The joke was on them; I’ve always loved volunteer work, and the social functions scared me anyway.
I feel like I’m headed back to sorority standards right now, about to be punished for my transgressions. Only this time, I’m actually culpable.
My phone pings with a new email. I glance down, and my composure shatters.
Hey BTH project team,
Thanks for your time last Friday and an incredibly thoughtful business presentation. While I was impressed, there are external factors making your proposed timeline infeasible. We will plan to delay the subsidiary launch and reevaluate based on company circumstances in roughly six months.
Best,
Douglas Dawson
Well. That’s that.
We’re getting acquired, and my legs don’t work anymore.
The vision in my head—me, with an Away suitcase and a map （because for some reason, I always envision myself holding an old-school paper map）， jumping off a red double-decker bus and looking around at London, wonderstruck—vanishes, replaced by another vision: packing up my apartment, forced to go back home to Nashville because nobody else in Manhattan wants to hire me. I don’t get what I want, and even worse, I don’t get to keep what I have.
I wonder how close the voting was. Did we ever stand a chance? And would I really want to know if it had been a close call?
What do I even do from here? I can’t tell anyone about the acquisition. Panic would undoubtedly spread among the employees, and somehow, I just know Tracy would trace it back to me. Plus, I’d be a hypocrite to harp on Alex for sharing privileged information if I turned around and did the same thing.
“Casey.” I glance up. Molly flashes me a smile. She’s round faced and sweet, the picture-perfect image of an HR businesswoman. “Come in. Please close the door behind you.”
I do as she says, a new kind of dread pricking at my skin. As I sit, I realize I never bothered to check the company policy on coworker relationships.
But after that email, it suddenly seems like the least of my concerns.
Has Alex read it yet?
“You’re probably wondering what this is about,” Molly says, her voice coming to me a little hazy. She clasps her fingers on the desk between us.
I gulp. Nod. What is it Jerry used to secretly whisper to me when Dad wanted to ground me? Deny, deny, deny.
“A job opening in the London office has just posted, and I think you’d be perfect.” Molly pauses, watching me.
I don’t have the capacity to hide my confusion. “I … You … What?”
“Do you know who Sinclair Austin is?” she asks.
Sinclair Austin: manager of travel cost at Take Me There. We’ve never met, obviously, but I’m aware of who she is, what she does. Sinclair is responsible for researching and analyzing the true consumer cost of travel features in the magazine. She also creates budgets for each writer and helps plan their trips.
And here is the coolest part: Sinclair Austin has a byline. In some of Take Me There’s issues, she writes budgets for readers who are interested in specific travel destinations. Sometimes she even takes the trips with the writers herself.
“Yes,” I say to Molly, a little shakily. “I know who she is.”
“Well, she just got promoted to director of finance for the mag, and she’s looking to replace herself. It’s earlier than you planned. Your start date would be the first week of February. But I think you should interview at the very least, and consider that this job may interest you more than what’s available come summertime.”
All the background noise in my head quiets down and reduces to what she just said, over and over and over.
London office.
First week of February.
You’d be perfect.
“Wait,” I say. “I can’t. It’s not going to be…”
“Breathe, Casey,” Molly says. “I know what you’re thinking, but the job isn’t going anywhere, not for years. The acquiring company is going to have plenty of regulatory hoops to jump through, and you’re a valuable worker anyway. If I were you, this opportunity is something I’d seriously consider.”
“You—you know about the acquisition?”
“Yes. I’m in HR. We know everything, all the time. I won’t tell you there’s no risk. But I’m telling you I think it’s a risk you should take.”
“February?” I repeat.
Molly nods. “February.”
Here is the thing about want. Sometimes, it’s a dull pulse, a tickle on the back of your neck. And other times, it pushes in on you so hard that you can think of nothing else. You just want and want and want. A person. A place. A feeling.
* * *
I tell Alex that night.
I don’t want to talk about the London job—I want to talk about how he’s feeling about Dougie’s email—but he panicked earlier when he got my text and wouldn’t drop it until I told him what the meeting with Molly was about. After work, he trailed me home by half an hour. I’ve been waiting for him, pacing on the carpet until now.
I wish I could read him, but when he wants to be, Alex Harrison is inscrutable. While I talk, his hands rest lightly on his hips, watching me. I’m not sure he’s even breathing, he’s so still.
“You had an interview this afternoon?” he asks when I’m through.
I nod. “Molly scheduled it right after our touchbase. I talked to Sinclair Austin. She—she liked me, and they scheduled four interviews for Tuesday.”
The last thing I expect Alex to do is smile, the pull at each corner of his lips breaking through his stoicism, but that’s exactly what happens. “You’re going to get that job, Simba.”
I stutter out a laugh, guarding my heart against the sureness in his tone. I’ve been here before. I’ve been stung by things I want so badly, it hurts. When I first looked up the job description, I couldn’t stop grinning, my chest inflated with helium. It was like all the things I knew I was good at combined with all the things I’m desperate to try. Too good to be true.
“I’m not so sure,” I admit.
His face softens with understanding, and he doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t make me any promises. Alex’s shoulders bend forward, and his arms come around me, pulling me into a safety net of warmth.
How is he coping, with all his hard work ending in postponement? This whole day has been full of emotional whiplash.
“Enough about me. Tell me how you’re doing,” I whisper.
He shakes his head, his chin catching on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. Dougie didn’t say no, he said not right now. All things considered, that’s a small miracle.”
This is the moment I should say it: Alex, I need to tell you something.
It wasn’t a small miracle, it was a sleeper shot.
I’m so sorry, Alex, but nothing is being reevaluated in six months.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, begging to spill over. But what stops them in the next moment is: What’s the big deal? Robert offered to help, and I figured, why not?
I can’t even get the synapses to link up in my head, can’t comprehend how my desperation to tell Alex the truth at all correlates to that memory. But I can’t make it not correlate, either.