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)
“I can see that,” I reply. “You run his office with extreme efficiency.”
She gives me a confident smile. “I know. I just wonder if you think you’ll get a real kick out of the management fast track.”
I glance at James’s office door. I would hate for him to hear our conversation.
“You don’t need to worry about James. I swear, I could be out here naked with a baby gorilla on my desk and he’d never notice.”
I briefly close my eyes, wanting to unsee the image that just popped into my brain.
“I’ve only ever worked at the bank,” I say. “I’ve been wanting onto this fast-track program for the last five years. The pay is good and the people I work with are smart and savvy. And the bank’s reputation is excellent . . .” I trail off as I remember my conversation with Ben. The job with the bank wasn’t anything I was looking for when I was in college. “I don’t hate it,” I conclude lamely.
Gail nods. “It’s different as you get older, if you have kids and a mortgage to make. This is the time to strive to do something you love. Not that you don’t hate.”
“You’re saying I should give up all the work I’ve put in at the bank?”
“Life is long, Tuesday. Do you want to be in a job you don’t hate for the next forty years, when there’s something out there that will make your heart sing? Now’s not the time to settle.”
It sounds like the exact thing my mom would say to me if she were here now. She’d be able to see that although getting on the fast track is important, it’s not because I love my job. It’s because I’ve never thought about what the alternative might be. My life has been packaged in a neat box and fixed with a bow since she died; I wanted it that way. It was safe and not sad. But not sad isn’t enough anymore. The box is too small and the ribbon is untied. I just don’t know what’s next.
I’ve never been to the coffee shop at this time of day. Even though Mr. Jenkins told me to take the rest of the day off, it feels like I’m playing hooky. It’s busier than it is in the mornings. It seems the entire population of London wants coffee today.
Except Ben.
I’ve been glancing back at the door while I wait in line, but of course he’s not here. Why would he be? But he’s all I want right now.
I open my phone and check my list of Daniel De Luca sightseeing spots. I’ve done most of them, but there’s one where he proposes to Poppy Kent I haven’t gotten to yet. The scene was filmed on location at the Beale Theatre. It’s kind of difficult to visit a theater without seeing a show, but that scene? It’s a moment in cinema that turns the hardest heart to mush. Childhood sweethearts getting a second chance at love after a tumultuous ten years that saw Daniel’s character move to Hollywood and become a famous actor. He runs into Poppy Kent’s character when he’s back in London taking the West End by storm. She’s hauling her cello onto a bus in the rain. He stops to help and they meet again. Just thinking about that scene can bring me to tears sometimes. What would have happened to Simon and Rose if they hadn’t met again by chance? If it hadn’t been raining or if the bus had left slightly earlier?
I bring up details of the theater and learn there’s a musical on at the moment: a remake of Sleeping Beauty. There are tickets available, but I can’t bring myself to go on my own. But there’s always something to see in London and so much I haven’t done yet. I’m going to take a walk and see what I run into.
I turn left onto the street and dodge a delivery van unloading a brown paper package the size and shape of a cow into an art gallery. I’m the only one who notices. Everyone else going this way and that is focused on their day. I’m the only one floating about with no direction. No place to go.
I pass by a stationery shop, then stop and turn back. The window is crammed with every office accoutrement you could think of. Highlighters, pens, pencils, Sharpies in every color of the rainbow, and a thousand other colors too. Swatches of paper and cards are arranged at the back like multicolored flowers, and on the right there’s a tower of staplers. Hanging from the ceiling like ornaments in a Christmas scene are pads of sticky notes in every size. In between are lines of paperclips, linked together like daisy chains, spinning a little in the draft so they look like rain.