He pulls his chair closer to see the screen. His shoulder is against mine. He reads in silence.
He reads slowly which drives me nuts. I want him to read fast and give me his thoughts immediately. That’s the type of person I am. I’m worried when after he reads the whole thing, he goes back to the second page.
I want to know what he thinks. Not because I need validation, because I know I do. But, also, because he sees thingsclearly and he'll tell me the truth and I need truth more than validation.
"This is good," he says, finally.
"How good?"
"Justin will say yes to it."
I blink. "I didn't write it for Justin." Okay, maybe I wrote it with this resort in mind, just because I’m here and I know it.
"I know. But you should send it to him." He scrolls back to the rates. "These are too low. You know they're too low."
I did know they were too low. I wrote them too low because there's a specific fear that lives in the gap between what your work is worth and what you let yourself charge, and I haven't fully dealt with it yet. Because there’s a level of imposter syndrome attached to my work. If I raise my prices, will anyone even pay it? But, also, I know Justin and Holly and don’t want to ask for too much from them.
"There's a number that feels like enough and then there's a number that feels presumptuous," I say.
"The presumptuous number is closer to accurate." He looks at me. "What would you charge a wealthy client you didn't know?"
I tell him.
"That number," he says. "Not the one you typed."
This is what I mean when I say he takes care of me. Not the coffee, though the coffee matters. Not the hand-holding, though the hand-holding is its own world. This right here. Sitting with my work and telling me it's worth what it's worth when I'm afraid to say so.
"I'll revise it," I say.
"Good." He hands the laptop back. "The ranch content for your socials, what were you thinking?"
I tell him what I've been imagining. A long continuous series, not a one-off post but a running thread, following the animalsthrough their rehabilitation. The orphaned elk calves. The fawn. The foxes when they're ready for release. Something that gives a specific audience, the people who love travel and animals and stories that go somewhere, a reason to come back every week. They’ll be invested in the lives of each animal and in turn, in my feed.
He listens without interrupting.
"The release days are the best footage," he says, when I finish. "The day they go back to nature. That's what people want to see. Although, it can be hard for the caregivers and people who’ve grown attached to them."
"I was thinking that."
"You'd need to be there for those days." He says it evenly, looking at the mountain through the alcove window. "Some of them are weeks away. Some are spring."
He's talking about spring. He's talking about me being here in spring. It’s not about the animals or my work anymore and we both know it.
"I'd need a base," I say, carefully. "If I was going to be here that regularly. I can't live in the resort."
"No," he agrees. And doesn't say anything else.
He doesn't need to. He's placed the piece on the board and he's giving me time to see the whole board.
I see it.
I see it and it doesn't scare me and it probably should and I've decided to be honest about that instead of performing.
"I want to build something," I say. "With my brand, something real."
"I know." He looks at me. "You're already building it. You've been building it all week."
"I want to build it here."
