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February
When my flight lands in Frankfurt on the way home, my first call is to Adam.
Working at Holzig is everything I’d hoped it might be, and working for Adam is evenbetterthan I’d hoped. For the past three months, he’s not just my boss, but my friend, and he’s been in my corner since day one. It’s the board that held up hiring me in the first place, conceding to Adam only if he agreed it would be probational. They haven’t even given me the job title yet. But as of today, I’ve cut the company’s costs by six percent. They owe me.
I already emailed him the renegotiated contract with our down supplier just before my flight boarded, too excited to keep the news to myself. This gamble, and all the other ones I’m taking on behalf of Holzig, are panning out just as I’d promised. Not since I was in New York, in those halcyon days straight out of grad school, have I felt this sure of myself and this committed.
“If you were any more perfect,” Adam says when he picks up, “I’d probably have to leave my boyfriend for you.”
“I’d still have a vagina.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t bedisappointedeventually,” he replies.
I laugh as I enter the terminal. “And? Have you told the board?”
“They want to see you when you get back,” Adam says. There’s a smile in his voice. “I’ll make sure I’m filming as they eat crow. And don’t kill me, but I already called Lynn. I was too excited not to tell someone, and your flight hadn’t landed.”
He and Lynn are now thick as thieves, having met at my birthday party, which is a blessing and a curse. I’m too old to have people fretting over me, and I definitely don’t needtwopeople fretting over me.
I smile. “I assume she reacted with her customary restraint?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s trying to hire a skywriter to announce your new job title to the city as we speak.”
It’s everything I wanted, yet when I hang up, the moment is a little empty as well. Emptier than I’d thought it would be. Maybe it’s just that there’s no one else to tell.
I wander through the airport, stretching my legs before the eleven-hour flight home. I buy a pastry I’m not interested in eating and wander through shops I’m not interested in purchasing from until I wind up looking at men’s watches in the Omega store. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve found myself somewhere like this, thinking of Beck. I am still searching, in every store, in every spot of color, for the thing that will make him forgive me. But not even the De Ville Tourbillon in front of me, worth well over a hundred thousand euros, could accomplish that.
Nothing can. But I can’t stop hoping I’ll find it anyway.
The salesman approaches—I suppose I now appear to be the kind of woman who could afford an insanely expensive watch.
“For your husband?” the salesman asks in German.
I know just enough German to tell him I’m not married, which is untrue, but a mere technicality. My divorce will be finalized next week, but even that isn’t particularly significant. I’ve been alone for a long time now. It’s not like anything’s changed.
I give him a polite smile and turn from the store. Beck wouldn’t want a watch anyway. A Ducati, perhaps. But no, even that would not be enough. I’m not sure anything is.
Twelve hours later I walk off the plane, exhausted though I slept for a good bit of the flight. There’s something about arriving after a long trip that always depletes me. I suppose it’s the realization that there’s no one waiting for me at home.
I pull my carry-on through the crowd, forcing down a spike of irritation as a woman stops in front of me to hug someone she’s picking up. I can’t imagine caring about anyone enough to drive to the fucking airport on their behalf anyway. Parking here is a nightmare.
“Kate!” a voice shouts. It’s a common name, but my head turns on reflex to discover Lynn pushing her way through the crowd. She wraps her arms around me. She knows how I feel about hugs but persists in doing it anyway.
“What’s up?” I ask. “Are you and Jamie finally taking a vacation?”
She grins. “Nope. I just thought I’d give my favorite vice president a ride home from the airport.”
My head tilts. “I travel for work constantly, Lynn. You’ve never shown up at the airport before.”
She leads me toward the parking garage. “I wanted to celebrate. And Adam and I were worried about you.”
I release a heavy sigh. I should be grateful that these people care enough to discuss me behind my back, but it’s also a little tedious that I’m twenty-eight and still have the grown-ups acting like I’m a wild card who can’t be trusted. “I just learned they’re making me vice president. Why would you worry?”
“Sometimes the good news is harder to take than the bad,” she says. “And sometimes getting the thing you want makes you realize you wanted other things.”
The words sit like lead in my stomach. She’s right. Discovering that I’ve finally got exactly what I was working toward has not felt like a victory at all. It’s felt like a beautifully wrapped gift that contains only air.
She pops the trunk, and I throw my bag inside. “Yeah, I guess. I suppose you’re going to tell me to go to a meeting.”
