Chapter 19
The look on Renée’s face when she sees Nora waiting at the head of the conference table the following morning doesn’t make up for the devastation of leaving Riverwalk, but it does help.
“Eleanor,” Renée says, her voice somewhat higher than usual but still managing to sound condescending. “You’ve finally graced us with your presence. How thrilling.”
Nora says nothing. As the rest of the board filters in, she maintains her silence, watching the way each of them fidgets under her gaze but none will meet her eyes. Kayla and Ash are the last in the room, shutting the door firmly behind them and taking their seats at Nora’s right and left hands.
“Since I didn’t call this meeting, I feel I need to ask,” Nora says into the stifling silence, “what’s this about?”
“We’re concerned that your investment in your job isn’t up to our standards,” Renée says, radiating a smugness that Nora can’t wait to dismantle. “You’ve been gone for months, letting your underlings run the show. The board feels that you’ve been an absent leader.”
“The board feels,” Nora says quietly.
The board is silent.
“We all feel that perhaps control of the company was given to you too hastily,” Renée says.
Nora shuffles her papers. She lets the awkwardness infuse the room, percolating down until even Renée looks uncomfortable.
“Despite being doubted at every turn,” Nora starts, her voice low and controlled, “I have increased profits in every quarter since I took this position. I’ve been responsible for green- lighting several products which have made this company—and each of you—a great deal of money. And my single period of absence this summer is nothing in comparison to the multiple month-long holidays my father took several times a year with his various wives.”
Renée’s cheeks turn pink.
“Whether any of us agree with it or not, it was my father’s belief that I was the best fit,” Nora continues more loudly as Renée opens her mouth to protest. “And nothing in my work ethic or accomplishments over the last five years has warranted the disrespect consistently paid to me here.”
It’s hard to gauge the energy of the room when Nora is so focused on not showing how much her heart is pounding. But Renée doesn’t look happy.
“And how do you explain your absence this summer? What do you have to present that could possibly have taken four months?”
“I spent the summer doing research. Integrating into the community,” Nora says, taking a steadying breath. “And I determined that a large-scale real estate development project in Bracken County isn’t feasible.”
Renée latches onto that like a piranha swallowing a juicy piece of bait. “So you’re telling us that eighteen weeks of your supposed work has amounted to absolutely nothing?”
“Quite the opposite. My work determined that the local population’s negative views of CromTech make it a bad candidate for the kind of development we intended. However,” Nora says, holding up a finger as Renée tries to interject again, “it also gave me the opportunity to reflect on this company’s direction.”
The proposal Nora finished two weeks ago to replace the Riverwalk development project is something she wouldn’t have dreamed of presenting to the board before this summer. Now, however, her investment in her job has waned so much that she has nothing to lose.
Why not shoot for the moon?
“We’ll be investing in a series of green-tech initiatives, and we’ll be finding the funding elsewhere. I’ve laid out areas where resources can be redirected, along with several new donor and investor opportunities,” Nora says authoritatively. “A small pivot, but a turn in the right direction.”
Renée looks too stunned to speak.
“I’ll be presenting a new proposal at the next quarterly meeting,” Nora says. “A case study for introducing clean energy to our docket. The first step will be starting an environmental department at CromTech.”
“You’re committing career suicide,” Renée says in quiet disbelief. “No investor will ever back that. It’s a financial black hole.”
“It’s a proving ground for our new direction. The world is changing. This company is changing. If you’re set on opposing that change, I suggest that you retire or find a position elsewhere,” Nora says, aiming for an air of finality. “Otherwise, I think it’s high time we put aside petty personal squabbles and move forward.”
“So you truly believe that you’re the best person to be at the helm?” Renée snaps, standing up suddenly and planting her hands on the table. “You’re going to run this company into the ground.”
Nora raises a calm eyebrow. “As opposed to you doing it yourself?”
Renée looks around the room for support. The smugness she started the meeting with is slipping away with the lack of vocal disagreement amongst the other board members. “Why not? You’re not the only one in the room with a business degree.”
“So that’s what this has all been about,” Nora says, folding her arms. She’s done this long enough to understand that half of business is theatre. All unwitting, Renée has walked right into a trap. She’s shown her hand too early. Too eagerly.
The energy in the room seems to shift.
Renée’s voice is shrill. “This is about your absence and the financial strain you’ve put on—”
“Apparently this is about your inability to accept that the man you were married to for less than three years didn’t leave his entire legacy to you,” Nora says sharply.
A murmur runs along the table. Renée’s jaw twitches, her fingers turning white against the polished wood.
