered, and I almost felt sorry for her. The waiter came to the table, and I ordered a bottle of wine, something I rarely did at a meeting. I felt the smile come back to my face naturally. I had forgiven her already.
She put her hands to her face and said, “I’m mortified. God. This is not how I thought this was going to go.”
I shook my head. “It’s going fine,” I said softly. “No one will ever be Greer, but, unfortunately, we all have to move on.”
It was like the words were coming from somewhere else. The phrase rolled around in my head:We all have to move on.I almost wanted to stand up on the chair and shout,WE ALL HAVE TO MOVE ON. I hadn’t moved on an inch in the past three years. Not a centimeter. Everyone and their brother had told me that. But Lindsay’s faux pas—plus, I had to admit, Mason’s unexpected wisdom—had made me see it.
We both ordered the catch of the day, and we talked about Lindsey’s ideas. Her face changed when she talked about McCann Media. “Greer is the reason I went to journalism school,” she said. “I followed her career for years. I reread her booksevery six months. I admired her, not just as a journalist, but as a woman, more than words can say. She inspired me so much.”
“She inspired me, too.” In everything. I sat across the table and looked at this person whose charm must have gotten her a lot of what she wanted in life. It was going to work for her again. I took a sip of wine and said, “You know what, Lindsey? I might regret this, but I’m going to give you the job.”
