Page 99 of Business or Pleasure

“What if that’s it? What if—what if I’m just too fucking scared?” I say it too loudly, realizing that there are tears in my eyes. “What if I try and it doesn’t work out?”

“Then you have a soft place to land.” Her voice is gentle. “You have your family. You have me. And, well, I have a lot of time to talk during the next few weeks because...” A deep breath. “I got a new job. I start in January.”

I sit up, crossing my legs and settling back against the headboard. “And you’re only telling me now?”

“You were in panic mode. I was waiting for the right time,” she says. “I’m going to be an in-house publicist at an organic snack-of-the-month subscription company. I didn’t want to tell you until I had the offer because I didn’t want to jinx it—and I just got it today.”

And despite everything, I let out a laugh, because if that isn’t the perfect job for her, nothing is. I can hear the excitement in her voice. “Nome. I am so, so happy for you. Truly.”

“Thank you. And I hope you know... you have the room in my house as long as you need it,” she says. “But Chandler? I hope you decide you don’t need it. Not now—I’m not kicking you out or anything. But whenever you’re ready.”

We hang up with the promise of seeing each other soon. I should be used to hotel rooms by now, because in a way, they all kind of look the same. The same uncomfortable beds. Same soulless decor. All that’s missing is my lesson plan and a familiar face across the hallway.

This whole trip, I’ve been fooling myself. I thought it would change me, that by the end of it, I’d know exactly what my next step would be.

If I take the job, I know what lies down that path. I’ve done it before.

But giving confidence to my writing, leaving my career up to chance...

My phone blinks with a new text.

Wherever you are, you get there okay?

I reply with a thumbs-up, which somehow seems a little too positive for the situation. At a hotel. Just need some time to think, I follow it up with.

If I go back to his place, then I’ll give in. He’ll be there with his lovely eyes and his arms that fit around me so perfectly, and it would be too easy to strap my career into the backseat.

For more than ten years, my life has been defined by deadlines, and I’ve taken pride in the fact that I’ve never missed a single one.

So I give myself a deadline. Once I finish the memoir, I’ll make my decision about the job.

And about Finn.

Take as long as you need, he writes back.

It’s better for both of us if I go back to Seattle now, put some space between us before the reunion taping next week.

I try to convince myself of that the entire flight home.

chapter

twenty-eight

SEATTLE, WA

The Seattle Times is open on the kitchen table at my parents’ house, slices of bread waiting in the toaster and a pan of scrambled eggs on the stove. This is the first place I went when my plane landed last night, dragging my suitcase up the stairs to my childhood bedroom, texting Noemie that I’d see her soon before I collapsed into bed.

I page through the newspaper, noting familiar bylines the way I’ve done since I decided to study journalism. There’s no jealousy, though. No wistfulness. I don’t wish I’d written that story about a recent music festival or the new light-rail station, the way I might have in college or in the years after, when I was still trying to find my footing.

My dad enters with his cane, plaid robe tied around his waist and gray-white stubble covering his face. “Morning! If you touched the crossword, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Morning.” I pass him the paper. “It’s all yours.”

He fills his plate as my mom comes downstairs, her long hair held back with a rainbow scrunchie. She hums an old Jefferson Airplane song as she waters a row of leafy plants at the kitchen window.

“You never pushed me to study journalism because it was more practical than writing novels,” I say once we’re all seated. “Did you?”

My mom pauses in the middle of buttering a slice of sourdough. “I can’t imagine we would have,” she says. “Maybe we were concerned about money, but I think you were the one who informed us journalism would make more sense.”

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