Love at First

by Kate Clayborn

  “Your face looks like a tomato,” Dee said.

  “I’m cooking.”

  Dee narrowed her eyes but relented. “We’ll come back to this.”

  Nora took a relieved sip of wine. A great thing about Deepa was that for all her teasing, prying curiosity, she always knew when to stop. A joke about Nora’s chronic prudishness in the face of a sustainable dildo was one thing, but for the things Nora needed privacy for—or time for—Dee was always discreet, always patient.

  And anyway, they both knew there was an elephant in the room.

  “So how bad was it?” Nora said, bracing herself.

  Dee rolled her eyes but took another big drink of her wine before settling further into her couch. “Bad,” she said.

  They’d lost the eco-influencer today.

  The email—hardly two lines, signed with an xoxox—had come through to the whole team around noon, Pacific time, which meant almost everyone at Verdant had their lunch hour interrupted or entirely canceled. Nora had been picking up her phone to text Deepa when it had chimed in her hand.

  I called it, Dee had texted.

  And she had. Weeks ago, of course, but more recently, at last Thursday’s staff meeting. “She’s going to bolt,” she’d told Austin, voice surprisingly sharp. “Cut her loose first and save everyone from wasting any more hours on this. We’re not what she wants.”

  But Austin—a real the customer is always right type—hadn’t listened. In fact, for the last week he’d had Nora chasing down freelance game-app designers, even though that was absolutely not in her job description.

  “I honestly don’t know what the big deal is,” said Nora, ignoring the pang of guilt she felt over her annoyance at Austin. “It wasn’t like she was a huge account for us. Why was he so insistent about this?”

  “Because he hates to lose. They’re all the same.” Nora knew Dee well enough to know that this meant either men in general or men who were in charge of things. Probably both.

  “Was it the silent treatment all afternoon?”

  “He slammed a door.”

  Nora raised her eyebrows. Slamming doors, that was serious business.

  “Honestly, Nora, I really think I’m almost done there.”

  A pit opened in Nora’s stomach. “What?”

  “I’m going to start putting out feelers. I don’t know what direction Austin thinks he’s going in, but I’m not interested in it.”

  Nora blinked at the screen, stunned. But she shouldn’t be, should she? For months she and Deepa both had been unhappy with some of the new projects being onboarded; their debriefs so often consisted of frustrated disbelief about some new ask, some new plan. And Dee was brilliant, talented, driven, networked.

  If she put out feelers, she’d be . . . well, getting felt. Immediately.

  But Verdant without Deepa? Nora’s job without Deepa?

  She hated to think of it, even though they weren’t working in the same office or time zone anymore.

  “Wow,” she managed. “Do you . . . would it help if I talked to him?”

  Dee waved a hand. “You’re sweet, and honestly, you’re like one of the only people he listens to, but no. Even if he got his shit together, which he definitely won’t, I still need a change. Maybe I’ll move back to Berkeley, who knows. My parents would love it.”

  “Wow,” Nora repeated. “This is . . . a lot.”

  “You did it, right? I mean, I know it wasn’t for the same reasons, and yes, those poetry readings still sound completely bananas, but now you’re with your family there, and you’re also dating a hot, handy doctor.”

  Nora laughed, but something about it rang false to her own ears. First of all, she was still catching up to the thought of Deepa leaving Verdant. Second of all, something about what Dee had said about Will—about Nora and Will, together—settled uncomfortably in her stomach.

  What they were doing, it couldn’t really be called dating.

  She took another drink of her wine, wanting to shake off the thought. For now, this was working; this was what she’d wanted. It was what she wanted even though the rental situation downstairs had been surprisingly unproblematic so far—the responsible, quiet mother and daughter Will had promised, who so far had mostly kept to themselves, and her neighbors for the most part politely resigned, even once or twice complimentary toward Will’s judgment in choosing them. Once, while they’d been out for a walk, Nora had thought of mentioning something about Will to Mrs. Salas—maybe a test run, with talk of towel rods—but she’d lost her nerve at the last minute, a nagging feeling that she’d be doing something disloyal. To her neighbors, to Nonna.

