Page 11 of Let It Be Me
Logan: Food significantly outweighs a night on the town.
I leave them to bickering in the group chat and take my food out of the microwave after it finishes beeping. Call me snobby, but I hate eating out of plastic containers. So I transfer my food to a plate and slide it over to the bar. I pourmyself a glass of water and dig into my food with nothing but the noise from the television.
I think back to my meeting with my new publicist. Before I walked into Sarah’s office, I took a moment to look at her uninterrupted while standing silently at the threshold. The smile that crossed her face as she stared at her phone uncovered an animalistic side of me and I wanted to know who it was that got her smiles. But the longer I stared at her like a creep, I couldn’t believe my luck that it was her.
What attracted me to her all those nights ago was her hair. Although the club lights did nothing to accurately depict what the color was. I knew when I finally saw her hair in the elevator light that it would become one of my new favorite colors. Regret slammed into me the second the door to her hotel room closed. I had lingered in the hallway for a few minutes, hoping that she would rush and open the door to call out for me, before tucking my tail and heading to the elevator bank. Thinking that if it was meant to be, then it would be. But never did I think she would be my publicist.
Without thinking, I grab my phone and pull up Instagram. Yes, I come from the generation where we love to stalk people on the internet. However, my internet stalking after that night was extremely unsuccessful. I couldn’t exactly type “woman with red hair in Ohio” into Google. Who knows what those search results would be. But as I think back to this afternoon, I recall seeing a picture of her with Mason Brooks in her office and decide I’ll try my luck to find Sarah that way. It doesn’t take me long as she’s best friends with his girlfriend. Crossing my toes, I hope her profile is public. Clicking on her username, I feel like I should do my celly when her profile is presented to me like a hat trick.
I scroll through what she’s shown of her life as I finishmy food. Her profile is not over-the-top like I’d expect and she doesn’t post as much as I assume someone her age would. Sarah posts with reds and blues in her feed and it makes me wonder if those are her favorite colors. Deciding to be bold, I click the follow button and close out of the app seemingly afraid of what might happen if I stay on the app for too long and push my phone away from me. God help me if I accidentally like a picture from four years ago. I may be bold, but that can only take me so far.
I continue to mull over today and take it as a good sign that I have a new publicist. Sure, I was resistant to think a woman could handle my career. And if Momma could hear my thoughts she’d whoop me into next year. I spend more time than usual spacing out and when I look at the time and see it’s a little later than I’d prefer. So I close down my kitchen and living room and go through my night time routine to prepare for the long day of tomorrow.
When I bought this place, I wanted to make sure my bedroom was a sanctuary of sorts as I knew this would be the one room where I could completely decompress. My one request was that the dark oak, four-poster California King Bed I had my eye on at the furniture store be the focal point of the room. So my interior designer ran with decorating to where this place feels more lived in than the almost year I’ve lived here. I have a matching dresser that sits off to the side of my bedroom and matching nightstands, although one is empty. Naturally, I have a massive cat tree that’s set in the corner of my room and two dog-size beds for my cats at the foot of my bed and a few more spread throughout my condo. Can’t say I don’t spoil them.
I head to my bathroom and start the shower from the wall panel next to the light switch. My clothes meet the hamper and I drop my towel into the towel warmer. When Isee the steam from the shower, I walk-in and still can’t believe that after six months Sarah is back in my life. I don’t necessarily believe in fate or destiny, but it can’t be that much of a coincidence that she’s my new publicist.
Here I make a promise to be as professional as possible. But make myself look as appealing as possible so that one day the client and employee line won’t be too much to blur.
5
SARAH
“Hi, Mom.” I greet her when I push through the front door of my house after a long workday. The last thing I wanted after onboarding a new client was a call from home. I’ve always thought of my mom as my best friend and with me being an only child she got her dream of a built-in mini-me. I received solid advice from her, that was more like what I assumed an older sister would give, while she still managed to be stern in her parenting. Yet, my mom eventually always found a way to blur the line between parent and friend. And my dad, while he was more firm than my mom, he let her take the reins when it came to me. I love my parents and how they’ve provided for me. But I never had the type of relationship with them the way Kamryn has with her parents.
