Page 36 of Hang the Moon
“Brendon.”
The guy stared at him. “Right.I’ll call you up when it’s your turn. Got a few folks in front of you.”
Brendon returned to the table, pep in his step.
Annie smiled around her straw and nodded at his fishbowl drink, which was served in a hollowed-out coconut. “Cheers?”
He hefted his in the air, knocking it gently against the rim of her far daintier glass, trying not to slosh any of his precious rum and mango juice. He took a sip through the decorative, bright green silly straw and coughed.Holy shit.He pulled a face, eyes scrunching shut at the shock of rum that hit the back of his throat, burning hot and sweet.
“I have one request and one request only. No recording,” he warned, pointing at Annie’s phone when he set his drink down, careful not to splash.
“Come on. Not even for...” She pinched her lips together. “Not even for posterity’s sake?”
“You mean so you can forward the video to my sister.”
She shut one eye and wrinkled her nose. “Guilty.”
The waitress swung by, dropping off their food.
They reached for the ketchup at the same time, fingers brushing. He nudged the bottle closer to her and she smiled before covering her fries.
“I wanted to ask this the other day, but how did you even get into your line of work?”
“Human resources?” she asked, passing him the bottle.
He squirted his ketchup in a neat mound beside his fries. “Human resources,internationalhuman resources. How’d you go from wanting to be Carson Daly—”
She laughed. “A video jockey!”
“A video jockey,” he said. “To HR. That’s a... leap.”
Annie chewed slowly on a fry, swallowing it down before speaking. “The whole VJ thing was a childhood dream. It wasn’t serious. I like music and I spent way too much time watching MTV because my parents weren’t around much. I was kind of a... latchkey kid, I guess? Raised on TV and microwave dinners.” She laughed. “As for human resources...” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. In college, I majored in linguistics and cross-cultural communications and minored in French. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to teach or get a job in Greece to be closer to my parents since I knew their plan was to move back, so I went to the job fair for inspiration. As one does.”
He lifted his burger and nodded for her to go on.
“Brockman and Brady had a booth, and the representatives from the company liked that I had a strong background in linguistics and could speak Greek and French, but suggested I spend the summer completing Temple’s certificate program for corporate social responsibility if I was interested in applying for a job with them. So, I did. I thought working on international mergers and acquisitions would be a great opportunity to see the world.”
“Sensing abuthere.”
“But”—she laughed wryly—“it’s like I said the other night. It’s not what I thought it would be. I hardly get to explore the cities I travel to and I hardly have anyone to explore them with. It gets a tad... lonely?” She frowned. “And my job barely has anything to do with any of the languages I know aside from the rare instance where I need to translate a comment here or there.”
He couldn’t help but feel like Annie didn’t really like what she did. “So if you weren’t working in HR or becoming the next Carson Daly”—that got her to crack a smile—“what would you be doing? Any job you could have. Not your childhood dream, but today’s dream. Right here, right now.”
She plucked another fry from her basket and shoved it into her mouth. “I don’t think I’m cut out for teaching. I’m not patient enough.” She grabbed her drink and took a slow sip. “But something to do with language. Translation, most likely. I just... Ilovethe nuances of language and all their quirks. Like how certain words exist in foreign languages and have no direct English equivalent.Merakiin Greek means, basically, to do something with love, but there’s no English word for it. The closest is ‘labor of love,’ but that sounds like you’re being put-upon.Merakimeans to do something with pleasure, to pour your whole heart into a task or craft. Like putting all your love into a meal or a gift.” She ducked her chin and shrugged. “So, yeah. Translation would be my dream job. Puzzling out how to keep the text true even when it’s not easy. There’s a cultural component you can’t ignore without”—her lips curved—“losing something in translation.”
The way Annie’s eyes lit up filled his chest with—he had no word for it. It was warm and light and also heavy at the sametime, because she should be doing that. Something that lit her up inside. Something she was passionate about, her words coming quicker the longer she spoke. “That sounds like more of an art than a science.”
Annie beamed at him. “It is. It’s cool that you think so, too.”
Staticky feedback filled the air, followed by a jarring tap against a microphone. The guy who’d given him grief over his choice of song stood on the stage, clipboard in hand. “All right, folks. Welcome to karaoke. First up, we’ve got Billy singing ‘I Touch Myself’ by the Divinyls. Come on up, Billy. Let’s all give him a warm round of applause.”
“I Touch Myself”? Seriously? And the dude was giving Brendon shit about a ballad?
“I wish I had a knack for languages,” he confessed, returning to their conversation.
“Back in college, I wishedIhad a knack for numbers.” She made a face, sticking out her tongue. “I hated calculus. I passed that class by the skin of my teeth, and because of your sister. She tutored me forhours. I’m talking she laminated my notes and stuck them on our shower wall. She was mortified when I got a B on the final.”
Billy was currently getting into the song, one hand sliding down his belly as he crooned the lyrics. Brendon had to hand it to him. He was enthusiastic, that was for sure.