  But even more than that, she liked it, having this secret.

  She liked having this thing for herself, in this place where she’d always shared everything.

  And she knew Will had his limits, too. She’d seen the look on his face that first morning, when she’d come back from the bathroom, and it was familiar to her: faraway and pained. He’d looked like that once before in her bedroom, the night she’d been sick, and she hadn’t wanted to see that look again.

  So she kept it light, kept it specific. A project, an interlude. Each time, a casual, no-promises goodbye.

  It was working for both of them.

  Wasn’t it?

  She cleared her throat, setting down her glass and folding her arms across her chest. On-screen, Dee looked as put together as she always did, but Nora could still see strain from the day in her eyes.

  “Dee,” she said, her tone serious. “You know if you go, I’m one hundred percent in your corner. Whatever you need, you have it from me.”

  Deepa had done the same for her, all those months ago, when Nora had decided to come back to Chicago for good. She’d never missed a beat: helped Nora pack the things she was taking, helped her sell what she wasn’t, helped her plan what to say to Austin about telework. Made promises about staying in touch that she’d always, always kept, even though the truth was, Dee’s friend circle had always been much bigger than Nora’s.

  “I know,” Dee said, tapping the side of her glass with one polished nail. “I’d miss you, of course. But I miss you now, and we handle it.”

  Nora smiled. “I miss you, too. Thank goodness for these cameras, huh?” She uncrossed her arms, picking up her glass again and raising it to Dee, to technology, to their long-distance friendship.

  Dee toasted her back, then smiled wickedly. “Now tell me real quick before he gets there. What do you trade a man for putting a new light in your bathroom?”

  “Please tell me I can have more of this.”

  Will and Nora sat at two ends of the old couch, his faded jeans and worn blue-gray T-shirt a hilariously monochrome contrast to the loud floral pattern of the upholstery. In his hands he held the empty, shallow bowl that had, only moments ago, been pretty full up with the pasta Nora had made, a promise from that night on the beach that she was overdue in fulfilling. She hadn’t quite planned to serve it fresh—she’d thought it would be too late for a meal, that Will would want to take it with him when he left. But only seconds after she’d opened the door to him, he’d turned his head toward the kitchen, his eyes going adorably wide.

  “Is that your sauce?” he’d said, abandoning the box with the new light fixture right there on the floor of the entryway.

  “At this time of night?” Nora teased now, clucking her tongue. “You’ll get indigestion.” That sounded exactly like something Nonna would say, and Nora felt her heart squeeze happily at the memory, the echo. The way she kept Nonna alive.

  Will dropped his head back, making a funny, frustrated hmph noise, and Nora admired the line of his throat, the ridge of his Adam’s apple. The desire she felt stir within her was both familiar and different—no less intense, but somehow less insistent. Maybe it was the change to their routine—their project not yet started, their interlude postponed. Maybe it was the glass of wine she’d had, always likely to make her a little sleepy.

  Or maybe it was the mood
that had descended upon her when she’d closed her laptop screen after signing off with Dee. It wasn’t that the call ended badly—in fact, it’d ended with Nora clamping a hand over her laughing mouth at a particularly vulgar suggestion Dee had made for tonight’s trade-off (not pasta-related!). But almost immediately, Nora had felt the full weight of having had a very bad day at work, followed by having heard the wholly justified, but still upsetting, plans of her friend.

  So now, when she looked over at Will, what she wanted most was to crawl closer to him, to put her head on his shoulder or against his thigh, to have him stroke her back or put his hands in her hair. I know, baby, she remembered him saying, that day when she was sick, and it wasn’t that she wanted to be called that, but also . . .

  Also, she definitely did.

