Page 27 of That Reunited Feeling

Now I’m living in the guest suite of a beautiful home and sitting in that beautiful home’s study at a huge mahogany desk at one end of a room lined with bookshelves. At the other end is a brown leather sofa and a large comfy chair, the perfect place to curl up and read.

The crisp morning light streams through this room from the wide window at the front that overlooks the sweeping circular driveway to the one behind me with its views of the patio and garden.

And here I am, spending Saturday morning looking through documents on a laptop belonging to a man I never imagined I’d ever see again, much less work for.

There’s no one I should be working for less. This is dangerous territory. During dinner last night, it was obvious the old spark is still there. Maybe that’s just natural. Maybe when something like that burrows its way deep inside you in your formative years, it never leaves.

But now I have an older, wiser head on my shoulders. A head that knows my one important job in life is to do the best for Dylan—for his happiness and health.

And since that means moving to LA and getting my foot on the ladder of a career that can support us, this woman, this mother, has to do what she has to do.

And Tom was right, goddamn him. Having him on my résumé and his name at the bottom of a reference will go a long way toward making up for my lack of experience outside of raising a kid and working as a housekeeper with the odd side-gig in waitressing.

Not to mention the amount he’s paying me, the unnecessarily large amount, which will help kick-start our new life in California.

My instinct to not let him throw cash from his guilt over how he treated me has faded intoscrew that—sure, I’ll take his money. If it’s the best thing for Dylan, I can swallow my pride.

Hell, if running barefoot over broken glass while chased by a hungry lion armed with flamethrowers were the best thing for Dylan, sign me up.

But looking at these résumés fills me with dread as to how realistic—or, rather, unrealistic—Rachel was when she said, “Everyone’s an assistant out here. You’ll walk into a job.”

I take a sip of hot coffee as my eyes drift down this applicant’s long list of qualifications. A master’s in business administration with a thesis on female executives in the music industry, as well as internships at EMI and a global artist management company.

The one before her is currently an executive assistant for a director of an international bank, and the one before that has worked on a BBC music show for three years.

It fills my stomach with dread. Even with the connections Rachel and her husband have, and Tom’s reference, I’m still going to struggle to get a job over people like these. And LA must be crawling with them.

I am woefully inadequate.

And Tom probably realizes that. He could easily have someone at the office in London go through this stuff.

As sure as his aunt doesn’t really need a housekeeper, Tom doesn’t really need a temporary helper.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be anyone’s charity case. Just like I work hard to make sure Maggie and Jim get their money’s worth out of me, I’ll make sure I do things for Tom he doesn’t even know need to be done.

I switch to a browser and search for Divine Justice, the band Tom was eager to see the other night but was a week late for.

They have a gig next weekend at a small venue not too far away in Portsmouth.

I sit straighter in the desk chair. This is a good plan. And maybe I could make more of it by finding some local Portsmouth bands Tom might otherwise not have heard of. See if they’re playing the same night. Maybe he’ll unearth a hidden gem. And all because I was the best assistant he never wanted.

The upper level of the pub where Divine Justice is appearing is so small it’s ticketed. Shit. I don’t want to give this away by asking him for a company credit card number.

I hate putting anything on my own credit card—it’s for emergencies only. But this is a proof of competence emergency, so it probably counts.

I click to the ticket page for the gig.

Large, red, rubber stamp-style letters announceSold Out!

Of course. Of course, it is.

I sink back in the chair and cup my coffee in both hands while I stare at the screen. The longer I look at them, the more the words seem to pulsate, to taunt me, to ask me who the hell I think I am trying to do a job above my station.

I don’t have an MBA from a fancy school. I don’t have years of experience running an executive’s office. I don’t have anything other than years of somehow raising a kid by myself whileworking whatever no-experience-required jobs I could get along the way.

And while that gave me the resourcefulness to invent games from toilet paper tubes to entertain a toddler, the resilience to keep going when abandoned by Dylan’s dad and my parents, and the organizational skills to juggle waitressing, housecleaning, and clerking at grocery stores while trading childcare with other struggling moms, none of that is anything you can put on a résumé.

Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe it does mean I don’t have what it takes for a real job like this. Maybe I’ve missed the career boat. Who’s going to want to take a chance on a thirty-three-year-old looking for their first professional position?

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