I didn’t know where to start. Didn’t know how to explain something I didn’t understand myself. So I started with what was simplest.
“I went on a date tonight. With a guy from work. Ethan.”
“Oh?” Her voice perked up. “Tell me everything. Is he nice? Does he treat you well?”
“He’s wonderful.” I twisted my grandmother’s necklace between my fingers. “Kind. Funny. He took me to this Italian place with the best carbonara I’ve ever had.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“It was wonderful.” I stared at the ceiling. “He’s exactly the kind of person I should want to be with.”
“But your heart doesn’t want him?” Her voice was soft with understanding.
She nailed it. I had spent an entire date thinking about her brother. I was a complete disaster of a human being who didn’t deserve nice Italian restaurants or kind men who remembered coffee orders.
“Pauline.” Claudette’s voice was gentle. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” The words came out small. Lost. “I feel like I’m going crazy. Like everything I thought I knew is getting tangled up and I can’t find the ends anymore.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Too quiet, even for Claudette, who was usually a champion listener.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. “You sound strange.”
“I’m fine.” She said it too quickly. “Just tired. Michael’s been traveling for work and I’m not sleeping well without him.”
I wanted to push. Something in her voice was off, something that didn’t match the words she was saying. But I was too tangled in my own confusion to untangle anyone else’s.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Paulie. You’ll figure things out at your own pace.”
“I hope so,”
By the time we hung up, my wine had gone warm and my dress was wrinkled from sitting too long.
I changed into pajamas and washed my face and lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The problem was that I’d already figured out what I wanted—and it was exactly what I shouldn’t want.
CHAPTER 13
Pauline
Jack Specter walkedoff the elevator Monday morning, and my heart did something stupid and giddy that I absolutely had not given it permission to do.
I was at my desk, pretending to review notes when I heard it—the familiar chime, the slide of doors, that particular quality of silence that fell over a room when someone important entered.
His grey suit was crisp. His hair was slightly damp like he hadn’t bothered to fully dry it from the shower. That walk he had—confident and unhurried, like the world was going to arrange itself around him and he was simply giving it time to comply. My grandmother would call it “big man energy.”
My pulse kicked up. Every nerve ending I possessed seemed to orient toward him, which was mortifying and cliché and absolutely beyond my control.
Then I noticed something was different.
He didn’t look at me.
Not a glance as he crossed the newsroom. Or even a nod of acknowledgment. There was none of that loaded eye contact we’d perfected over the past weeks.
He looked through me. Past me. Like I was a desk or a filing cabinet or one of those sad potted plants HR had scattered around to boost morale.
I told myself it was a coincidence. He was busy. He had things on his mind. The morning was hectic and he probably just hadn’t seen me sitting here, even though I was directly in his line of sight.
The editorial meeting proved me wrong.
