“You don’t have to apologize for being angry at your dead father, El. That’s, like, the most valid emotion on earth.”
A weight lifts from my chest. She always knows just what to say.
I should tell her the rest.
“I have an interview,” I reveal. “Friday.”
“For what?”
“A tutoring position. Live-in. Private family.” I trace a circle on the table with my fingertip. “The posting was on one of those nanny agency sites, but it’s for a teacher. A little girl, six years old. They want someone with an education background to homeschool her.”
“Live-in?” Maren raises an eyebrow. “Like, you’d live in their house?”
“It’s apparently a big house.”
“How big?”
“The listing said ‘estate.’”
Maren lets out a low whistle. “What’s the pay?”
I take a sip of the terrible wine. “Five times what I was making at Lincoln.”
Her eyes go wide. She leans forward. “Ellie. Five times?”
“I know.”
“That’s — do the math — that’s like?—”
“I’ve done the math.” I’ve done it seventeen times. At that salary, I could clear the debt in under two years. Two years, and then I’d befree. The word feels foreign. Impossible. “But there were over two hundred applicants. I barely have any private tutoring experience. I’ve only been teaching for three years. I’m not going to get it.”
“But you passed the first round.”
I nod. “I passed the first round.”
“So, you have a chance.”
I tilt my glass to catch the last dregs of poison. It doesn’t taste any better at the bottom.
“I have a chance.”
Concern flickers across Maren’s face. She opens her mouth, then stops.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—” She turns her glass by the stem. “A live-in position. At an estate. For a family that can pay five times a teacher’s salary. That’s a different kind of money. And different kinds of money sometimes come with different kinds of problems.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you’re sitting here with a bruise on your arm from the last set of rich men’s problems, and I?—”
“It’s a tutoring job, Mare. I’d be teaching a six-year-old. Reading, math, finger painting. Whatever weirdness comes with the money, I can handle it.”
She stares at me for a long time. Then finally nods.
“Okay. But promise me something.”
“What?”