  “I don’t think I ate since breakfast,” Will said, snapping her out of her thoughts. Good job, thinking about infantilizing, problematic pet names when Will had been saving lives and starving himself all day.

  She held out her hand. “I’ll get you more.”

  He shook his head, which was still tipped back. “You’re right. Probably too late to eat seconds.” His eyelids drooped and he smiled. “Man, these carbs.”

  She laughed. “We can skip the light tonight.”

  He looked over at her. “I don’t want to,” he said, his voice somehow both serious and playful, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the light. He leaned forward to set his dish on the coffee table, then collapsed back into his former posture, eyes drooping again almost immediately.

  “I’ll sit here for five minutes,” he asserted. Practical, responsible Will.

  But he didn’t look like he’d be awake in five minutes.

  “It was a busy day?” she asked.

  He gusted out a sigh. “The usual.” He shifted, locking his fingers together to rest over the flat, firm expanse of his abdomen. Four minutes, she thought. If he fights for it.

  “How’s it going downstairs?” he said, his voice low and sleepy. That was a guard-down question, to ask about the rental. For the most part, they avoided it during his visits. But already this visit was like no other one: not exactly light. Not exactly specific.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not your—”

  “It’s okay,” she rushed out, strangely eager to keep the guard-down mood of it all. It was nice, this way. It felt . . . not even like dating, really. It felt like something else, something more. “It’s fine. Everything’s been fine.”

  He nodded once, and quieted again. But after a pause, he said, “Emily is okay?”

  Nora blinked over at him, surprised, but he kept his eyes low, away from hers. She tried to think of a time when she’d mentioned Emily specifically to Will, but she couldn’t think of a single thing.

  “Marian mentioned she had some . . . anxiety. About this,” he said.

  “Marian told you that?”

  Now he looked over, probably shocked into it by the sharp increase in the volume of her voice. “She might have mentioned,” he said, his lips curving, “That you weren’t the only person in the building who sometimes fought going to see a doctor.”

  Nora had a feeling she was gaping.

  “I gave Marian a few suggestions. For providers who might be good for Emily. I think they were going to make some calls.”

  Now she knew she was gaping. What about her suggestions! She had definitely made a few.

  He laughed softly at her expression, rolling his head back. “You’re so surprised. It took me a while with this crowd, but I’ve got a way with people, you know.”

  “You’re not Marian’s type,” she said, and he snorted.

  Two minutes, she thought. She leaned the side of her head against the sofa cushion, watching him. He did have a way with people, even with people who ought to, by all rights, be suspicious of him. She supposed his job helped with that. He probably spent all day around people who were wary of him, people who thought he was coming to deliver bad news, or to make something worse before it started to get better.

  “I’m your type,” he said, opening one eye and then closing it again once he’d caught her. “If this staring you’re doing is any indication.”

  “Hmm,” she said, noncommittal, but she didn’t really stop staring. For all the images she’d been storing up over the last two weeks, she had a feeling this one might be stubborn, too: Will’s long, lean body in profile, his expression entirely relaxed. She felt her own body sinking into something similar, a drowsy comfort that made her wish the lights were lower. This was a sort of claiming, too. A kind of intimacy she’d never experienced here.

  But almost as soon as her eyes slid closed, her phone sounded—a familiar tone assigned to a very specific contact—and she sat up, grabbing it from the table as Will raised his head.

  She winced. “I’m sorry. It’s my boss calling.”

  “Your boss calls you this late?”

  Not usually, she thought. But she said, “It’s not that late for him. Only eight thirty there.”

  Will frowned, and she had a feeling she knew exactly what he was thinking. What should matter is that it’s late for you, that frown said.

  “We had a rough go today at work. I’ll—” She stood, gestured down the hall to indicate where she’d take it.