My relationship with my parents was great in college. They gave me the freedom to choose my own path as long as it more or less fit the plan they had for me. I’ll admit, I held some resentment towards them because I always loved fashion and wanted that to be my dream. But again, that wasn’t in their plan for me, so I pivoted to appease them.Being a Callahan meant I had to live up to the family name. So that meant veering towards a business degree that most of the women in my family have but no longer use. I must have drank the kool-aid at school as that was never my plan. I never wanted that to be my plan in the first place. My family is old money and that meant I had a lot of things handed to me. Money being one of them. And going against that path was the first splinter in my relationship with my parents. But that splinter turned into a full fracture after Paul and I broke up.
My parents loved him. They loved us together. They loved what we could have been together. He was the son they never had. So they could never grasp how I could lose him. Never mind the fact that it was him who stepped out on me. Never mind the fact that when they saw him around town with his new girl they never said a word to me. My mom suggested I turn a blind eye to his infidelity and that was the final straw. Our relationship is icy at best. But it turned into a full blown blizzard. I think that betrayal hurts the most and why I began pulling away from them. It’s been over a year since I’ve had real conversation with my parents, that wasn’t surface level, and I wonder if they’re finally noticing.
“Hi, sweetheart. I haven’t heard from you in a while–”by my own doing“–so I wanted to check in on you. Are you getting enough sleep?”
Leave it to my mom to ask about my sleeping pattern and not make amends. “I get as much sleep as one can hope for.” I tell her as I toss my keys on the console table and slip my heels off as fast as possible.
“Good. That’s good. And how are the girls?”
“Your daughter, that’s me by the way, just got a new client. Thanks for asking. As for the girls? They’re busy.”
As much as my parents love me, I don’t think they supported my dreams to not only become a publicist but also move away from the only home I’ve ever known. Yes, they pushed me in that direction. And they supported my dreams just like every parent should do when their child has a dream. But I think they placated me for longer than I knew and secretly wished I would marry someone who would take care of me financially and that’s not who I am. Which is why they constantly pushed the “You’re a Callahan” narrative so much. I think that’s part of the reason they loved me and Paul together. His last name and job more than provided enough for him financially and it was hard to ignore my moms jabs about us taking the next step in our relationship. Paul and I never talked about taking that next step as we both were focused on moving up the corporate ladder. Or, so I thought.
I hear the clinking of ice in a glass through the phone. And if I know my mom like I think I do, she’s either got a tall glass of iced sweet tea or a glass of whiskey she’s sipping on. “Your father and I saw Paul–”
“Mom. I’m gonna stop you right there,” I say as firmly as I can, without being too disrespectful while I head out onto my screened-in patio. “If you called to talk to me about the man who cheated on me and started a family with someone else, I will hang up on you.” The summer breeze rustles my hair as I take a seat on the couch. I’m finally at a place where talking about him doesn’t sting too badly. But the phantom ache does pulse from the reminder.
“You don’t speak to me that way Sarah Jane. I am your mother. Besides—,” she starts but I cut her off.
“Then act like it. As my mother, you should know when certain people who are not in my life are no longer up for discussion. I am your daughter, not your friend.” I let mywords hang between us. This is the problem with a mom who got a daughter and a built-in bestie. She wants me to have what she has with my dad no matter the consequences. And because of that, the line between parent and child continuously blurred more times than I can count. “You know what, I have to go. I’m exhausted and this phone call isn’t helping. Bye, Mom.”
I don’t wait for her response. I simply end the call. I try not to let her reasoning for calling soak in. Did she really call to check in on me? Or was it to talk about my ex? Some days I feel I can’t win with being who she expects me to be. Does she want me to be successful? Or does she want me to be a housewife?
Do I wish I had a partner? Of course! It’s bittersweet and lonely watching all of your friends find their peace, their happily ever after, while you stand off on the sidelines just waiting for your turn. I hate that I’m lonely because I’ve refused to give someone else my heart. I hate that I know the feeling of loneliness more than the joy of happiness. And I hate that my mind goes to thoughts of Riley and how he made me feel in that one night when he’s now off-limits.
But I let myself picture the unthinkable. Him patiently tearing down the brick walls that I’ve carefully constructed around my heart and making room for himself inside the tight space. Him proving everyday that I’m not hard to love. Him not giving a damn about our working relationship. Him being the man from the club that night and taking what’s in front of him.
Yet reality is less exciting than fantasy as we do have a working relationship. And I won’t give that up for anyone. No matter how many butterflies take flight when he looks at me.
My phone buzzing knocks me out of that fantasy with anotification from a hookup app I’ve been utilizing. It’s not perfect. But when your past is finally fading in the rearview and the future is nowhere in sight, you have to focus on what you can.
And that’s the now.
