Something about her voice makes me feel like she’s wanted to say that for a long, long time. Like she’s thought about it, churned it around in her mind, only to lose her nerve and file it away for some other, faraway time. I don’t exactly know how to respond to that, so instead I just nod and watch as she smiles at me again, something sad and resigned, before turning back around, her heels still clicking as she makes her way across the street.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There’s a cold chill in the air now, a sharp bite that causes me to stand up and walk into the cathedral across the street, a towering basilica just past the square with twin pointed arches that seem to jut straight into the stars. I’ve never been religious—even less so now—but it seems like a good place to go at the moment. A good place to sit and think. To formulate a plan.
It’s close to empty inside, a few people sitting, praying, or wandering around the aisles with their necks craned to the ceiling. I can hear the echo of footsteps around me as I take a seat in the back, the old wooden pew groaning against my weight.
Then I exhale, close my eyes.
I can still remember trailing Kasey around the office that very first time, my eyes glassy and bright. Taking in the belongings situated on top of my desk—my desk—and my name, ISABELLE RHETT: LIFESTYLE REPORTER, etched onto the shiny gold nameplate.
“And here,” she had said, opening an office door with a gust of bravado as we reached the pinnacle of her tour, “is the man we have to thank for it all.”
I had poked my head into the editor in chief’s office, ready to introduce myself, when the blood suddenly drained from my face.
It was him.
In front of me, the man from the bar was sitting behind a giant mahogany desk. He smiled at me, a playful kind of grin, like he was the big reveal on some kind of game show, only I couldn’t tell if I had won or lost.
“Welcome, Isabelle.”
I could feel a burning in my cheeks, knowing my face was quickly morphing into a deep crimson red, just like it had after we collided into each other that night on the water. For a moment, I forgot how to speak. I had lost my voice—it was stuck, lodged somewhere deep in my throat like a chunk of stale bread—althoughhisvoice was smooth and familiar, flowing easily from his lips like decanted wine.
“Hi,” I finally managed to say. I remember looking down at the nameplate on his desk, his name—BENJAMIN DRAKE—embossed in gold. I had known that was the editor in chief’s name, of course; it was written at the top of every masthead. But he had introduced himself asBen. The most common name in the world. I had never seen a picture of him before, and of course I hadn’t interviewed with the editor in chief for an entry-level position. I had no way to recognize his voice. “Thank you so much for this opportunity.”
“Of course.” He smiled. I looked down at his hands folded on his desk; at the gold wedding band stretched tight across his finger. The wedding band I couldn’t see when he was wearing gloves. “Kasey, if you’ll give us a second.”
Kasey smiled beside me, slipping back through the door and closing it with a click. Once we were alone, that night came rushing back to me in a flash: our bodies pushed together close, talking for what felt like hours. His face when I had told him I was a writer forThe Grit—and me, just assuming he was impressed. But that wasn’t the right expression, I finally understood. It was shock, maybe. Arealization that he had just found himself spending the better part of a Friday evening chatting up not only his new coworker, but his new employee. A twenty-five-year-old subordinate.
And then, of course, there was that kiss. The way I had pushed myself up on my toes and leaned in; the way I had cupped his cheek in my hand before taking off to the bathroom; coming back out and realizing that he was gone. Walking home alone, embarrassed and confused and a little too buzzed, replaying the night over and over and over in my mind, trying to unearth a missed signal or an overlooked sign.
“I loved it, by the way.”
I blinked, trying to find the words. He was staring right at me,talkingto me, and still, all I could think about was that kiss. Certainly, he wasn’t bringing that up right now… was he?
“I’m—I’m sorry?”
“Your article,” he clarified. “The one you attached with your application. I read the whole thing.”
“Oh,” I exhaled. “Oh, right. Thank you.”
Applying forThe Gritrequired a hefty portfolio of previously published bylines, but being only a few years out of college, I didn’t have many to share. Instead, I attached a story I had written on my own about a dolphin that had been seen lingering around the Beaufort harbor for longer than normal; you could tell it was the same one because of the little bite mark on her dorsal fin. I had wanted to know what it was doing there—day after day, swimming in circles—so I asked the dockhand at the marina.
“She’s grieving,” he had told me.
“Grieving what?”
“Her calf.”
I must have looked confused, notebook in hand, because the old man flung a greasy towel over his shoulder and kept talking.
“Dolphins are complex creatures, darlin’. They have emotions, like you and me. That one there just lost a newborn a couple weeks ago. If you look close, you can see her pushin’ it around.”
“Pushing what around?”
“Her calf,” he said again. “Her baby.”
I remember squinting then, straining my eyes against the glare of the sun. And he was right: There wasn’t just one dolphin in the distance, there were two.One was alive, and one, much smaller, was dead.