Page 6 of Her Dark Salvation

It’s the best environment for your gentle temperament, Ms. Barone.

Gentle temperament. I snorted. She’d never seen me get into it with Jeff.

Which reminded me… I checked my watch. Twenty to one. Just enough time to make it to Harvard Square for a lunch meeting with my best friend.

Whether or not it was true, that conversation had been the final nail in the coffin of my plan to enter industry. I’d transferred to MIT after finishing my MBA at Harvard and never left.

The irony? I wasn’t the nervous, mousey woman I’d been in my early twenties. Hadn’t been for years. I’d grown. But like the elephant who’d been tied to a tree as a baby, I’d learned not to try and break free. The strong, independent woman I’d become remained tied to a stump.

Well, I just cut the rope.

A smile crept across my face. The suffocating dread that had weighed on my chest for weeks at the thought of another semester trapped inside those halls finally lifted.

I sped down the steps of the Kendall Square T stop. A burst of stale subway air and screeching rails heralded an oncoming train and my future. I was free. For the next six months, I was free.

Now, if only I could get a jump start on the rest of my life.

* * *

Harvard Square hummed with activity.City workers stood on ladders to take down the holiday decorations still hanging from lampposts. Students reunited with friends. Fast-walking professionals skirted half-melted piles of dirty snow. I crossed the square to meet my best friend for lunch and attempt to rationally explain upending my career.

The glass doors of Scholar’s Café opened with a whoosh. A wall of overly warm air blew my hair into disarray and had me blinking back tears. Coffee, sugar, and freshly baked bread filled my nostrils, and the familiar combination soothed my frayed nerves.

I ordered a cappuccino and biscotti and carried them to a table near the foggy glass walls. I wiped my hand through the condensation to watch the passersby while I waited for the inevitable reckoning with my best friend.

“Hey,” Jeff said. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late. I just got here myself.”

He slung his coat over the chairback, tossed his newsboy cap on the table, and ran his hand back and forth across the close-cropped, salt-and-pepper remnants of a once-full head of coarse curls. He must have walked, because his dark brown skin was ruddy from the cold at the tip of his nose and across his broad cheekbones. He patted himself down as if he’d forgotten something, and when he didn’t find the missing item, sat in the chair across from me.

“Traffic was brutal across the bridge.” He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and cleaned them with the end of his scarf. “I forgot how busy it gets with all the kids back. It’s like the cabbie was playing Frogger on Mass Ave. I couldn’t take it. Got out at Central Square and walked.” He inspected his handiwork and set the glasses back on his nose.

“That’s why I take the T.” I lifted my cappuccino in salute and took a sip of the milky goodness. “You look good. I haven’t seen you since before break. You and Michael were in New York?”

“Yeah. He’s still there. Alex is about to pop. Due any day now. I had to get back for work.” Alex was Michael’s sister, and with their tight-knit family, I wasn’t surprised he’d hung back.

“Kinda stinks being the boss, doesn’t it?”

He grunted. “How are your parents?”

“They’re good. They send their love. Wanted to know when you and Michael are going to visit.”

“When the scraps of hair I have left on my head aren’t on fire.”

I snorted. “Is CMG that busy?”

“Food first.” Jeff had a singular focus at mealtimes, and it centered around his stomach. He scanned the café until he found a waiter, flagged him down, and ordered a cappuccino for himself and a caprese sandwich for us to split, a tradition as old as our friendship. “And yes, CMG is that busy. Hence this last-minute lunch.”

He placed his palms flat on the table. “Okay,” he announced in his I’m-The-President-Of-Cambridge-Management-Group voice.

I eyed him cautiously.

“A new job came in yesterday. I usually do the work for this client myself given his high-profile and non-disclosure requirements, but—and I can’t believe I’m about to admit this—I don’t have the expertise to do this work on the timeline he needs. But you do.”

I arched an eyebrow over the mug I held poised at my lips.

He raised his hands, conceding an unspoken point. “I know the semester starts in two weeks, but I’m really in a bind. The type of financial modeling this job requires is way outside my wheelhouse. I wouldn’t even know where to start. At a minimum, I’d need you to come up with a plan, but even then, it would take me twice as long to do the work, if not longer, and my client wants results fast.”

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