“See, you get it.” Mark Winterson’s dimple makes an appearance again. “Are…you okay? Do you usually lunch in the stairwell?”
The use of the verbto lunchmakes me giggle.
“Usually I dine at my cubicle, but I couldn’t get a reservation.”
He laughs so heartily, it makes me feel better.
I squint at him.Erickson’s protégé.He’s charming, but there’s something too slick about him. Something kind of unsettling.
If it seems too good to be true,Mom would always say,it probably is.
“What’s your deal, Mark Winterson? Are you, like, aWolf of Wall Streetguy?”
His prominent brows rise incredulously. “Whoa. Okay. First of all, we’re not even publicly traded. And second of all”—he waves his finger to punctuate this point—“I consider myself a feminist.”
When I googled him, I did see that he’s on a bunch of charitable boards. One of them had a pink logo.
“Do you have, like…” He trails off with a sideways glance. “Trust issues or something?”
I snort. “Damn, bro, why’d you have to go there?”
“I asked myself what you might do. What’s a probing, slightly inappropriate thing I could say?” He’s trying to tamp down his smile but barely succeeding at it, and it is, unfortunately for me, very cute.
But I can’t get distracted. I’m so ill-equipped for life as it is—with matters of the afterlife added into the mix, I’m totally in over my head.
“Well, uh, nice running into you.” I stand with my book and empty Tupperware tucked under one arm, and—oh God, what?—actually offer him my other hand to shake.
He laughs silently and gives my hand a firm little pump.Wow, grip strength.“Always a pleasure, Ruby.”
I scramble back up the stairs, hand still warm from where his closed around mine.
Chapter
9
The rest of the day passes in a daze. I read through all my tabs and still don’t have any answers, and by the time I get into the elevator, my head is swirling.
It takes me a second to realize some of the accountants from earlier are in here with me. You know things are bad when I pass up a perfectly good opportunity to feel mortified.
One of them gives me an up-nod and says, “Hey, Ruby.”
“Hey,” I say, and turn to the wall to hide my confusion. I guess Greg must have told them who I am.
After work, I’m sitting on the couch alone in the fading afternoon light, staring into space. Thinking about how I should open the app and talk to Mom, but putting it off, the way I used to put off calling her. Cycling through the same three panicked thoughts in my mind, on loop.
And then it dawns on me:Fuck, I need to tell someone.I can’t handle this on my own. So I consider the options.
Someone from back in New York? My roommates and I were barely on a “getting stoned and watching movies together” basis. I had some work friends there; we still message one another sometimes, to gossip or send links back and forth to other people’s social media shitposts. But these aren’t the kind of relationships where I’d open up about anythingreal—certainly not about my mother’s ghost being trapped in the company Slack server.
Al? Tita Wendy? Too heartbreaking to go straight to someone who was friends with Mom in life—I can’t start there. And I know Tita Wendy loves me, but it scares me sometimes, how much I need her. How much darker my life would be if she weren’t dropping by, asking how I’m eating, bringing over a thermos of arroz caldo.
There’s…my dad?
Like I do every few months, I google him. His LinkedIn always comes up first, and to view it, I have to sign in to that sterile, cursed echo chamber of professional updates and productivity tips.
I stare at his photo—IT professional, Dallas area.I hate seeing the echo of my face in his. A prompt asks me if I want to endorse any of his notable skills.Excels at disappearing!
The page informs me we’re three degrees of separation apart, and that somehow seems like too many and too few at the same time.
