Page 24 of March

“Shit… You’re right,” Monica realized. “Do you think I should take her somewhere?”

“Bridge?”

“Yes. For the proposal. Should I do it on a vacation or something? A nice beach, maybe, where it’s just the two of us. No, that’s not Bridge.” Monica shook her head. “By the water, though. She loves the river.”

“You’re planning it in your head right now, aren’t you?” Sophie asked with a smile.

“Yes, sorry. I’ll stop. It’s just hard. We’re pretty much always together, so I can’t exactly look up rings when I’m sitting at my desk because she’d see the screen, and when we’re at home, we’re all over each other.”

“Okay… Don’t need to know that.” Sophie waved her hands in front of her face.

“I don’t mean like that,” Monica said with a laugh. “We do that, obviously, but I meant that we just like to snuggle up on the couch and talk about our days, or we’re lying in bed doing the same.”

“But you spent your whole day together.”

“In the same office building, but not always together. She has meetings with her teams, and I have some with mine. Sometimes, she’s also in the field with her dad, so it’s nice to just catch up.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Sophie said, wishing she had someone to catch up with every night.

“So, what’s going on with you?”

“I hate my job,” she blurted out.

“What?” Monica asked, looking up from the menu.

“Yeah. Hated it since I got it, really, but I can’t seem to find another one.”

“Soph, you hate your job? You’ve been there for five years.”

“Five years of awful,” she said. “I’ve been applying and interviewing, but I can’t seem to get anything else.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped.”

“I tried. I was going to tell you last year and ask if you could help me get on at Arnette. I knew you guys were still big on employees being in-office, and I was actually prepared to move back to Brooklyn if I had to, just to get out of this company, but Jill told me you were leaving. Then, you and I talked about that and how you were struggling to let go, so I didn’t want to add one more thing to your plate. I didn’t want to use you for your connections when you were trying to move on.”

“Soph, I would’ve helped. Whatever you needed. You know that. Do you still want Arnette? It’s one phone call.”

“No, I can’t move,” she said.

“Not that I want you to, but why not?”

“Because I–” Sophie swallowed. “I love it here.”

“I can understand that.” Monica nodded. “I’ve fallen in love with this place and the girl that used to make fun of me for being too big-city.”

“Yeah, it gets its claws in you, and it’s hard to give it up,” she told a half-truth. “When I left for college, that made sense. It gave me a chance to experience another world in a way. So, while I’m grateful for that and for the job I got at Arnette, I think I need to be here.”

“We’ve opened up some remote positions since. Were you thinking about the same role you had? I don’t know if that one is available, but maybe another. I can make a call and see what they’d consider and if it could be remote.”

“I don’t want to put that on you. I can find something. It’s just taking longer than I thought it would.”

“Soph, you’re my best friend. You know that, right?” Monica said. “I love you like a sister. I’ll call.”

“If you want to, sure. I just…” She sighed. “I thought I’d find something, but the only things I’m seeing require me to be in-office and not in New Orleans or close by. I found something in Baton Rouge last night, which wouldn’t be too horrible, but the commute would kill me if I had to do it every day. I hate driving by myself. I hate traffic. Road rage. Maybe if I had someone to carpool with, it would be fine, but–”

“But we’d still get to see you, so you’d still have us.”

“It’s not just that,” she finally decided to admit. “It’s… Don’t laugh, okay?”

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