What it means to me? What the eleven-dollar bar tab at Sleight of Hand and the Tide Free & Gentle in a Cape Cod Target and the BYO pizza at Eataly means to me? What it means when Alex calls me pretty, says he’d be lost without me? What it means to me that he could have—he really could have—lorded I told you so over my head when I discovered how wrong I was about him, and instead he gave me the comforter to his bed and an old T-shirt?
It means everything, I finally admit, the truth breaking free from a cage in my mind. But I don’t know if it means everything to him, and if it means even a single drop less than everything to him, the all-or-nothing heart on my sleeve won’t be able to take it.
I breathe out a sigh, shaking my head. “Nothing.”
“Liar.”
For the second time today, Miriam and I stare each other down.
“I’m attracted to him,” I say, picturing the line of sand stuck to his cheek. “Is that what you want me to admit?”
“We already established that,” Miriam says.
“We did?”
“Yes, Case, Jesus.” Miriam makes an exasperated grunt. “I want to know if you like him. If you want to cuddle him again. If you want to kiss him.”
“I…” How do I admit that I want to see Alex Harrison in his glasses, that I want to know what kind of couch he ordered, that I could sit for hours and listen to him talk about foreign exchange rates or, like, fuck, even sailboat anatomy without getting bored?
“I’m waiting, Juliet.” She’s enjoying this way too much.
My fingers clench around the rusty metal. “It’s not a no.”
Miriam narrows her eyes. “It’s not … a no.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” she repeats.
“Yes,” I say again. “It’s not a no.”
She makes a disbelieving face. “That’s it? He was public enemy number one two weeks ago! You didn’t just decide to start ignoring all the things you hated about him for a sexually PG good time, I know you didn’t.”
“He’s different than I told you at first.” I explain to Miriam about Alex getting the job on his own merit, but I leave out the stuff about his father he asked me not to share. “He’s good at his job, too. It’s weird.” My head shakes gently as I haul myself back onto the fire escape. “In some ways he’s a total trust fund kid, and in other ways he’s not like that at all.”
“Look. Cool if he’s got family money, cool if he doesn’t. All I’m saying is, statistically, one of you is going to catch feelings.”
“I’m moving to London next summer,” I grumble.
“Right, because seven months is just too short of a window to have an epic New York love affair.” Miriam looks up at the balcony. “Do whatever you want, Casey. But just know I’ll be consulting your horoscopes a little more regularly from now on.”
“Creep,” I mutter. Then, a lightbulb goes off in my head. “Wait, that’s it!”
“What?”
I grin at her. “Your starter pack. K-pop, earring collection, Italian food, and the zodiac.”
Miriam laughs and puts her hands on her hips. “Fuck. You’re fucking right.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ten days after Tracy charged me with my mission, seven days after Robert Harrison’s resignation is announced, she pulls me into her office for an update.
I recount for her most of what Alex told me about Robert and Dougie’s history when we were in bed together, half asleep. What I don’t do is divulge how I got the information, and Tracy doesn’t ask. She just listens patiently, nodding to herself like she’s agreeing that it all makes sense, the stories line up with the behavior she’s witnessed. When I’m done, she doesn’t say anything and keeps staring with a listless expression into space.
“You knew Robert was stepping down when you asked me to do this, didn’t you?”
Tracy nods. “Robert stepping down is why I asked you to do this.”
“You’re suspicious of him,” I guess.
After a moment, she admits, “I think he left because he knew things were about to get ugly.”
The same sinking feeling in my gut returns in full force. “What do you mean?”
She looks at me for a long time, maybe ten full seconds, and finally says, “Little Cooper has received an offer of purchase.”
I freeze. “We’re going to be … acquired?”
“It’s not ideal.” Tracy reclines in her chair and crosses her fingers in her lap. “An acquisition would tear the heart and soul of this company apart. We’d have redundancies. Some of our magazines would remain unaffected, but others … Well, their company already has their own version.”
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “Those redundant magazines would just … cease to exist?”
“Eventually. We’d attempt to mesh our assets, but a large portion of our staff would get laid off. I’m predicting a little less than half.”
“A little less than half?”
Brijesh. What if Food Baby is a redundancy and Brijesh gets laid off? What if I get laid off? Or Fari, or Don? And Benny—surely the acquiring company already has their own Benny. Plus, if Take Me There gets dissolved, what the fuck am I even working toward in London? Will they close that office completely?
Little Cooper isn’t just a place I work. Certainly, it has its own set of corporate problems I won’t ignore, but still, I’m partial to it. I believe in it. And so does Fari, because she chose this place out of a dozen, and so does Alex, because he said the scope of what he’s doing here feels endless.
When my mom was twenty-four and fleeing London in the eighties, she was partly running from a receptionist position at her father’s wealth advisory firm. （Alex’s trust fund is undoubtedly somewhere very similar.） And even though I love numbers, and even though I work in finance, I have always, always understood why Mom couldn’t be there anymore. Dad says she described it as soulless.
Visions fill my head: getting to London only to be laid off right away, while I’ve fallen so hopelessly in love with the city that I’d do anything not to leave yet. Crawling to Notting Hill, the front door of Gran’s—a pinched-up woman I haven’t seen since Mom’s funeral—and asking her meekly if that receptionist position at Grandfather’s old business is still available.
“Is the acquisition Dougie Dawson’s idea?” I ask Tracy.
She shakes her head. “The offer came to us. We didn’t seek it out.”
“Who’s it from?”
“Can’t tell you that. I’m crossing a line as it is.”
“Are you going to say yes?” I ask.
“We have a fiduciary duty to consider it. The offer is high. Much higher than our company is worth. I have to decide on the best financial solution and present it to the board, emotions and people and personal feelings aside.” Tracy shrugs.
I’m angry at her, even though I know I have no right to be. Last we talked, Tracy admitted she didn’t think Dougie was fulfilling his own fiduciary duty, so I can hardly blame her for stepping up to the plate now. But I literally don’t know how to process this, and I don’t understand how it ties back to Robert Harrison. Did he leave so he wouldn’t have to witness the fallout? Did he not want the association of another failed company after his Harvard start-up flopped? And why did Robert challenge his son to see the BTH launch through if he knew this was a possible outcome? For Christ’s sake, Dougie now has a personal and a professional reason to obliterate Alex’s whole purpose here.