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Kitten Flies Away
June 1, 4:00pm
Okay, I won’t lie. I’m in love with this apartment! I feel like a princess, overlooking her castle grounds. It’s a little too white and formal, but I can warm it up with my own feminine touch. I can even stand on the balcony as the breeze blows through my hair (when there’s a breeze, this is Vegas). The balcony is gigantic! It’s more of a roof deck than a balcony.
I picked this place out myself. Okay, I understand that this is a normal adult thing. But I’ve always been told where to live. My parent’s house. The home the Peace Corps placed me in. Rachel’s apartment. The house where David lives. Jasmine’s apartment.
I worked with an agent who showed me several units in the area in which I was looking. This one seemed the best.Most expensive, too. I guess I have expensive taste.But it wasn’t just the price tag. This one had the best location and the unit itself was in great condition. Great balcony for parties. Great views for entertaining. Floor to ceiling windows with view of the Strip. Pool, gym, hot tub, and sauna downstairs. Several restaurants downstairs on the first floor of the complex.Worth it.And it fits well within justifying all the wonders of this place, including how it benefits the company.
I hate moving, but I do love it when everything is unpacked and there are no drawers full of clutter. Okay, technically, my apartment is going to become the company crash pad. I will host coworkers and clients, as they passed through. David expressly asked me to make sure the unit had 2 suites – one for me, and one for the company. Perhaps a place where a future coworker can stay as a temporary roommate.But, whatever! I chose this place! I found it on my own. I put the deposit down, and I furnished it with my furniture and my plates and rugs. My bed, too. There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed.
I’m near my family again! God, but I missed that. I happen to quite like my family. How fortuitous that the David’s friend wanted to invest into the Vegas? I guess it makes good business sense given what’s happening next door in California, but I just like being close to my family.Not too close, though.
I have a crash pad.Work is going really well. I love being able to help others with their dreams and ideas. I mean, what better purpose than to build dreams?
I’m traveling back and forth between Vegas and Chicago and have gotten used to the weirdness of the airports. Some days, it’s an awkward U-pillow left on a seat. Some days – well, most days – it’s someone arguing with gate clerks because they missed the flight. Like they’ll turn the plane around for you. Seriously. Some days, the airport bathrooms are … well ... airport bathrooms.
We now have an office in Vegas, 2 blocks away from my crash pad. It’s not much, but it has space for the Vegas team that we’re in the process of hiring. And who knows where that goes? When I’m in Vegas, most of my work consists of attending events. Local meetups, podcasts, etc. Most of the time, these are held in really cool places – Vegas, after all! Sometimes, they come with free drinks. Sometimes, they come with free food.Sometimes, with everything- I sip on a lemon drop martini at a meetup in one of the big casinos. This one is for local politicians.
When I’m in Chicago, I keep working with the team on the ground. One of our clients developed a promising new concept that after a non-stop two-day brainstorming session we turned into an operational model and launched as a company. That was both insane and absurd. It caught on. But the unease of Chicago office is getting worse. And I’m not even there. So perhaps it’s not me? The newest gossip is that David is apparently sleeping with either Maria or Susan. Or maybe Maria and Susan? And me, too. When I point out how absurd that sounds to the water cooler crowd, they just look at me.Don’t you people have work to do?
I pushed aside any thoughts that I had moved to ease his ex-wife’s insecurities (for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why that mattered to me, but it still did.). I talked to both Maria and Susan, and they confirmed that they didn’t know where the rumors were coming from, but that they had turned down a couple of date proposals from the water cooler crowd. Perhaps that led to an assumption that they were sleeping with the boss? It was cathartic to bond with them, since now they have felt the bitchy stares from people at the office (plain annoying). When it was just me, it pained me to feel them pitying me for wanting what they assumed I could not have, for thinking that I wanted to replace his ex-wife. They didn’t know, of course. They didn’t realize she’d already moved on, or that I had no intention of filling her old spot. Nor did I care to explain the tedious details of David’s relationship with her. No affection lost between them. And now both Maria and Susan were getting the same treatment. Something was definitely wrong.
Screw the judgment. I didn’t make decisions for them.I didn’t even make them for him. I made this move for me, because I needed to take the next step. I stood poised on the edge of my next adventure.