  Will nodded and stood, and she had a moment of disappointment when she thought he might be leaving, but he only bent to pick up his dish, moving around the coffee table to take it into the kitchen. When she was halfway down the hall, swiping her thumb across the phone, she heard the clink of dishes, the sound of the faucet being turned on.

  Her phone was on the fourth ring before she sat and flicked on the small light that cast a harsh glow over her desk space, the leavings of her workday in the same messy arrangement she’d left them in, because she’d been so eager to get away from it all, and to get ready for the night ahead. Now, with Austin waiting for her on the line, she felt weirdly embarrassed by it, as though he could sense through the still-unconnected phone her disorganization.

  “Austin, hi,” she said, trying not to sound . . . disorganized.

  “Sorry to be calling so late,” he said, but he didn’t really sound all that sorry.

  “Well, it was a difficult day.” Nora wasn’t really sure that getting dropped by a nightmare client via email (xoxox!) counted as difficult enough for an after 10:00 p.m. phone call, but whatever.

  “Obviously we have a lot to go over,” he said, and she could hear the tapping of his keyboard in the background. She felt another guilty pang for her gut instinct, which was to tell him that this time of night was really no time to go over anything, and also, that the whole second half of the workday had been a process of “going over.” That from her and Dee’s point of view, it’d been getting “gone over” for weeks before this day even happened.

  She thought of Will out there, washing dishes, and couldn’t decide who she was being more unfair to.

  She cleared her throat. “Okay, are we—”

  He cut her off before she could finish.

  “But I think the first thing is, we need to talk about getting you back here.”

  When the call ended twenty minutes later, Nora tossed her phone onto her desk with a clatter, shoved her chair back, and hit her elbow on Nonna’s dresser.

  “Damn,” she said, clutching it.

  “Nora?”

  She closed her eyes, absolutely knowing now who she’d been unfair to. “In here,” she called. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Seconds later Will came to the doorway, tucking his hands into his pockets and leaning against the frame. Will excelled in doorways, frankly. Excellent standing, leaning, kissing, touching. A+ in all those subjects, and now he was adding a fourth: looking.

  First he looked at her, where she held her elbow, furrowed his brow and said, “Are you okay?”

  Then, when she nodded, he looked up again and let his eyes pass over the one room in her apartment he’d not yet been i
n. Her grandmother’s most personal things, plus Nora’s tiny workspace. When his eyes landed back on her again, he maintained the furrow. He said, “What happened?” and it felt like he was asking her about so much more than the phone call.

  She sighed and swiveled her chair toward him, this time concentrating enough not to run into anything.

  “Austin—that’s my boss—he wants me to come back to San Diego next month.”

  For the briefest of seconds, something about Will’s body changed, even though his posture remained exactly the same. But Nora saw it—a tightening. A tension.

  “What for?” he said, his voice light.

  She sighed, overwhelmed. Will knew a bit about her work (and rework) for the influencer, but now, everything went beyond today’s loss of the account. Everything was so much more complicated.

  “A week of meetings, I guess. A few new pitches he wants me there in person for, and”—she shook her head, still in shock about this part—“some talk of moving the whole business to Los Angeles.”

  This is between us for now, Austin had said, which Nora knew meant something specific: she was not meant to tell Deepa about it.

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  Nora tilted her head, thinking about it. “It would have been, I guess, a year ago—I wouldn’t have wanted to go to LA. Now that I’m here I guess it won’t matter so much for me in the everyday, except I think what it means is that Austin is changing direction, and it’s . . . I don’t know. These pitches are going to be a lot of work.”

  More of the same—a celebrity who was starting an ecotourism foundation. A retired pro surfer getting into documentary film production. A vegan home chef who’d recently gone viral on social media. There was nothing wrong with the work, but it certainly wasn’t what she was used to. And Austin wasn’t giving her much time to pivot. She stared morosely at the mess in front of her, the open notebook where she’d hastily taken notes on what Austin was saying.

  “You don’t have much space of your own in here,” Will said, and she looked up at him.