But he was old-school in a handful of the bad ways too. When journalism used to be an ‘old boys club’ and patriarchy was as common as a typewriter in that old-school newsroom. He wasn’t exactly sexist, and he always treated me like an equal, but he was a sucker for a pretty face. Which was why a large percentage of our female staff and interns were young and pretty. Talented too, but not hard on the eye.
And Jen was pretty. Tall, thin, with almond-shaped eyes and caramel skin that suggested an Eastern heritage. Long, shiny black hair that was always tumbling in wild curls around her face. She wore enough makeup to let you know she was a dab hand at it, but not enough to say she wasn’t comfortable with her natural features. Her full lips were always smeared cherry red, and she always wore a garment of the same shade on her body.
Apparently it was her ‘signature.’
That day it was a bloodred pencil skirt with a silky white shirt tucked in.
I wasn’t jealous, not liking her because of her body, or style, or confidence—things I didn’t have. But there was something about her efforts to talk to me, to be friendly with me that seemed disingenuous.
“Are you okay?” she asked, peering down at me with real concern.
Or maybe I was just so wrapped up in my own disaster that I’d been rude and guarded around her all week, and she was just a nice person who was new in town and trying to make friends.
I was never the woman who treated another person—especially a woman—badly because of my own personal turmoil. You never knew what battle someone was raging inside. I knew that all too well, and I made sure I would never be the reason that battle was harder to fight.
I forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying to get my voice to sound convincing. “It’s just been… a weird week,” I finished lamely.
Understatement of the century.
In addition to Gage’s absence, my car miraculously appeared in front of my apartment one morning—right where you weren’t allowed to park, of course, so it stood to reason that someone from the club had put it there. It looked good as new. Better.
Someone had rattled on about added features when I called the garage. Then they’d become pretty tight-lipped about how much those ‘added features’ were. And after not-so-gentle probing, it turned out he wasn’t tight-lipped because of how expensive it was. No, because of how cheap.
As in free.
I did not do charity.
Especially from a man who’d rocked my world and then walked out of it, stomping on the ruins he’d made. That man did not get to fix the one thing that could be fixed and do it for free.
I was paying. I was adamant to the man on the phone, bordering on hysterical. The man in question clearly did not do well with borderline hysterical questions, because he muttered about customers and then hung up. And didn’t answer when I called back.
Or return my calls.
I planned on doing extensive research that weekend, finding an appropriate sum and mailing them a check.
I jerked my mind back to Jen, who I was meant to be holding a conversation with.
She tossed her hair, her eyes twinkling. “Yeah, it’s something, this place. Kind of hard to settle in somewhere where people are so nice. I don’t trust it after where I’m from.”
“Where is it you were from again?” I asked, trying to rack my brain and hopefully make sure she hadn’t told me already.
She waved her manicured hand. “Somewhere a lot less nice than this. But it was home, and I had friends there.” She paused. “I miss it, you know? Even though this is my fresh start, even though this is going to be good for me, give me exactly what I need.”
I forced down my feeling of unease that something else laid behind her words. “What do you need from Amber?”
She showed white teeth, her eyes warm. “Oh, closure, I guess.”
I blinked. It was a strange thing to say after talking about a fresh start, but then again, wasn’t that exactly what a fresh start was? Closure?
I had no idea what the woman was battling, why that twinkle in her eye was tinged with something else. But I knew a fair bit about hiding pain behind a smile, and she was doing that too.
I smiled at her, real that time. “I hope you find it here.”
She stood, pressed her skirt down and smiled again. “Oh, I think I’ve already found it.” She hitched her bag on her shoulder. “Want to go for a drink to help me celebrate my first week?”
I was about to refuse, the response robotic, since I’d answered all questions like that with a variation of the name answer. No.