“What’s the ‘sideways’？”—he copied her air quotes—“move?”
Josie waved her free hand, wishing she’d remembered gloves as her fingers sliced the cold air. “They’re calling it an Exec, but basically it’s doing the same job for less money, with more of a focus on the digital side of things.”
“Sounds like you should get out while you can.” He steered her up the next ramp onto the pavement, heading toward the pier.
“Yeah, but then I’d have no job and no money…” The circle was going round her mind in a loop, continuously playing in the background. She could take the new role they were offering and look for other things at the same time, or she could take the package and just hope she got offered something before her money ran out. But then what if the new job was worse than her current one? At least she knew what she was doing there, and had friends, including Laura, which sort of counterbalanced the Oliver issue. She hadn’t figured out yet if she was brave enough to take the risk, though saying that out loud would sound all kinds of pathetic.
“Life’s too short to not do what you want,” Max said simply, as if it were that easy, as if everyone did something they enjoyed.
“Do you love being an architect then?”
He smiled, though for some reason it didn’t seem as bright as before, like he was losing some of the ocean’s energy now that they weren’t down on the sand. “I do. I geek out on buildings. And I do get the creative thing. It took me a while to get to the point where I was allowed to…imprint…my own personality on a building. But I knew I’d get there, so I didn’t mind the grafting so much.” He glanced down at her. “Sounds to me like you don’t envisage your future in marketing, though, so it’s different.”
She chewed her lip as she considered it. She’d just assumed she’d work her way up through the ranks, but did she really want to be a marketing director in ten or twenty years? She shook her head. So not today’s problem. “Did you always want to be an architect?” she asked, trying to steer attention back onto him.
“Well, it’s not like I was announcing in the school playground aged six that I wanted to design buildings, but I got set on it as a teenager, I guess, and never looked back. My mum and dad hated the idea at first,” he added, but as a smile was playing round his lips, this clearly wasn’t cause for resentment anymore.
“Really? Why?” It seemed like a perfectly respectable career choice to her, and wasn’t it one of those careers where you could make loads of money?
“They’re the cliché, my parents. Both doctors—that’s how they met. They’re both great at what they do—and my mum loves it so much that she’s keeping up some consultancy work in New York. They assumed I’d go into medicine too, and had to suffer the disappointment when they couldn’t impart all their wisdom, I suppose.”
“But they’re OK with it now?” Max was steering them to the other side of the road, toward a run-down-looking fish-and-chip shop, the faded blue-and-white lettering on the shopfront a testament to better times gone by.
“I used to get fish and chips here as a kid,” he said by way of explanation. “We came on holiday here every year without fail, the week of the August bank holiday. Haven’t been here in years,” he said, sounding slightly nostalgic. He held the door open for her and she stepped in, surprised that it was even open in the middle of December. The smell of grease filled the air, and, while it couldn’t be described as toasty, it was still warm enough to be a welcome interlude from the chill outside. There was a skinny man behind the counter, who certainly mustn’t try much of his produce, with a sharp angular face and a receding hairline. “Chips as we walk, or are you hungrier than that?” Max asked her.
“No, that sounds great.” She smiled at the angular man, who grunted in response as he turned to carry out Max’s request for two cones of chips. Couldn’t be much fun, she supposed, sitting here waiting for the odd tourist on the day before Christmas Eve. She glanced around the shop—there was a small reindeer at one end of the counter, the only nod to the festive season that she could see.
“Sorry, what were we talking about? Ah yes, the classic teenage angst as I searched for a different identity to that which my parents thrust upon me.” He nodded thoughtfully and Josie laughed. “They’re all right with it now—for the most part. They still occasionally like to bring it up. It came up on my thirtieth birthday, as if I’d magically grow into my medical career once my twenties were done with.”