The flight attendant came over to check on her.
“Would you like a glass of wine, dear? Some cheese and crackers? Maybe some tea and cookies?”
Izzy smiled at her. Her name was Angela, Izzy saw on her name tag. “That all sounds great, thank you.”
She checked her phone when she landed. But Beau hadn’t texted.
When she walked out of the airport, there was a shout.
“Isabelle!”
She turned, and her dad jumped out of his car. She smiled so big she thought her face might crack. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed him.
“Dad!”
He gave her a huge hug, and she hugged him back.
He grabbed her suitcase in one hand and her overnight bag in the other.
“Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you,” he said. He touched her cheek. “You’re as brown as you usually are in the middle of the summer.”
She laughed. “Santa Barbara is beautiful,” she said. “I got to spend a lot of time outside. But don’t worry, I got a lot of work done, too.”
He tossed her bags in the trunk and opened the car door for her. “I wasn’t worried about that,” he said. “It’s good that you had a bit of a break. You were having a hard time before you left.”
She looked over at him. “How did you know?”
He laughed at her. “Isabelle. I’m your father. You think I don’t know when you’re having a hard time? You didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so I didn’t pry, but I could tell something was off. And I was pretty worried about you when you first started this project in California, but after a week or so, you seemed so much happier than you had been.” He smiled at her. “I’m glad. Now. Tell me about this interview.”
Izzy reminded him about Josephine, and told him all about the job at Maurice.
“Ah, so this would be a promotion, that’s fantastic. So…does this mean that if you got this job, you might be able to move out?”
There was a suspiciously hopeful tone in his voice. Wait.
“Oh, did you and Mom like being without me that much?”
He looked guilty. “We missed you! We did! But—”
She had to laugh. She’d felt guilty for how much she’d enjoyed being away from her parents, and it turned out that they’d enjoyed her absence just as much.
Her mom had a big dinner ready for her when they got home, and Izzy told her stories all over again, showed them pictures of California, talked about her interview. She’d been so tired of her parents before she’d left, stifled, like she needed to escape. But it was great to see them again. She already felt better about being back home.
But Beau still hadn’t texted.
He said he’d text, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t text him, right? She pulled up his name on her phone and saw their last texts there, the ones about the interview, then just above, the selfie of the two of them he’d snapped when they were together by the pool one day the week before. Before she knew she was leaving, when the sun had been shining down on them and he’d just made her laugh about something and they were so happy. Just looking at that picture filled her with that same longing she’d felt on the plane. It felt like she was homesick, she realized, even though she was back home now. She’d never realized she could feel homesick for a person before.
Did he feel this way, without her there?
She wasn’t his type, she’d known that from the beginning. She wasn’t like the other people he’d dated. The tall, thin, famous ones. She’d known she couldn’t get invested in him, let herself fall for him. Maybe he’d just liked her because she was there, because she was convenient. Not because of her.
Maybe that “I’ll text” was what he said because he couldn’t think of another way to say goodbye.
She scrolled to Priya’s name on her phone instead.
I’m back! Interview is tomorrow at 2, wish me luck!!!
Priya immediately texted back.
GOOD LUCK. You’re going to be fab! Can’t wait to hear all about it.
That was better. If she texted Beau, it would just make her cry again. She didn’t need to be sad like this, going into her interview. She needed an uncomplicated pep talk. Beau was a lot of things, but there was nothing uncomplicated about him.
The next morning she woke up at nine—six, California time—after tossing and turning most of the night. She reached for her phone. Nothing from Beau. That’s just what she’d expected, wasn’t it? That’s why she’d been so sad on the plane, because she’d known that she was going back to her real life, it was all over between them. She’d been right not to text him the night before.