by Krista Lakes
“You ready to talk?” she said, beating her fist against the table in a jokingly dramatic manor.
“Is this an interrogation now?” I asked. “I need to know if I need my lawyer.”
“You might,” she threatened. “Unless you’re ready to spill the beans?”
“Oh I’m ready,” I said, allowing my same smile to engross my face again. “It’s about Jacob…”
“I assumed.” She rolled her eyes playfully at me.
“Are you going to let me spill the beans or are you going to interrupt?” I said, my giddy mood turning into a motivation to play with Caroline a little more.
“You’re ridiculous,” she replied. “I’m starting to think this was all a ploy.”
“Oh, it’s very real. But be patient, I’ve gotta start from the beginning.” I cleared my throat as Caroline watched me speak with inquiring eyes.
“Anyway,” I continued, “Jacob said he wanted to take me on a picnic, totally his idea. He brought everything. The picnic basket, the blanket, the food- all of it. He got us all set up in William's Park.”
“Wait, William's Park? There was a Legazues there,” Caroline said. Her eyes went wide. “Did you get one?”
“I did, but that's not the important part of my story.” I couldn't stop the grin spreading over my face. “We had to leave after it showed up since the park was packed, but, then we went back to his place.”
I grinned way too wide and Caroline's eyes went wide as she figured out the rest of my story. All of Caroline’s anticipation finally made its way to the surface and blossomed into an eruption of delighted whoops. It was the moment I’d been waiting for.
I looked around to see if her outburst had caused the surrounding tables to stare. Luckily, no one was looking at us.
“Way. To. Go,” she said slowly and emphatically. “So how was he?”
“He was wonderful,” I said. “He’s excellent. Amazing. Spectacular.”
“His eyes still the best part?” she joked.
“He has many best parts,” I said. “Basically the last forty-eight hours have been incredible. A dinner date, a half-picnic date and then going back to his place. I'm living in a happy dream right now.”
“What was his place like?” Caroline played with her straw, drinking in her coffee and all my details.
“He lives at The Boulevard, so it was really fancy,” I said. “He’s still moving in, so it was mostly just boxes.”
“That's nice.” She grinned at me and got straight to the topic she wanted to discuss. “So, when do I get to meet him?” she asked, her signature smile curling at the edge of her mouth.
“Soon,” I said. “I'm still getting to know him myself.”
“Oh come on,” she said, setting her coffee down. “I'm sure you've met some of his friends.”
“I haven’t, actually.” It wasn't until I said it that I even realized that I hadn't even heard him mention any of his friends. It was probably just due to him having just moved here.
“Then I can get the ball rolling,” she said, her smile turning into an enthusiastic grin of delight. “We'll have a barbecue. Or better yet, a party.”
“Slow down.” I held my hand up like it was a stop sign. Not that it would slow her down any. “I’m not about to bombard him and freak him out.”
“With your freak of a friend?” She raised her eyebrows at me.
“Not my freak friend, my best friend,” I said, waving her off. “But I just kind of want to take things slow and let them play out. I think I might’ve really found something good here and I don't want to scare him off. He's not big on crowds, so a party probably wouldn't be his thing.”
“I guess that’s fine.” Caroline let out a dramatic sigh. “But, I claim dibs on meeting him next.”
“Deal.” I grinned at her. “I'm just so excited about him. I think I can see a future with him, but I might just be fooling myself.”
“Can you see him opening presents on Christmas?” Caroline asked, her face unreadable. I wasn't sure where she was going with this question.
I thought for a moment. He would probably start out opening them carefully, but end up ripping the wrapping paper as soon as he got excited. I could already see him in my minds' eye: the two of us in pajamas at my parents' house with cups of coffee and Tommy running around like a maniac. The image made me smile.
“Yeah, I can.”
“I'm assuming that dopey grin on your face is because you're there too,” Caroline said, drawing me back to the present. “You see yourself with him.”
“I do,” I replied with a nod. “What is the point of your question?”
“You see yourself with him in six months,” Caroline explained. “I'm guessing that you can see a bunch of other holidays with him, too.”
“I guess I do.” I sat there for a moment, realizing that Caroline was right. I saw a future with Jacob. A real future. Not just little snippets or things that might happen, but actual events. I wanted to have him share my family at Christmas. I wanted to visit his parents for the Thanksgiving. I wanted to share my life with him.
“Then you see a future with him,” she informed me. “I can't wait to meet this guy.”
She wasn't going to give up on meeting him, so I changed the subject.
“Any good news on your end?” I asked, innocently sipping at my coffee. “You know, any teacher news or anything?”
“No,” she replied. She narrowed her eyes, knowing exactly what I was doing, but she let me get away with changing topics anyway. “Nothing yet. It's pretty saturated teaching wise around here. I'm starting to think I might have to expand my hunting grounds.”
“Not a bad idea,” I agreed. “I've started sending applications as far west as Denver.”
