Had she apologized well enough? Probably not. She should have explained better how she felt, how what he said made sense to her, why she’d overreacted so much.
But to do that, she’d have to explain how she felt about him, and she wasn’t sure if she knew how to put those feelings into words. Or if she was ready to.
They went into the TV room with the food, Beau carrying almost everything, as usual. She’d tried once, but he could easily carry more than twice as much as she could, so she’d given up and let him do it. He was silent as he put the food down on the table.
When he sat down, she made herself turn to him. “Are you mad at me?”
He looked surprised. “No. Why would I be mad at you?”
“Well, I wasn’t…I was kind of mean, in there. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t have—”
Beau shook his head. “Yeah, but I’m not sure if I deserve the benefit of the doubt. I was a real asshole, the last time we went through this.”
Izzy shrugged. “Yeah, but that was before.”
He gave her a very sweet smile. “Yeah. That was before.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close. They hadn’t touched since she’d left his room first thing that morning. She’d missed this. “And no. I’m not mad at you.”
She put her hand on his cheek. “Good.” She looked up at him. “It’s okay that you still miss your dad. He was still your dad—you’re still grieving him. And you never got to be mad at him in person; you’re grieving that, too.” She turned his face to hers and kissed him. “And you do deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
He smiled down at her. “Thank you. For all of that.”
She wanted to say more, but for right now, it felt like enough to curl up on the couch with him, to eat dinner and watch their show and just be together.
The next morning, just after nine, an email popped up in Izzy’s personal account.
Hi, Isabelle—
I hope all is well with you; it was great to run into you in February. A position of assistant editor here at Maurice just came open, and I immediately thought of you. I’m not sure if you’re looking to leave TAOAT, but I thought I’d reach out just in case. We’d like this process to be relatively accelerated, so please let me know if you’re interested as soon as you can. I’d love to bring you in for an interview next week, if that’s possible.
Thanks so much,
Josephine Henry
Izzy stared at her phone for a full minute. Was she imagining this? She took a screenshot of the email and texted it to Priya.
IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING???
Priya texted back seconds later.
YES YES YAYYY YESSSSSS
Izzy typed her response in a flurry.
Hi, Josephine—
Thanks so much for reaching out! I’m definitely interested in an assistant editor position at Maurice! Please let me know what else you need from me, and what the next steps are.
Best regards,
Isabelle
No, too many exclamation points. She took them out.
Wait, now it seemed too stilted. Almost unfriendly.
She sent it to Priya.
HELP ME DRAFT THIS REPLY PLEASE THERE WERE TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS BUT I TOOK THEM OUT AND NOW IT SEEMS WRONG, ALSO IS “BEST REGARDS” TOO COLD???
Oh, and should it be “Hi, Josephine,” or just “Josephine”？？？
Priya texted back right away.
No exclamation points, hi, best regards is fine. I know I know the periods all look wrong but she doesn’t have any exclamation points so do what she did
Izzy went to press send but stopped herself. Josephine’s first email had mentioned an interview next week.
An interview in New York next week.
She would have to leave California.
Izzy left the email in her drafts and went to go find Beau.
Luckily, he was in the first place she looked: the kitchen. Unfortunately, Michaela was there, too. Not that she usually minded Michaela being around, but right now she needed to see Beau alone.
She poured herself more coffee and tried to catch Beau’s eye, to get him to realize by, like, ESP or something that she had to talk to him. But he wasn’t looking at her.
Michaela was looking at her, with a little smile on her face. Izzy looked back down at her coffee. She should have texted him before rushing out of her room, but most of the time he didn’t have his phone on him, so that probably wouldn’t have done any good. She’d just have to say something.
“Um, Beau?” Beau immediately turned and smiled at her. “Marta asked me a question about your book, and I wanted to check in with you before I answered her. Can you meet me in the library so we can talk it over? It should only take a few minutes.”