“If this is the way you would plan to run this company,” Nora says, looking around and making eye contact with each person in the room, “I’d advise everyone else to make backup plans. Underhanded dealings and secret meetings can switch targets on a dime.”
Cowed by the now significantly less friendly eyes on her, Renée sinks back down into her chair. The creak of springs is audible in the otherwise silent room.
“Let’s get to the crux of this meeting,” Kayla says, breaking through the awkwardness with utter confidence. “All in favour of removing Eleanor Cromwell from her position as CEO of CromTech?”
Renée’s hand shoots into the air. A few of the others look to each other, nervous and twitchy — Roger McMurray, Renée’s right-hand man, starts to raise his hand under Renée’s glare before his neighbour elbows him. He lowers it quickly.
“And all opposed?” Kayla says. She raises her hand first, but slowly every other arm in the room goes up. Renée stands alone in their midst.
“Motion denied. Almost unanimously,” Ash says jovially.
“And with that, I believe this meeting is concluded,” Nora says, the exhaustion catching up with her all at once. She flips her folder of notes closed, gathering them and heading straight to the door. “I’ll present my findings and new proposal at our regularly scheduled meeting at the end of the month.”
Nora has but a few minutes alone in her office before Kayla and Ash arrive, flush with pride and intent on celebrating the win, but celebration is the last thing Nora feels like doing. Her so-called victory feels emptier than the empty apartment waiting for her at the end of her very long day.
Victory is making Dani laugh. It sounds like the gratefulness in Dani’s voice when Nora put in the effort to accommodate her needs. Victory tastes like pizza and beer on the River Run patio, smells like fresh air and cool water after a day in the sun with her friends. It feels like the warmth of Dani’s kiss.
This day is just another heavy weight on Nora’s shoulders.
The sheer legwork involved in proving her plan is viable at least gives Nora the opportunity to put her sorrows out of her mind. There’s less backlog in the regular work than she assumed there would be—Ash and Kayla have done a great job in her absence, fitting into their temporary roles more easily than Nora ever did—but there’s still so much to catch up on after four and a half months away that, for a while, she can cope.
All Nora needs to do to avoid missing Dani is work incessantly, exhausting herself every day and interrupting any unwelcome thoughts with paperwork and research.
Ash and Kayla try to help, filling Nora’s time and making sure she eats enough to keep her blood sugar up, but Nora can see the way they share worried looks every time they think she isn’t looking. It’s almost a return to routine, if it weren’t for the ever-present ache in Nora’s chest that worsens whenever she has a spare moment to think.
Nora’s belongings arrive from Riverwalk a week after her departure. Folded carefully at the top of the third box of clothes is Dani’s blue-and-red checkered flannel.
* * *
In this rhythm, Nora doesn’t thrive, necessarily, but she survives. Her old clothes feel stiff and restricting after a summer of jeans and sundresses, her feet aching now that she’s abandoned her flat-soled boots, but she steps back into her dusty stilettos and adapts.
September turns into October. October to November. Nora’s project is approved by the board with few alterations. Kayla takes the lead on restructuring the departments, and Ash dives headfirst into networking and fundraising. Nora’s life is a cycle, going around and around and around as she consistently fails to re-acclimate to her old patterns. Everything feels shaky and unfamiliar—from her morning commute to her hectic schedule—and she’s walked away from the one person who ever made her feel stable.
Thoughts about Dani are restricted to the few moments before she falls asleep, when her brain relaxes enough to let her guard down and that bright smile comes floating back into her memory. More often than not, Nora wakes up with the foggy perception that she’s still in Riverwalk. Opening her eyes to find stark white walls instead of warm yellow is a crushing disappointment every morning, but she drags herself through the days anyway.
It has to get better eventually, Nora reasons. Once she’s had enough distance from Dani and Riverwalk and the life she led there, things will revert. She’ll slip back into the way things were before. The pain will ease. Her first heartbreak all those years ago had been hard, but she’d brushed herself off and moved on. She can do it this time, too.
But what finally shakes Nora’s certainty isn’t the concern of her friends or her own building stress or the constant dreams. It’s a sharp knock at her apartment door at 11:15 p.m. on a Friday night.
She opens it to reveal Lydia, dressed to the nines in a gorgeous minidress and smiling expectantly.
“Evening,” Lydia drawls. “I heard you were back in town. Any chance you have time for me these days?”
It’s a deeply familiar sight. Nora’s condo is close to the places Lydia likes to party. Usually Lydia would text or call first, but Nora had often been the starting point for Lydia’s nights.
Before.
Nora steps back to let Lydia in out of pure habit. Lydia throws her coat over the couch, slips out of her shoes, and, as always, heads right to the bedroom.