“I haven't gone quite that far,” she said. “But I might have to start looking in LA or something. Maybe even San Francisco.”
“I'd come visit you all the time if you moved there.” I sighed and shrugged. “Time to go chase careers like real adults.”
“What about you?” Caroline asked. She slurped the last little bit of coffee up through her straw. “Any job offers?”
“Nothing,” I said with a sad shake of my head. “Unless you want to count a prestigious part-time offer from Dairy King.”
She shook her head. “How is it you managed to land the perfect guy, but can't get a job?”
“I have no idea,” I replied. “I just wish I had half as much luck on the job on front as I did on the dating one.”
“Me too,” she agreed. Her phone vibrated and she swiped at the screen before holding it up to show the monster nearby notification. “But, at least we'll always have Monster GO, and if we have that, then who needs dating and jobs?”
The house was silent when I arrived home. Dad was at work, and Mom had left a note that she and Tommy were getting shoes for school. I had the house to myself.
Well, almost to myself. Athena was still there. I heard her nails hit the floor as she jumped off the couch and ran to greet me. She danced around my ankles with the kind of smile that only a welcoming dog can achieve.
“Were you on the couch?” I asked, lecturing her in tender baby-talk. “Were you sneaking in a little nap up there?”
She pushed between my legs and circled back around without ever losing contact, her tail whipping from side to side.
“You think you’re sneaky, but I bet if I go over there your beautiful gold fur will be all over it, huh?” I pet her head and loved on her for a moment. “You just leave too much evidence.”
She followed me up the stairs and into my room.
“Wanna come up?” I said, patting my bed. “Come on, come up.”
Athena jumped onto my bed and circled once before plopping down onto one my pillows. I had a feeling I would find dog fur on my things for the rest of my life.
“You silly girl,” I said, stroking her head and down her neck. She was a great dog, but she shed so much I was surprised she wasn't going bald. A clump of fur
collected on my hand and clung to my bed sheet as I pet her, but I didn’t care much. I’d missed her while I was away at school.
I gave her one last pat before standing up to check my email. She stayed seated on my bed as I slowly walked over to my computer and sat down.
Seeing Caroline, plus everything else that had happened in the past forty-eight hours, had left me in a great mood. Instead of feeling heavy as I checked my email, I was content and comfortable with my shoulders slouched against the back of my chair.
My mind was barely on my email as I scrolled through it. I was thinking of Jacob and what our life could look like together. It was still early in our relationship, but I knew deep in my bones that we were a good match. We could be the real deal.
I decided I should look for some remote-site work. There had to be plenty of jobs I could do on my computer from home until I found something. And working from home would mean I could work from Jacob's home, too. I rather liked the idea of never having to leave his apartment.
I liked the way the future was shaping up. If I found some computer work, I could move out of my parents' house and into one of the apartments on the west side of town. They wouldn't be as nice as Jacob's, but it would be my own. The future was bright.
I opened up a new window and started searching, finding several opportunities that sounded like they would at least open up some doors. For the first time in weeks, I was actually enjoying sending out resumes. I was looking forward to a new career and seeing where things with Jacob went. The world looked bright and promising, and I couldn't wait for it to all happen.
A message beeped that I had new mail. It only took a moment to switch windows to see what it was.
I opened my email account and froze. Sitting at the top of my inbox was the email I had been waiting for.
ZephTech.
I sat forward, my shoulders tense. My fingers melted into my computer mouse and refused to move. Had I not been sitting, my legs would have crumbled under the anxiety in my stomach.
My future plans wavered. This could change everything.
After a deep breath and a concerted effort to collect myself, I opened the email.
Chapter 11
In that moment, there were so many things that I never would’ve anticipated. For one, I’d always imagined waiting restlessly by the computer continuously clicking to refresh my email until the message came. I didn’t expect the news to come like a wrench abruptly thrown into a spinning fan.
Either that, or I’d envisioned waking up to the email, something like a kid waking to find that the tooth fairy had visited her pillow the night before. I’d made it out to be a fairytale where promptly after receiving the news I’d run and shout it to whoever would listen.
I’d certainly never imagined feeling regret. Never regret. Excitement, wonder, exultation, amazement- never regret. I never imagined there would be anything to make me think twice about the decision.
But then, I'd never imagined finding someone like Jacob and knowing I would need to leave him behind to pursue my dreams.
The email was still up and staring back at me, the words, ‘Congratulations’ in big block letters colored bright neon green—ZephTech’s signature color—at the top of the page.
I guess I’d expected the email to look a little different too.
I stood up on shaky legs and then sank into my bed, my face falling into my pillows and my arm down onto Athena. The pillows were firm and suffocating until I finally turned my head to the side, looking for air. I took several deep breaths while running my hand through Athena’s fur, up and down her back. She was the only thing anchoring me in the real world.
The rest of my mind was gone, detached from my body and drifting in a warp of anxiety. Even my desk chair hadn’t felt like enough to keep me from falling through the floor, like the ground itself was collapsing around me.
