I give Priya a hug to distract from her from doing her amazing cousin duty. “I was thinking of checking in on the show at the office while no one’s there. See if I can think of anything else to say during the sale to make a bidding frenzy.”
Priya crosses her arms and looks at me...incredulously.
“Okay, that look is offensive. I am dedicated to my job.” Good. Anger and affront I can deal with.
“And you’re very good at it. But you’re not go-to-the-office-at-nine-p.m.-on-a-weekend dedicated to it. That’s a Priya move.” She points to herself.
“I could be that dedicated.” I’m defensive, but I know she’s right. If this hadn’t happened with Beau, I would not be going to work in the evening.
“If you believe that, I’m not going to contradict you because I am a great cousin.”
Priya calls me a car and waits with me in our side room until it gets here. I give her another hug, because she is a pretty great cousin even if I refuse to acknowledge it out loud.
It’ll just make her arrogant.Morearrogant.
The driver isn’t chatty, but he does have Christmas music on. In a new experience, I get choked up to “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” And “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” damn it. All now associated with Christmas adventures with Beau. And any thought of Beau makes me want to retreat into a blanket fort.
When I get to the office, I flash my badge to the nighttime security guard, hoping he can’t see my puffy eyes, and push the button for the elevator.
While it comes, I desperately try to get Beau’s face out of my mind. Instead, I see him on all the “dates” we went on. And with each event getting too used to seeing him at the end of my day.
Who gets that used to another human in such a short amount of time? Did he put a spell on me? This can’t be normal.
No, this entire situation is good for me. If he had left at the end of the week, I would have double the amount of days’ worth of sad about him leaving. I can barely handle this. But could it even get worse?
I open the notes app on my phone so I don’t have to go to my desk to get actual paper, and go directly to the empty exhibition space. It’s eerie to wander through the same halls that are usually bustling with activity, like wandering through an abandoned post-apocalyptic museum space. Lights on sensors turn on when I walk by, but the rest of the space is shrouded in darkness.
That’s fine, my mood right now would rather sit in the dark than have the lights shining on me, spotlighting my unhappiness. Plus, I don’t think my mascara is doing me any favors, running down my face, like if Niagara Falls got dyed black and then dried up.
In the exhibition space, I aimlessly wander the lots. I make a couple of observations that Priya should know about, but then I run into the spot where I first overheard Beau being a jerk about art. I smile at the memory, but I can feel the smile is a lot dimmer than it’s been this past week.
I stop in front of the Fragonard couple again. It seems like ages ago when I looked at them last, so confident that I would never want what they had.
Damn it, I do want a little of that now.
Not forever, of course. But why can’t I have a little more time with Beau? Just through the end of the holiday season. It already hurts right now. And it hasn’t gotten any better yet.
So why not enjoy a little more? What could be the worst thing that could happen?
Chapter Nineteen
I’m going home with Beau.
And it gives me time to get away from work, from a promotion I don’t want and getting told I’m not going to add interior decorating to my job duties.
Revelations made, I toss a cheeky salute to the clandestine figures in the painting, already feeling lighter in the stomach vicinity. Then I get out my phone and see the time. I need to get moving. It would be a giant buzzkill if I’ve had the biggest epiphany of my life and Beau is asleep, phone on silent. And then I have to sit on it until he wakes up.
I’m doing it. I’m going country.I text Priya to put the decision out there in the world so I can’t take it back. Well, I can, but Priya will be a butt about it if I do.
Yay! Don’t get hay in unmentionable places. It’s probably itchy.Typical Priya.I’ll have your work covered for the next however long you need.
I’m not sure I deserve this amazing (and sometimes annoying) cousin, but I’ve got her and I’m keeping her.
Business taken care of, I start the walk to the Plaza. I compose and throw away a few speeches for Beau, then decide it’ll be better if it’s spontaneous.
Then I remember what happened when I went to an improv class with a colleague for her birthday. It involved me getting nervous and tripping on the stage, busting open my nose surrounded by demented sociopaths who kept saying, “Yes. And?”
And? And someone needed to call me an ambulance. I was bleeding!