It’s a routine Nora knows by heart. Exactly the way things used to be.
She can even imagine what will happen if she follows. She’ll fall into bed with Lydia, have decently satisfying sex, and forget her problems for an hour. Efficient and impersonal, two words she once valued highly. Lydia will then fluff her hair, fix her makeup, and jet off to whatever party she has lined up next. Nora will fall asleep alone.
It’s so unfamiliar an idea now that it feels like living someone else’s life. She’s watching a movie starring her past self, but her current self is detached from it entirely—floating somewhere above it, thinking instead about how Dani would feel if she knew there was someone else in Nora’s bed.
The worst part is that Nora is sure Dani would accept it. She’d say something understanding and perfect, assure Nora that she just wants her to be happy. But Nora can imagine the look in Dani’s eyes. The hurt. The regret.
“I don’t have all night, you know,” Lydia calls from the bedroom.
Nora sinks down onto the couch.
She and Dani parted ways almost two months ago with the understanding that they would never see each other again. They made no promises. There’s no reason for Nora to feel anything but enthusiastic about Lydia’s presence. It should be a welcome distraction, in fact. A step back toward normalcy.
But Nora doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want the fleeting, purely physical night Lydia is offering, or the isolation that accompanies it. The loneliness. Nora wants the connection she had this summer. She wants that depth, and the trust they shared. She wants something real.
She wants Dani.
“Are you coming?” Lydia asks, leaning against the door jamb now. She’s half naked, her dress probably lying somewhere on the floor of Nora’s bedroom, and she looks irritated. “I skipped out on a yacht party for this.”
“No,” Nora says distantly. “I’m not coming.”
The silence is deafening. Nora can detect Lydia’s shock purely from the fact that she doesn’t snap back with something witty. Hesitant footsteps approach, and the cushion to her left sinks under Lydia’s weight.
“Did I do something wrong?” Lydia’s tone is uncharacteristically soft. “I thought—I know it’s been a while, but this is how we’ve always—”
“It’s not you,” Nora says quickly. She picks at her thumbnail, tugging and tearing at skin that only just managed to heal over the summer. “This is all me.”
“Cliché.” Lydia sighs, but she shuffles closer. “So, what’s the issue?”
“The issue is,” Nora says, clawing back a sob, “I can’t do this anymore. Because I fell in love. Like a fucking idiot .”
“Jesus,” Lydia mutters to herself. She puts an arm around Nora’s shaking shoulders, though, patting her awkwardly. She’s still in her lingerie, which makes the whole thing even more absurd. “This is not how I thought my night was going to go.”
“I’m sorry,” Nora says, wiping furiously at the tears that escape without permission. She hasn’t cried since she left Riverwalk. She hasn’t given herself time to feel any of this since that horrible car ride, and now it’s all catching up with her at once. Her breath shudders. “This isn’t going to happen, so go salvage your night.”
“Oh, shut up,” Lydia huffs. “I’m not leaving when you’re like this. So why don’t you talk to me about it instead of trying to be a martyr?”
It’s almost enough to snap Nora out of it. Lydia has never so much as stayed to cuddle after hooking up, always out of bed and halfway out the door as soon as they’re both satisfied. Somehow her businesslike attitude about the situation and her out-of-character willingness to listen are easier to deal with than Kayla’s empathy or Ash’s jokes.
So Nora shares. She tells Lydia the whole foolish story, from May to September, and Lydia comforts her until well past midnight in her own pragmatic way. She leaves with her clothes back on and firmly intact, even giving Nora one genuine hug before she heads down to catch her cab.
It’s all completely unprecedented, and it drives home a truth Nora hadn’t dared consider until now.
Maybe things have changed irrevocably. Nora has changed. And she might never re-calibrate to who she used to be.
* * *
Not even work is enough of a distraction as time presses on and the weather turns from November rain to December ice and sleet. It gets harder with every passing day to drag herself out of bed and into the office every morning. She’s there in body but not in spirit.
Where she used to work so single-mindedly that Kayla would sometimes find her sleeping face down on her desk, now Nora spends half her days staring listlessly out at the city, imagining what Riverwalk must look like right now.
It’s probably properly snowy, rather than the iron-grey salty slush that lines the streets here. Is Dani helpfully shovelling the driveways of half the town like she mowed lawns in the summer? Nora can imagine her scraping the ice off her truck in the mornings, wearing the big fleece-lined brown canvas jacket she’d sometimes wear on the cooler nights before Nora left. The river and the ice rink are likely frozen over, the houses twinkling with coloured lights. Like a picture-perfect holiday card.
