Chapter 18
I take a deep, shaky breath, and click on Kat’s name.
Kat White: Hi Mallory. Dominic let me know that you couldn’t make it to the retrospective for his project. Would have been nice to have you there for the key takeaways.
Kat White: Looks like you’re at an appointment, and that’s fine. Just let me know next time.
Kat White: And preferably schedule future appointments during lunch.
The next two messages are from an hour later.
Kat White: Ping me when you get back.
Kat White: Just want to make sure everything’s ok.
Oh no, oh no .
My fingers tremble violently as I type back.
Hey Kat, I’m so sorry about all this! I had no idea my appointment would run so long. It was a dentist appointment that I think I told you about last week. So sorry for any confusion! I will ask Dominic for the notes from his retro .
I bite my tongue at the lie. But I really, really don’t want the wrath of Kat turned on me. It did occur to me for half a second to tell her the truth about where I am and what I’m doing, but I don’t want to open a whole other can of worms.
She types back at once.
Kat White: I don’t have a record of that, but it’s possible I forgot. I know how dentist appointments can be. No worries. Thanks for letting me know.
I exhale in relief. I skated this time, but Kat is a stickler for attendance and has a flawless memory. I know that she knows I didn’t tell her about my so-called dentist appointment. I really need to be more careful from now on.
I reply to all the other messages I’ve missed, until it’s six forty-five and Gramps comes wandering in, no doubt guided by his rumbling stomach.
“Hello,” he says cheerfully, opening the fridge. “Think I’ll just make a sandwich.”
“Wait, Gramps, I bought dinner for us,” I say, typing furiously at the same time. “See the chicken and the Caesar salad kit in there? Can you grab them? I’ll get everything ready in one sec.”
“Hmm?” He straightens up and looks at me like he’s never heard the words “salad kit” before.
“Never mind, just one second.” I finish typing my last message so fast it makes my knuckles hurt. Keeping my laptop open, I set it carefully on the counter in front of the Fig Newtons.
Five minutes later, we’re sitting at the table enjoying our Foxy’s Market supper.
Gramps happily slathers butter on a hunk of baguette and plops a bite of chicken on top before he eats it.
I take small nibbles of the salad. My stomach is still in knots from the work stuff.
Missing so many messages, coming so close to a reprimand from Kat: It feels like someone has taken a cheese grater to my nerves.
I can’t believe I actually forgot about work for two whole hours on a Thursday.
The possibility of getting fired flashes before my eyes: no more cushy paycheck.
Having to interview again. Oh God, interviewing is horrible.
I would stay at this job for fifteen years to avoid having to interview again.
I set down my fork, my appetite vanished.
“Everything okay?” Gramps asks, reaching for his glass of iced tea.
“Just thinking about work stuff.” I hear how shaky my voice is, so I clear my throat and try to snap out of it.
He shakes his head. “Preoccupied about work. You know, if you wanted to, a girl your age could be a stay-at-home mother. Find a husband, have a baby, and tend to the house all day.”
I give him a look.
“Old-fashioned?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah.” I pull off a piece of chicken with my fingers. “People still do that, but like, I think it’s because of the cost of child care. Besides, why would you suggest that when your own wife had a career?”
He grins. “Just trying to help.”
“It would be more helpful to tell me how to deal with a boss who’s all up in my business,” I mumble.
“Hmm.” He gestures thoughtfully with his fork as he swallows a mouthful of bread. “This I have experience with.”
“Really?”
Gramps nods. “I had a supervisor once—this was when I was in my early thirties—who was fastidious about confirming the results of our experiments. Checking our lab notes, reading our reports, that was all normal. But this guy—Chester Crevasse—he was something else. More often than not, he would have us repeat our tests while he watched, so he could confirm the results with his own eyes.”
“That sounds really annoying. And time consuming.”
“It was. And it didn’t win him many friends, either. We called him Chester Stick-Up-His—you know what.” He laughs like this is a fond memory.
“So how did you deal?”
“Aside from talking about him behind his back? We just had to go along with it. Academia is full of inconveniences, from lack of funding, to bureaucratic red tape, to Crevasse-holes.” He pops another bite of chicken into his mouth. “Actually, though, we got him fired.”
“What?”
“It turned out he was stealing some of our experiments to use in his own research papers.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. In our field, the number of research papers you published was the most important number on your CV. Anyway, that explained why he wanted to watch us replicate our results.”
“Unbelievable.” This story has made me feel better about my own situation, and I find I’m hungry again.
He watches me eat for a moment, then asks, “What’s so terrible about your boss?”
“Well.” I pat my mouth with my napkin. “She’s always checking in on me, micromanaging my time, making sure I’m attending meetings. It doesn’t sound like much, I guess, but it’s kind of suffocating.”
“If you work remotely”—Gramps says the word slowly, like he’s trying it out—“what else is she supposed to do? What kind of manager would she be if she wasn’t checking in on her employees?”
“I guess, it’s just… she should treat us like adults, you know? Just trust that we’re doing our jobs.”
He gives a little shrug. “I don’t know. Sounds like the nature of work to me.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. This feels sort of lecture-y, which makes me feel like a petulant teenager. I carry my plate to the sink.
“What do you like about your job, anyway?”
“Um.” It’s a thoughtful question, so I try to give my answer some actual thought, too.
I picture a typical workday: the easy routine of sitting at my computer; the structure of following my calendar from one meeting to the next; knowing that I’ll be prepared if I take enough notes.
“It’s… comfortable, but challenging. I have to use my brain, and I’m kept busy all day, so the hours pass by quickly. ”
“What do you use your brain doing?” Gramps leans back in his chair, hands behind his head.