I felt so many things. Too many to process.
My stomach was empty, but my chest was inflated. Paralyzing anxiety and thrilling excitement were dueling it out in each of my limbs, each feeling winning for moments at a time before changing over completely.
It was nothing like what I thought I’d feel like.
I remained buried in my bed for several minutes—maybe five, maybe twenty—before rolling over and onto my back, but even then I laid still for a while longer. I looked at nothing but a singular spot on my ceiling, seeing nothing and seeing everything all at once; my future, my father’s excited face, everything it’s taken to get where I was, the countless resumes, Jacob.
He hates Silicon Valley, I thought. He won't come visit me there.
From across the room I could still see the email up on my computer. My eyes ran down the page again, scanning words in groups instead of individually.
“CONGRATULATIONS. We’re pleased to inform you that you’ve been accepted as an Intern to ZephTech Co. Based on your academic history as well as your learned skills and inherent qualities, we believe you’d be a good fit and would like to extend an offer to join our team.”
Embedded in the message was a phone number and instructions to call and follow up with the offer within forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours, I thought. I’d waited years for this opportunity and now that I was down to just forty-eight hours, my only wish was that the clock would stop moving.
Why do I even need forty-eight hours? I thought. Forty-eight hours for what? To make a decision? What decision is there left to make? This is my dream.
But doubt lingered.
Perhaps that was the biggest surprise of all; I’d never imagined having to decide between my dream job and my dream guy.
For the next four hours I watched episodes of House Hunters in the living room. I wanted something to take my mind off of things. Something that would keep me from obsessing over my job and what that meant about my future with Jacob.
It was seven-thirty by the time my father, mother and Tommy all got home from dinner. I'd seen more houses on TV than I'd ever even been inside in real life.
“Hey, Sweets,” my mom said, kissing the top of my head as she came in.
“Hey, Mom,” I replied.
“You thinking of buying a house in Boca Raton?” she said, stopping behind me and noting the setting of the episode I was watching.
I faked a laugh, but otherwise ignored her comment. “Did you guys see a movie today?” I asked.
“Yeah, your brother and I saw that new sci-fi one,” she said, her attention more on the show than answering the question. “The one with the robots.”
“How was it?” I asked, not really caring what the answer was but making conversation anyway.
“It was a little much for my taste, but ask your brother.” She shrugged. “I think he liked it.”
Tommy walked in and rolled his eyes at my TV program choice. He tucked a shoe box under his arm and headed upstairs to put it away.
“How was your day today?” my father asked, coming in last and shutting the garage door behind him.
“Good,” I said, waiting for the inevitable follow-up. My heart was sinking and soaring at the same time.
“How’d your breakfast with Caroline go?” my mother chimed in. Not the follow-up I was expecting.
“It was good,” I said with a shrug. “As always.”
“Are you doing okay?” my father asked. “You look like you might be sick.”
“I’ve actually got some big news,” I said, shifting around in the couch to face my parents. My father was milling around with the mail on the counter and my mother was still watching my TV show. Both of them perked up, both likely anticipating the same news.
“I heard back from ZephTech today,” I said. I was surprised my voice stayed steady when I felt like it should crumble to pieces. “They offered me a slot as an intern.”
At once both parents uttered different shrieks of excitement that together sounded like the shouts of a playground.
I stood when I realized they were coming over for a hug
and I embraced them both at the same time. My father was the first to offer a coherent sentence.
“Good job, sweetie,” he said. “Good job.” And when he released me and I saw the enormous smile engulfing his face I smiled too. There was a proud shimmer in his eyes as he beamed down at me.
It was the first pure happiness I’d felt all day.
“I’m so, so, proud of you baby,” my mom said. “You deserve it.”
“You really do,” my father said. “All your hard work. You’ve got to be ecstatic.”
“Yeah,” I said, not completely lying but also not entirely sure what I was feeling. Jacob was still weighing heavily on my mind.
“I wish you’d have come to dinner with us,” my mother said. “We could have celebrated.”
“We’re going to be celebrating this one for a long time,” my father assured her, his smile still high in his cheeks.
“Tommy,” my mother cried, summoning him to the living room. “You’ve got to tell your brother.”
“Tommy, I got that internship with the app company,” I said as Tommy descended the stairs.
“You did?” He paused at the top of the stairs.
“I did.” I shrugged and gave a small grin. The news was finally starting to sink in for me. Their excitement was making it real.
“Congratulations!” he said, pumping his fist in the air. He grinned as he came over to give me a hug. “Does this mean that you’ve gotta move now?” he asked and instantly I locked up. Tommy released me from our hug as he felt my embrace go weak.
“I don't know,” I stammered. The initial euphoria of telling my parents had worn off and now I was back to trying to figure out what to do about Jacob.
“Yeah, guess we’ve gotta start looking for places in Silicon Valley,” my father said and I was glad for it because my stomach was still too heavy and my mind too fuzzy to find a response.