Page 61 of A Break in Communications

And it should have been even better when I saw Dobbs on Monday morning and he invited me into the office with a big smile on his face, and I’d barely sat down before he hit me with, “I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but—what do you think you’d like to do with the office, Anna?”

I blinked at him a solid six or seven times. “Er… does it reflect better on me in the process if I say putting trees in it?”

“You don’t need to suck up. You’re already the top candidate for the position. I talked to Janet in HR and even got to chat to Michael Berg and everything seems clear for it to go through. You’re everybody’s favorite to take over here once I go.”

I stared a while longer before I sputtered awkwardly in saying, “That—uh—really? I mean—that’s great, of course, but—” I sat up taller. “What about Lucy? Masters? What about Lucy Masters—wasn’t she the favorite to take over?”

He shrugged. “She’s expressed interest in staying where she is for the time being. Looking to other ways to move forward in the long term.”

Shewhat?What the hell did she think gave her the right? When this was supposed to beus?When this position was supposed to be an us thing—a me and Lucy thing, head to head, competing, may the best woman win? Let me just waltz into the office without trying? She was giving up?Why?

Dobbs shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Er… well, all of this is assuming you still want to go ahead with taking on the new position.”

“Of—of course. I’m just a little blown away.”What?I wasn’tblown away,I was fuming—furious—needed to go get my hands around Lucy’s neck. Shake her and demand to know where her competitive spirit had gone and why the hell she was just abandoning this when this had been ourthing.

“Everything with the press release, G&S, Matthew Gould specifically—it’s all demonstrated a lot of professional competency on your part and proved everything we were originally hoping to see from you. So, in truth—the reason I was inviting you in here was to see how you’d like a trial.”

“A—a trial? For what? A free trial? Will I get locked in if I forget to cancel?” I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. This was how I talked when I was drunk back in college.

“Maybe, in a way,” he said, voice light. “A trial in this position. You take over the responsibilities between now and the official promotion date, take the office, and we start shifting things over to see if it’s a good fit after all.”

“But—what will you do?”

“Mostly just relax, honestly. Primarily I just don’t want to work anymore.”

Okay—that was fair. And unsurprising. I’d already known his MO going into this.

What?How the hell had Lucy backed out? Did she just not care? And if not thenwhyand alsohowdid I make her care again?

“But—well—okay,” I said, my head still spinning. “I mean, that sounds fantastic. I’m completely… completely on board. Just a little blown away.” I’d already said that. Whatever. I couldn’t be expected to use words intelligently right now. “So—what do I do?”

“For now, just keep going as you’re going. And we’ll see about your new trial. I won’t say congratulations just yet, but…” He stood up, clapping his hands on his thighs as he went in that way old men always did. “But be prepared for when I do.”

I didn’t want his congratulations. I wanted—I didn’t know what I wanted. Lucy to come sit on my desk and pick a fight with me? What the hell was wrong with me?

He told me tojust keep going as you’re going,but once I got back to my desk, I couldn’t focus for my life. Couldn’t get anything together, staring blankly at my screen, Slack messages flooding in around the event planning and the coordinators arguing, and I just read them and reread them without taking any of it in.

Lucy wasn’t even at her desk. Daniel caught me staring and explained, sympathetically, that she was working remotely today. I burned. I didn’t need his sympathy. Maybe the water cooler dissemination method wasn’t the best approach. Everybody was internalizing their own idea of what me and Lucy not being together looked like now. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Kelcey had turned the story into something dramatic and awful and half the office found out through her, and…

I moved like an automaton when I clocked out for a break, walking to the breakroom and sitting down, not even any food with me or anything, taking a small cup of coffee and not touching it. I’d gotten about two sips in when I got a call, and I picked it up assuming it was work and glad to have a distraction, but my stomach sank when I saw Mom’s name on the caller ID.

I didn’t want to have to talk to her about Lucy… I swallowed hard, answering it. Maybe I was a masochist. Maybe I was just a sucker for Mom.

“Hello?” I said, and her voice spilled through in an anxious rush.

“Sweetie, are you doing all right?”

No, of course not.Why wouldn’t I have been? I had Lucy off my back, I had the promotion in the bag, I had an event going smoothly. What was going on? “What?”

“Oh, honey, you sound exhausted. Do you need anything? We’re here however we can be.”

“Huh?” I doubted Mom was that concerned about my crisis of confidence with Lucy out of the office.

“I heard everything from Veronica.”

My stomach dropped, head spinning. Was that—did she mean about me and Lucy not being together after all? Jesus, this was what I’d been going for, so I didn’t know why it hurt like a knife in the chest. “You, uh… you heard everything?”

“Mm. She heard it from your friend Kelcey.”

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