I’m somewhat hurt, yes, I’m not an emotionless robot. I’m not above small and petty feelings. I enjoyed working in our main office, with my friends. I loved my old apartment. The neighborhood surrounded me with a cozy and familiar feeling. It had everything, including the most perfect corner grocery store. I could pick up fresh veggies and meat on the way home and cook my dinner.
I also didn’t feel terrible. Some exile. I’d acquired a new, shiny part of my home city I hadn’t explored before. The heart of a brand-new startup world. What a kick-ass home! A high rise in the downtown of my city. I lived in the heart of an exciting new startup world! What better place to be for someone desiring to build hopes and dreams? If any dreams were possible, it would be here and now.
I liked the settled feeling, too. After months of hotels, it felt luxurious to know each time I flew out here, I would be in my own bed. I wanted to reconnect to old friends, makes new friends. I wanted them to know my life. Well, part of it.
It’s all good… right?
* * *
June 6, 1:14am
I’m dressedas an opera singer. Nobody will tell me where to be or what is going on, and suddenly I’m standing in the back of the theater and the lights come up on the stage. I am certain I am supposed to be standing there already. I take a deep breath and walk dramatically, step, pause, step, down the aisle, as if this is part of the act. Like in a Cirque du Soleil performance. My mother used to bring me along to their shows, when I was in high school and she covered them as a freelance writer. I’m wearing a formal, red silk kimono. In the center of the stage, I see a pagoda and a garden.
I began singing, a song about transformation. I cannot remember the words, but I distinctly remember singing words, the sound pouring forth in a way that I never can do in real life. I am singing about being true to myself, doing what I need to survive. That this person in the costume isn’t me. I startle myself at the ease in which I sing, loudly and clearly. As I reach my momentum, I impulsively climb the pagoda. I tear the costume off, piece by piece. A stagehand dressed in black hands me a tambourine. I grab it, as I continue passionately singing, my hair flung about my face. Then someone calls to me, from offstage. The music grows solemn, quiet. I softly continue the song and put my hair up. I walk offstage, to meet the person who called to me. To go back to being the person I ought to be.
Dreams are very odd, an escape for the mind, but I probably should not watch Mulan before going to bed when I’m feeling emotional.
I think maybe the workload is getting to me.
* * *
June 13, 10:15am
Things are heatingup in Vegas. Okay, I apologize for that one. But it’s true. Thingsareheating up. An old acquaintance of mine wanted to sell a technology services company, and we bought it. I never realized how much work there is in buying a company. So much paperwork. So many welcome letters, and website updates, and everything. It was head spinning, but while I was spinning my head, David and Sissy made it happen as if it came natural to them. Along came a bunch of new clients and a bunch of new headaches. it made the Vegas office immediately more profitable than the Chicago office.That was fast. Now they’ll hate me even more.
David and Sissy came out to Vegas to close the deal. She took the guest suite. He slept on the couch. In the morning, as Sissy and I were up and making coffee, he was still asleep. So, we inflated a bunch of pool animals and decorated him with them. He never moved a muscle. Then we started taking pictures of him covered in pool animals. Suddenly his eyebrow arched. Sissy and I looked at each other like couple of kids who have been caught with their fingers in a cookie jar.
Except there is no chiding. He gives us a mischievous look and drags the pool animals with him announcing that he’s going to the pool. I guess we’re not in trouble, but we’re both loving his silliness. We’re closing a deal and there he is dragging a bunch of half-inflated pool animals through the hallway.
After the closing ceremonies, we all went out to dinner to celebrate. A swanky sushi place off the strip with super cheesy sexy names for all of their rolls. So yeah, we had a threesome – except it was just a sushi roll. Didn’t help my fixation.At. All.
During dinner, he took a call from his kids and walked away from the table. Sissy kicked my foot under the table to stop looking after him.I can’t help it; I have no poker face.“I can see why you want him,” she said. “But do you realize he has the emotional trauma the size of the Grand Canyon? Whatever happened between him and his ex, I don’t think we have the full story. His stoicism makes emotionally unavailable guys look like special snowflakes.” As if on cue, David comes back to the table and makes a self-effacing joke as he sits down. He does have a serious poker face, but Sissy is right – his reserved exterior is just that, an exterior. Once in a while, the exterior is pierced and I get to see what’s behind the poker face.
