Page 20 of Soft Serve

"I've been working," I say.

"Charles." Her voice has the quality it gets when she's decided patience is no longer efficient. "The press has photographs."

"Of what?"

"Of you," she says. "Behind a counter. Serving ice cream to tourists."

"That's accurate," I say.

A silence that communicates clearly.

"The board is not amused," she says.

"The board doesn't need to be amused," I say. "They need to wait for the campaign results."

"This has stopped looking like a campaign," Eleanor says. "It looks like a personal situation that you are allowing to compromise a professional one."

I move away from the window and sit on the couch that no one has ever sat on long enough to leave an impression.

"The campaign is on track," I say.

"Is it? Because from where the board is sitting, you have spent a week doing manual labor in a small town shop, you have twice declined press access that was built into the original strategy, and there are exactly no confirmed deliverables on the schedule."

"There's a timeline," I say. "The partnership hasn't been formally agreed upon yet."

"Why not?"

Because she's careful and she's smart and she asked for time and I gave it to her without hesitation because apparently that's who I am now.

"Because I'm not pressuring her," I say.

The silence this time is longer.

"Charles," Eleanor says, and her voice has dropped into a low tone that’s tinged with a little anger, "I understand that this place is charming. I understand that after Vermont, you feel some compulsion toward…, toward contrition. But you cannot rebuild the Whitaker name by disappearing into a town that will never be part of our market and developing a personal attachment that will be used against us the moment it becomes inconvenient."

"Her name is Paloma Reyes," I say. "She is not a personal attachment. She is the owner of the business we want to partner with, and she deserves the time she asked for."

Another silence.

"You said her name very quickly," Eleanor observes.

I say nothing.

"Come home, Charles."

"Not yet," I say.

"The board will want a conversation."

"They can have one," I say. "When I'm back. Which will be after National Ice Cream Day and not before."

Eleanor exhales, a controlled sound that in anyone else would be a sigh.

"Don't make a decision you can't reverse," she says.

"I'll be in touch," I say, and end the call.

I set the phone face down on the cushion beside me and sit in the quiet of the rental with the drink I don't want growing warm in my hand.