I stabbed at my lo mein with a chopstick. “Work is… an adjustment. My boss makes Meatball look charming. My coworkers would push me down a flight of stairs for a byline. And I spent today transcribing an interview about water treatment facilities.”
“That sounds… awful.”
“Awful is an understatement. This isn’t the living-the-dream life I envisioned for myself.”
“What about that story you were chasing? The Simon Tucker thing?”
I groaned. Simon Tucker. Billionaire recluse. Notoriously private. The kind of interview that could make a career, if youcould actually get him to agree to one. I had been trying for weeks. Emails. Phone calls. Messages through his company’s PR department. Nothing.
“Dead end after dead end,” I admitted. “The man is a ghost. I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually exist. Maybe he’s just a collective hallucination of the financial sector.”
“Jack knows him, you know. I could ask…”
“No.” The word came out sharp before I could suppress it. “I mean, thank you. But I want to do this on my own. If I get the interview, I want it to be because I earned it, not because my best friend’s brother made a phone call.”
Claudette was quiet for a moment. “You know that’s not how the world works, right? Everyone uses connections. Everyone.”
“I know.” I did know. That was the frustrating part. “I just… I need to prove I can do this. To myself, if no one else.”
“You’re annoyingly principled.”
“It’s my best quality.”
She laughed again, and the sound loosened something in my chest. I had missed this. Missed her.
“Okay,” Claudette said, her voice shifting into something more careful. “Speaking of it… have you… I mean, are you planning to…”
“Spit it out, Specter.”
“It’s Specter-Ashford now, thank you very much.” A pause. “Are you really not planning to see Jack at all?”
The lo mein suddenly tasted like cardboard. I set the container down on the coffee table and pulled my knees up to my chest. “No.”
“Pauline…”
“Claudette.” I kept my voice steady through sheer force of will. “You promised. You swore to me. Not a word to him about me being here. Not one word.”
“I know. I haven’t said anything. I won’t.” She sighed, heavy and frustrated. “But can I just say one thing?”
“You’re going to say it whether I give you permission or not.”
“True.” Another pause. “It’s been years. Whatever happened between you two, whatever went wrong… don’t you think it’s time to at least talk about it?”
My fingers found the gold chain at my throat. I twisted it once, twice. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“That’s not true and we both know it.”
“Claudette.”
“Fine. Fine. I’ll drop it.” She didn’t sound happy about it. “But for the record? Neither of you has moved on.” It’s painfully obvious. And I’m tired of watching two people I love be miserable when they could just communicate like adults.”
“I’m not miserable.”
“Sure, babe.”
“I’m focused on my career.”
“Uh-huh.”
