“Do you have other plans tonight?”
“No, but…”
“Then just stay and eat with us. It’ll save you cooking for yourself, and it will make my grandma happy to see someone other than me eating the food she’s prepared. She enjoyed your company last night. It will mean a lot to her if you say yes.”
Once more, Grace found herself accepting the impromptu dinner invitation. “All right then, thank you. But if I’m being fed here again, the least I can do is contribute something. If we’re being sent out to walk Stanley, then I’ll stop off at the shops on the high street to buy wine or dessert.”
“I already bought wine, but we don’t have dessert.”
“Then that’s what I’ll buy. There’s a nice ice cream shop at the bottom of the high street, and they sell cheesecakes and all that sort of stuff.”
“Sounds great.”
Ryan clipped the lead onto Stanley’s collar and they set off for their walk, heading east along Riverside Road before cutting along a residential street that offered the most direct route towards where the ice cream shop was located on the high street. While the dog sniffed and scampered, excited at the prospect of yet another new walking route, Grace listened while Ryan filled her in on Stanley’s day, which had mostly consisted of the dog eating his food, playing with his new toys, going for a walk, and then taking a very lengthy nap.
“It really is a dog’s life,” Grace laughed. “I’m almost jealous. I just hope that looking after for him for another day didn’t torpedo any plans with your grandmother.”
“She enjoyed hanging around at the house,” Ryan reassured her. “She told me so herself. And because we were just taking it easy at home, Grandma was able to tell me all about what’s she got up to when she visited my sister and her family a few weeks ago, and then during the time she spent with some old friends recently, too. We’ve got plenty of time to do all the out-and-about stuff we planned.”
Ryan fell silent and his expression shifted, as if he’d just remembered something.
“Grace, how did it go with the conversation this morning with your supervisor about your big promotion?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked already.”
Grace waved a hand and offered what she hoped was a smile. “It went fine, thanks.”
He studied her face for a long beat, clearly unconvinced. “Are you sure?”
After the shock of the morning’s news, Grace had spent the day trying not to think about the sudden stalling of her promotion plans. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it now, either.
But when she turned to Ryan in an attempt to offer yet another smooth smile to cover her true feelings, the open expression on his face and the concerned look in his eyes had the effect of opening the floodgates.
Shewantedto talk to him and share her feelings, even if the impulse took her by surprise.
“Actually, things didn’t go fine at all,” Grace said on a release of breath. “The business has decided to pause all promotion processes for at least a year, including those, like mine, that were already well underway.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry, Grace. That’s terrible news. Why are they doing that?”
“It turns out the business is looking to recoup losses and is tightening its belt. They made a public announcement this afternoon and put out a press release about plans to sell off some of the underperforming hotels in the corporate portfolio and pause refurbishment works that were in the pipeline. There’s also a pay freeze and a hiring freeze at some managerial levels, with any new appointments having to be approved further up the chain.” Grace shrugged. “All businesses go through tough times, of course they do. But all this came as a complete shock.”
“I bet it did. I could see this morning how excited you were about the promotion meeting you were about to have once you got to work. It obviously meant an awful lot to you. I’m really sorry.”
“My manager, Clive, reminded me that it could’ve been worse. There are people in the business who are now being made redundant, and that’s terrible. There are no risks to jobs at the Hamblehurst Manor Hotel, at least none we’re aware of right now. But I’ve been working hard for many months towards this promotion, putting in the hours, going the extra mile, taking on more responsibilities in order to prove I’m ready. I’m sure I exceeded all the promotion criteria and I’m sure that promotionwould’ve been mine had these big decisions not been taken at the top of the business.”
Grace sighed again, her thoughts churning. “I still have my job and I still work in a great place. That counts for a lot. But I’ve been so focused on this promotion. It was the only thing I could think about, the only thing that mattered, and now that it’s been ripped away like this…” She let another sigh and shook her head. “It’s just left me feeling winded and I need a couple of days to let it all sink in.”
“That makes perfect sense. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever be promoted. It just isn’t happening right now. That’s hard to take in, I get that. But it’ll happen, eventually. I’m sure of it.”
Grace appreciated his words, which could’ve sounded trite or flippant, but didn’t. There was emotion in his voice as he spoke, and certainty, too, which made Grace feel a tiny bit better, something she hadn’t imagined was possible.
“Thanks, Ryan.”
Stanley scampered towards her just then, having been busy for the last few moments sniffing his way along a line of hedges between the front gardens that lined the street and the pavement. The dog yapped and wagged his tail before dashing off again ahead of them.
“Stanley says it’s all going to work out fine, too,” Ryan laughed.
“Well, if that’s what Stanley says, it must be true,” Grace grinned, and gave Ryan a thoughtful look. “I’m glad you and your grandmother invited me to dinner again tonight. I would’ve just gone home with Stanley and felt sorry for myself for the rest of the evening otherwise.”
“It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself. It’s hard when things don’t work out the way we hope they will.”
Grace thought he’d been about to say something more, but when she turned to face him, he was looking ahead, hisexpression a blank mask. He gestured to the road junction further along, where the residential street they’d just walked along met the high street at its eastern edge.
“We’re almost at the ice cream shop,” Ryan said, pointing to where the pink canopy and signage above the door were just coming into view. “Considering the rotten news you got today, I think some sort of triple chocolate cake ice cream monstrosity is probably in order.”
“Sounds good to me,” Grace laughed, not realising until just that moment that chocolate, and lots of it, was exactly what she needed.
Ryan, she also realised, had somehow managed to read her mind.
