I describe the degree I never used, tell Joel about the assistant warden’s role here I still haven’t applied for. The vacancy went live on the website a couple of weeks ago, and the closing date’s this Friday.
He asks what’s holding me back.
I think about it for a couple of moments. “The idea of change, maybe. I feel like we’re all just about getting onto an even keel again, after Grace. And the job’s only a fixed-term contract, so there are no guarantees long-term.”
“Be worth it, though?”
I frown. “I’m risk-averse, I guess. My parents were always quite... sensible, you know? It’s the reason I never really traveled, probably. Staying the same has just always seemed safer, somehow. Like... if you don’t pursue your dreams, you can’t feel bad if you never achieve them.”
“Taking on the café must have felt like a risk,” he observes softly. “Quitting your old job, after so many years.”
He’s right, it did, but all my thoughts back then were distorted by grief. I barely considered the fear because the sadness was so much worse—like insanity, some days. And agreeing to work at the café seemed like a way of honoring Grace—a leap of faith, doing something on a whim. Because that was how she had always lived her life.
We continue along our path. Joel looks lovely tonight, insulated from the elements by a dark woolen coat and scarf. He suits winter, I think, with all its layers and understated appeal, its subtle complications.
As we walk I ask if he’s named after anyone, like for example Billy Joel, and he says no, of course not, that would be madness, before asking the same question of me—except he comes up understandably short on anyone famous named Callie.
“Actually,” I say, “my dad suggested calling me Carrie one night over dinner, when Mum was pregnant with me. They were throwing baby names back and forth—but typical Dad, he had his mouth full at the time.” I smile. “Chocolate torte, apparently.”
“She thought he said Callie?”
I nod. “And Mum loved it so much, he didn’t have the heart to break it to her. So Callie it was. He only told her when I turned eighteen—he made a little speech about it at the restaurant on my birthday. And I had chocolate torte instead of cake, of course.”
“That is quite possibly the best baby-naming story ever.”
“Thanks. I think so too.”
I ask Joel about his family, my mind reeling in sympathy as he revealsthat his mother died when he was only thirteen. He doesn’t say much when I ask—just that she had cancer, and that they were very close.
We walk a little farther until, out of habit, I pause on the path beneath the old willow. “Grace and I used to spend hours in this tree when we were kids. You know, once you’re up there—”
“—you can spy on the world unseen.”
“You did that too?”
As he nods I feel the warmth of a new connection, the thump of ignition in my belly.
“Well,” Joel says, after a moment, “they do say fireworks are best appreciated from height.”
So together we climb, embarrassingly ungainly, into the crook of the willow’s broad shoulders, where I show him the initials Grace and I carved into the bark. Beyond our private landscape, the peculiar arson of Bonfire Night still dances across the horizon, gunpowder thumping like the footsteps of giants.
We stare out at it for maybe twenty minutes more until silence finally descends and the sky falls back to sleep.
We’re about to climb down when a barn owl emerges from the shadows, its pale trajectory enchanting as snowfall. We watch it glide by before it banks steeply up, then vanishes like vapor behind the trees.
•••
The following night, I get back to my flat after dinner at Esther’s to find a white cardboard box on the doormat. Inside, there is a slice of chocolate torte from the Sicilian pastry shop in town I love but can’t afford. And there’s a scribbled note.
Your story made me smile.
J
P.S. Wasn’t sure if it was my place to say this last night, but please have your own best interests at heart. Apply for that job.
18.
Joel
