Page 57 of Ten Years and Then…
Nora, September 6
“Happy birthday to our brand new assistant editor!”
The whole staff of the Albion Observer—all six of them, not counting Nora—was here in the paper’s office in the basement of the Whitman building. It was touching that somebody had remembered today was her birthday—and then the rest of Ben’s words hit her.
“What? What did you just say, Ben?”
Ben Francis was the editor of the Observer. He was a senior, and tall, and his hair was blonder than Nora’s. Maybe even blonder than her mother’s, which was saying something. “Well, I thought we’d celebrate two things at once. Efficient, right?”
“That’s amazing! Thank you! I promise I’ll do a good job.” She hadn’t expected a promotion, or even really thought about it. If you’d asked her, she would have said that obviously Marcia Bennett—a senior, an intern at the Albany Courier last year, an actual grown-up—would have gotten it.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Ben said with a laugh. “The biggest part of the job is keeping this lot,”—he gestured to the rest of the staff—“in line. You’ve heard the phrase ‘herding cats?’ It’s like that, but worse.”
That wasn’t true. Or was it?
She’d been late on articles more than once last spring, and Ben—he’d still been assistant editor then—had to harass her to get them done. She couldn’t have been the only one who needed a push now and then to meet a deadline.
But she could do that. Although, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to sit down with Ben for a chat, and pick his brain about the best way to go about it. But first, there was a candle to blow out, and a cupcake to eat.
And then she could head over to West Hall and tell Daniel her news.
He was probably planning some big surprise …
No, he wasn’t.
He wasn’t planning anything, and she wasn’t going to share her news with him. Because they weren’t together. They hadn’t been for over a year.
They wouldn’t ever be together.
Why couldn’t she just accept that already?
Daniel, September 6
“I assume you’ve begun researching possible employers, Mr. Keller?”
He had, but not today. Today, he’d been trying to figure out what to do for Nora for her birthday. She’d made his twentieth birthday special—beyond special—and he owed her …
He heard himself curse under his breath, and Professor Maddox stared hard at him. “Excuse me, Mr. Keller?”
How could this still be happening? How did Nora still have this much of a hold on him almost sixteen months after they’d broken up?
“I’m sorry, Sir. I think I finally understand what you told me, when we had that long talk.”
“Ah. Your Nora. I suspected that might be it.” Now his advisor smiled softly. “I wonder if you even know that you doodled her name in the margins of your final exam book last spring.”
“Sir?” How could he have done something like that? “Oh, God. I know what happened. I finished in an hour, and then I went over every answer three times, and everyone else in the class was still writing and I didn’t want to be the first one to hand in my exam, and I must have zoned out.”
Professor Maddox laughed—a real belly laugh. “You truly are just like me, Mr. Keller. I also hated being the first to turn in my paper. It felt so awkward, everyone’s eyes on me, and I’d wonder if somehow there was a whole other page of the exam that I’d missed. So I would sit there, trying to calculate the appropriate moment, and on occasion I, too, would become thoroughly lost in thought.”
That was exactly how it felt! Daniel had never met anyone else who knew about that; but, then again, he was almost always the first to finish exams, going all the way back to grade school. “Thanks, Sir. But I am sorry—I can’t believe I did that. But it’s like you told me—I guess she’ll always be in here,” he put a hand over his heart. “Never mind. You were asking me about job searching?” Except, how could he build a future when he couldn’t let go of his past with her? It had to be possible—Professor Maddox had done it, hadn’t he?
“I would like to suggest a company to you. Quantum Networking Solutions. They are based in Chicago, and they are one of the largest companies in fiber-optic networks. It will be a huge growth field, and you can get in on the ground floor. Do some research on them, and if you like what you see, let me know. A reference from me would certainly not hurt you. An old fraternity brother of mine is a Vice President there.”
Daniel’s eyes went wide at that last comment, and his advisor noticed. “Don’t be so shocked, Mr. Keller. I did not always wear tweed jackets with elbow patches. You said you remembered our talk, so you know I, too, was young once.”
He’d have to take Professor Maddox’s word for it. There were no fraternities or sororities at Albion, so his knowledge of Greek life came entirely from “Animal House” and “Revenge of the Nerds.” It was impossible to picture his advisor doing anything from those movies.
Then again, if you asked Daniel’s friends from high school, they’d all say it was impossible to picture him ever having a serious girlfriend, let alone aching over her sixteen months after they’d broken up.
