“Oh.” She looked guilty and instantly pulled her hands apart, cradling her wrist again. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she accidently picked the wrong one.
“You know, you could have just told me you were done for the day,” I said. “You didn’t have to do this whole injury charade.”
Before she could respond, there were two short knocks at the door and it swung open. The nurse hurried in, looking out of breath. I knew for a fact she had her hands full as the only on-site medical professional on the ski hill.
“Alright, let’s see the wrist,” she said, holding out her hand to Frankie. It only took her a minute of bending and assessing before she dropped it back in Frankie’s lap. “Looks fine to me,” she said. “Doesn’t even seem swollen or sprained.”
I smirked over at Frankie, but she didn’t meet my eyes. “Isn’t that great news? We can get you back out there.”
Frankie frowned and looked pleadingly at the nurse. “Please tell this crazy man that it would be in my best interest not to go speeding down a mountain any time soon.”
The nurse looked up from her tablet. “Maybe you could give it another go next season. Would be a shame for you to end up back in here.”
“A shame indeed,” Frankie said, shooting me a warning glare. Something told me that regardless of if she was faking this or not, I wouldn’t be able to push her into giving boarding a second shot.
We left the medical room. The mountain was now crawling with tourists after the thirty minutes we’d spent inside.
“Well, Frankie. It’s been a fun morning.”
“Has it?”
“It has.”
She barely came up to my neck and craned her head tolook up at me, shielding her eyes from the sunrays. “You’re a strange guy, Oliver.”
That made me chuckle. “Don’t I know it.”
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Sooner than you think. We’ve got fun to catch up on.”
She snorted at that. “Alright, then. I’ll start brainstorming goals for you in the meantime.”
It bothered me a little that she saw me as a project. But then again, wasn’t I doing the same to her? Dragging her around, trying to prove there was more to life than some stupid job?
What she didn’t realize was that her plan was going to be a hell of a lot harder to pull off than mine.
TEN
Frankie
“I wasable to improve the company’s ROI on ad spend by nearly ten percent last quarter.” I continued to list off one impressive stat after another as a middle-aged man with a sour expression nodded while writing them down.
Even though I had on a short-sleeve turtleneck sweater, I was burning up. The shirt had started to stick to my skin in the worst way, and I said a silent thank you that it was black. Even if I was sweating my ass off, the interviewer wouldn’t be able to tell.
“That’s impressive, Frances,” he said.
I winced at the sound of my full name. Even though I had told him I go by Frankie at the beginning of the interview, he didn’t seem to remember—or care.
I let it go, though, because I needed to nail this interview. It was like I had blinders on to anything else around me.
This position was far from my dream job. It was a level down in title and in pay. And to top it all off, it was located in Madison, Wisconsin. After applying to every job possible in the metro Atlanta area, I had decided to expand my search.At this point, I was open to moving anywhere. But Wisconsin? It wasn’t exactly a prime location for me. The brutal winters alone were enough to give me pause.
But times were tough and opportunities were scarce. This was my first interview beyond the basic phone screening with HR. So even though I wasn’t sure I was all that interested in the job, I felt desperate—no, hungry—to move on in the process.
He asked me a few more basic questions, to which I responded with what I thought were solid answers. By the time we hung up, I felt pretty confident that I’d killed it.
I blew out a sigh of relief as I closed my laptop. Crushing interviews made me feel a little bit like myself again. I was at home in conference rooms, with a slide deck prepared and a captivated audience of my coworkers. I lived for things people dreaded, like performance reviews and presentations. It had only been a few weeks since I’d been let go, but it was like that person was already fading away.