Nora can see it in her mind’s eye just as clearly as she can see Dani coming home to her after a long day at work, shrugging the wet jacket off and joining her in front of the fireplace at the rental house. Nora would warm her face with kisses until Dani laid them both back on the couch, spreading out in front of the crackling flames.
Nora can almost taste Dani’s lip balm. She can hear her voice, low and sweet and increasingly less controlled as Nora slides her hands underneath Dani’s shirt. She can feel the warm softness of Dani’s skin.
“Congratulations, the contract is signed. Everything is pretty much in order, now we just need—Eleanor?”
Nora blinks. The warm fantasy swims in her vision and then dissipates; she isn’t in Riverwalk with Dani. She’s in her sterile office, halfway through an email and definitely late to a lunch she scheduled with the head of PR.
“That’s great,” Nora says vaguely, spinning her chair toward her computer and typing a few random words in lieu of trying to remember what Kayla might be talking about. The email she still hasn’t finished might as well be written in Sanskrit—none of the words make any sense. “They signed. Fantastic.”
Kayla’s eyes narrow. “Who signed?”
Nora searches her memory banks for what contract Kayla might be talking about, but she comes up blank. Kayla has been taking charge a lot lately, picking up Nora’s slack in the same way she did over the summer. She’s better at it than Nora ever was.
Knowing there’s no getting her lack of attention past Kayla, Nora shrugs helplessly.
Kayla sighs, taking a seat on the edge of Nora’s desk. “Eleanor.”
“I know,” Nora mutters. She braces her elbows on the desk, pressing the heels of her hands against her tired eyes. The urge to fight against this conversation is slowly leaking out of her. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been doing half my work lately. You did this job better than I ever have.”
“Thank you, but that’s only because I don’t hate every second of it like you do.”
“Renée must be thrilled that I’m failing so spectacularly.”
Kayla scoffs. “Forget about Renée. The only thing you’re failing at is letting yourself be happy.”
“That’s not something you can fix,” Nora says. Her voice seems to echo back up at her from the surface of her desk, and she rubs her eyes viciously until tiny specks of light erupt behind her eyelids. “You’ve already played your ‘take a vacation’ card.”
“I think we both know it was more than a vacation, Nora,” Kayla says softly.
Nora stops rubbing. Kayla’s use of the nickname is enough to make her pause—she’d gone by Nora all summer, and going back to Eleanor on a permanent basis has been like trying to fit into clothes that no longer fit. Eleanor Cromwell got lost somewhere between tree house sunsets and lawn mower races, and she hasn’t found her way back.
“Ash and I have been trying to figure out what’s really keeping you here. We haven’t been able to decide,” Kayla says as Nora raises her head. Kayla is looking at her with unnerving empathy. “Ash thinks it’s a sense of duty. I think you’re probably afraid. What do you think?”
“Of course I’m afraid,” Nora says. An uncomfortable thing to admit, but she’s long past trying to pretend she’s doing okay. “I’ve been afraid since the second I got to Riverwalk.”
“Of what?”
“Telling the truth. Lying. Leaving the life I knew. Afraid of…” Nora swallows. Even this long after leaving, saying Dani’s name out loud is still hard. “Falling for her. And then it all came to a head, and I had to leave, and now I’m afraid I can never fix it.”
“Nothing is irreversible.”
“She said she would have come with me, if I asked. I didn’t say yes. I left her. She might want nothing to do with me,” Nora says. It’s one of the loudest regrets that’s been haunting her lately. “And I can guarantee everyone else feels the same way. I hid who I was for months.”
“People do stupid things when they’re scared,” Kayla says reasonably. “Did you ever explain yourself to them?”
“I don’t deserve their forgiveness. I should have been better. I should have been up-front. And none of it matters anyway, because I can’t just abandon my father’s company to go live in the woods.”
“Oh, who gives a flying fuck about your father?” Kayla snaps, her voice high and loud like the words have been threatening to burst out of her for too long. “I certainly don’t! He treated you like shit!”
Nora doesn’t know how to respond to that. She stares at Kayla, silent and flabbergasted, until Kayla slides off the desk to approach her.
“He didn’t express pride in your accomplishments when you graduated early or got any of your multiple university degrees or patented technologies that made his company millions,” Kayla says more evenly. “He only did when he thought Ash might propose to you. He cared more about your ability to carry on his legacy than he did about you as a person, and I’ve watched it fuck with your self-worth for your entire life. He does not deserve that much real estate in your brain.”
It stings, but Nora can’t argue the point. She’s spent thirty years trying to live up to a benchmark that was always out of reach, and she’s tired of living for nothing but obligation.
