Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“If you could monetize your Daniel De Luca knowledge, you wouldn’t need the job at the bank. You could come back to New York today,” Melanie says.
I laugh. “Yeah, I should be running this convention.” My knowledge is probably a little out of date now. It’s been a while.
“Maybe if it doesn’t work out at the bank, you can throw a convention in New York.”
I laugh again because the idea is ludicrous. I don’t indulge my own fantasies, let alone those of thousands of strangers. “My mom knew far more than I ever did.”
“That’s bullshit. You knew everything.”
I turn from the map and unzip my suitcase. “No, my mom was obsessed with him. I was just along for the ride.”
Melanie bursts into laughter. “It was totally the other way around. You were so in love with him. Don’t you remember your vision board?”
I’d started my vision board to copy my mom. She was always tearing images from magazines and flyers—a field of daisies, a pretty sundress, a sunset over the Rocky Mountains. Then she’d pin them to the giant corkboard in our kitchen or stick them to the refrigerator using my old alphabet magnets. Mom always said it was good to be surrounded by things you wanted in your world. And I wanted Daniel De Luca in mine.
I suppose Melanie’s right. My mom was just my partner in crime when it came to worshipping him. It feels like such a long time ago, when life was far simpler than it is now. “I thought I was going to marry him.”
“Yes!” Melanie says. “We dressed you up in your mom’s veil and a white apron. Do you remember?”
I’d carefully cut out the picture we took of me dressed as Daniel’s bride and stuck it next to a picture of him in Sunshine on a Rainy Day. That’s how my vision board started. I gradually added members of the congregation and then the house we’d live in—in England, obviously. I was planning to relocate after the wedding.
“Maybe your vision board is finally coming to life. I read yesterday he split from his girlfriend. He might make an appearance at the convention, and he’ll realize, after dating all those twenty-two-year-olds, it’s you he wants.”
I sigh. “Don’t hold your breath, Melanie. Life isn’t a movie.” I learned that the hard way and far too young.
“No, if it was, you’d have the chance to go to London for a month. London, where there are tons of British guys. If not Daniel De Luca, then maybe someone else.”
Melanie’s desperate for me to be “over” Jed. She doesn’t need to worry. He and I were together a long time and being dumped is never fun, but I’m fine. I don’t need to get under a British guy to prove it.
“This isn’t a vacation,” I say. “This is an opportunity to get onto the management fast track. You know I’m about ninety-eight-point-seven percent likely to get fired if I fail. They’ve already announced layoffs of junior analysts. If they don’t think I’m good enough for the fast track, why would they keep me?”
Melanie sighs, and I appreciate that she doesn’t fill the silence with platitudes like “You’re going to be fine” or “They’re lucky to have you. Of course you won’t get fired.” We both know New York is a tough city.
“How is apartment hunting?” I ask. Melanie’s lease is up next month, and we’re looking for a place to share.
“Depressing. Everything’s so expensive. And since Covid, all the landlords are asking for so much more.”
I take a breath and try to unknot the irritation in my chest. Jed always enjoyed our fancy apartment, even though I could only just make it work on my salary. I would have been much happier with a smaller place where I could have saved something. He earned more than me, so it wasn’t such a stretch for him. But after my subway pass, meals out, and other expenses, there wasn’t anything left to save. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I kept telling myself it was okay because my salary would continue to go up at the bank and my fiancé was already outearning me.
Except it wasn’t okay.
In some ways the London trip came at the right time. It means I have a few weeks to save my paycheck instead of signing it over as a rent payment. I wish I’d tried a little harder to persuade Jed to take a one-bedroom downtown instead of a two-bedroom on the Upper East Side. But the location was really important to Jed, and so I agreed.
“Maybe we should think about Brooklyn,” Melanie says. “It’s definitely cheaper.”
I turn and sit on the bed. “Really?” I love Manhattan. I love the way the streets are busy no matter the time of day, the way no one bats an eye if you’re making your way home with only one shoe (true story), and the way on every corner there’s something happening I want to tell my dad about.