“I guess… trying to follow all the technical jargon to make sure I’m not missing anything. Piecing together everyone’s projected schedules to make sure teams hit their target dates.”
“Ah.” He leans forward again and clears his own dishes. “Well, if you find it interesting.”
This comes off a bit dismissive. For a second, I was enjoying being the focus of his attention and curiosity.
Now I feel like he’s deemed me and my job boring.
And it is . I want him to keep asking questions so I can tell him the truth: It’s soul-crushingly boring, and I only do it for the paycheck, and if you ask me where I see myself in five years, I will say, Please, anywhere but here , except I’m too scared of failure to try anything else.
Gramps closes the dishwasher and looks around at me.
“When you were little, you said you wanted to be an artist.”
“Too bad I never advanced beyond drawing sunflowers with oil pastels.”
And then, as though he read my mind, he asks, “What do you need the paycheck for?”
“Umm… life?”
“Mallory.” His eyes drill into mine, and I can tell he’s trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what. “You’re young. You don’t have a spouse or children. You can do anything.”
“Right, but.” I take a deep, frustrated breath. What is it with old people not understanding today’s economy? “I have to pay rent. Which is really expensive.”
“Mallory,” he says again. “You just inherited a house.”
“Yeah, and it’s causing me nothing but problems,” I snap. My laptop pings and I snatch it irritably from the counter.
Gramps stares.
“What are those?”
I follow his gaze to the full jar of cookies. “Fig Newtons.”
He doesn’t say anything, and his face isn’t lighting up with joy, either.
“Lottie always used to—” I start.
He cuts me off. “Please. Take those away and don’t ever do that again.”
“What? But I thought you’d like—”
“Well, I don’t.” He turns a brittle gaze at me. “I’ve passed anger and bargaining, and I’ve moved on to acceptance. I know Lottie is gone. And filling her cookie jar is not going to bring her back.”
I don’t point out that he missed a few stages of grief there. I don’t say anything at all, because my throat aches, full of tears.
“Sorry,” I whisper, but he’s already crossed the kitchen and shut himself in his room.
Around nine that night, when I’ve finally shut my laptop, my phone rings. I expect it to be my mom calling, my mind already racing ahead to how I’ll fill her in on the Fig Newton debacle and how she’ll know just the right thing to say.
But it’s not my mom. The name DANIEL MCKINNON flashes across the screen. Why is he calling so late?
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mallory. Daniel McKinnon here.”
“Hello, Daniel,” I say, lightly teasing his formal tone.
“Sorry to call so late, but I figured you might be on West Coast time anyway.”
“I am. Sort of.” I sit cross-legged on the bed and pull a seashell pillow into my lap.
I wonder where he’s sitting. In his apartment?
Does he have roommates? Is his place a monochromatic bachelor pad, decorated in shades of chrome and black, with an oversize painting of a galloping horse above the couch?
“Listen, I wanted to apologize.”
I almost think I’ve misheard him. “For what?”
“I laughed. When you said you were going to pull up the carpets on your own.”
“Oh.” I’m so surprised by this, I don’t know what to say. Looking back, I guess it was a bit rude. But I’d also thought it was sort of flirtatious ribbing. So maybe it wasn’t flirting at all, but genuine hilarity at the thought of me doing house renovations by myself.
“What I should have said,” Daniel continues, “was that I’d be happy to help.”
Okay, now I’m more confused than ever. He wants to help me? Is this flirting?
“I’ve done this sort of project half a dozen times,” he continues. “I’m not an expert by any means, but with another pair of hands you’d be finished twice as fast.”
I must still be on edge because of the work fiasco and the Fig Newton argument, because this rubs me the wrong way.
“What, you think I can’t do it myself?”
“Whoa,” he says, half laughing. “I would never suggest such a thing.”
“Good, because—” I start, my voice rising aggressively.
“Hey, now.” He’s not laughing anymore, his voice like warm honey. “What’s going on? Is everything okay on your end?”
A little fighting part of me wants to keep arguing with him, to vent some of my frustration about, well, everything. But instead, I melt.
“Not really.” My voice cracks embarrassingly.
I clutch the seashell pillow to my chest. “I’m having a…
hard time.” The introvert in me is extremely uncomfortable sharing my feelings like this with Daniel, someone I’m supposed to be on professional terms with.
But talking to him on the phone like this, late at night, it feels okay.
Comfortable, even. And I did kiss him, so.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
The way he says it is so inviting, everything pours out of me. My worries about working remotely, the argument with Gramps, how I just want to help him but I don’t know if I’m actually helping.
After I come up for air, he doesn’t say anything for a moment. That’s it, I’ve scared him off. I knew I should have kept it professional.
But then he says, “I know what will help.”
“You do?”
“Mm-hmm. My buddy Jones is having a party tomorrow night. You’re welcome to join me. Get your mind off your troubles for the evening.”
When I don’t say anything for a moment, he adds, “Amanda will be there.”
I have a lot to do, but it’s not like I’m going to accomplish all of it tomorrow night. The idea of having some fun is extremely tempting.
“I would love to.”
“Wonderful. I’ll text you the details. Actually, I can pick you up if you like.”
“On your bike?”
He laughs. “No, ma’am. I do own a car.”
“Deal. And, Daniel, there is one more thing that’s bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
I hesitate. “I have no idea how to install new floors.”
He rumbles with laughter. “Are you accepting my offer of help?”
I bite my lip, smiling to myself, my heart racing with giddy nerves. The idea of him helping me with the house—well, it’s a lot. It would be a big commitment from him, and a big expectation for me to spend so much time with him. One-on-one.
“Mallory?” he prompts.
Put on your big-girl pants , I chide myself.
“I could really use some help. Yes.”