“Wall Street deserves an exposé,” Ellen said. A toilet flushed through the line, and Rae had a feeling Ellen had deliberately wavedher hand in front of the sensor to punctuate her point. “But it’s not like you mentioned any names, and no one knows you’re the Post-it Poet. And the whole point is that the poem isn’t just your story, it’s millions of women’s stories.”
“I know,” Rae said, feeling closer to Ellen than she had in a long time. “But Stu said one poem isn’t going to fix sexism and it’s just stirring up trouble.”
“That doesn’t sound like Stu, getting upset.”
“Well, we’ve only been texting about it,” Rae said. “I’m sure we’ll work it out when we talk tonight.” He was at Elmer Lake today, overseeing the construction of the new house. He’d bought the property, and everything was on track to be done by the end of summer. The idea was that he’d move in first, and then she’d join him when they got engaged (he didn’t like sayingif, so Rae had stopped using that word too, and found herself happier for it).
“He’s probably just hurt he didn’t know about it first,” Ellen said.
Rae bristled. “I don’t need his permission to submit my poetry.”
“Of course you don’t. But this is a big deal. When we look back on your literary career, we’ll say this was the first big break.”
“Not myIndyStaracclaim?” Rae deadpanned.
Her phone buzzed with a new text. She checked it, expecting it to be Stu, responding to her last passive-aggressive message.
The name on the screen registered naturally at first, then backtracked to the appropriate shock.
Dustin.
Something inside her stopped by starting again.
“I have to go,” she told Ellen, and hung up.
Sitting down at her swiveling desk chair, she absorbed the text with a single drink of her eyes and then went back to individually imbibe each word.
Congratulations on the poem. Always knew it would happen. Heard you moved to Indiana. Keep shining and sneezing.
It was only four short fragments, but it felt like an encyclopedia after a year and a half of complete silence.
Her heart skipped, a lurchy forward motion that felt like reverse.
Had he recognized the pseudonym and looked up her LinkedIn profile and seen she was in Indianapolis now? Or maybe he’d run into Ellen at some point on a subway platform and Ellen had hidden the encounter from Rae? Were the women at his office talking about today’s poem? Did they like it? Did he like it?
His text hadn’t included a question, but she began drafting a reply anyway.
As she was revising draft number six in her phone notepad (she was finding it infuriatingly difficult to capture theHappy to hear from you but even happier without you and genuinely hoping you’re happy tootone), her phone rang.
It was Stu.
In the fraction of a second that she felt disappointed at seeing her boyfriend’s name, she loathed her emotions, tempting her to ride the love market’s bubble until it burst and left her with nothing.
Perhaps it had been too optimistic an assumption to think she’d fully divested Dustin, but she was in control of her forward-looking investments, at least. And she chose the one with the steady track record.
She deleted all six text drafts, then called Stu back to smooth things over with the guy who might not pull her heart to a record-breaking high, but never sent it spiraling into a recession.
PART 4
135 DAYS TO GO
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CLOSING THE DEAL
“To Raelynn,” her boss said, holding up his champagne flute. “For closing the biggest deal of the year.”
It was late spring now, and Rae and Stu were seated outdoors at Moynihan’s Steakhouse in downtown Indy. Her boss and his wife were there too. They were celebrating the firm’s latest deal—a large tech company had acquired a Chicago-based cybersecurity firm, and Rae had led the whole process, from the pitch several months ago to the valuation analysis to negotiating the term sheets to overseeing the wiring of the $5.41 billion dollars to the correct bank accounts at threeA.M.this morning.