“This is reminding me of the pep talk you gave me before I took over the company,” Nora says, leaning heavily against Kayla’s side.
“I assume you mean the one where I told you not to?”
Nora laughs. A real, genuine laugh, one that reaches a place in her gut that feels cathartic. It feels like she hasn’t laughed in months.
It’s true that Kayla and Ash had both tried to talk Nora out of taking the helm at CromTech, to no avail. Nora had been adamant in her decision. She had also drunk a fifth of whiskey and cried for six hours. Kayla found her the next morning and said she was so dehydrated that she should have dried up like a starfish. “Yes. So what do I do now?”
“I can’t make your decision for you,” Kayla says. She kisses the side of Nora’s head. That kind of affection has never been a norm in their relationship, but a summer’s worth of Dani’s tactile ways has softened Nora’s stance. “You didn’t listen to my advice then, and I’m sure you won’t now. We’ll support you no matter what.”
It’s entirely unhelpful, but Nora still appreciates it.
“What I should do,” Nora says, “is switch up the board. Finish the new four-year plan in with a focus on sustainability. Seek out partnerships with other companies doing the same thing. It’ll be easier to pivot in mission and vision when we’re part of a collective change. And then…”
Nora trails off. And then what? After she’s set the company up to succeed the way she knows it can, what does she really want ?
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Kayla says. She pushes herself off the desk when Nora’s office phone starts to ring and heads to the door, leaving Nora to answer it, but Nora silences the call.
“You know I love you, right?” Nora says before Kayla has reached the door. “You and Ash both. I don’t think I’ve ever said it to you.”
Kayla turns. Her smile is warm and familiar. “We know. But it’s always nice to hear.”
Nora is back at her apartment by noon with a cleared schedule for the day and far too much to think about.
Months later, she still misses Riverwalk with a ferocity that unnerves her. Not just Dani, but the whole place—the bar, the picnic benches by the river, the ridiculous town events. She misses Dani’s friends, who for a brief and wonderful period Nora had considered her own, too. The community of it all. Thinking about it aches like nostalgia. It aches like homesickness.
She’s never had such strong feelings about where she lives before. She grew up a stone’s throw from her current office, and after jumping from city to city for school, she came back and never left. Living in Riverwalk changed her in more ways than one. Now Nora finds herself hating things she hadn’t even noticed before: the noise, the traffic, the crowds. The constant movement and bustle. She’s always been a solitary person, but lately the solitude has felt more lonely than comforting.
What would it really look like to leave it behind for something else? Not quite the vacation of this past summer, but to commit to something more intentional? To take a risk and hope that Dani feels the same? If she takes the obligation out of it, the guilt of needing to do what her father wanted, why is she even here?
The answer is unequivocal and instant. There’s no reason at all. Her job gives her no fulfillment, no enrichment, no sense of accomplishment, just a weary kind of resignation. The part of it she’s actually passionate about—the eco-tech and special projects—could be done as an independent contractor. Why does she have to be the one to sit in a big office and reluctantly browbeat the board when Kayla and Ash thrived so happily in those positions over the summer?
She can hear them in her head, echoing the long talk five years ago before she decided to take the helm. Kayla had looked at her then with the same devastating insight that she did today.
What do you actually want, Eleanor? Kayla had asked. Nora hadn’t had an answer at the time.
“I want to go home,” Nora whispers.
The room is empty. Nobody is around to hear her confession, but it feels freeing to say it out loud. The truth is out. She’s spoken it into the world and made it real.
“I want to go home ,” Nora says again.
As if a heavy weight has been lifted from her chest, she takes a breath that feels cleansing, letting the relief course through her. It’s almost strong enough to blot out the fear.
Nora wants to hand the company off to Kayla. She wants to go back to Riverwalk. She wants to drive through town, to stop at the River Run and to listen to Sarah and Ryan argue over which niche superhero would win in a fight. She wants to sit in the auto shop and watch Dani take cars apart while rain patters on the roof. She wants to sleep in her yellow bedroom with Dani curled around her. And she wants to stay.
Nora stands up, caught up in a rush of frantic energy with nothing to channel it into. She paces across her living room, running a hand through her hair until she’s sure it looks absolutely ridiculous, and finally, with shaky fingers, pulls out her phone and scrolls through her contacts.
Her thumb hovers over Dani Cooper , but it never touches the screen.
She isn’t sure Dani would even take her call. And if she did, what would Nora say? She’d be as likely to screw things up even more as to make it better—she’s always struggled to communicate her feelings effectively, and the only thing that’s ever helped is Dani’s presence. Dani makes her thoughts feel translatable.
Nora needs to see her.