The door opens, and Mrs. Montgomery looks up at me, cheery and welcoming, as always. “Oh, Johnny. We should have made a copy of the house key for you.”
The tip of my nose feels tingly. Definitely allergies. Normal physiological response. “That’s kind of you.”
“Come on in. It’s just me here—Alan took Bob to the dog park because he had a lot of energy to burn. The puppy, not Alan.”
When I enter the foyer, I feel dread in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I have food poisoning.
“Olivia’s not back from the gym yet?” I ask at the same time Olivia’s mom asks, “Can I get you some coffee, dear?” as she heads toward the kitchen.
She stops in the hallway and turns around, looking surprised and concerned. “What? She left for the airport an hour ago. She said you’d know why.”
I check my phone again to see if I missed any texts or calls from Olivia this morning. But no. Nothing.
“Maybe she forgot to hit Send on the text message?” Mrs. Montgomery offers. “I do that all the time. She said there’s a company class tomorrow morning, and she can’t miss it.”
For once, I don’t have a thousand ideas and questions flooding my brain—I only have one.
“Is everything all right?” she calls out as I run up the stairs.
That is the question.
I find my briefcase on the floor by the bed. The leather handle has been gnawed on, and some of the contents spilled out onto the carpet. On top of the bed is my notebook, with chewed-up pages. And my laptop. Closed. With a note on top of it. The same notepaper Olivia used for the note she left me this morning. It says:
You left your laptop open. Bob stepped on it. I saw what you were working on. I’m taking the first flight back to SFO so I don’t miss tomorrow’s company class. xx
That note is…somewhat innocuous. I think.
Based on the note, the probability of Olivia returning to San Francisco without me because she’s angry is low. Since I have no other data to disprove my theory that things are fine between us, I will not panic. I have no reason to. Unless she misunderstood my incomplete pitch deck. As she certainly could when viewed out of context.
I call her cell phone, expecting to leave a voice message, but she answers after one ring. “Hi, John.”
“Hi. Where are you?”
“I’m about to go through security. My flight leaves in an hour.” Her voice sounds shaky. Not angry. Like she’s been crying.
“I’d like to explain the pitch deck I was working on.”
She exhales a sad little laugh. “The core problems and the solutions?”
“It’s unfinished. It’s only one part of the presentation I was planning for my proposal.”
There’s a lot of noise in the background. I hear Olivia apologize to someone and then sigh into the phone. “John…I lied to you last night. I think Iwouldchoose you over my career. I mean, if it ever came down to that. And I know that because of how I feel. About you. You’ve known me my entire life. You’ve seen me literally naked and folded in half beneath you while you were inside me. And you still needed to make a decision tree to figure out if I’m worth investing your time in?”
“Olivia… First of all, I told you I would never ask you to choose me over your career. And secondly, I know you’re worth investing my time in. I was building a logical case for why we should be together—now and forever—based on data. Nobody benefits if I let my feelings cloud my judgment. I’m successful in lifebecauseI analyze everything.”
“You’re successful inbusinessbecause you analyze everything,” she says. “You assigned numerical values to your feelings about me. Do you not see how messed up that is?”
“Did you not recognize the infinity symbol? That means it’s limitless. My feelings for you are boundless.”
“I know whatinfinitymeans. I also know that if you’re so stressed out about us getting closer that you need to make graphs and pie charts, then things have been moving way too fast, and I don’t think either one of us knows how we really feel or what’s real or what we want.”
“I know what I want,” I say. “I’ve spent years wanting you. Two years knowing I want to marry you. Things fell into place. A plan came together. After just over a week of having you, I’m so fucking terrified of losing you that I needed to see it expressed in numbers. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.” I should probably shut up and quit while I’m ahead, but I add,“I haven’t analyzed the new data yet, but I’m pretty sureyou’rescared too, because you’re the one who’s running.”
“I’m not saying I’m not scared. And I’m not running away. I’m just… We need a little time apart.”
“Please just…wait for me at the airport,” I say. “We’ll go home together.”
“What do you mean, things fell into place? What plan?”
