Page 38 of The Seven Year Slip

I stared at her, and then it clicked. “Oh—oh, you know my aunt’s apartment gets bad reception.”

She scrunched her nose. “I didn’t realizethatbad...”

I took my phone out of my purse, and lo and behold, I had quite a few messages from Fiona—a photo of her and Drew putting upa forest-themed nursery and getting angry with the IKEA crib. “Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even look at my phone. That’s a lovely color.”

She didn’t look like she believed me as she popped a decaffeinated coffee pod into the coffee maker. “It is...?”

“Absolutely—”

“Good morning!” Rhonda breezed into the kitchen, the smell of her perfume strong and her heels loud. “We have a meeting!” she singsonged. “Best not be late!” And she gave me a meaningful look. Right—because starting now, I was on trial. If I wanted to prove myself to Rhonda, that I could fill her shoes, I needed to be at the top of my game. And I would be. This was what I wanted, after all.

Couldn’t screw this up.

Fiona eyed Rhonda as she left with her morning breakfast blend, and whispered, “She’sin a good mood... it makes me suspicious.”

“She’s usually in a good mood,” I replied, and Fiona gave me a deadpan look. “What? She is. Better go before that changes.”

“Wait—I’m not done interrogating you!”

“You can later,” I promised, and quickly fixed myself a cup of coffee, dumped my purse by my desk, and grabbed my notebook and pen before rushing down the hall and into the meeting room.

When we all took our seats, Rhonda jumped at the chance to begin. “I just had the loveliest weekend, and I really hope all of you did, too! Which brings me to my first order of business...” She started with marketing design—checking up on the state of ads, whether that new video that would play in front ofEntertainment Weeklywas done, whether they’d fixed the typo in one of the Google ads, etcetera.

I thought about googling Iwan to see if he still worked at that French restaurant, whichever restaurant that was. Maybe I could surprise him. Maybe he’d be sous by now. Maybe he’d won awards.

Or—maybe—he’d gone back home.

“...Clementine? Did you hear me?”

I sat a little taller in my swivel chair, mortified that I’d been in my own head. “I-I’m sorry. What?”

Rhonda gave me a curious look. “I asked about the media placements for Mallory Grey’s books. We don’t want her bumping into that last Ann Nichols novel from Falcon House.”

“Right, yes.” I glanced down at my notes and tried to push Iwan out of my head. The rest of the meeting was just a quick rundown of the week’s work. The books that launched on Tuesday, the campaigns we had going for them, the promotions we needed to focus on, the updates on book clubs... but in the back of my mind, the question persisted—

Where was he now?

14

Seven Years Too Late

I thought that afternoonI could google Iwan, but I barely had a second to pee because an adult subscription book box decided to feature one of our celebrity memoirs alongside a bar of soap in the shape of an unmentionable, complete with a sucker on the back tostick it to the bathroom wall, and I spent my entire afternoon putting outthatfire.

By the time six o’clock rolled around, Fiona had to drag me away from my computer before I sent another heated email to the book box company, absolutely about to sign it withHave the day you deserve.We walked together to the subway, since we were both heading uptown (she had an appointment, and Drew got a migraine halfway through the day, so she’d elected to go home early), and she sat down beside me on a bench as we waited for the subway. A man with an accordion and a drum set at his feet played a jazzy rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” and a few feet away, a rat was nibbling on a crust of pizza.

God, I loved New York. Even the cliché bits.

Fiona said, not looking at me, “Something else happened this weekend, didn’t it? I can tell.”

“What? No. I just... I told you.”

“Yeah, you painted and you didn’t check your phone all weekend—two things that youneverdo.”

She had a point. I chewed on the inside of my lip, debating on whether to tell her. If I knew Fiona, I knew she wouldn’t stop asking until she found out, and she was incredibly perceptive. “Okay, so, don’t freak out,” I began, and took a deep breath, “but I think I met someone this weekend.”

That surprised her. She glanced up from her phone. “At the Monroe?”

“He is living in the building for the summer.” Not quite a lie. “He’s in the city for a job, and we just started talking and... he’s nice. Talking to him is nice.”

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